From the President
Howdy,
Make sure to put the June 2 at 6:00 p.m meeting on your calendar. We are pleased to announce our return to the Pavilion in CC Young Senior Living.
Dinner will begin serving at 6 and our speaker will begin at 7. Ann McKinley will be the speaker. You will enjoy her.
We are continuing our “Bring a Guest;” if you bring a new guest to our meeting, you and your guest will enjoy the meal with our complements. Unfortunately, the Board had to raise the cost of meals going forward to $20 as CC Young has increased our cost. All we ask is that you call and make reservations for you and your guest by May 31, 2022.
If you have not done so, please remember to pay your 2022 dues and 2021 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 Griffin,
President
From the Vice President
Greetings and Happy Spring!
It’s an exciting time to be a member of the DCPA and to get involved in our communities learning and sharing the rich history of Dallas County. Your board has been networking and spreading the group’s message of historic preservation to many new friends! In March, DCPA participated in the rededication ceremony of the McCree Cemetery in Lake Highlands which was well attended. In April, DCPA manned a booth at the Oak Cliff Earth Day festival at Lake Cliff Park and in May participated in the annual Glover Cemetery Reunion and Picnic in Urbandale. We’re adding new members and growing thanks to your support!
We’re also excited about our next guest speaker. Please join us at our quarterly meeting on June 2nd to hear Ann McKinley’s excellent presentation on the pioneer Peak family. Ann is the Chief Advancement Officer of the Juliette Fowler Communities in East Dallas which was founded in 1892 on Peak family land. The story of the Peaks is the story of early East Dallas and the family’s descendants have trusted Ann with numerous family photos and artifacts for safekeeping. This is a historical presentation you don’t want to miss!
Hope to see you on June 2nd,
Mike Judd
Vice President
Please join us for Our Next Meeting on June 2,
CC Young Senior Living
4847 W Lawther Dr(Northwest Hwy & Lawther)
Dallas 75238
Call and make your reservations 972-260-9334 before the Cutoff for meal reservation, which is May 31, 2022.
OUR JUNE SPEAKER – Ann McKinley
Ann is the Chief Advancement Officer for Juliette Fowler Communities since 2012. Her career spans more than 45 years in sales, marketing, and fundraising. She answered the call to serve in the nonprofit aging services field 17 years ago. At Fowler, she has been instrumental in certifying Fowler as an I’m Still Here Center of Excellence in Dementia Care, leading Dementia Friendly Dallas, and launching Fowler’s newest residential development, The Peak. Ann has paired her professional expertise with her love of history. Her avid research of Juliette Peak Fowler and the Peak family has become her favorite pastime! Over the past ten years, she has engaged many Peak descendants to glean their family knowledge and as a result, Fowler has been gifted several items of Peak family memorabilia.
Please come join us for exciting tales of Dallas’ past on June 2nd.
Book Auction for the next meeting!
Please arrive early for the surprise of some of the books in our archives you can take home!!!
On our Website
If 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, Francis James Tribute, Outings and Events, stories about churches and biographies of some of the people who built and lived here in Dallas’ beginnings.
dallaspioneer.org.
Donations
The Dallas County Pioneer Association (DCPA) established in 1875 is a not for profit organization that operates on the generosity of people to take care of abandoned cemeteries and promote the history of Dallas County. It is operated by folks who have a passion for history and are volunteering their time and money.
Please consider giving to our mission by clicking the button below.
DONATE
DEPARTMENTS
| Membership |
| If 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. Remember when you bring a first time guest, you and your guest enjoy a complementary meal on us! Gwyneva Winters Membership Chairperson |
| Cemetery Report by Kathy Ann Reid |
| Pioneer Picnic at the Glover Cemetery |
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| The Pioneer Picnic was a splendid success. The only thing missing was YOU if you didn’t make it. Thirty-one people were there with twelve first timers. The oldest was the matriarch of the cemetery, Helen J. Sullivan, while the youngest was her seven month old great-great granddaughter, Charlotte Hosler. (Charlotte is a ninth generation Dallas Texan.) Descendants of the Glovers, Beemans, Hunnicutts, Moores and Coxes, as well as DCPA members were present. more… |
| Ten people attended the March work day at the Wesley Cockrell Cemetery. Included were Tony Lacey, and wife, Kim. Tony is a descendant of John Wesley and Sarah Wilson Cockrell. We cut up and removed a tree that unknown persons cut down, privet trees were cut and the lawn mowed. Everyone who came and the Daniel’s tractor (with front-end loader and mower) were very much appreciated. The W. W. Glover Cemetery clean up in April was well attended with 19 people working and Linda Smith joining us for lunch. Thankfully no large trees were down. We carried branches and sticks out to the street to get ready for the first mowing. The white Heritage Irises hardly bloomed and surely do need help from a flower gardener. The Pioneer Picnic at W. W. Glover Cemetery is scheduled for the first Saturday in May every year. Please mark that on your 2023 calendar and defend the date, because we annually have a great time. This year 31 attended with 12 of those being first-timers. The two youngest at 5 years old and 7 months old are 9th generation Dallas Texans. UPCOMING Oakland Cemetery friends need help in maintaining the large acreage at Oakland. Gwyneva Winters will meet us there on May 28 at 10:00 and give instructions on how we can help that morning. (Address is 3900 Oakland Circle, Dallas; Oakland Circle is off of S. Malcomb X Blvd.) The grave site of John Beeman of Beeman Memorial Cemetery will be decorated with a marker for his service in the War of 1812. The marker dedication will be at 2:00 PM on Sunday, June 5, 2022. The Sons of The War of 1812 will do the dedication with a ceremony including a Color Guard dressed in uniforms of that war, complete with muskets. DCPA is assisting by asking for descendants of John Beeman to contact us at cemetery@dallaspioneer.org. Please consider a generous donation to the Cemetery Fund. |
| History Fix from our Website |
 Robert Cooke “Father” Buckner was born January 3, 1833 in Madisonville, Tennessee to Rev. Daniel Buckner and Mary Polly Hampton Buckner. He was the youngest son and the fifth of six children (three sons and three daughters). His oldest brother, Henry Frieland Buckner (1818-1882) was also born in Tennessee and served as a career missionary to the Creek tribe in Oklahoma. Henry Frieland also founded the Murrow Orphan’s Home. The middle brother, Bennett Burrow Buckner (1826-1848), joined the United States Army from Tennessee in 1847 and died in Mexico City in 1848 while serving in the Army during the Mexican-American War. His oldest sister Harriet Caroline Buckner died as an infant in 1821 in Tennessee. His second sister was Miriam Isabelle Buckner. She moved to Texas and married a school teacher, Aaron Holt, originally of New Hampshire. They had a son named Adoniram Judson Holt, mentioned below. R. C.’s youngest sister was Anne Haseltine Buckner who married a carpenter named Williams and lived in Paris, Texas. more… |
| Magnesium Fire Levels Bomb Plant |
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| In 1943 the headlines of the Dallas Morning News said “Magnesium Fire Levels Bomb Plant.” The article continued describing the most spectacular fire in Dallas History on December 15-16, 1943, when the government’s entire stock of magnesium was lost. Austin Bridge Company, also known as ABCo at that time manufactured incendiary bombs in a plant in West Dallas located at 1301 Singleton Boulevard, just west of Sylvan. The glow of this fire was seen an estimated 225 miles away by airplanes, almost to Houston. more… |
