Hello fellow Texans and friends of Texas. Today is Sunday, May 25, 2014. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= President Eisenhower spoke at Baylor commencement in 1956< On May 25, 1956, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a native Texan who was born in Denison, discussed challenges facing graduates at Commencement exercises at Baylor University in Waco. Eisenhower also received an honorary Doctor of Law degree from the University. Ike said: I do trust sincerely that all members of the Baylor family and all of Baylors friends can realize how deeply proud I am of this honor just conferred upon me by your President. I further hope that the graduates of 1956 from now on will permit me to claim the Class as my own, because I would be very proud to do so. He also called Communism, in its deepest sense, a gigantic failure. Even in the countries it dominates, hundreds of millions who dwell there still cling to their religious faith, still are moved by aspirations for justice and freedom that cannot be answered merely by more steel or by bigger bombers, still seek a reward that is beyond money or place or power. Still dream of the day that they may walk fearlessly in the fullness of human freedom. The destiny of man is freedom and justice under his Creator. Any ideology that denies this universal faith will ultimately perish or be recast. This is the first great truth that must underlie all our thinking, all our striving in this struggling world. For you graduates, he said opportunities to strengthen our assault on injustice and bigotry will be as numerous as the tasks you undertake and the people that you meet each day. Nothing I might add could either quicken your recognition of such opportunities or strengthen your response to them. But certain it is that in this recognition and this response will be found the measure of Americas future safety, progress and greatness. To the Graduates of the Air Force Reserve Officers Training Corps, he said it is a special privilege to speak to any group in uniform, especially one that has completed its preparatory work and is ready now to take its place in its own component of the Armed Services. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Two sons of Sam, Margaret Lea Houston born on May 25< On May 25, 1843, Sam Houston Jr., the first of eight Houston children of Margaret Lea and Sam Houston, was born at Washington-on-the-Brazos. He was the first of two children born on May 25. In 1858, William Rogers Houston, Margaret Lea and Sams seventh child and third son of Houston, was born in Huntsville. Young Sam was sickly at birth but improved rapidly and soon proud father Sam Houston wrote to a friend describing the baby as a hearty brat, robust and hearty as a Brookshire pig. Sam Houston Jr. was taught at home by his mother and a succession of governesses. When the Civil War began, young Sam enlisted as a private in a unit commanded by his fathers friend, Col. Ashbel Smith. On March 12, 1862 his unit was ordered to the front. During the battle of Shiloh, Sam Jr. was wounded and left for dead. An Army chaplain found him on the battlefield and identified him by the message Margaret Lea had placed in her sons Bible. Months later the young soldier was released from prison camp and made his way to Huntsville, where Margaret barely recognized her son. After the war, Sam Houston Jr., completed his course work for a medical degree and practiced medicine in several Texas towns including Belton and Waco. In 1875, he married Lucy Anderson, and soon ended his medical practice to devote time to writing poetry and short stories. He wrote a volume of adventure stories, published in 1892. When his wife died in 1886, Sam Jr. returned to Independence to live with his sister Margaret Lea Houston Williams, until his death on May 20, 1894. Sam Houston Jr. is buried in Independence, near his mother. Willie Houston became well known as a special officer in the Indian service in the Department of the Interior. He was named for a favorite cousin of Margaret Leas, the well-known Texas lawyer and soldier, Col. William P. Rogers. The child was never strong, and Margaret Lea had many an anxious moment about his health. By the time he was six years old however, his mother could write to Sam Jr. that Willie Rogers is a very hale stout boy. After his mother died, Willie moved from Independence to Georgetown to live with his older sister, Nancy Elizabeth Houston Morrow and her husband. He attended public school in Georgetown and later was a student at Salado College and the Texas University at Georgetown. The only one of the Houston children who never married, William Rogers, was on duty as an officer of the Indian Service, was riding out of Hugo, Okla., on a mission to an Indian reservation, when he apparently suffered a heart attack and fell from his horse. His funeral was held in Dallas, with burial in Oak Cliff cemetery. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Dallas native Charles Cabbell served during WW II, was deputy director of CIA< On May 25, 1971, Dallas native Charles Pearre Cabell, Air Force general and deputy director of the CIA, died in Arlington, Va. He is buried in Arlington National Cemetery. He attended Oak Cliff High School and graduated from West Point in 1925 and the Air Corps Flying School in San Antonio in 1931. He spent 38 years in the United States Army and Air Force before his retirement as a four-star general in 1963. He was director of plans for the United States Strategic Air Forces and director of operations and intelligence for the Mediterranean Allied Air Forces, a post he held until May 1945. Cabell attended the Yalta Conference in 1945 and the London Conference of the United Nations in January and February 1946. After the war he was the United States air representative on the military staff committee of the United Nations in New York. In 1951 he was appointed director of the staff for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where he worked with Gen. Omar Bradley. From 1953 until his retirement in 1963, Gen. Cabell was deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In 1965 he was appointed a consultant to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. • • • • • • =+ -+ -+-+= Also on May 25 in Texas: • In 1839, President Mirabeau B. Lamar appointed James Harper Starr secretary of the Texas treasury. As a member of the Lamar faction, Starr participated in the removal of the government offices from Houston to Austin in fall 1839. On Dec. 14, 1837, President Sam Houston selected Starr as president of the board of land commissioners and receiver of the land dues for Nacogdoches County. Starr also served as a physician, land agent, banker and Confederate official (agent for the postal service west of the Mississippi). • In 1861, Sarah Seelye enlisted in Michigan under the alias of Franklin Thompson. She was one of a number of women who disguised themselves as men to enlist in the Civil War. In her secret-service duty she penetrated Confederate lines disguised as a man. She deserted the army and resumed life as a female in 1863 and later published an account of her experiences in the army, Nurse and Spy in the Union Army (1865). She and her husband moved to La Porte in the early 1890s and became a member of the McClellan Post, Grand Army of the Republic, in Houston. She was the only woman member in the history of the GAR. • In 1870, Samuel Seward, a veteran of the War of 1812, died. He is buried in Washington County. Seward came to Texas around 1828 and purchased land in Coles Settlement, later Independence. His family moved to Texas in December 1835. He is said to have bought the estate of the merchant Colbert Baker, who died prior to 1837. The old Seward home at Independence, probably the first large two-story house in the community, was built in 1855 of hand-hewn cedar. The Historic American Buildings Survey of the United States Department of the Interior has photographed and made architectural drawings of it. • In 1874, May Forster Smith, a nurse who sought quality treatment for babies of indigent families, was born in South Carolina. She moved to Dallas in about 1907. In March 1913, she and six other nurses established a Baby Camp to care for sick infants from indigent families. The American Red Cross provided four tents that were set up on the grounds of the Parkland Hospitals. In 1929, Tom L. Bradford, Sr., whose wife and daughter were once nursed by Smith, donated $100,000 to build a new hospital. Despite racial segregation in Dallas, Smith and the Bradfords board of directors saw that black and Hispanic children were treated at the hospital. May Smith served as director of Bradford Hospital until her death from pneumonia on Jan. 31, 1938. • In 1892, Calloway Deen (Dean), soldier in the Texas Revolution and public official, died. He is buried in the Starrville Cemetery in Smith County. Deen traveled to Texas in 1835 and enlisted in the Texas army on Nov. 1 as sergeant. He participated in the siege of Bexar and was discharged on Dec. 14. He also served from June 25 to Oct.1, 1836. He settled in San Augustine County in 1837 and was clerk of the district court at San Augustine. He located in the area of present Smith County in 1840. In 1861, he was a delegate in the state Secession Convention. • In 1896, the Texas Division of the United Daughters of the Confederacy met for the first time in Victoria. The United Daughters of the Confederacy was established in 1894 by the merger of state groups in Georgia, Missouri, and Tennessee. The Texas Division was organized by Kate Cabell Muse who had organized a local chapter in Dallas. The Texas Division has been active in marking historic locations and holds annual memorial observances to remember not only Confederate veterans but veterans of all wars. • In 1907, Martins Mill, located 10 miles southeast of Canton in south central Van Zandt County, was struck by a tornado that left no store remaining. The town rebuilt and by 1936 had a church, a cemetery, a seasonal industry, and several dwellings. Rural electrification reached Martins Mill in 1944. Available references say Martins Mill Independent School District was formed in 1964. • In 1936, the city of New Braunfels purchased 128 acres of Landa Park. Located near downtown, it is now a city park comprising 196 acres. Comal Springs and 14-acre Landa Lake are part of the park. Nearby Schlitterbahn opened in 1979. Merchant Joseph Landa purchased the property in 1860. His son Harry Landa took over the family businesses after Josephs death in 1896. During the 1890s, the property became known as Landas Pasture and was a popular picnic spot. Excursion trains from San Antonio and Austin brought tourists to Landas Park, which was hailed as one of the most popular resorts in the Southwest. Several major league teams, including the Philadelphia Phillies, use Landa Park as their spring training camp. • • • • • • Texas History Day-by-Day is compiled by retired newspaper journalist Bob Sonderegger (anglebob61@yahoo). A primary source of information is Handbook of Texas Online. Your comments or additions are welcome.
Posted on: Sun, 25 May 2014 14:23:18 +0000
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