Dr. Marion Thomas Jenkins was the anesthesiologist who attended President John F. Kennedy at Parkland Hospital after the President was fatally wounded. He was born in 1917 to Dr. Homer Jenkins, a country doctor, and Mrs. Ella Brooks Keasler Jenkins. His father came from an unusually talented family of seven brothers, six of whom became doctors. “Pepper” was a boyhood nickname that stayed with him throughout his career.
Tag: texas
Congressman James Mitchell “Jim” Collins
Jim Collins was the son of Carr P. and Elza Ruth Woodall Collins. He was born on April 29, 1916 in Hallsville, Harrison County, Texas. Jim was a third generation Texan. His grandfather was born in Hardin County, Texas and his father was also born within the state. His great grandfather had come to Texas in the mid 1850s, before the Civil War. Carr P. Collins was a successful businessman in the insurance field and founded Fidelity Union Life Insurance Company. Carr was active in the Democratic party and worked many years in party politics and organization and to the best of our knowledge, Carr did not run for a public office. Jim grew up in Dallas and graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School, earned a bachelor’s degree from Southern Methodist University and master’s degrees from Northwestern University and Harvard Business School.
Daniel Webster “80 John” Wallace
(Image credit: findagrave.com)
Daniel Webster Wallace was born in Victoria County in 1860 in slavery. He grew up learning to be a cowboy and received his first wages when he was only fifteen years old. At the age of seventeen, he made a solo horseback ride of four hundred miles from Victoria through Indian country to far southwest Texas near the edges of Runnels and Taylor counties to seek employement with buffalo hunting expeditions, but instead went to work for Sam Gholston, a rancher and veteran Indian fighter. About one year later, he went to work for an outfit known as the N.U.N. which ran 8,000 head of cattle.
Governor Ann Richards
Ann Richards was the 45th Governor of Texas, succeeding Governor Bill Clements. She was born Dorothy Ann Willis on September 1, 1933 to Robert Cecil and Mildred Iona Warren Willis. She grew up in the Lacy Lakeview area, just north of Waco, Texas. Her father worked as a truck driver for a pharmaceutical company. During World War II, the family briefly moved to San Diego, California before returning to live once more in Waco, Texas. She attended and graduated from Waco High School in downtown Waco. Her family was not wealthy, but she took piano and elocution lessons. Once when she was a senior at Waco High, she and classmate Marilyn Reese played a piano duet and took third place in a city-wide musical talent contest. Foreshadowing her later political career, Ann also was on the high school debate team and was selected to be a representative to Girls State, an American Legion Auxiliary leadership organization that mirrors each state’s government. She was attracted by the process and was selected as a representative to Girls Nation, a group select individuals from from among the Girls State representatives. Richards entered Baylor University in Waco after high school graduation on a debate scholarship. The future governor married her high school boyfriend, David Read Richards, in 1953 during her junior year in college, and Ann went on to graduate from Baylor University in Speech and Government the following year.
Dirk West, Cartoonist
Dirk West was a cartoonist and illustrator whose name was well known to those who followed the old Southwest and Big 12 conferences in sports. Gerald Glynn “Dirk” West was born October 23, 1928 in Littlefield, Texas to James Marion and Ethel Raye Bennett West. The family moved to Lubbock shortly after he was born, so West grew up there and graduated from Lubbock High School, where he began drawing cartoons for the school newspaper, Westerner World.
Texas History Notebook 