texas – Page 24 – Texas History Notebook

Dr. May Owen

Dr. May Owen was a pioneer for women in the field of medicine. She was born Lillie May Owen on May 3, 1891 to Andrew Jackson Owen (1849 – 1931) and Lillie Falkenhagen Owen (1857 – 1901) in Falls County, Texas. She was one of at least seven children of the couple to live to adulthood. The Owen siblings ranged in dates of birth from 1875 to 1898. Her mother Lillie died when May was nine years old. Her cause of death is not stated. The family story is that May worked hard on the farm even as a youngster. In this family, as with some farm families at that time out of necessity, work was valued more than education. However, in some interviews, she mentions that her father was not supportive of her educational pursuits. After her mother’s death, she was allowed to attend school in Falls County but only through the seventh grade. She then moved to Fort Worth to live with an older brother where she attended and completed high school in 1913 and earned an undergraduate degree from Texas Christian University in 1917.

Franco-Texan Land Company

The Franco-Texan Land Company was formed in 1876 in connection with the State of Texas’ desire to provide incentives for rail lines to develop railroads in Texas. The Memphis, El Paso and Pacific Railroad (MEP&PRR) had received a grant from the State of Texas in 1856 for it to create a railroad across the entire state from east to west, from a point on the Red River to El Paso. In all, the State made grants to five railroad companies around this time. MEP&PRR had been chartered about three years earlier. The original arrangement was for the railroad company to receive 640 acres of land for each mile of road and eight sections of land per mile for grading the roadbed, subject to certain conditions. The company had begun to complete its initial work by surveying land from the east to the Brazos River and had graded fifty-five to sixty-five miles of roadbed when the Civil War broke out in 1861, bringing the process to a stop. No track had been laid. Numerous deed records across North Texas refer to the MEP&PRR Survey.

The Munger Family, When Cotton Was King

The Munger family got its start in the cotton industry in the Mexia area. Henry Munger was the patriarch. He was born in Colchester, Connecticut in 1825. When he was still a child his parents, Sylvester Munger (1787 – 1838) and Asenath “Sene” Ingham Munger (1777 – 1840), moved to South Carolina. By 1840, both of his parents had died in South Carolina and Henry came to San Felipe, Texas with his older siblings. He clerked at a mercantile store and briefly tried his hand at gold mining in California. Henry appears to be listed in an 1850 census there, but soon he was back in Texas.

Joseph Kemp, Early Wichita County Resident

Joseph Alexander Kemp was born July 31, 1861 to William T. Kemp (1840 – 1885) and Emma Frances Stinnett Kemp (1839 – 1932) in Clifton, Bosque County, Texas. Originally from Tennessee, by the time of the 1860 census, William was living in Clifton and working as a clerk. He and Emma Frances were married in the fall of 1860 and Joseph was their first born child. Emma came from a large family of at least thirteen children and her father was a merchant in Clifton. W. T. Kemp had served with Company K, 15th Texas Infantry, formerly known as Speight’s Battalion, during the Civil War. After the war, Kemp returned to Clifton to the store he had opened with Allen Stewart Anderson before the war began. Anderson (1830 – 1864) had married Mary Robison (1839 – 1869) and they had one son, Archibald D. Anderson and one daughter, Flora Ann Anderson.

Jack F. Grimm

Abilene’s Jack Grimm was a successful independent oilman. He was born in Wagoner, Oklahoma to Suell Grimm (1883 – 1939) and Ida Mae Vermillion Grimm (1898 – 1979). He had one brother and several half siblings from Suell’s first marriage which had ended with the death of his first wife, Daisy in 1914. His father was referred to in census forms as being an interior decorator or a house painter. After his father died, his mother married Irwin Turnham (1886 – 1966).