Sam Bass was born July 21, 1851 in Lawrence County, Indiana and died on his 27th birthday, July 21, 1878 in Round Rock, Texas He had lived a life that had made him famous to the point that he had become a folk hero to some. Sam had been orphaned at the age of 13 after which he began to live with an uncle who was stern and strict with him. As soon as he could, young Bass left his uncle and relocated to Rosedale, Mississippi where he worked for about a year in a saw mill. In the summer of 1870, he set out for Texas, traveling with a family named Mayes who were returning to their home in Denton County, Texas. He had heard about Texas and the cowboy life and wanted to try it.
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Dad’s Trip to the Texas Centennial State Fair, 1936
In September 1936, Dad was living in Alvord, Texas, on Hubbard Street at the edge of town. There were no house numbers back then, he recalls. His aunt Ovie and uncle Bunk who lived in Petrolia, Texas had made plans to take Dad and his cousin Jimmy to the state fair in Dallas. Dad was about 10 1/2 and Jimmy was about six months older. Uncle Bunk was a tailor and had a shop in Petrolia. Dad said that the night before, Uncle Bunk had driven his family down to Alvord to be ready to leave for Dallas the next morning.
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Mirabeau B. Lamar’s Poetry, 2
Carmelita
Carmelita, know ye not
For whom all hearts are pining?
And know ye not, in Beauty’s sky,
The brightest planet shining?
Then learn it now-for thou art she,
Thy nation’s jewel, born to be
By all beloved, but most by me-
O Donna Carmelita
Lorenzo de Zavala
Manuel Lorenzo Justiniano de Zavala y Sáenz was the first vice president of the Republic of Texas, serving under interim President David G. Burnet. He was born October 3, 1788 in the Yucatán area of Mexico and died November 15, 1836 at the age of 48 in Channelview, Texas. His family heritage was Spanish and he was in the third generation of his family to be born on the American continent.
Continue reading Lorenzo de ZavalaCrone W. Furr
Crone Webster Furr was the founder of the Furr Food Store chain, a familiar group of stores in West Texas and Eastern New Mexico. Furr was born May 8, 1878 in North Carolina into a family that included five brothers and four sisters. In 1894, when he was still a teenager, his family moved to Collin County, Texas. Two years later, he married Annie Furr, whose family was unrelated but bore the same last name, and shortly thereafter he began farming a rented farm a few miles out of McKinney, Texas. Furr was industrious and opened a small grocery store at a crossroads near his farm.
Texas History Notebook 