This week starts a new series on what is most likely Dallas’ oldest burial ground, Pioneer Cemetery. It has a long history that has some holes in it that would take more time than this blog allows to share. Basically, it’s thought to be the combination of four different cemeteries that includes burials of Masons and IOOF (Independent Order of Odd Fellows) members. If you want the full story, this article does a good job of explaining it.

Pioneer Cemetery is located in downtown Dallas next to the Dallas Convention Center, a bustling hub of activity before COVID hit. But when it was first created, it was situated a bit above town and away from all the action. Makes sense for a cemetery. I’m sure they didn’t expect Dallas to grow the way it did.

Situated on a handful of acres, there are about 425 graves recorded on Find a Grave. I’m sure there are many more unmarked. The first burials were thought to have taken place in the 1840s. Four Dallas mayors, six doctors, and a number of elected officials are buried there.

Three Times a Mayor

The man who served as mayor of Dallas three times has a stone you might easily walk by if it didn’t have a plaque indicating his importance to the city.

Born in Lancaster, S.C. in 1816, John McClanahan Crockett’s road to Dallas was a circuitous one. He attended Franklin Academy in Lancaster, entered the mercantile business in Camden, S.C., then moved to Obion County, Tenn. in 1836 to be partner in a general store. In Camden, he married Catherine “Katie” W. Polk on March
17, 1837. He began reading law in 1841 and received a license to practice in 1844.

It wasn’t until 1848 that Crockett and Katie made it to Dallas, where John’s brother-in-law, William H. Hord, was a county judge. Crockett opened a law practice and served as deputy county clerk his first there.

In 1851, Crockett became state representative from the Dallas area. He was a law partner of John Jay Good in the first half of the 1850s. Remember that name for later. He was also first master of Tannehill Masonic Lodge in Dallas, chartered on June 24, 1850.

Crockett was elected as the second mayor of Dallas in 1857, serving for three non-consecutive terms (second, fifth and eighth). His last was from 1865 to 1866. In between terms, he served as lieutenant governor from 1861 to 1863. There was no mayor of Dallas during the Civil War.

After the Civil War, Crockett incorporated the Dallas Grain Elevator and Flouring Company in 1872. In 1875, he became a charter member of the executive committee of the Dallas Pioneers Association. He and Katie had no children.

Catherine died in 1880 at the age of 62 and John M. Crockett passed away on August 4, 1887 at the age of 70. Because of Crockett’s early prominence as a highly-positioned Mason, his burial site at Pioneer makes sense.

The 18th Mayor of Dallas

By contrast, the marker for Dallas’ 18th mayor John Jay Good is much grander and actually says quite a bit about the man it was made for. In fact, decoding it was a fun task I’ll discuss in a moment.

Earlier I mentioned John Crockett’s law partner John J. Good. Several years after Crockett’s last term as mayor, Good would step into that role. Like Crockett, Good was not a native Texan. Born in Mississippi in 1827, Good attended Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tenn., and read law in Columbus, Miss., before his admittance to the bar in 1849. He practiced law in Marion County, Ala., while working  on his father’s farm before 1851, when he headed to Texas to settle in Dallas. Good married Susan Anna Floyd on July 25, 1854 and they had six children that lived to adulthood.

In 1859, Good was appointed an official visitor to the United States Military Academy at West Point, but with the outbreak of the Civil War he organized a Confederate artillery battery. He fought as a captain with Benjamin McCulloch’s brigade at Elkhorn and was wounded. Good was then appointed presiding judge of the Confederate military courts of Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, with the rank of colonel.

After the war, Good was elected judge of the 16th Judicial District (Dallas) but was removed by Gen. Philip Sheridan as an “impediment to Reconstruction.” Good practiced law in Dallas and in 1880 he was elected mayor.

In the last few months of his life, Good traveled to other climates in hopes of improving his health. He died on Sept. 17, 1882 at the age of 55. His beloved Susan died in 1912 at the age of 72. While there is a memorial marker for her beside her husband’s monument, she is actually buried in Dallas’ Grove Hill Cemetery.

Deconstructing a Monument

As I mentioned earlier, John Good’s monument is an especially nice example of a combination of symbols and inscriptions worth picking apart. At the top of is the draped urn, a common enough symbol. It is believed by some to mean that the soul has departed the shrouded body for its trip to heaven. Some believe the shroud is the last barrier between this world and the next.

On the sides, you can see two inverted torches, symbolizing life in the next realm or a life extinguished.

At the base of the marker, below Good’s name and dates, you can see the three rings of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF). The FLT represents Faith, Love, and Truth.

In the picture above, you can see the Knights Templar (who were affiliated with the Masons) group that Good served as commander of in Dallas. Below it is a Knights Templar symbol, complete with the Latin motto of In hoc signo vinces, which means “In this sign thou shalt conquer”.

From the newspaper article I found concerning Good’s funeral rites, the Knights Templar were in charge so I am thinking his affiliation with them was higher than that of the IOOF. Because parts of Pioneer Cemetery were for both IOOF and the Masonic burials, this would be the place for him to be buried.

Mark of a Craftsman

I want to point out one more thing about John Good’s monument. At the base below “Good”, you can see the name of the person who provided it, S.B. Hanway. When I was photographing it, I knew I had seen that name somewhere before.

It wasn’t until recently that I figured out where I had seen it. Samuel B. Hanway is buried at Greenwood Cemetery, which we had visited a few days before. As it turns out, Hanway was a native of Ohio who had done business in Kansas in the monument trade before ending up in Dallas for the last 30 years of his life. He made quite a name for himself in that business. John J. Good’s monument is a great example of his work.

Next time, I’ll have more stories from Pioneer Cemetery.

I’m closing out my series on Sparkman/Hillcrest’s mausoleum with a study of the many examples of stained glass they have. So this post will be more pictures than words.

I would like to add that from what I’m able to tell, the mausoleum was built in the early 1940s. Not the 1960s as the woman who answered the phone at Sparkman/Hillcrest told me a few weeks ago. It’s possible the Sparkman family built onto what was already there in the 60s.

Some of them were created specifically for families, like these.

This glass was created for Corda William Boller, who lived from 1882 to 1944 and was a successful oil operator. The Boller family owns a niche at Sparkman/Hillcrest.

Dr. William Samuell was a prominent Dallas surgeon who lived from 1878 to 1937. According to Find a Grave, Dr. Samuell was first interred at Oakland Cemetery in Dallas. Later, his remains were moved to Sparkman/Hillcrest.

Insurance salesman William Jerome Hayes was only 33 when he died in 1955 from a heart problem. His stained glass window features a familiar Bible reference to the Good Shepherd.

Some of the stained glass is decidedly religious in theme. This one features the “Agony of Gethsemane” the night before the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Jesus prays while his disciples sleep in the Garden of Gethsemane.

This panel depicting the parable of the Good Samaritan also features four artistic subjects in the corners: music, painting, sculpture, and writing.

The grandest example of stained glass work is located as you come in the main entrance of the mausoleum in the George family memorial room against the back wall.

The stained glass was created to honor the life of Sudie Hancock George. A native of Kentucky born in 1857, her journey to Dallas was a circuitous one but when she did arrive, she made quite a mark.

Life of Sudie George

Sudie, who was related to Declaration of Independence signer John Hancock, married Henry George in 1882 in Louisville, Ky. At that time, he was a banker and a sheriff.  Together, they had four children (two sons and two daughters). They later moved to Jennings, La.

Henry died not long after the move. Sudie and her children remained there operating a sugar and rice plantation before moving to Houston, Texas in 1908 and then on to Dallas in 1916. Sudie got involved in local organizations and joined the First Presbyterian Church of Dallas.

Sudie’s son Robert Bohannon “Dick” George prospered, making his fortune in Caterpillar heavy equipment dealerships. He was deeply devoted to Sudie as well. He tried to recreate much of the atmosphere of their Kentucky home in a place called Glad Acres for the family residence. He never married and had no children. Dick, Cleo (Sudie’s youngest daughter), and Sudie all lived at Glad Acres.

Like his mother, Dick was involved in many charitable causes. The principal interest in his life was helping sick and disabled children. He was president of the executive board of Children’s Hospital of Dallas. In 1961, the hospital was renamed the R. B. George and Miss Cleo George Memorial Hospital for his service to generations of sick children.

When Sudie died in 1942 at the age of 85, R.B. and other family members gave $100,000 for the construction of a chapel in her memory at the First Presbyterian Church. It is used today for weddings, concerts, and other special events.

Sudie was entombed in the Hillcrest Mausoleum. According to a source, Dick saw to it that every day a lily was placed on her sarcophagus. In his will, he set up two $50,000 trusts. Three fourths of the income from the first trust was to be used to provide flowers weekly for the family tomb and the remaining one fourth was to be used for the upkeep of Hillcrest. The other $50,000 trust fund was set up for the Sudie George Memorial Chapel’s upkeep and operation.

Dick George died at the age of 71 in 1956. He is entombed in the George family memorial room with his mother. Cleo, who married later that year to Morton McClure, died in 1991. But I couldn’t find where she is buried.

I don’t know who created the stained glass for the George family memorial room but it is quite a sight to behold.

There are a wide variety of styles of stained glass in the mausoleum. This one has a pane cut out of it for an air conditioning unit, which is rather sad to me to see.

There’s also a number of more modern looking pieces as well.

I like this one of the two deer.

This one has a lot of blues and violets in it.

This is just a sampling of what we saw the day we visited. There’s so much more I could share with you but it would overwhelm you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this visit to Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park. If you’re ever in Dallas, you should definitely take the time to visit. Make sure to save some time for the mausoleum, the treasures there are worth the time.

 

 

The moment you’ve been waiting for is here! I’m going INSIDE the mausoleum at Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park. This post is longer than usual but trust me, it’s worth it.

I wish I could tell you exactly when the mausoleum was built, who the architect was, and an estimate on how many people are entombed within it, but I don’t know. When I called to ask, the woman who answered the phone could only say she knew it was built in the early 1960s and didn’t know who the architect was. That was it.

 

Once you walk inside, it can feel a bit overwhelming. The main entrance opens into a high-ceilinged hall.

With one long main hall, the mausoleum has a gazillion smaller halls that extend off of it. The only other person we saw the entire time we were there was a member of the cleaning crew who was mopping the floor. Otherwise, it was eerily quiet.

Fortunately, I knew where to go in order to find the first person I was looking for. We were just two of the scores of people who take the same route to the Saint Mathew hall to visit his final resting place.

Birth of a Baseball Legend

Born on Oct. 20, 1931 in Spavinaw, Okla., Mickey “The Mick” Charles Mantle would become a beloved yet controversial figure in American baseball. A man of humble origins, Mantle’s prowess on the ball field wowed millions. Some consider him the greatest switch hitter in baseball history. At the same time, his personal life included much turmoil.

Mantle began his professional baseball career in Kansas with the semi-professional Baxter Springs Whiz Kids. After graduating from high school, Mantle signed a minor league contract and was assigned to the Yankees’ Class-D Independence Yankees of the Kansas–Oklahoma–Missouri League, where he played shortstop.

Mantle was invited to the Yankees instructional camp before the 1951 season, becoming a right fielder. In the second game of the 1951 World Series, he was injured while racing for a ball and tripped over an exposed drain pipe. This was the first of numerous injuries that plagued his 18-year career with the Yankees, playing the rest of his career with a torn ACL in an era when such surgeries to repair them weren’t done the way they are routinely done now.

“Favorite Summer”

Over the next years, Mantle’s star would rise as a Yankee, the only MLB team he ever played for. He had his breakout season in 1956, which he described as his “favorite summer.” He had a major league-leading .353 batting average, 52 home runs, and 130 runs batted in (RBIs). He brought home both the Triple Crown and first of three MLB Most Valuable Player Awards.

On January 16, 1961, Mantle became the highest-paid player in baseball by signing a $75,000 (equivalent to $640,000 in 2019) contract.

Mantle announced his retirement at the age of 37 on March 1, 1969. He gave a farewell speech on Mickey Mantle Day, which was June 8, 1969, in Yankee Stadium.

Personal Struggles

Mantle married Merlyn Johnson in Oklahoma in 1951 and together they had four sons. While the media did not report on his many affairs at the time, Mantle was notorious for his dalliances. He was also an alcoholic, an affliction shared by his wife and three of his sons.

After Merlyn and his sons sought treatment, they urged Mantle to do the same. He checked into the Betty Ford Clinic on January 7, 1994. Although he received a liver transplant at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, on June 8, 1995, Mantle died on August 13, 1995. He was 63 years old. Despite the fact he and Merlyn had been estranged for years, they never divorced and she was with him at the end.

Two of Mantle’s sons are also entombed with him and Merlyn, who died in 2009 at the age of 77. Billy Mantle, who suffered from Hodgkin’s Disease, died at the age of 34 in 1996. Mickey Jr. died in 2000 at the age of 47.

Mantle’s tomb is located in the only area in the entire mausoleum that is fully air conditioned, which appears to be a more modern section. All I know is that it was a welcome relief after the rather stagnant air in the rest of the building.

Located in the same blessedly cool air as Mantle is the tomb of another well-known person but her distinction is not from baseball. However, I’m sure the founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics had to keep cool under pressure while making her company world famous.

A Start in Sales

Mary Kathlyn (Mary Kay) Wagner was born in Hot Wells, Texas in 1918 to  Edward Alexander and Lula Vember Hastings Wagner. At 17, Mary Kay married Ben Rogers and they had three children. While Ben served in World War II, she got her first taste of the arena she would eventually master when she sold books door-to-door.

After her husband’s return in 1945, they divorced. Over the next two decades, she worked in sales. Irritated when passed over for a promotion in favor of a man that she had trained, Mary Kay retired in 1963. She wrote up a business plan for her ideal company, and in the summer of 1963, Mary Kay and her new husband, George Hellenbeck, planned to start Mary Kay Cosmetics.

However, one month before Mary Kay and George started Beauty by Mary Kay, as the company was then called, George died of a heart attack. A month after George’s death, with a $5,000 investment from her oldest son, she started Mary Kay Cosmetics. She copied the same “house party” model used by Stanley (who she had worked for), Tupperware, and others. It was a tremendous success.

Going Public

In 1968, Mary Kay married Melville Ash. That same year, she and her partners took the multi-level marketing company public. In 1985, the company’s board decided to take the company private again. Ash remained active in Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. until suffering a stroke in 1996.

As many know, Mary Kay Ash loved the color pink and it was a key theme in her company, from the product packaging to the Cadillacs she gave away to top-earning consultants each year.

Son Richard Rogers was named CEO of Mary Kay Cosmetics, Inc. in 2001. At the time of Ash’s death in 2001, Mary Kay Cosmetics had over 800,000 representatives in 37 countries, with total annual sales over $200 million. As of 2014, Mary Kay Cosmetics had more than 3 million consultants worldwide and wholesale volume in excess of three billion.

Another trailblazing woman is entombed in Sparkman/Hillcrest’s mausoleum, paving the way for other women in a male-dominated career field. But most people only know her from a photograph of the back of her head.

Blazing a Judicial Trail

Born in 1896 in Baltimore, Md., Sarah Augusta Tilghman (later Hughes) stood only five feet one inches tall. But Hughes let nothing get in her way, be it academics or excelling in sports. After graduating from Western High School, she attended Goucher College, an all women’s college in central Baltimore.

Hughes taught science at Salem Academy in North Carolina for several years. In 1919, she moved to Washington, D.C. to attend The George Washington University Law School. She went to classes at night and during the day, worked as a police officer. Amazingly, she lived in a tent home near the Potomac River and commuted to the campus by canoe each evening. She graduated in 1922.

Hughes moved to Dallas in 1922 with her husband, George Ernest Hughes, whom she met in law school. While George quickly found employment, Sarah struggled since law firms generally did not regard women as qualified at the time. The small firm of Priest, Herndon, and Ledbetter gave her a rent-free space and referred some cases to her in exchange for her services as a receptionist.

The First of Many Firsts

But Hughes was preparing for broader horizons. After practicing law for eight years in Dallas, she got involved in politics, first being elected in 1930 to three terms in the Texas House of Representatives as a Democrat. In 1935, Hughes accepted an appointment as a state judge from Governor James Allred for the Fourteenth District Court in Dallas. In doing so, she became the state’s first female district judge. In 1936, she was elected to the same post. She was re-elected six more times and remained in that post until 1961.

Judge Hughes received a recess appointment from President John F. Kennedy on October 5, 1961 to the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas to a new seat. She was nominated to the same position by President Kennedy on January 15, 1962. She was the only female judge appointed by President Kennedy, the first female federal judge in Texas, and the third female to serve in the federal judiciary.

It almost didn’t happen. Her friendship with Vice President Lyndon Johnson helped, having campaigned for him in the past. At age 65, many (including Kennedy and his brother, Robert) thought Judge Hughes was too old for the job.

On Nov. 22, 1963, Judge Hughes was thrown fully into the spotlight when President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas. Amid the ensuing chaos, she was summoned to administer the oath of office to Vice President Johnson, who chose her for the task. Hughes was driven to Love Field, while Air Force One was held up just for her.

In the photo above, you can only see the back of Judge Hughes’ head. But to me, this photo taken by Cecil W. Stoughton has always been a powerful picture of what took place on that terrible day. In that horrible moment, Hughes became the only woman to swear in a president – and the only Texan.

Hughes retired from the active federal bench in 1975, although she continued to work as a judge with senior status until 1982. She remained a close friend of Lyndon Johnson and his family, participating in his inauguration in 1965 and in the dedication of the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum.

In 1982, Hughes suffered a debilitating stroke which confined her to a nursing home in Dallas. She died three years later on April 23, 1985. But she will never be forgotten for pushing forward into a world where she was often told “no” with her intelligence, determination, and talent.

Next time, I’ll be showing off some of the amazing stained glass at Sparkman/Hillcrest’s mausoleum in Part IV.

I’m still outside at Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas, Texas. Not in the mausoleum yet. I’ll go in there in Part III. There’s still a few stops I need to make outside.

Sparkman/Hillcress has dozens of little grottoes surrounded by shrubbery that contain family plots, enabling a sense of privacy. I imagine these are comparably more expensive as well.

One of these grottoes contains the grave of a famous actress whom I had not expected to encounter in a Dallas cemetery when I did my initial research. I’m speaking of British-born actress Greer Garson.

Late Start to a Dazzling Career

Born on Sept. 29, 1904 in Manor Park, England, Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson was the only child of Nina Greer Garson and George Garson. The name Greer is a contraction of MacGregor, another family name. She attended King’s College in London and did post-graduate studies at the University of Grenoble in France where she earned degrees in French and 18th-century literature.

I was surprised to learn that due to her devotion to her studies, Garson’s acting experiences didn’t come until her late 20s. Her early professional appearances were on stage, starting at the Birmingham Repertory Theater in January 1932, when she was 27 years old.

Garson was signed to a contract with MGM in 1937, but didn’t start work on her first film, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, until late 1938. She received her first Oscar nomination for the role but lost to Vivien Leigh for Gone with the Wind.  She received critical acclaim the next year for her role as Elizabeth Bennett in the 1940 film Pride and Prejudice.

Garson received a record seven Academy Award nominations and starred in six Best Picture nominees, most often paired with actor Walter Pidgeon. She is best known for the 1942 movie for which she won her only Academy Award, Mrs. Miniver. Her acceptance speech clocked in at five minutes and 30 seconds, the longest Oscar acceptance speech according to the Guinness Book of World Records and led to the Academy instilling a time limit.

Third Time’s the Charm

Garson was married three times. Actor Peter Lawford introduced Garson to her third husband, millionaire Texas oilman and horse breeder E.E. “Buddy” Fogelson, when she was starring with Lawford in the 1948 movie Julia Misbehaves. The couple married in 1949.

After her MGM contract expired in 1954, Garson only made a handful of films. In 1967, the couple retired to their Forked Lightning Ranch in New Mexico. They purchased the U.S. Hall of Fame champion thoroughbred Ack Ack from the estate of Harry F. Guggenheim in 1971 and were successful as breeders.

The Fogelsons maintained a home in Dallas, where Garson funded the Greer Garson Theater facility at Southern Methodist University (SMU). She founded a permanent endowment for the Fogelson Honors Forum at Texas Christian University (TCU), Buddy’s alma mater, in nearby Fort Worth.

Buddy passed away in 1987 after suffering from Parkinson’s Disease for five years. Garson lived her final years in a penthouse suite at the Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, where she died from heart failure on April 6, 1996 at the age of 91.

Located near the front of the Sparkman/Hillcrest mausoleum is a small unpretentious marker you might not normally notice. But the man it was made for had a place in Dallas history not once but twice.

Henry Menasco Wade, one of 11 children, was born outside Dallas on Nov. 11, 1914. Shortly after graduating from the University of Texas at Austin in 1939, Wade joined the FBI as a special agent investigating espionage cases along the East Coast and in South America. During World War II, Wade served in the U.S. Navy, taking part in the invasions of the Philippines and Okinawa.

Man of the Court

In 1947, Wade joined the Dallas County District Attorney’s Office. He won election to the top job only four years later, a position he would hold for 36 years until his retirement in 1987. But it was in 1964 that he was thrust into the spotlight after President John F. Kennedy was assassinated just blocks from Wade’s office in the Dallas County Courthouse.

Wade lost the opportunity to try Lee Harvey Oswald for Kennedy’s murder when nightclub operator Jack Ruby shot Oswald only two days later. But Wade became known nationally for prosecuting Ruby for Oswald’s murder. Wade closely supervised the Ruby trial but appointed his assistan William Alexander to conduct the courtroom proceedings.

Wade and Alexander confronted Ruby’s lawyers, famed trial lawyer Melvin Belli and Texas counsellor Joe Tonahill, in a lengthy trial that concluded on March 14, 1964, with a verdict for Ruby of “guilty of murder with malice.”

The Wade in Roe v. Wade

Wade, as Dallas County District Attorney, was the named defendant when attorneys Sarah Weddington and Linda Coffee mounted a 1970 constitutional challenge to the Texas criminal statutes prohibiting doctors from performing abortions. Norma McCorvey (“Jane Roe”), a single woman, was signed up as the representative plaintiff.

The challenge sought both a declaratory judgment that the Texas criminal abortion statutes were unconstitutional on their face and an injunction restraining the defendant from enforcing the statutes. The lower court refused to grant Roe’s desired injunction but declared the criminal abortion statutes were void.

Both sides cross-appealed. The case worked its way through the appellate process, culminating in the Supreme Court’s landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion legal in the United States.

Despite the loss of Roe v. Wade, Wade’s political career did not suffer. He continued to serve in office for an additional 14 years. In 1995, the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center was named in his honor. In 2000, shortly before his death from Parkinson’s Disease, Texas Lawyer magazine named him as one of the most influential lawyers of the 20th century.

The last person I’m going to feature outside at Sparkman/Hillcrest has a name you’re likely already familiar with but not the person behind it.

Man With a Sparkle

Born on September 5, 1901 in Shereshov, Russia, Morris Bernard Zale came to America as a child in 1908. In 1910, the family settled in Fort Worth, Texas. Due to financial difficulties, Zale dropped out of school following completion of the seventh grade.

Zale was introduced to the jewelry business by his uncle, Sam Kruger. In 1920, Zale managed Kruger Jewelry Store in Burkburnett before opening his own business in Graham in 1922. Two years later, Zale rejoined his uncle’s store in Wichita Falls, Texas. He became a partner with his uncle in the Zale Jewelry Corporation in 1924, opening the first Zales store at the corner of Eighth and Ohio.

In 1925, Zale married Edna Lipshy. He and his brother-in-law Ben built the business together. They decided to go against the popular cash-only policy of jewelry retailing, offering credit to working-class customers and allowing payment in installments.

Following World War II, massive expansion took place, ultimately making Zales the world’s largest retail jeweler. Zales Jewelers moved its headquarters from Wichita Falls to Dallas in 1946. In 1957, Zales Jewelers opened its first store in a shopping center, a major shift from operating only in downtown locations.

Morris Zale was also known for his philanthropy, financing an orphanage for young war victims in 1947 in Europe and supporting it for four decades. He started the Zale Foundation in 1951, which supported numerous charities and educational activities.

Zale gave up the company presidency to his brother-in-law Ben Lipshy in 1957 but continued to serve as chairman of the board of directors. Zale retired as chairman of the company in 1971.

Zale died on March 8, 1995 at the age of 93 due to complications from pneumonia. Edna passed away on Dec. 28, 1996 from bone cancer. Although she was very active in charitable activities, she preferred to let her husband and son, Donald, have the spotlight.

The Zales are buried beside their son Herschel, who died at the age of three in 1930 from a childhood illness.

Next time, I’ll be in the mausoleum at Sparkman/Hillcrest.

It’s been a while since I’ve tackled a cemetery like Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery. But you can’t write about Dallas cemeteries without mentioning it. While we’d already spent a hot day in the Uptown Neighborhood visiting three different cemeteries, I knew I couldn’t leave Dallas without visiting Sparkman/Hillcrest. We actually went twice, once for the outside and another for the mausoleum. The latter was closed the first time we visited.

Covering about 88 acres, Sparkman/Hillcrest is currently owned by Dignity Memorial, a large conglomerate operated by Houston-based Service Corporation International (SCI). Although it was founded in 1962, SCI didn’t introduce the Dignity Memorial Brand until 1999. As of 2015, they owned 1,435 funeral homes and 374 cemeteries in America. That’s a big chunk of the death care industry.

Information on the cemetery itself is spotty. In more than one place, I read that some of its graves date back to the 1850s but I didn’t see those. One source said the cemetery was created with land donated by William Barr Caruth, an early Dallas settler. The Caruth Pioneer Cemetery is located within Sparkman/Hillcrest near the front the cemetery but we didn’t know about it at the time.

A Gangster’s Funeral

A native of Jackson, Tenn., William Sparkman relocated his funeral home business to Dallas’ Belo mansion on Ross Avenue in 1926. I don’t know what year they sold it but the mansion is currently a wedding/event venue. The Sparkman funeral home is on the grounds of what used to be known as Hillcrest Cemetery now.

Even before gangster Clyde Barrow (of the infamous Bonnie and Clyde) died in 1934, his father had already asked the Sparkmans to handle Clyde’s funeral. He knew what was going to happen eventually. After Clyde died in a shootout with police, it was the Sparkman hearse that brought his body back to Dallas from Louisiana. Thousands came to see the criminal’s corpse. While Barrow is buried in another Dallas cemetery, his funeral put the Sparkman name on the map.

Most of the graves we saw were from the 1970s up so the styles were accordingly ore modern.

A Texas Sports Legend

One of the first graves I went hunting for was for a name even non-sports enthusiasts probably know. If you’re from Texas, it’s pretty much required knowledge. Dallas Cowboys football coach Tom Landry was the first coach the team had when it came into being in 1960. He is revered as a football coaching legend.

I’ve never been a huge NFL fan. But even I knew about the Dallas Cowboys/Pittsburgh Steelers rivalry during the 1970s. During out trip, we visited AT&T Stadium (built in 2009 to replace Texas Stadium) and took a tour. The giant statue of Landry that was placed at Texas Stadium in 2000 after Landry’s death is there.

From 1966 to 1982, the Cowboys played in 12 NFL or NFC Championship games. They also appeared in 10 NFC Championship games in the 13-year span from 1970 to 1982. Landry led the Cowboys to three Super Bowl appearances in four years between 1975 and 1978, and five in nine years between 1970 and 1978. They won in 1972 and 1978.

But the Cowboys’ performance faltered in the 1980s. There was a great deal of fan outcry when Landry was fired by new team owner Jerry Jones before the 1989 season. Landry’s last work in professional football was as a “limited partner” of the San Antonio Riders of the World League in 1992.

Life Before Football

One thing I didn’t know about Tom Landry was that before he himself played pro football, he’d experienced some tough times. He interrupted his education at the Univ. of Texas at Austin after one semester to serve in the U.S. Army Air Corps (later known as the U.S. Air Force) during World War II. Landry was inspired to join  in honor of his brother Robert Landry, who enlisted after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941.

While ferrying a B-17 over to England, Robert Landry’s plane went down over the North Atlantic. Several weeks passed before the Army was able to officially declare Robert Landry dead. While serving in the Army Air Corps, Tom Landry completed a combat tour of 30 missions, and survived a crash landing in Belgium after his bomber ran out of fuel.

After the war, Tom returned to college. He earned his master’s in industrial engineering in 1952. He’d spent a season with the New York Yankees (a former pro football team) in 1949, and when that conference collapsed, he moved on to the New York Giants. In total, he spent six years playing professional football before moving to coaching.

Landry died on Feb. 12, 2000 at the age of 75. His wife, Alicia, died 10 months later on Dec. 21, 2000 at the age of 70. They are buried beside each other. A large monument is behind them with a replica of the familiar fedora Landry was known to wear on the sidelines when he coached the Cowboys.

Career of a Controversial Ex-Senator

Until I began doing my research on who was buried at Sparkman/Hillcrest, I didn’t realize that Texas Senator John Tower was buried there. His plot is not too far from Tom Landry’s.

Born a preacher’s son in 1925 in Houston, John Tower served in World War II. He worked on the 1956 presidential campaign of Dwight D. Eisenhower. Tower lost Texas’s 1960 Senate election to Democratic Senator Lyndon B. Johnson. With the Democratic victory in the 1960 presidential election, Johnson vacated his Senate seat to become Vice President. In the 1961 special election to fill the vacancy caused by Johnson’s resignation, Tower narrowly defeated Democrat William A. Blakley. He won re-election in 1966, 1972, and 1978.

In the 1960s, Tower was fairly conservative but that began to change in the 70s. Starting in 1976 with his support of Gerald Ford rather than Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Republican primaries, Tower began to alienate many fellow conservatives. He became less conservative over time, later voicing support for legal abortion and opposing President Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative in 1982.

Tower retired from the Senate in 1985 amidst allegations he’d acted as liaison for Robert Maxwell, a British publishing mogul and super-agent for Mossad, to the White House and to U.S. government operations. Tower served as chief negotiator of the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks with the Soviet Union and led the Tower Commission. The commission’s report was highly critical of the Reagan administration’s relations with Iran and the Contras.

In 1989, incoming President George H. W. Bush (also a Texan) chose Tower as his nominee for Secretary of Defense. In an almost unheard of move, his nomination was rejected by the Senate. The largest factors were concern about possible conflicts of interest and Tower’s personal life, in particular allegations of alcohol abuse and womanizing.

Tragic Plane Crash

On April 5, 1991, John Tower’s plane crashed while on approach for landing at Brunswick, Ga. The crash instantly killed everyone on board, including Tower and his middle daughter, Marian, the astronaut Sonny Carter, and 20 others. I visited Sonny Carter’s grave at Gainesville, Ga.’s Alta Vista Cemetery some years ago, never expecting I would later visit two graves of his fellow passengers.

John Tower was 65 when he died and daughter Marian was only 35. Tower’s wife, Lou, died at the age of 81 in 2001. The thee are buried together at Sparkman/Hillcrest.

Something Different

I’m going to close out this post with a monument that definitely stood out from the rest.

Born in Chicago in 1898, Welville Fred Vehon moved to Dallas with his family later in life. He owned a men’s clothing store. He died at the age of 67 in 1965.

I can only surmise that perhaps the statue on top of the marker is based on an original done by someone else. The only thing I could find out about it was that the statue was originally a nude but the cemetery would not allow it until discreet draping was added.

I’ll be back next time with more from Sparkman/Hillcrest Memorial Park.

 

 

 

 

I mentioned last week that I didn’t spend much time at Old Calvary Cemetery in Dallas due to the rising temperature that day. The same holds true for next door’s Temple Emanu-El Cemetery. But I spent even less time there for another reason that has never happened to me before.

When I walked through from Old Calvary Cemetery (there’s a paved path between the two), it wasn’t long before two dogs came running toward me barking angrily. I was frozen in place and fearing the worst when a voice called for them to stop. Thankfully, they did. It turns out one of the caretakers had brought his dogs with him to work. While the caretaker was very nice, the dogs weren’t nearly as friendly.

The caretaker assured me they wouldn’t hurt me but I was not so sure how they’d behave if I encountered them again when he was busy doing his work elsewhere in the cemetery. So I didn’t explore much after that. What you’ll see are the few pictures I took there that day.

A helpful sign explained the history of Temple Emanu-El Cemetery’s history. As was the case of Old Calvary Hill being the second oldest Catholic Cemetery in Dallas, Temple Emanu-El is the second oldest known Jewish burial ground in the city. Find a Grave has about 3,250 memorials recorded for this cemetery.

When a young Jewish man died in Dallas in June 1872 who was a stranger to the city, the small Jewish community of Dallas felt it was their responsibility to give him a proper burial. A group of 11 young men formed the Hebrew Benevolent Society and secured land for a burial plot on Akard Street from Mayor Henry Ervay. There were already cemeteries there for the Odd Fellows and Masons so it made sense at the time.

When plans were made in 1956 to build the Dallas Civic Center on the property where these graves were located, they were moved to Temple Emanu-El Cemetery.

Birth of a New Jewish Cemetery

The congregation of Temple Emanu-El was established around 1875 and met at their temple on Commerce Street that opened in 1876. The majority of members were Eastern European immigrants. In 1884, the trustees of Temple Emanu-El purchased land from the John Cole family. The first burials were those of Russian immigrants Aaron L. Levy and Jacob Rosenthal.

I didn’t learn until this week that one of the mausoleums I photographed held the remains of a Dallas businessman known more for his passion for baseball than his success as a businessman. Much of his delightful story I found in an article written by his granddaughter May Sebel.

The Biggest Baseball Fan in Dallas

Born in 1878 in Buffalo, Texas, Hyman Pearlstone lived in Palestine, Texas with his family. He operated a successful wholesale grocery business and served on a number of corporate boards. But the true love of his life (after his wife, Claire) was baseball.

Hyman coached the Palestine Elks and in 1905, he went to New Orleans on business. The Philadelphia Athletics (today known as the Oakland A’s) were staying at the same hotel when one of the players saw Hyman wearing an Elks pin. He introduced him to Doc Powers, catcher for the team. Hyman invited Doc to attend the theater with him that evening. Doc Powers told him that the A’s next spring training would be in Marlin, Texas, just down the road from Palestine. Doc invited Hyman to come watch the team.

The following year, at the hotel in Marlin, Hyman introduced himself to the legendary Connie Mack, who was manager, treasurer, and part owner of the Athletics. A longtime friendship began at that meeting.

Following spring training, Hyman received a large box from Connie Mack containing a baseball uniform, shoes, hat, and a glove. There was also a note from Mack inviting Hyman to spend his summer vacations traveling with the team. For Hyman, it was a dream come true!

For the next 45 years, Hyman spent one month of the summer doing just that. He would pitch to the team during practice in the early years, but later did some scouting and advised players on business matters. Hyman and Connie were guests of the Macks at every World Series, and this tradition continued even after Mack sold the team in 1955.

When Hyman died in 1966, his baseball memorabilia was sent to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, N.Y. Hyman Pearlstone is the only known “civilian” to ever have traveled with a Major League Baseball team.

“God Called Thee Home”

One of the sweetest markers I have ever seen is this one for Gerald Cohn. I didn’t know whose grave it was when I photographed it because I did not see that his name and dates were on the back of the base under the “shell”. I found out later by looking at the surname of “Cohn” on the marker behind it on Find a Grave.

Gerald was the son of Leopold and Sarah Cohn.

Born on July 19, 1886, Gerald was the son of German-born Leopold and Sarah Baer Cohn. I believe Sarah was Leopold’s second wife because he is listed as a widower in the 1880 Census and was living with his two sons, Albert and Bernard. He married Sarah Baer in Dallas on Jan. 30, 1881. Newspapers from 1884 advertise his barber shop on the corner of Lamar and Main Streets.

Bernard died at the age of five on Jan. 19, 1882 and is also buried at Temple Emanu-El Cemetery. There is another stone for an infant daughter born to Leopold and Sarah, but the dates are blurry.

Gerald died on June 5, 1888, having lived a year, 10 months, and 17 days. I have seen a number of shell graves of this nature over the years, but this is the first time I’ve seen a lamb in the shell instead of a sleeping child. In this case, it is a lamb resting on an elegant cushion with tassels on the corners.

Leopold died in 1915 at the age of 65 and Sarah died in 1917 at the age of 59. I was unable to trace Albert after the 1910 Census.

Work of Art

I was heading to the back gate to find Chris in the rental car when an unusual marker caught my eye. It was definitely different than most of the markers I’d seen that entire day so I wandered over to get a better look.

Born in 1884, Alex Wesiberg was the son of Russian immigrants. Some records indicate he himself was born in Russia but others say he was born in Waco, Texas. He married Marie Kahn in New York in 1920. He was working as an attorney by that time. Together, Alex and Marie had three children.

At the time of Alex’s death in 1951 from a heart ailment, he was an attorney in his own firm, Thompson, Knight, Wright, Weisberg, and Simmons. His death notice indicates he’d not only been involved in city planning but had been head of the Dallas Art Association. That told me Alex likely had an eye for the unusual. I think his monument, which he shares with Marie, expresses that. She died on Nov. 5, 1979.

Temple Emanu-El has an Alex Weisberg Library so I am believing it was created in his memory.

Next time, I’ll be starting a new series at Dallas’ Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park.

 

 

Located just across the street from Greenwood Cemetery is Old Calvary Cemetery. Some call it Old Calvary Hill Cemetery. But because there’s also a Calvary Hill Cemetery that came later, I’m staying with Old Calvary Cemetery.

I will tell you that we visited Old Calvary after spending over an hour at Greenwood when it was approaching 100 degrees. When it’s that hot, even a seasoned cemetery hopper like me starts to wilt. So I spent less time here than I normally would. Chris was in the car trying to cool off and re-hydrate.

Calvary Cemetery has two entrances. Because of construction taking place near the Hall Street gate (which was obscured by some orange cones), I entered through the Campbell Street gate.

Whereas Greenwood Cemetery was limited to Protestant burials, Calvary Cemetery was established for Catholic burials. It wasn’t the first cemetery for Dallas-area Catholics, however. That was La Reunion (also known as Fishtrap) Cemetery in West Dallas, a burial ground for French and Belgian immigrants who were part of the utopian La Reunion Colony founded in 1855. That cemetery is still intact and maintained by the City of Dallas.

Old Calvary Cemetery was established around 1878. It was the burial ground for immigrants mostly from France, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Poland, and Czechoslovakia, the European origins of settlers of that period. There are about 2,000 burials recorded for Old Calvary on Find a Grave.

By 1926, the Dallas Diocese had established the much larger Calvary Hill Cemetery north of the current Love Field Airport. As a result, there have been few burials at Old Calvary since 1945.

Birth of the Dallas Diocese

Because of the influx of immigrants coming into North Texas in the latter part of the 1800s, the statewide Diocese of Galveston was split and the Diocese of Dallas was created. The first bishop of Dallas, the Right Reverend Thomas Brennan, was consecrated in 1891. That’s the same year the unmarked cross (pictured below) at the center of Old Calvary’s Religious Circle was placed.

In the 1880s, St. Mary’s Orphanage was established in Oakcliff for needy orphans. Father John Moore was one of its first chaplains. He died of heart failure at the age of 61 in 1895.

The Heart of Father Hartnett

Father Jeffrey A. Hartnett was a native of Ireland but came to America at age four with his family. He attended St. Mary’s College in Kansas and St. Mary’s Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio where he received a master of arts degree in 1891. He returned to Texas and was ordained at the procathedral in Dallas by Rev. Brennan the same year.

In late 1897, he was appointed rector of the procathedral in Dallas and immediately applied his building skills to the construction of the present cathedral. In early 1899, a smallpox epidemic broke out in Dallas, and Father Jeffrey tended to the spiritual needs of the disease victims at the “pest house” (quarantine hospital) six miles away.

On the night of February 11, 1899, an blizzard hit Dallas. Answering the call for help, Hartnett walked to the pest house at the peak of the blizzard to administer last rites to a dying woman. He contracted smallpox and on March 7, 1899, he died. He was only 36 years old.

The Dallas Morning News remarked: “No death which has occurred in Dallas for many years, has occasioned more general regret than that of Rev. Father Hartnett.”

Also located within the Religious Circle at Old Calvary are the graves of four Catholic nuns. They all are thought to have died under the age of 25. The Sisters of Mary of Nahum came to Fort Worth in 1885 and opened an academy. In 1902, the Sisters purchased the former James Dargan mansion in Oakcliff and opened Our Lady of Good Counsel School. In 1912, they began building a school in East Dallas at St. Edward’s Church.

The nun who I found the most information on was Sister Conlon. A native of Ireland born in 1889, Sister Antonia Conlon came to America in 1907 to teach at schools in Fort Worth and Wichita Falls before coming to Dallas. She died following an appendectomy on Jan. 22, 1913 at the age of 23. Her grave marker and death certificate have her first name as “Antonio” for reasons I don’t know.

Death of a Humble Clerk

One of the first markers I saw near the front was this one for young Stephen S. Marino. I suspect there might have been a cross on top of it originally. He was only 15 when he died. Because he passed away in 1917, I wondered if it was Spanish Flu. But I was wrong.

Born in 1901, Stephen was the son of Italian immigrants Joseph Marino and Jennie La Barbara Marino. Joe was a fruit and vegetable peddler in Dallas and Stephens was the Marinos’ oldest son.

At the time of his death, Stephen was working as a clerk for Butler Brothers, a Chicago-based wholesaler whose building was constructed around 1910. It was a massive structure at the time and employed many.

Stephen was only a few months shy of his 16th birthday when he fell ill and went to the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium for treatment. This facility would go on to become Baylor University Medical Center.

Stephen died at the Sanitarium on March 19, 1917. His death certificate lists “chronic olitis media” as the main cause of death, a middle ear infection. A step infection is listed as a secondary contributor. His four younger siblings all lived well into adulthood and his parents also lived long lives. But they are buried at other cemeteries.

Tracking a Family Tree

The Dessaint tree monument is a puzzling piece of history and it took me a while to figure out exactly what was going on with it. Initially, I thought that the children whose names are on it were not actually buried there because the cemetery was not established until 1878 and the deaths occurred in the early 1860s. Also, the parents lived in Iowa when these children died.

A native of Quebec, Canada, Louis Cyriac Dessaint married Marie Claire Duroshier in St. Louis, Mo. in 1839. Their first four children, Marie, Louis A., Emilie, and Clara were born there. Sometime after Clara’s birth in 1857, they moved to Davenport, Iowa where Cora, Eugene, and Adella were born. Louis made his mark in Davenport, accumulating wealth through his hardware store and lumber business. He built a number of homes that include the Palmer Mansion, which still stands today.

Louis and Marie Dessaint left Iowa for Dallas in 1885 after youngest daughter Adella married real estate agent Frank Irvine of Virginia and had moved there.

Children’s Remains Moved

It was finding the 1907 death notice for Marie Claire, Louis’ wife, that solved the mystery of the Dessaint children’s final resting place. Louis C., their father, had the remains of Eugene, Cora, and Clara disinterred from a Davenport, Iowa cemetery and moved to Calvary Cemetery in Dallas when they moved to Texas. It really is a testament to how valuable old newspaper clippings can be!

Sadly, daughter Adella died on Aug. 25, 1894 at the age of 31. You can see her name/dates near the foot of the tree marker. Placed nearby is a marker to a baby named Addie, who was born on April 14, 1894 and died 10 months later in March 1895. I think she must be the daughter of Adella and Frank Irvine since Adella died only nine days after little Addie was born.

The names of Adella’s siblings who died in the 1860s are inscribed on other parts of the tree. Lying at the base is part of the “tree” that has since broken off for Eugene, who was born in 1859. I cannot make out exactly when he died.

There there is Claire or “Clara” (as she was called) who died in January 1862 at the age of 10.

Then there is sister Corinne “Cora” who was born on July 12, 1857 and died in December 1862, almost a year after her older sister Clara.

Marie, the family matriarch, died on Jan. 26, 1907. Patriarch Louis C. Dessaint followed on Dec. 20 of the same year. They are buried beside each other next to the Dessaint tree. Adella’s husband, Frank, died in 1908 at a sanitarium in Colorado from consumption. His body was brought back to Dallas for burial beside his wife and in-laws at Old Calvary.

Next time, I’ll be next door at Temple Emanu-El Cemetery.

 

We’re not done at Greenwood Cemetery in Dallas, Texas just yet. With a cemetery this big, there are too many stories that I can’t seem to leave out.

I am often drawn to markers with the names of multiple children on them. I always find it hard to grasp the grief of a couple who has anticipated the joy of the birth of a child, only to experience heart-breaking loss within a year or two. Over and over.

The Clark family is one such family.

Tennessee native William Jefferson Clark, born in 1828, moved with his family to Harrison County, Texas. After serving in the Mexican War in 1848, he met and married Loucinda Jane Fisher around 1858. She was a recent arrival to Texas from Georgia.

Dallas Pioneer

Clark farmed alongside his family and John H. Bryan, a family friend who came from Tennessee with the Clarks. By 1860, William Clark was a wealthy farmer with large property holdings.

In March 1862, Clark helped raise Company A of the 19th Texas Infantry of the Confederacy in Jefferson, Texas. Following the Civil War, Clark returned home and moved his family to Dallas County where he invested in Keyes, Clarke, and Company, a dry goods mercantile, with his friend, John H. Bryan. The two renamed their store Clark & Bryan Dry Goods.

William and Loucinda had their first child, Leslie, in 1859. He would marry, raise a family, and operate a successful real estate business in Dallas with help from his father. Second son Atwell Wycliff was born in 1865. He never married but helped his father in the day-to-day operations of his dry goods business.

On Ancestry, I found a few letters Atwell wrote to his cousins later in life describing memories of his childhood in Dallas. Wycliff Avenue and Wycliff Avenue Lake in Dallas are probably named after him as it is located on what was originally the W.J. Clark Cedar Springs addition that his father and brother developed.

Young Lives Cut Short

Over the next several years, Loucinda would give birth seven more times. Herbert was born in 1869 and died in 1871. Jessie Lou was born in 1871 and died the same year. Leeta was born in 1874 and lived a long life. Virgia was born in 1876 and died the same year. Fannie was born in 1876 and died the same year. Bertha was born in 1878 and lived well into adulthood. Their last child, Mathew Ennis, was born in 1880 and only lived a week.

The Clark monument features a statue of a female figure that was originally pointing upward but has lost a few fingers. When I first saw this photo I took of her, it almost looked like she was holding her fist up in defiance. It made me wonder if there were times Loucinda’s got angry at God because so many of her children died. It had to have been so hard to bear.

William’s partnership with Bryan resulted in a highly successful Dallas retail establishment and provided Clark with capital that he invested in real estate and railroads.

I wasn’t able to trace Loucinda with any of her adult children after William’s death in 1901 of heart failure. But she was living in Atlanta when she died in 1917. Her remains were brought back to Dallas for burial at Greenwood Cemetery beside William and her little ones. Son Leslie, who died in 1919 at age 59, is also buried at Greenwood with his wife, Lula, in a different plot. Atwell died in 1925 and is buried with his parents.

The Loss of Four Children

The markers for the Terry family also attest to the deaths of several children. But I found more holes than fabric when I tried to knit together their history.

Born in South Carolina around 1837, Charles Terry moved with his family to Mississippi where they farmed. Charles moved to Dallas in 1866 and his brothers followed in the next few years. He married Martha “Maffie” Clark at some time after that. They had two daughters, Winnie (1871) and Maidie (1873). Charles is listed as a merchant in 1870, a miller in 1880 and as a landlord in 1900. Apparently, the Terry brothers owned and operated a flour mill with a Charles Beauchamp. I found an ad for a dry goods store opened by the two Charles from 1870.

Both of Maffie and Charles’ daughters lived well into adulthood, married, and had children.

I don’t know if Maffie died or the couple divorced. But Charles married Louisiana native Caroline “Carrie” Beauchamp in 1874. She was likely related to the Beauchamps he operated the store with but I’m not sure how.

Daughter Augusta was born in 1876. Over the next several years, they would have several children but none of them would live to adulthood. I do not know what years these children were born or died. Only the names on four stones at Greenwood Cemetery survive. According to the 1900 Census, Carried reported that she had given birth to six children but only one (Augusta) survived.

Charles died in 1907 and his will reveals that he left everything to Carrie, Winnie, Augusta, and Maidie. Carried died in 1931 of heart failure at the age of 81. She and Charles both have what are called “cradle” style graves because of their oval shape. I believe that they were created after Charles died and that one was made for Carrie at that time. But there are no dates on either. Such a style would not have been common in the 1930s.

Maidie died of a brain tumor in 1926 at age 53 and is buried with her husband (who would become mayor of Dallas in 1932) in Grove Hill Cemetery in Dallas. Winnie died in 1942 at age 72 and is buried with her husband in Laurel Land Memorial Park in Dallas.

Part I of the Life of Henry C. Coke

My start my last story is what I’ll call Part I of the life of Henry C. Coke. I say that because his first wife and two of his children with her are buried at Greenwood. But Henry is not buried with them. He would go on to remarry and have a second family. Perhaps a second life.

Born in 1856 in Norfolk, Va., Henry Cornick Coke was the son of farmer/attorney William Coke and his wife, Lucy Cornick Cook. William was the nephew of Senator Richard Coke of Dallas. Henry graduated from the College of William and Mary and got his law degree from the Univ. of Virginia in 1879. He arrived in Dallas in 1881.

Henry married Texas native Roberta Lee Rosser sometime in 1884. Before their union, Roberta was often lauded in the Dallas papers for her musical prowess as a vocalist. Their first child, Roberta, was born in 1885. Henry was practicing law and making a name for himself in Dallas by this time.

Their second child, Henry Coke, Jr., was born on Nov. 17, 1884. Hobson Coke was born on Feb. 8, 1887 but died only three months later on May 10, 1887. His marker is what I term the “baby on a half shell” style that I see from time to time.

Roberta would give birth a final time on Aug. 3, 1888 to Rosser “R.J.” Coke. She died a week later on Aug. 9, 1888. I found no newspaper articles about her death. Henry erected this large monument to her that is topped with an urn from which an eternal flame emerges.

Part II of Henry Coke’s Life

Henry would marry again in 1890 to Missouri native Margaret Johnson, whose father was a civil engineer in Dallas. They had three children together over the next 10 years: Richard in 1892, Lucy in 1896, and Anna in April 1900.

But tragedy would strike again a month after Anna’s birth. Henry Jr., 15, was attending high school in Sherman, Texas at Letellier High School when he went swimming with three friends. According to a newspaper article, he got a cramp and drowned. He was buried beside his mother at Greenwood Cemetery.

Henry and Margaret had their last child, another Henry Jr., on Aug. 24, 1903. Henry Sr.’s success as an attorney continued. He served as chief counsel for Standard Oil when Texas sought to dissolve the company as a corporate entity there. He was also heavily involved in the banking industry. When he died in 1933 at the age of 77, he was chairman of the board of the First National Bank of Dallas.

Wife Margaret died the following year. They are buried together at Grove Hill Memorial Park in Dallas. Henry and Roberta’s first child, Roberta, and her husband are buried there along with three of his children with Margaret. They all lived well into old age. Anna is interred in the mausoleum at Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas.

There are many more stories that I could share from Greenwood Cemetery. But I’ll leave those for another day. Next time, I’ll be across the street at Calvary Cemetery.

 

 

 

 

Last week, I introduced you to Dallas, Texas’ Greenwood Cemetery and its history. Today, let’s find out more about some of the people buried there. The first grave I’m going to feature uncovered a story I didn’t go looking for. Thanks to my husband, Chris, it came to me.

I was going through the photos he took there a few weeks after our trip and found this one of a crow perched beside the marker for a J.M. Thurmond. It wasn’t very fancy so I probably wouldn’t have noticed it. But that crow got Chris’ attention so he took a picture.

Something made me look into J.M. Thurmond’s past. It turned out to be quite a story.

Born in 1836, James Madison Thurmond served as a private in Company E, Fourth Kentucky Cavalry during the Civil War. My research indicated he fought for the Confederacy but some sources point to a Union affiliation. There were units from both sides of the war with Kentucky soldiers. After the war, Thurmond moved to Texas and was appointed mayor of Bryan, Texas, by Gov. E. J. Davis in November 1869, an office he held for only two months before leaving in January 1870. Thurmond later moved to Dallas and opened a law practice.

Thurmond was elected mayor of Dallas on a reform ticket in April 1879 and re-elected in April 1880. In September 1880, the city council voted to remove him based on not making those promised reforms, and appointed John J. Good to fill the vacancy. Thurmond married Amanda J. Bentley on February 14, 1880, in Dallas. They had one son, James M. Thurmond Jr.

A Simmering Feud Explodes

One of the attorneys that worked hard to get Thurmond removed as mayor (who was now a judge) was Atlanta native and Confederate veteran Robert E. Cowart. Thus began a feud between the two that simmered for two years until it exploded on March 14, 1882 in a Dallas courthouse.

On that day, angry words were exchanged by Cowart and Thurmond that were witnessed by others. Thurmond drew his pistol but Cowart was faster, shooting Thurmond in the head and killing him instantly. He was only 46. Cowart was charged with murder and convicted later that year but a second trial acquitted him. Public opinion was with Cowart that he had shot Thurmond in self defense.

After his acquittal, Cowart spent many years in Washington, D.C. representing Texas interests in Congress. But he never quite escaped the reverberations of the shooting. One article I found said, “Privately, he expressed himself as regretting he had not let Thurmond kill him, and he was inclined to regard the early death of his wife and the long invalidism of a son as somehow a judgment.”

When Cowart died at the age of 80 in 1924, he was buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

Cattle King of Texas

One of the few mausoleums at Greenwood is for Col. Christopher Columbus (“C.C.”) Slaughter. His colorful life could fill a book easily but I’ll try to keep it brief.

As a boy, C.C. worked cattle with his father and at age 12, he helped drive the family’s 92-head herd to a ranch on the Trinity River in Freestone County, Texas, where the family moved in 1852. At 17, C.C. was hauling timber and processing Collin County wheat into flour for sale. With the money he earned, he bought his uncle’s interest in the Slaughter cattle herd. His family did not neglect his education, tutoring him at home before he graduated from the now-defunct Larissa College in Cherokee County, Texas.

In 1857, Slaughter became a rancher with his father in Palo Pinto County, Texas, where they owned 15,000 cattle. They sold beef to Fort Belknap and local Native American reservations. In 1861, he married Cynthia Anna Jowell and together, they had five children.

During the Civil War, he served as a colonel in Terry’s Texas Rangers of the Confederate Army. Together with Charles Goodnight, he helped rescue Cynthia Ann Parker, an American kidnapped by Comanches at the age of 10 in 1836. I photographed her grave last year while at Fort Sill in Lawton, Okla.

After the war, he founded the C. C. Slaughter Cattle Company, plus co-founded the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association in 1873. Cynthia passed away in 1876 and he married Carrie Averill 1877. He established the American National Bank in 1884, which is now part of the First National Bank chain.

Owned Over a Million Acres

By 1905, Col. Slaughter owned over 40,000 head of cattle and oversaw over a million acres of land in West Texas. As a result, he was for some years the largest taxpayer in Texas. He also added to his family, having four children with second wife, Carrie.

In his later years, Col. Slaughter gave generously. He helped establish Baylor Hospital of Dallas, serving on its board of trustees and was president of the United Confederate Veterans. He also served as vice president of the Southern Baptist Convention and a member of the executive board of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.

Slaughter maintained strict control over his operations until 1910, when he suffered a broken hip that crippled him for the remainder of his life. After his death at age 81 in 1919, his heirs divided his ranch and land holdings, and sold them. His mausoleum at Greenwood contains Col. Slaughter, his two wives, two children who died in infancy, his daughter, Delia Slaughter Wright, and Delia’s husband, Judge Gilbert Wright.

Death of a Young Wife

The monument to young Jennie Thomas Scollard is beautiful. But I chose it for more than that reason alone.

Born in 1860, Jennie Thomas was a native of Texas. But her future husband Thomas W. Scollard was British born in 1849. He likely arrived in Dallas in the 1870s. He and Jennie married were married in 1880 and spent their first years in Galveston, Texas.

Unlike many businessmen in Dallas, Scollard was more interested in sheep than cattle. He became a wool buyer/dealer. He also was involved in real estate, constructing the Jennie and Juanita buildings in downtown Dallas. I even managed to find a picture of the one named after Jennie on Ancestry.

Thomas’ fortunes prospered. He and Jennie had three children together, two living to adulthood. But Jennie’s health began to falter in 1887. According to her funeral notice, she went to stay at a place known as Wootan Wells, which promoted itself as a pleasure resort and health spa. They claimed that the waters had restorative powers.

Located in Bremond, Texas, Wootan Wells was just one of many resorts that socialites flocked to in the late 1800s/early 1900s. You could even purchase their water and take it home with you. At one point, it boasted hotels, a bottling works, dance pavilion, and school. A fire that swept through Bremond in 1915 did considerable damage and Wootan Wells’ remaining buildings were torn down in the early 1920s.

Sadly, Jennie died at Wootan Wells at the age of 26 on June 12, 1887. Her funeral notice attributed it to “dropsy of the heart”, meaning she suffered from edema and heart failure. I found it interesting that the notice also made a particular observation about her “life-like appearance” at her visitation.

Thomas Scollard remarried in 1889 to Fannie Bossart, who was 21 years his junior. They had five children who lived to adulthood. One infant born in 1889 named Jennie is buried in the Scollard plot. She has no marker.

When Thomas Scollard died suddenly on his veranda at the age of 55 in 1905, he was buried at Greenwood in the family plot without a marker. Records indicate that after Fannie Scollard died in 1959, she was initially interred at Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park (which I visited as well). But she was later moved to Greenwood to be buried with Thomas and the two Jennies in June 1960. Her grave is not marked either.

We’re not finished at Greenwood Cemetery. Come back for Part III.

 

Who visits Dallas, Texas in the middle of July, one of the hottest months of the year?

ME!

Every five years, my husband and I take a trip out of state to celebrate our wedding anniversary. For 2018, our 15th, we chose Texas. We knew it would be boiling-lava hot but summer is always the best time for us to travel because our son can stay with his grandparents while we’re gone.

We arrived in Dallas with plans to visit at least one cemetery during our visit and ended up seeing many more. The first one was Greenwood Cemetery in the Uptown neighborhood. But it wasn’t always called that.

Birth of Trinity Cemetery

The establishment of Trinity Cemetery began with a man who played a key role in the prominence Dallas would eventually have. But one of Alabama native William H. Gaston’s first glimpses of Dallas would be as a 20-year-old young man on the day after the fire that nearly destroyed the city in 1860.

William joined the Confederacy with three of his brothers after the outbreak of the Civil War, rising quickly among his peers to become known as the “boy captain”. After the war, Capt. Gaston did quite well with his cotton crop, making enough money to leave the farm and enter into business in Dallas. His focus was on banking and real estate.

A sign at the cemetery explains that the land upon which Trinity Cemetery is located on was once “part of a Republic of Texas grant called the John Grigsby League, given for service in the Battle of San Jacinto.” After some legal wrangling, Capt. Gaston acquired the land and established the cemetery along with his banking partner, Capt. W.H. Thomas. Some sources say that the first recorded burial at Trinity was a Mrs. Susan Bradford in March 1875. I found no memorial for her on Find a Grave.

Silent City of the Dead

An article in the Dallas Weekly Herald on November 13, 1884 describes the cemetery  this way:

Our reporter took an excursion over the Belt street railroad yesterday and, leaving the cars where the road turns out of the McKinney road, walked out to Trinity cemetery. This silent city of the dead is truly a beautiful location and, although it is small for so large a city as Dallas, it can be made as beautiful a cemetery as can be found in all the land. Young forest trees and cedars abound, which, if trimmed up properly and with nice shelled walks and drives winding among them, would make it a lovely spot for the repose of the dead.

Unfortunately, by 1896, the cemetery had fallen into a state of disrepair. One article even mentioned cattle grazing in it. Capt. Gaston had plunged into the business world, developing much of East Dallas and starting the State Fair, so his attention was elsewhere. The cemetery was renamed Greenwood and an association was formed to oversee its operation and upkeep.

According to Find a Grave, Greenwood has close to 8,000 recorded burials but an article I found indicates there are hundreds of unmarked graves on the grounds. Originally, it consisted of 30 acres but I’m not sure what it currently is. The Uptown neighborhood that surrounds it was once farmland but is now prime real estate that’s almost completely developed.

Both Sides Buried Here

Both Union and Confederate soldiers are buried at Greenwood. There’s a special section dedicated to Union Soldiers that is cared for by a local chapter of the Sons of Union Veterans. After the Civil War, many Union veterans headed to the South for a new life. Cheap land was plentiful and business opportunities were abundant. According to one plaque I saw, about 110 Union veterans are buried at Greenwood.

One of those men was John Comley Bigger, an Ohioan who fought with the 92nd Illinois Infantry at the Battle of Chickamauga. Bigger would go on to practice law in Dallas in 1875 and was appointed the U.S. Attorney for Texas in 1882. He led two Grand Army of the Republic (GAR) chapters in Dallas. A Prohibitionist, Bigger was admired by his colleagues for his “probity and kindness of heart”. When he died in 1900, he was buried at Greenwood Cemetery.

According to a plaque, there are about 250 Confederate veterans buried at Greenwood. There is no Confederate monument at Greenwood, but there is one that I mistook for one when I first saw it. The monument to Captain Samuel P. Emerson certainly looks like one but it was carved just for him.

In 1861, at age 29, Kentucky native Samuel Emerson enlisted in the Confederate Army. Under the command of General Simon Buckner, he saw action at Fort Donelson, on the Cumberland River in Tennessee. When the fort fell to federal forces under General Ulysses S. Grant in February 1862, General Buckner surrendered some 15,000 troops.

Capt. Emerson, however, escaped by swimming and wading the river. He subsequently had a number of adventures as captain of a company of Confederate scouts. He moved to Dallas after the Civil War.

From reading his Find a Grave memorial, I learned that Capt. Emerson was close friends with Confederate Brigadier General William Lewis Cabell and his daughter, Mrs. Katie Cabell Currie Muse. She was not only president of the Dallas chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy but was an avid listener to Capt. Emerson’s wishes for his monument and funeral plans.

After he died on October 21, 1900, she did what she could to carry out those wishes. In his will, Emerson left $5,000 for Katie to use for his monument, which was unveiled a year after his death. Sharing the plot with Emerson are 36 other former Confederates whose graves all face south, marked by two rows of identical white stones.

Garlington Monument

Located close to Capt. Emerson’s monument is the large monument to Moses D. Garlington and his wife, Annie Moore Garlington. I could find very little information about it. It’s my guess that it was made after Annie’s death but I’m not sure. I did not take a very good photo of it and the construction going on in the background didn’t help.

Born in Mississippi in 1835, Moses Garlington became a clerk/book-keeper in Trenton, La., where he spent 18 years. He entered the Confederate Army as second lieutenant of Company A of the 17th Louisiana Infantry, and came out as a regimental quartermaster. In 1868, he married Arkansas native Annie Moore. Over the years, they would have five children together that lived to adulthood, one having died in infancy.

The Garlingtons moved to Dallas around 1872 and Moses got involved in a business partnership with the Central Railroad. His fortunes prospered over the years through his wholesale produce business and he amassed quite a fortune, known for dealing in cash and eschewing credit of any kind. He died of malarial fever on Sept. 22, 1894.

Eldest son William took over the business for his father. Annie would have a home with his family for the rest of her life. She died at the age of 70 of apoplexy and heart disease on April 20, 1918. I am not certain what the three figures at the top of the monument are meant to represent. Perhaps someone reading this will know.

This is just the tip of the iceberg so join me next time for more stories from Dallas’ Greenwood Cemetery.