The SCANDAL about Lottie Moon that every Baptist should know...

Lottie Moon was a nut job. Born in 1829, she was the beautiful daughter of a prominent Virginia doctor, who relocated his family to Ohio. At one point she almost married a man named Ambrose Burnside, (future Union General) but jilted him at the last minute. During the Civil War she fearlessly smuggled messages for the Confederacy across enemy lines, gallivanting around with Union brass including President Lincoln, and took her nuggets from eavesdropping straight back to Confederate HQ. She was not terribly religious... or at least her lying and treachery would not support that assumption... and she never went to China, as a missionary or anything else.

That's right, Lottie Moon. Right about now a lot of folks are reaching for the phone to call the preacher... ;)

Well, it turns out, as history would have it, there were TWO Lottie Moons, during the same period in history. And sadly, plenty of quasi-historians have melted the two together, thinking they are adding something to history. Some have taken great delight in exposing a great perceived weakness in the SBC traditions inspired by Lottie Moon. You, know, one of those “REST of the story” revelations like Paul Harvey used to do on the radio. Plenty of would-be historians are erroneously claiming the famous Southern Baptist missionary was a Confederate spy. I am happy to report that our more plain-faced Lottie Moon spent the war helping to manage her family plantation in Virginia. She did get a wonderful education, spoke several languages, and helped to provide medical assistance during the war. And yes, she followed her sister to be a missionary in China when 32 years old.

But wait a minute Southern Baptists... you are not off of the hook. My research has discovered something just as troubling... 

Baptists do not agree on what our Lottie Moon looked like... and there is great discrepancy there. It appears that somebody did not like the visage of the old Lottie, and replaced it with a sexier 1920's Lottie in recent times. That face has caught on, and appears in many of the Lottie websites, and even on the cover of a book! 

 

So I have provided my expertise and some pictures to help set the record straight.

 The REAL Lottie Moon, about 1875

You can see for yourself, there is definitely a problem... and since truthfulness and accuracy are paramount in our Kingdom cause, I thought I would try to puncture the new improved Lottie as best as can, before more damage is done to history.

 Lottie is pictured in the center, much older, and on the right about the time she embarked. Lottie Moon (Sorry Lottie!) had an enormous chin... and protruding lower lip, probably from dental issues.

Bottom line, there are several key points to observe, with these facts in mind. Faces do change over time. The ears and skin and muscles may sag, eyelids and lips as well. Noses might get somewhat larger... jaws wider, face and neck broader... but the bones stay the same. So we compare faces with the constants... cranium, nose bridge, chin... jawline, and to a less degree the variables. More importantly we study the relative ratio between the eyes and nose bridge... and the hairline and the cranium. Beyond that, similarities are only similarities. The new improved Lottie is an impostor. 

   The pretty lady on the left has a classic, large cranium... hairlines do not get lower wit age, but maybe higher... Faux Lottie also has a very short nose bridge (which also does not change), and her ears lay back almost flush to the head.  Overall, a very pretty lady. The Lottie photographed in China is actually quite different... especially the hairline, and those extremely arched eyebrows. But they could be mother and daughter. But they are not...

How can I be sure? That is easy. Lottie Moon of Baptist missionary fame was born in 1840. The photograph of the new improved Lottie is of a young woman... say around 30.

That makes the portrait having to be made around 1870. (Lottie was dead by 1912). The new improved Lottie is wearing clothing and hairstyle from around 1920 to 1935. She would have been born around 1890- when Lottie was around 50. There is no way that photograph used on the cover of the book was made in the 19^th Century. It saddens and scares me to think so few have noticed or cared, or knew better.

 These two Lotties line up perfectly (vertically). She gained mass with age...  (on the left) her face much wider, actually making her face more pleasing, not unusual at all for someone in their mid-sixties.

Baptists do have universities who might have been able to establish these simple facts and prevent all the confusion and misinformation. Instead we have to save Lottie's reputation as the Queen of the Knights of the Golden Circle!

We can do better than this! Can I get an Amen?!!!

For Posterity... and Grimes County Doctors: Part Six

This group was photographed standing in front of Dr. Kilpatrick's Drug Store on Washington Avenue, around 1880. The handsome tall fellow in the middle with the mustache is Dr. A. R. Kilpatrick. He came to Texas in 1861, trying to find a safe enclave from the Northern aggression, and brought all of his family, some twenty persons, and 162 slaves with him. He is a distant cousin and my people (Cushman side) came from his neighborhood in Louisiana to Texas 40 years after. Dr. Kilpatrick was not only a historian but a writer for the science journals of the day, such as Dr. John Bell's Medical Journal in Philadelphia, starting as a young man in 1838.

The following is a directory of sorts. I'm sure its not complete, but perhaps it is a good start in listing the earliest doctors of this area, including Washington on the Brazos, Navasota and Anderson.

Dr. Charles Ballinger Stewart, Member of first Convention 1832, ’33, Secretary to Mexican Supreme Court, 1834, member of Convention at Brazoria 1834, Secretary to Provisional Governor Smith 1835, FIRST to sign Declaration of Independence, 2nd Lieutenant Gov., helped write Constitution, Republic of Texas Army, bilingual, interpreter during capture of Santa Anna, designed Texas Flag adopted 1839, Delegate to Convention discussing Annexation 1845, many terms as State Legislature, lived in Montgomery and Navasota. Died 1885.

Dr. Anson Jones: Surgeon, 2nd Regiment, Battle of San Jacinto, last Pres TX, architect of annexation. (Lived at Washington on the Brazos.)

Dr. James B. Miller: came to Texas in 1836, President during the formation, Secretary of Treasury, ran for Governor. (Washington on the Brazos)

Dr. J. W. Lockhart: Came to Texas in 1839. Author, doctor, early day Indian negotiator. “Being a doctor meant something in those days. It meant long hard rides on horseback, with perhaps all the medicine in that part of the country stowed in one’s saddle bags. It meant treatment of people who knew little about care of themselves or sanitary matters. It meant homespun nursing, the care of the unlettered whites and of superstitious blacks. It meant little pay and long waits for that pay. Often Dr. Lockhart would be called on to follow a black man into the black night- perhaps fifteen miles, often twenty. One night when he could scarce see his hand before his face, he followed for fifteen miles through river bottoms the elusive lead of a white horse.” (Dr. Lockhart lived in Washington on the Brazos and later Chappell Hill.)

Benjamin Briggs Goodrich: Arrived in 1833. Served in Alabama Legislature, Delegate San Felipe 1835, and Washington on the Brazos, signor Texas Declaration of Independence, co-author of Texas Constitution, probably first doctor in Grimes County.

*Dr. Robert Caldwell Neblett: Came in 1840. First doctor in Navasota area.

Dr. Richard Fox Brenham. The City of Brenham was named for Dr. Richard Fox Brenham, soldier of fortune, volunteer in the Mier Expedition, imprisoned at Salado, killed when he led the charge to escape in 1843.

The 1850 Grimes County Census: Showed these doctors to be residents of Anderson: D. C. Dickson, E. W. Belding, Enoch Jones(Dentist), and Edmund Tucker.

1859 According to Dr. Kilpatrick the first doctor in Navasota was Dr. Armitage in 1859. I suppose he discounted Dr. Neblett as he did not live right in the town proper.

Dr. McFall, Dr. Alexander Waugh, and *Dr. Edward Arrel Pye came right after. Pye served in the Fourth Tx Inf, CSA, lost own son, his assistant, in the Yellow Fever epidemic.

1860 *Dr. David Alexander Jameson (fell victim to Yellow Fever while in Galveston, but survived) came to Navasota about 1863, fought Yellow Fever in quarantine camp in Calvert. Physician and surgeon for the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. Moved to Millican 1866 - 1884. County Health Officer, Brazos county; rode a circuit in the Brazos plantation bottom region, often gone for weeks. Camp Physician at convict camps in Conroe. 1884, returned to Navasota. Died in 1903

1861 Dr. Pryor H. Smith, Built Navasota's magnificent "P. A. Smith Hotel," on Railroad St., died in 1867 fighting Yellow Fever.

1864 *J. N. Baylor, 1st Lt. Surgeon, who ran a Civil War Hospital in Navasota. Covered forty miles square. Known to have stayed and fought the Yellow Fever epidemic valiantly. Elder, Presb Church, Died 1903.

1866 T. Newsom, ?. Beasseley d. 1867 YF, J. Hamilton Jones d. 1867 YF, Paul Smith d. 1867 YF, Ed Cade, J. P. Barnett , also Rx, Hightower, also Rx,

*Andrew Robert Kilpatrick : Active Mason, medical journalist, meteorologist, historian, memb. State Medical Asso., married four times!

1867 Dr. J. H. Kerr worked during Yellow Fever epidemic, J. W. Hill, also Rx

Also died of yellow Fever: Dr. A. Campbell, Dr. J. W. Russell.

1870 Dr. J. T. Montgomery

1871 Alexander G. Beaumont,

1876 Dr. William Goodrich

1878 *Dr. Alfred Huntington Ketchum: “Considered one of the most successful physicians in South Texas.” Graduate from Alabama Medical College with honors, came to “Old Washington” in 1874. Immune to Yellow Fever because he had the disease as a youth. Considered an expert on the disease. Moved to Navasota as Old Washington died out, in 1878. Director of First National bank, Vice President of the Navasota Telephone Company, and a druggist as well. Appointed as a Major and Surgeon of the Texas Volunteer Guards, in 1880, by Governor O. M. Roberts. In 1898, Texas health officers equipped him with a train to swiftly access various population centers during Yellow Fever breakout.

1885 *J. H. Neal: Came to Old Washington in 1866. The graduated from the Medical College of Alabama in 1877. Moved to Navasota in 1885. Died 1924.

Indianola, Texas: Wars, Storms & Pestilence

As far as towns in Texas were concerned, this one had an extra rough go of it. Few towns in the Lone Star State have hosted so many significant dramas- to just end up a memory on a historical marker.

Indianola has had several names, and is famous for several things, and yet there is almost nothing left of the original town site. Originally known as Indian Point, it is believed to be the site where the French explorer Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle first landed on Texas soil in 1685 during his disastrous incursion into Texas. Later it was an important port for early Texas, the terminus of the Old Goliad Road, which ultimately led to San Antonio. 

This was where German entrepreneur Prince Karl of Solms-Braunfels landed his first 400 brave emigrants to settle in Texas, in 1845. He named the village Karlshafen. This was their first home before moving on to the Guadalupe River ( present day New Braunfels ) and farther inland to Fredericksburg. Soon over 4000 more Germans arrived at Karlshafen, pushing the limits of the little Texas seaport. Unfortunately, the War with Mexico utilized every available wagon in Texas, and this meant overland transport of so many emigrants would be reduced to a veritable trail of tears on foot. Before they could be thinned out and taken inland to join their kinsmen, a terrible epidemic broke out at Karlshafen and many became very ill and over 800 German immigrants perished. Prince Karl came to be perceived as a sort of pariah, the land promoter who failed to keep his promises and provide homes to his immigrants. This may be the reason why locals elected to change the name of the fledgling port.

The U.S. Government landed a herd of 75 Army camels at Indianola before the Civil War. The Secretary of Defense, Jefferson Davis, thought they might be useful to conquer the West. This was not the worst or the last mistake he ever made. Across the bay was Matagorda, which became a serious rival to Indianola's development.

Matagorda around 1860

Fitting ground cover to symbolize Indianola's colorful and prickly past.

During the Civil War, Indianola was considered a geographically strategic spot, and Federal ships made blockades there to prevent shipping of Texas cotton to Mexico or Europe. This was intended to shut down the Texas economy, and thus hurt the Southern cause. There were some skirmishes in the region, but while the Rebs successfully repelled the Yankees at nearby Lavaca, at Indianola the Confederates were finally driven away, and the Union army occupied the area during the last years of the war. This is one of the few places in Texas where the Yankees took and kept control until the Confederate surrender... Perhaps the Texans found the Yankee occupation of Indianola a sort of a fitting punishment. When the Union forces finally left, the town of Indianola was in shambles. Around one-third of Indianola had been destroyed or cannibalized. Any personal belongings of its inhabitants (who had fled ) were gone as well.

BUT Indianola, like many coastal meccas, had an iron backbone and rebuilt.  It became one of the busiest ports in Texas next to Galveston. 

The end of the Taylor-Sutton Feud:

After a bloody series of gunfights all over Texas,  DeWitt County Deputy Sheriff William Sutton and his allies had killed a number of Taylors and their friends, and tired of the bloodbath,  Sutton fled to the ends of the earth to find sanctuary. That place in his estimation was Indianola... He and a partner were supposedly planning to meet their cattle herd already marching to Kansas, via the Mississippi and Kansas City. Traveling with their wives, no doubt they enjoyed a few fresh oysters while there... but in March of 1874 the Taylors, quite possibly led by the notorious gunslinger John Wesley Hardin,  tracked him down... found them waiting to embark on the first steamboat out of Texas...and made Billy Sutton and Gabriel Slaughter, (ironic?) his traveling partner, two of the EIGHTY THREE MEN KILLED IN THE DEADLIEST FEUD IN THE WEST,  and made Indianola the end of the trail... once again.

THEN, The trial of Sutton's murderers drew a huge audience- which was unaware of this incredible Indianola curse...

 The Indians, Yankees, gunslingers and diseases were bad, but were nothing compared to what came next. As hundreds flocked in to witness the prosecution of some of the last of  the Taylor clan, a storm began to brew.. a real storm... And the little coastal outpost was almost destroyed by a hurricane on September 15, 1875, killing as many as 300 hundred people... and Billy Taylor, one of the assassins who killed William Sutton, managed to escape during all of the chaos during the storm... weeks later the new leader of the Sutton faction was murdered...

And then Indianola was wiped out completely by another hurricane in 1886.

Today, all that can be detected of the original town is an oyster-shell concrete cistern. Fresh water was trapped from rains into this primitive concrete tank... and it still holds water. The bluebonnets stand proudly and wave in the brutal coastal breeze as if to say, "brave Texans toiled here."






I once met a lady whose mother, Nora Currie Sweetland had sculpted a statue of La Salle back in the thirties. She said it had been placed at Indianola and wondered what had happened to it.

Nearby a giant granite statue of Robert Sieur de La Salle looms over the lapping waters of Matagorda Bay, but it is of much later artistry. La Salle's "Ft. St. Louis" was a few miles inland from Indianola, but was attacked and destroyed by Karankowa Indians while he was on his way to find help on the upper Mississippi. There are two more statues in Navasota of the ill-fated French explorer, ( near College Station), where La Salle is believed to have been murdered by his men. Artifacts from his expedition can be seen at Bay City.

My friend Joe Babcock carved this faithful replica of La Salle's ship La Belle, which has been found and excavated in Matagorda Bay.

In 1963, Texans placed this marker as a memorial to the role of the Confederacy at Indianola.

As a youngster, I learned the treachery of Matagorda Bay by trying to water ski on its waters. Each time I went down, chunks of flesh were knocked off of my shins by the infinite formations of oyster reefs below the surface. They would have easily destroyed a small ship like La Salle's with a little help from the coastal breezes.

My lady friend would have been disappointed to know her mother's statue had been wrecked by a another hurricane (Carla?) many years ago. The base can still be found at the local cemetery. It too fell victim to the curse that swallowed La Salle and most of his ships and his hapless French colony, as well as hundreds of German emigrants and eventually... a whole town.

A wild cat hiding in the shrubs is the only creature that calls the old townsite home. I imagined if reincarnation were true, it was La Salle himself, watching vainly over the place where his hopes and vision once lived. I threw the cat a piece of my turkey sandwich and he stared with a cold stare of royalty, as if food meant nothing to him... and I left Indianola, which seems to be the door of several curses in Texas history.

A stone marker erected in 1936 to remember Indianola.

The greatest Aggie... and second greatest Texan [Top Ten in Texas series]

As Texans, we have lost our identification with the mystique so commonly attached to our State. The Wild West is as foreign to us as it is to some Japanese tourist. In fact we have much more in common with that person from the other side of the world, than our own predecessors. Your home is full of things manufactured in Taiwan, Korea, Pakistan or Japan, but how many things can you point to and know that they were made in Texas? More specifically, what in your material sphere speaks of the Republic of Texas, or the culture that established your town?

Part of my goal as a writer and an artist is to keep my culture in touch with…. My culture. The Navasota Chamber of Commerce once adopted a slogan I really liked: “Where Texas is still Texas,” and I was really excited that somebody else appreciated the importance of taking our history and cultural identity serious. Austin wants to keep its weirdness. We should want keep our unique character as well. One way we can establish what that is, and protect our cultural identity, and hopefully some of our material culture as well, is to know the people who forged this community. You have already met some of them, like Mance Lipscomb and Carl F. Steinhagen in this blog.

I want you to know the essential personalities of this wonderful region, who gave us our specialness. And one of them was Sul Ross, a worthy member of my "Top Ten in Texas" list. Texas' history patriarch J. W. Wilbarger called him the "Chevalier Bayard of Texas." So let me just give you the highlights of the life of this extraordinary Texan. Lawrence Sullivan Ross.

After leaving Iowa, his family had come to Texas just three years after independence was won, in 1839. He was just a baby when they settled up in Robertson County on the Little River near present day Cameron, where they lived in constant fear and harassment from Comanches. The family moved to a more civilized environment in Austin and later moved to Waco.

Lawrence "Sul" Ross was just a boy when he participated in his first skirmish with Indians. He would grow up to become one of the most famous Indian fighters in the West. He began his formal education across the river at Independence, at the first site of Baylor University, then transferred to Wesleyan University in Alabama.

He came home for the summer, and at age nineteen, found himself acting as an impromptu captain of a local militia of 135 Tonkawa and Caddo scouts, when his father fell ill. They were headed to assist the U. S. Cavalry in finding and fighting the Comanches, after numerous atrocities. His father was the Indian agent at the Brazos Indian Reservation, and when he became unable to travel, the Tonkawas eagerly elected the young White brave as their War Chief.

The Indian scouts were more than game and knew right where to find the ferocious and elusive Comanches, and led young Sul Ross and the cavalry unit into a life or death battle inside the very heart of Comancheria, the lair of the legendary Chief Buffalo Hump. Way up in Indian Territory, in the Wichita Mountains, they descended upon 500 or more Comanches, stampeded their horses, and began a five hour battle where Ross took a bullet and an arrow, while retrieving a White captive child. The Comanches were subdued and scattered, but his wounds caused him to beg his comrades to kill him and put him out of his misery. When General Winfield Scott heard of his bravery, he immediately offered him a commission in the Army, but Sul shook off the glory of Indian fighting and went back to finish school.

• After graduation, he learned that no one had claimed the little girl he had risked his life to rescue in the Indian Territory, so he adopted her himself and named her Lizzie, after his bride to be. He got married, joined the Texas Rangers, was elected captain, and by 1860 he was literally ranging under the direction of Governor Sam Houston. He and his Rangers tracked down Chief Peta Nokona, the scourge of the Llano Estacado, on the Pease river, and with a token detachment of U.S. troops, killed him and many of his braves. In the process he solved one of the greatest mysteries in Texas lore, and that was the whereabouts of Cynthia Ann Parker, the most famous white captive in Texas, taken decades before, and now the great Chief’s wife.

• This made young Sul Ross a veritable Texas giant. Soon he was leading the way in the War Between the States, rising quickly through the ranks, becoming one of the youngest generals in the Confederate States of America.

• At age 26, he returned after the war to farm near Waco. He and Lizzie had eight children, six of whom lived to maturity.

• In late 1873, Sul Ross was elected Sheriff of McLennan County. He hired his brother as a deputy, and within two years had captured over 700 outlaws. One of the more notorious was Belle Starr and some of her gang.

• He served as a delegate to the 1875 Texas Constitutional Convention, where his name and reputation grew rapidly.

• In 1880 he was elected to the Texas Senate as a compromise candidate.

• In 1886 he was elected by a landslide as the 19th Governor of Texas. And then to a second term, overseeing the construction and dedication of the Texas State Capitol building.

• In 1890 Lawrence Sullivan Ross became the first official President of Texas Agricultural and Mechanical College. We call it Texas A&M. That’s not all, the college had been traditionally run by a faculty chairman and was in desperate straits, even threatening to close its doors, when Sul took over. As soon as he accepted the challenge, enrollment skyrocketed. Understanding well the needs of a military and agricultural school, Sul Ross rescued the Aggies as much as he had Cynthia Ann Parker.

• Outside of Sam Houston, no other man has left such an imprint on the life and lore of the Brazos Valley, as Ranger Captain, General, Senator, Governor, and Texas A&M President as L. S. Ross.


"Texas, though her annals be brief, counts upon her roll of honor the names of many heroes, both living and dead. Their splendid services are the inestimable legacies of the past and present, to the future. Of the latter, it is the high prerogative of the State to embalm their names and memories as perpetual examples to excite the generous emulation of the Texan youth to the latest posterity. Of the former, it is our pleasant province to accord them those honors which their services in so eminent a degree entitle them to receive. Few lands since the days of the Scottich Chiefs have furnished material upon which to predicate a Douglas, a Wallace, or a Ravenswood; and the adventures of chivalric enterprise, arrant quest of danger, and the personal combat were relegated, together with the knights's armorial trappings, to the trusty archives of Tower and Pantheon, until the Comanche Bedouins of the Texan plains tendered in bold defiance the savage gauntlet to the pioneer knights of progress and civilization. And though her heraldic roll glows with the names of a Houston, a Rusk, Lamar, McCulloch, Hays, Chevellier, which illumine the pages of her history with an effulgence of glory, Texas never nurtured on her maternal bosom a son of more filial devotion, of more loyal patriotism, or indomitable will to do and dare, than L. S. Ross."

From "Ross's Texas Brigade"

It's time to forgive our heroes.

The other day, a friend of mine and I were riding somewhere and talking about Sam Houston, and he said, "Wasn’t he just a drunk?" And stunned and a little surprised, I gave some kind of lame defense. Yes he was a drunk. A big one, during a large part of his life. 

He was also a fearless young soldier, wounded in the War of 1812. Before that he had lived for a time with the Cherokee Indians, and was considered a member of their tribe. He was a school teacher, a U. S. Congressman and then the Governor of Tennessee. The General of the Texas Army who pulled off one of the most celebrated upsets in military history, winning independence for his new nation, the Republic of Texas. He would be elected President and later serve as Governor of his beloved Texas. And yes, he got drunk, and divorced, like most men did in those days.

And yet, it is none of these accomplishments which have captured my heart, as much as the one that got him in so much trouble at the very end of his career. All of Texas was eager for war against the United States, her own wet-nurse. Houston stood nearly alone, arguing against the War Between the States. When Texas went for secession, and war, he stepped down as Governor. John F. Kennedy was so moved by his costly and unpopular stand, he told of Houston’s convictions in his book, Profiles in Courage.

Like all great men, Houston had his rivals, who never missed an opportunity to find fault with him. Many were officers who fought under him during his battles, and knew just how kind history had been to Sam Houston. They could not enjoy the fact that some GREATER FORCE had delivered him and smote his enemies. An All Star cast of jealous malcontents and lesser generals nipped at his heels his whole career.

What might have happened, to have turned the brawling, barbarian drunkard into such an unparalleled man of history? Certainly Houston was a man of his times, and that explains his remarkable contradictions to some satisfaction. But he was much more complex than that. There were traits of character that even demon alcohol could not drown. When he became a man and left home, his mother presented him a ring, with the word HONOR inscribed in it. That was the building block of the man that history has failed to do justice. Sam Houston had been in Texas years when a preacher finally counseled with him and satisfied his doubts about Christianity. Sam Houston, the hero of Horseshoe Bend and San Jacinto, the Cherokee known as Colonneh, the Governor of Texas, walked down the muddy banks of a spring-fed creek near Independence, Texas and submitted himself to baptism. He became a follower of Jesus.

No doubt the angels sang an extra verse of Halleleuia. And ol’ General Sam put away the bottle and other childish things, and became the man his last and most influential wife expected him to be.

When the State began to rumble about secession, and whipping the Yankees, Houston went on a whirlwind tour, warning and beseeching Texans to show restraint. In the end, Houston died of pneumonia during the conflict, his son fighting for a cause he refused, his friends numbered on one hand, considered a "traitor to Texas" and the South.

Of course history proved him correct on all counts. He predicted the South would lose, and it would be decimated because of the war, and the price for the institution of Slavery was too high, and Texas should lead the way to Southern Abolition, or be forever punished for her part in the Confederacy. The man that stood against the winds of war, trying to save a State that he had shaped with his own hands, and losing every worldly status he had earned with blood sweat and tears, was not the famous drunk known for laying around with Chief Jolly in Arkansas. He was the man who had the guts to take a dip in the spring-fed creek at Independence, Texas, where he learned the true measure of a man, and his real potential for greatness in God’s eyes.

Even Dr. Lockhart, who undoubtedly had sympathies towards the South, spoke fondly of Houston as the “noblest of men,”:  "…But Texas was then a weak and very unpromising child, and was threatened many times with collapse; but when that grand old man, Sam Houston, would put his fingers on its pulse the arteries would commence to flow with renewed vigor. By his great wisdom and judgment Sam Houston brought the tottering child through the many trials which it seemingly had to pass..."

It is hard today for us here in Navasota, who live our mundane lives without much drama or excitement, to imagine that just across the river, less than ten miles as the crow the flies, a nation was born and a man like Houston lived and worked there for a legendary empire, that has inspired the world. When you live here in the Center of the Universe, you take things like that for granted.

I have written recently about our faded cultural memory, the loss of giants in our cultural identity like King Robert the Bruce, how their lives and accomplishments are all but erased from our books and stories and collective consciousness. And I fear that old General Sam will devolve from the old drunk to nothing at all. The fact that we so easily berate our national heroes only feeds the cynisism we suffer from these days. We need to forgive them for their human failures as we study their magnificence. As best as I can tell, our generation is not doing any better, and a man like Sam Houston, someone of vision, courage and unwavering conviction, would be a welcome addition to the political scene today.

When we do not care enough for history that we ignore it, or even scoff at it, we are doomed to repeat it.