| Dallas County Pioneer Association Founded 1875, Reorganized 1979 P O Box 12496 Dallas TX 75225 972-260-9334 – dcpa1875@gmail.com From the President  Greetings All, Make sure to put the December breakfast meeting on your calendar. December 4th at 9 a.m. at Highland Oaks Church. Rusty Williams will be the speaker. He is the author of several books and a very colorful speaker. You will enjoy him! We are in an EXCEPTIONALLY large room where you can put as much distance between you and others as you feel is necessary so all should be safe. As you may or may not know after four years as President I have decided to not run again. It has been my pleasure and honor to have served this group, but I felt it was time to give others a chance. If you would like your name placed into nomination, please contact me, and let me know or you can wait and make nominations from the floor at the December meeting elections. The nominating Committee has proposed the following people to hold office. The Proposed Board members for the 2022-2023 term are: President – Jim Griffin Vice President – Mike Judd Secretary – Sheryl Curlee Treasurer – Bill Vilbig Historian – Fred Lusk Cemetery – Kathy Ann Reid Newsletter – Jim Griffin Membership – Gwyneva Winters Website/media – Brian Gunn and Mike Magers If you have not done so, please remember to pay your 2022 dues and 2020 dues if you did not pay them. Send them to DCPA at P O Box 12496 Dallas TX 75225. $20 for an individual and $30 for a couple per year. “May God be with us till we meet again”, Jim Bookhout, President From the Vice President  Hello my fellow Pioneers, I hope everyone is well. Having talked to our December 4th speaker on the phone I am confident that his presentation will be interesting and entertaining, and I hope you all can attend. Of course we’re holding elections as well, and we all know how important it is to vote. Fortunately for the Association, there are some really great people who are stepping up and standing for election to be President and Vice President for this term, some who have already been serving the Association for a long time and some who will be new to the Board. I have been honored to serve this Association, it has truly been a pleasure and I look forward to a long continuing membership. I have been greatly impressed with our Board, they are dedicated and trustworthy and they work very hard to keep the Association prosperous, giving freely of their own time and effort, and each of them considers it a labor of love to be the stewards of this Association. Member participation has remained steady, despite Covid, but we hope to see more of you on December 4th! Come on out for breakfast and fellowship, and thank you all! Call and make your breakfast reservations 972-260-9334. Best Regards,Joe Watts Vice President Please join us for Our Next Meeting on December 4 Highland Oaks Church of Christ10805 Walnut Hill Lane(Between Jupiter and Plano) Dallas 75238Call and make your breakfast reservations 972-260-9334. OUR December SPEAKER – Rusty Williams  Rusty Williams tells about history through the true stories of the people who lived it. He takes a darkly humorous look at turn-of-the-twentieth-century city life when he speaks about Deadly Dallas: A History of Unfortunate Incidents and Grisly Fatalities (The History Press, 2021) Spring of 1904. A runaway team of horses critically injures three pedestrians attempting to cross Akard Str5eet. The mayor orders a roundup of unlicensed dogs due to a city-wide rabies outbreak. An inexperienced automobile drives jumps the curb and drives into the lobby of the st. George Hotel. Embers from a wood cooking stove transform a sleeping house into a funeral pyre. Just another deadly day in Dallas. Dynamite. Diphtheria. Plummeting airships. Rampaging Livestock. Dallas was dangerous place in its formative years. Rusty is also the author of Red River Bridge War: A Texas-Oklahoma Border Battle (Texas A&M Press, 2016), My Old Confederate Home: A Respectable Place for Civil War Veterans (University Press of Kentucky, 2011), and Historic Photos of Dallas in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s (Turner, 2010). He regularly speaks to historical societies, book groups, and cultural gatherings. Rusty contributes articles to historical magazines and journals. Please come join us for exciting tales of Dallas’ past on December 4th. Book Auction for the next meeting!Here are the books we will auction next: Fair Warrior – A Soldier’s Letters of Love and War by Tom Dodge Dallas Yesterday by Sam Acheson For God and Texas – The Life of P. B. Hill by Green Peyton Willis M Tate – Views and Interviews The World of Paul Crume My City Friends Life – a 50 year love story of a man and his city – Richardson Texas 1935-1985 Dallas – a Dynamic Century  On our WebsiteIf you haven’t been to our website lately please take a look, there are articles about the Pioneers of Dallas County, Pictures of Dallas’ Past, stories about churches and biographies of some of the people who built and lived here in Dallas’ beginnings. https://dallaspioneer.org/ If you have changed your mailing address, e-mail or phone numbers, please let Sheryl Curlee know by sending a note to DCPA1875@gmail.com If you haven’t already paid your dues or you would like to make a donation, please make your payments to: Dallas County Pioneer Association PO Box 12496 Dallas, TX 75225 MembershipIf you have friends or neighbors who are interested in history please invite them to a meeting, so they can also join us to enjoy the speakers and learn about the history of Dallas. Gwyneva WintersMembership Chairperson Cemetery Report by Kathy Ann Reid  WESTERN HEIGHTS CEMETERY Preservation Dallas added DCPA as a sponsor of their Fall Cemetery Tour for Western Heights Cemetery after Deborah Carpenter let them know that we are paying for the maintenance. DCPA was included on the emails sent to their mailing list and on their website with a link to dallaspioneer.org. On Saturday, October 30, 2021 there was a steady flow of people who came on the Cemetery Tour. Gwyneva Winters and I represented DCPA from noon to 3:00, talking to many people about the cemetery and DCPA. Others who stayed at the cemetery were: Katheryn Holman, Tim and Louise Herfel (FW Ave. Dev. Group), Deborah Carpenter (caretaker who worked the whole time), Freda Dillard (local historian), Rhea Leen Linder, and Buddy Barrow Williams. (Picture of Preservation Dallas sign, 11/30/21)  WESLEY COCKRELL CEMETERY This cemetery seems most endangered because apparently the neighbor who was interested in it, is no longer interested, and a house has been built close to the property line of the cemetery. The condition of the cemetery lead me to believe that it has not been touched since our last visit. A backhoe was parked near the cemetery gate. (Picture 10/30/21)  BALCH SPRINGS CEMETERY This cemetery land is owned by the City of Balch Springs. A recent visit confirmed that it is being mowed. A few years ago a group with a grant used ground-penetrating radar to locate many graves that are outside the chain-link fenced area. These graves are marked with plain white stones. (Picture 10/29/21)  BENNETT CEMETERY Dean Barker, General Manager of Laurel Oaks Funeral Home in Mesquite applied for and received a historical marker for the Bennett Cemetery. The dedication is planned for 2022 and the DCPA will be invited to the celebration. The legacy of the Bennett Family was extended with the purchase of the land by Laurel Land Corporation in 1905 and, then, the Hugh Bearden family in 1958. Under the steady leadership of the Bearden family, now in its second generation of ownership, the original cemetery continues to expand as Laurel Oaks Memorial Park, a perpetual care cemetery in a beautiful park setting, and, now, includes Laurel Oaks Funeral Home, a beautiful facility which serves families in Mesquite and throughout Dallas and neighboring counties. And if you need a quick history fix…  Phillip, Isaac and Alexander Sanger are credited for having founded Sanger Brothers. They were three sons of Elias and Barbetta Sanger of Bavaria. Elias was a wine merchant and farmer. Isaac had been born in Bavaria (Germany) in 1836 and emigrated to the United States when he was 16, in 1852. Lehman (born in 1838) and Phillip (born in 1841) followed him when they each turned 16. They had all learned the mercantile business from Elias. Isaac worked for a few years in Connecticut for an uncle before coming to Texas in 1857. There he settled in McKinney and co-founded a store, Baum and Sanger. Lehman soon joined them. The partners relocated their store to Weatherford for a while and gradually expanded to other north Texas towns including Decatur, adding Morris Lasker as an associate. more…  Amon McCommas, Sr., and wife Mary ‘Polly’ Brumfield, were one of the first six families who came to settle in the Peters Colony, a community where, although scattered, a few hostile Indians remained. Amon and Mary had been married in 1826 in Lawrence County, Ohio, where Mary was born in 1805. Amon (1804-1877) was a dedicated follower of the Rev. Alexander Campbell, founder of the Christian Church, and is credited with preaching the first sermon about Jesus Christ ever delivered in the tiny “hamlet of Dallas”, immediately after his arrival in December 1844 from Wright County, Missouri. He was the first minister of the Christian faith to reside in the community, and baptized many in the nearby Trinity River and performed many of the earliest marriages here. He officially founded the Christian Church in Dallas County in 1845 with twelve members. In 1873 this church was divided: one group became the Pearl and Main Street Church of Christ and the other, in time, developed to be the Central Christian Church. more…DCPA |
