biography – Page 10 – Texas History Notebook

Ann Sheridan, Actress

Clara Lou “Ann” Sheridan was born in Dallas County, Texas on February 21, 1915 to George Washington Sheridan and Lula Stewart Warren Sheridan. A biography says that her family moved to Denton when she was 3 years old. Her father’s profession was listed as a machinist in a garage in the 1920 federal census and the family consisted of George W., Lula, their five children and George’s parents. George is said to have been a grand nephew of Union General Philip Henry Sheridan. Such a connection is not easy to verify using online genealogy records, although they may indeed be related in this way. Clara Lou was the youngest of the couple’s five children who lived to be adults.

G. H. Schoellkopf

Gottlieb Heinrich/Henry Schoellkopf was born in Germany on September 23, 1849. He came to the United States when he was a youth of 14. A newspaper article in the Amarillo Daily News of June 18. 1940 recounted his early days. Not long after the Civil War, G. H. Schoellkopf had come to Texas in the late 1860s, looking to acquire bison hides for a company of tanners and robe makers (possibly a company run by an uncle or some other relative) out of New York. He set up his first location at a former trading post in Indianola on the Gulf Coast. From there he began to travel around the state and into Mexico looking for hides. The article says Schoellkopf was impressed by the potential of the area and felt like there was an opportunity for him to operate his own business. He was motivated to stay in Texas after a storm hit the area and the waters, either a tidal wave or storm surge, destroyed his business. It would only be a few years later when the first of two monster storms would essentially wipe out Indianola, but this storm was large enough. Schoellkopf took the opportunity to relocate to Dallas, then a small trading village, in 1869.

Major Nicholas Nolan

Nicholas Merritt Nolan was born around 1835 in County Kilkenny, Ireland to James Nowlan and Bridget Maher Nowlan. Nolan emigrated to the United States as a youth. In 1852, he enlisted in New York in the United States Army as a private. He was promoted through the ranks and was a first sergeant at the outbreak of the Civil War. During the war, he was commissioned as an officer and served with the 6th United States Cavalry Regiment.

Colonel Ranald Slidell Mackenzie

Ranald Slidell Mackenzie was born on July 27, 1840 in Westchester, New York to Alexander Slidell Mackenzie (1803 – 1848) and Catherine Alexander Robinson Mackenzie (1814 – 1883). He was the oldest of their five children. His father was the son of John Slidell and Mary Mackenzie but his father had adopted the name of Mackenzie (his mother’s maiden name) in 1837. The explanation for the name change was that it was a condition set out in order for him to claim an inheritance from an uncle, his mother’s late brother. Alexander Mackenzie had served for many years in the United States Navy after entering as a midshipman in 1815. He was promoted to lieutenant in 1825 and commander in 1841.

President Teddy Roosevelt Visits Texas, 1905

President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr. was the 26th President of the United States. He was born October 27, 1858 in Manhattan, New York and died January 6, 1919 in New York. At the time he became President, he was 42 years old making him the youngest person to take that office. Roosevelt had been Vice President under William McKinley who was only a few months into his second term as President when he died. He had been shot by assassin Leon Czolgosz in Buffalo, New York on September 6, 1901. President McKinley was rushed to the hospital but he died on September 14, 1901. Roosevelt was sworn in and completed the remainder of McKinley’s term. He was elected in 1904 to a second term. He was only a distant (5th) cousin to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. They were not closely related and their earliest common ancestor dates back about 100 years.