In 1978, Moni Moncrief was 84 years old.

He was still very much the patriarch of his clan,

the man who made the decisions in his family and in his family's business.

Family and business were in fact the same thing with him, the desire

to found the one being inseparately tied to the desire to found the other.

When speaking of his business he never mentioned himself specifically.

He would always say, we sign this deal.

We figured out what was best.

This is a we kind of business, he explained.

We don't tolerate any of that eye stuff around here.

In Texas, in the oil business, one sees as nowhere else that the ideal of capitalism is the

ideal of founding a family and conferring the right of inheritance upon it, passing a legacy on.

We're oil men, Monty Mancreef would answer when asked about ranching or about real estate or about anything else.

Were oil men meant that anything which extended beyond the realm of oil

was not a proper moncrief concern. We're a hundred percent family-owned, unincorporated

and independent and we intend to stay that way. In the world of oil promoters one

sometimes meets with independence who have bought and sold their way through six or seven businesses,

who indeed start those businesses with the aim of going public and selling out as soon as possible.

To Mani Moncrief, such a strategy is unimaginable.

Moncrief oil is synonymous with himself, his dynasty. Continuity is what his blood demands. He was at the age of 84 as big and as strong as a bull.

He possessed the directness and the utter simplicity of the old and truly great.

He walked without a stoop and he carried his large frame without a trace of fat.

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