Temple Lea Houston was born August 12, 1860 to Sam and Margaret Lea Houston. He was the youngest son of the couple and was the first child born in the Governor’s Mansion in what is now downtown Austin. Temple did not have the benefit of living with his parents for many years since Sam died in 1863 and Margaret died in 1867. He was raised by an older sister, Nancy Elizabeth “Nannie” Houston Morrow in Georgetown. Though she was only 13 years older than Temple, Nannie and her husband took in a number of the younger Houston children. Houston left home at the age of 13, working on a cattle drive, clerking on a riverboat and taking other jobs until with the help of a former associate of Sam Houston, he was hired as a page in the United States Senate. After a few years, Temple returned to Texas and enrolled at Texas A&M before transferring to Baylor at Independence, Texas, where his family had formerly lived, graduating in 1880. He apprenticed at law, passed the Texas Bar and within a year or two was practicing law in Brazoria.
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John James Audubon Meets Sam Houston
The famous naturalist John Audubon came to Texas in 1837. Portions of his journal were excerpted in the Galveston Daily News on November 27, 1875, citing the San Marcos Free Press.
Read the rest of this entry »Carolyn Sue Jones
Actress Carolyn Jones was born in Amarillo, Potter County, Texas on April 28, 1930 to Chloe Jeanette Southern and Julius Alfred Jones. Her parents separated during the early days of the Depression and her mother and younger sibling lived with her mother’s birth mother and her husband. Carolyn’s mother had been born in Texas and adopted by a family named the Southerns. The last name of Carolyn’s birth mother and her husband was Baker. As a child Carolyn is said to have suffered from asthma but did well in theater and speech in high school. Her love for films led her to go to California and be accepted into acting school, and she graduated in 1950. Some sources give her date of birth to be 1933 leading to the possible conclusion that she was underage when she left Texas for California to begin acting school. However, various newspaper accounts state that she graduated from Amarillo High School in 1947.
Read the rest of this entry »Gen. Lucian K. Truscott, Jr.
General Lucian K. Truscott, Jr. was born in in 1895 in tiny Chatfield, Navarro County, Texas. His father, Lucian King Truscott, Sr., was a doctor who had just bought a medical practice of Dr. William Pannill who had desired to relocate to nearby Corsicana, the county seat. His mother, the former Maria Temple Tully, taught piano there in Chatfield. However, the family did not reside very long in Texas before again relocating, this time to the Oklahoma Territory in 1901.
Read the rest of this entry »Frank James’ Dallas Barber Dies
[Transcribed from The Indiana Gazette, Friday Apr. 26, 1957.]
Frank James’ Barber Dies at Age of 89
Dallas (AP) – Barber Johnny Dickson, who used to number outlaw Frank James among his regular customers, died yesterday.
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