A history of Texas and Texans, Part 164

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 906

USA > Texas > A history of Texas and Texans > Part 164

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ROLLEN J. WINDROW. The present county engineer for McLennan county is an expert in his line, was at one time instructor in the Agricultural and Mechanical Col- lege at Bryan, and has had a varied career in practical work of his profession, in the federal service and on

railroads and state and local public works. Like a num- ber of other progressive counties in Texas, McLennan has undertaken a campaign for a large number of public improvements, including improved highways, bridges, a promotion of suitable drainage and other works that will enable the county to realize to the best advantage its fine resources, and the county was fortunate to secure the services of so able an engineer as Mr. Windrow to give his technical skill and experience in carrying out the many improvements which are now being planned.

Rollen J. Windrow represents one of the old families in southern Texas, his great-grandparents having come from Tennessee to Texas when children. Mr. Windrow himself is a native of San Saba, Texas, where he was born in June, 1885. His father, Cleveland C. Windrow, was born at Weimar in Colorado county, in 1852, was a contractor, and died in 1909. The maiden name of the mother was Mary Crenshaw, who was born at Weimar in 1854, and now lives with her son Rollen in Waco. The five children are named as follows: Beulah, Burk, Irene, Alice and Rollen. Beulah married George Houghton, a merchant at Temple; Burk, who died at Del Rio in 1910, was a contractor, and by his marriage to Pearl Love left one child; Irene married Marvin Purdom, a railroad engineer living at Van Buren, Arkansas, and their one child is Rollen; Alice married A. G. MeGalvin, an electrical engineer living at Dallas.

Rollen J. Windrow, who is unmarried and whose home is at 918 North Twelfth street, in Waco, while a boy displayed marked inclination for the mechanical and technical lines which have finally brought him into his present possessions. His higher education was acquired at the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Bryan, where he specialized in civil engineering, and in 1906 engaged in practical work. In 1912 the college at Bryan granted him the degree of Civil Engineer, his previous work having won him the Bachelor of Science degree in 1906. From 1906 to 1907 Mr. Windrow was employed by the general government on river improvements in the vicinity of Vicksburg, in Mississippi; he was with the Santa Fe Railroad from 1907 to 1908; then with the Texas Central Railroad from 1908 to 1909, and again with the Santa Fe from 1909 to 1911. In the latter year Mr. Windrow returned to his Alma Mater as instructor in civil engineering, and remained a member of the fac- ulty of the college until 1913. In the latter year came his appointment as county engineer for McLennan county, and since then his home has been in Waco.

Mr. Windrow affiliates with the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks and is a Royal Arch Mason. His church home is the Methodist, and his political af- filiation is with the Democratic party. Mr. Windrow is an associate member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. As an enterprising Waco citizen he bas a membership in the Young Men's Business League. Out- side of his profession, which is both his business and bis hobby, Mr. Windrow finds occasional recreation and re- laxation in a fishing trip and is a lover of outdoor life of all kinds.

NOTLY O. WORTHAM. Among the county officials of McLennan county, none has performed bis duties with greater fidelity and efficiency, competence and economy than Notly O. Wortham, whose administration of the county treasurer's office covers five years. Mr. Wortham has lived in MeLennan county for nearly half a century, was at one time a cattle herder, as a result of industry and sticking to his job acquired a good farm, was in business at Waco many years, and his record in every capacity has been such as to entitle him to the confidence displayed by his fellow citizens in electing him to his present office.

Notly O. Wortbam was born in Graves county, Ken- tucky, March 8, 1848, a son of David D. and Amelia P. (Kelly) Wortham. The father, who was born in Vir- ginia in 1804, and came to Texas in 1862, was a farmer

BaconSamdos

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by occupation and died in 1872. The mother was born in Tennessee about 1820 and died in 1882. Their twelve children are named as follows: Elizabeth, deceased; Minerva, deceased; Charity; Susan; Patrick K., de- ceased; John, deceased; Emily, deceased; Notly O .; Eliza, deceased; Addie; May; Warren, deceased.

Mr. Wortham was about fourteen years old when the family moved to Texas, and his education was largely acquired in the common schools of his native state of Kentucky. His first employment away from the home farm was as a cattle herder for one year, followed by a situation as ranch manager or foreman for a similar' time, and he then invested his modest capital in two hundred acres of land in McLennan county. This land was cul- tivated under his management in cotton and corn for five years, and he then sold out and moved to the city of Waco. For twenty years Mr. Wortham was asso- ciated with W. K. Pink in the general merchandise busi- ness, and in that time became one of the most popular citizens of McLennan county. In 1908, during his first election to the office of county treasurer, and by the votes of the people his administration has been con- tinued down to the present time.

At Waco, on September 15, 1891, Mr. Wortham mar- ried Miss Hannah Hopkins, of that city. Their three children are Ruth, Notly H., and Clarence K. Mr. Wortham has long given active support to the dominant political party in Texas, and outside of his public and political work and his business, his chief interest is cen- tered in the Christian church, of which he is an elder. His home, which he owns, is a comfortable residence at the corner of Fifteenth and Henry streets.

BACON SAUNDERS, M. D. The limits assigned to this brief review of one of the most eminent surgeons of Texas and the southwest make it necessary that the biographer confine himself to tracing the origin and progress of a rare professional career; to present briefly the life of a prominent citizen as it has been seen by the mass of unprofessional people among whom it has been spent; to note the high professional honors which it has received; to give but the outline of a life that can only be justly and adequately considered by the professional writer and appreciated by the reader who has a thor- ough knowledge of the subjects which have engaged his activities, and can follow the line of original investiga- tion which it has been his fortune to make in some im- portant lines of surgery.

It can be stated without the possibility of gainsaying that Bacon Saunders is today one of the surgeons of first rank in the United States. Twenty years ago when he first located at Fort Worth he had a reputation for skill and ability of more than local measure, and his services have since then been brought into a constantly enlarging field so that for a number of years he has had scarcely a peer in the entire southwest. One of the most coveted honors of the profession was given him re- cently at the institution of the American College of Sur- geons, when Dr. Saunders was made a Fellow of the Col- lege. This organization, patterned after the Royal Col- lege of Surgeons in England, is designed to afford some method of clear distinction for those members of the medical profession who are specially equipped for sur- gical work, and membership in the American College of Surgeons is an index of high proficiency in surgery even more than membership in the American Medical Asso- ciation indicates standing and ability in the general field of medicine. A son of a pioneer Texas physician, whose career received some special attention in the fol- lowing paragraph, Bacon Saunders was born at Bowling Green, Kentucky, January 5, 1855. When he was two years old the family came to Texas, settling first at Dal- las, where they lived until 1869, and then moving to Bonham in Fannin county. His education was begun in private school at Dallas, and when the family moved to Bonham he entered Carlton College, a noted institution

of its day, where he was graduated in 1873, receiving his degree of Bachelor of Arts when only eighteen years old. The following two years were spent in teaching at Bon- ham, and at the same time he was a diligent student of medicine in his father's office. He then entered the Med- ical Department of the University of Louisville, where he was graduated M. D. March 1, 1877, the honor man of a class of one hundred and ninety members. Return- ing to Bonham, he entered upon the practice of his chosen calling, and did a successful professional business there until January, 1893. He was the partner of his father at Bonham, and it was the surgical branch of the firm's practice to which he gave special attention. His removal from Bonham to Fort Worth was due to the many calls upon his ability as a surgeon, and the superior railroad facilities at Fort Worth enabled him to attend distant cases with greater convenience. For several years Dr. Saunders was a partner of the late W. A. Adams, and later with F. D. Thompson, and while with them paid some attention to general medical practice. During the past fifteen years, however, Dr. Saunders has confined himself to the practice of surgery, and his achievements have been such as to place him at the head of his pro- fession in the state.

Dr. Saunders was one of the founders of the medical department of Fort Worth University, and is now presi- dent of the faculty of the Medical Department of the Texas Christian University, and professor of surgery and clinical surgery in that institution. He has considered his position as a teacher of young men in preparation for the responsible duties of medical life, a duty higher than any private interest, and has frequently sub- ordinated personal welfare to his sense of public obliga- tion. However, he has received the emoluments as well as the honors of the profession since his skill has brought to him some of the most remunerative practice in north Texas. Dr. Saunders is chief surgeon of the Fort Worth & Denver Railway, of the Trinity & Brazos Valley Rail- way, the Wichita Valley Railway, and local surgeon for the Texas and Pacific, the International and Great Northern, the St. Louis & Southwestern, and the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe. He is consulting medical di- rector of the Fort Worth Life Insurance Company. Dr. Saunders is essentially a professional man and has no political aspirations. He is a director in the American National Bank of Fort Worth, president and director of the Commonwealth Bonding and Casualty Insurance Com- pany of Fort Worth, a director in the International Fire Insurance Company of Fort Worth. He has never been indifferent to the duties of citizenship, and at all times has taken an interest in matters that affect his home city or its people. Dr. Saunders was one of the founders and an ex-president of the North Texas Medical Associ- ation; is an ex-president of the Texas State Medical So- ciety; is a former official of the International Railway Surgeons' Association, and is a past vice president of the Southern Surgical and Gynecological Society, a body whose membership is restricted to those who have at- tained acknowledged skill in surgery. The greater part of his local hospital work has been done as surgeon in charge of St. Joseph's Infirmary in Fort Worth. Dr. Saunders among his professional associates has always been noted for his enormous energy and vitality, and those constitutional resources have stood him in good stead in the long and arduous practice to which he has devoted himself for more than twenty years.

On October 31, 1877, Dr. Saunders was married to Miss Ida Caldwell, a native of Tennessee, and the daugh- ter of Rev. Tillman A. Caldwell, who located with his family at Bonham, Texas. Mrs. Saunders was one of the women members of the Texas World's Fair Commission in 1904. They are the parents of two children: Roy F., who has followed in the footsteps of his father, and is a rising yonng physician and surgeon of Fort Worth; and Linda Ray, who married Mr. Charles D. Reimers, president of Exline-Reimers Company of Fort Worth.

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PAUL DEWITT PAGE. A member of the Bastrop county bar since 1896, Judge Page has gained prominence both as a lawyer and as a business man, being president of the Citizens State Bank of Bastrop. His fellow citizens have further shown their confidence in his ability and integrity in choosing him again and again for positions of honor and trust.

Paul DeWitt Page was born at Evergreen, Conecuh county, Alabama, in 1868, a son of Patrick Donovan and Anna DeWitt (Mitchell) Page. His father, a native of Alabama, was educated in that state for the profession of law, was married there, and in 1872 moved to Texas, settling in Bryan, Brazos county, where he successfully practiced law until his death in 1880. The mother died at Bryan in 1885.

Judge Page was four years old when he came to Texas, received his early education in the schools of Bryan, was a student at the University of Texas, and read law in the office of Orgain & Garwood in Bastrop, where he was admitted to the bar in December, 1896. He at once began the practice of his profession in part- nership with E. F. Higgins, who is now associate justice of the 8th court of civil appeals at El Paso. This firm was Page & Higgins, a partnership which continued with mutual satisfaction until 1899, when Judge Hig- gins removed to Houston. In 1898 Mr. Page was elected county attorney of Bastrop county, and consented to continued service in that position for three successive terms or six years, until 1904. In that year he was elected county judge of Bastrop county, and looked after the fiscal administration of the county for two terms until 1908. In 1900 Judge Page joined in part- nership with J. H. Miley under the firm name of Page & Miley, and they were partners in a large practice until 1909. Thereafter Judge Page was alone until April, 1913, when he and James S. Jones made the firm of Page & Jones.

Judge Page in a quiet way has had a very prominent part in polities and civic affairs, it being a character- istie of his to perform much publie service but in such inconspicuous manner that he attracts less attention than many men of less ability. In 1908 he served as a delegate from the Ninth congressional district of Texas to the Democratic national convention at Denver; was a member of the Texas state Democratic executive com- mittee in 1910, serving until 1912; and since 1909 has been chairman of the Bastrop county Democratie execu- tive committee. At this writing, in 1914, he is a can- didate for state senator from the Nineteenth senatorial district. Judge Page has been president of the Citizens State Bank of Bastrop since its organization in 1909, and is also president of the Bastrop Abstract Company. Fraternally he has affiliations with Gamble Lodge No. 244, A. F. & A. M .; Bastrop Chapter, R. A. M .; Smith- ville Commandery, K. T .; El Mina Temple, Order of the Mystic Shrine; the Woodmen of the World and the Knights of Pythias. In July, 1899, occurred his mar- riage to Miss Blanche Garwood, daughter of Major C. B. Garwood, of Bastrop, and sister of H. M. Garwood, of Houston. Mrs. Page died in April, 1911, leaving two children: Paul D. Page, Jr., and Wilmer Garwood Page. On April 16, 1913, Judge Page married Miss Mary R. Higgins, daughter of W. T. Higgins, of Bas- trop, and a sister of his former law partner, Judge E. F. Higgins.

WALTER W. JENKINS. Descended from old and hon- ored families of Virginia and North Carolina, William W. Jenkins, county auditor of Williamson county, Texas, has displayed in his character and his public service many of the traits which made the Jenkins family prominent in the various avenues of life in which their activities were maintained. Mr. Jenkins was for a num- ber of years identified with educational work, in which he displayed a high order of ability that commended him

to the people as one fitted for public service. He has never betrayed the trust placed in him by his fellow- citizens, and is today accounted one of the popular and efficient publie servants of his part of the state.

Mr. Jenkins is a native son of Williamson county, bis parents being Byron and Rashel (Jolly) Jenkins. His father was born March 10, 1838, in Lincoln county, North Carolina, and is a son of Ben and Fannie (Rhodes) Jen- kins, whose family settled in Virginia at an early period and subsequently moved to North Carolina. Byron Jen- kins came to Texas with his mother, his father baving passed away before, in 1849. His maternal great-grand- father, Elisha Rhodes, had come from North Carolina to Webberville, Texas, in 1844, and in 1849 returned and brought his family, including Byron and his two younger brothers and his mother to Texas, settling twelve miles north of Austin. Of the thirteen who came at that time, Byron Jenkins is the only one now surviving, and he with bis wife now makes his home on the farm near George- town. The children are: Walter, of this review; Jennie, who is the wife of L. P. Rhodes, of Marble Falls, Texas; Ben, who is a farmer near Bartlett, Texas; Albert, a farm- er near Georgetown; Julia, who is the wife of T. U. Rid- ings, of Hughes Springs, Texas; and Nannie, who lives at home with her parents. Byron Jenkins joined the Texas Ranger service under Captain Dalrymple, and continued in the service on the frontier from six months prior to the Civil war until after its close. Mrs. Jen- kins is a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John G. Jolly, who settled in Texas in 1850. Her mother is still living at the age of eighty-eight years, near Round Rock, Texas, while her father is dead. A blacksmith by profession, he served throughout the Civil war in the Confederate army, being in charge of an engineering corps, and in after years was one of the builders of the first Methodist church in Austin.

Walter W. Jenkins, after completing the curriculum of the common schools, entered the Southwestern Uni- versity. Subsequently he graduated from the Texas State Normal School. He began his work as an educator in 1891, and continued to teach public schools until 1905, and from 1898 until 1910 was an instructor in the South- western University Summer Normal School. He was elected county superintendent of publie instruction in 1905 and served in that capacity until 1910, when he resigned during his third term in office to accept the position of county auditor of Williamson county, and from November of that year until the present has ably discharged the duties of office. A man of the highest character he has fulfilled every expectation of the peo- ple who have imposed upon him the trust of public office. The affairs of his department are being managed in a thorough and businesslike manner, and his courteous manner has won him friends among all classese of people.

In 1901 Mr. Jenkins was married to Miss Blanche Mason, daughter of Neal Mason, one of the pioneers of Texas, who came here from North Carolina and is now deceased. Mrs. Jenkins' mother is still living. One daughter, Ruth, bas been born to Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins is interested in fraternal matters, being a Chapter Mason and a member of the Woodmen of the World. He belongs to the Presbyterian church.

PROFESSOR HENRY F. TRIPLETT. One of the foremost educators in Texas is the present city superintendent of schools at Beaumont, Professor Henry F. Triplett, who has been continuously identified with the work of the school room and the supervision of schools in Texas for the past twenty-one years. He is doing much to give vital- ity and increased efficiency to the school system of Beau- mont, and is an important contributor to the modern progress of education in his part of the state. Prac- tieally all of his active career has been spent in educa- tional work and in affairs of scholarship. Henry F. Triplett was born in Loudon county, Virginia, in 1854, a

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son of Thomas Mason and Vianna (Sileott) Triplett. Both parents were members of old-time families of Vir- ginia. His father served throughout the war in the Confederate army, was by profession a musical director, but his practical work was in the field of stock raising and farming. In 1870 the father brought his family to Missouri, locating near Sedalia, in Pettis county.

Henry F. Triplett, until he was sixteen years of age, lived in Loudon county, Virginia, and accompanied the family on its removal to Missouri. There he grew to manhood on a farm, and in 1880 was graduated with the degree of B. Pd., from the state normal college at War- rensburg, and has been almost continuously identified with educational activities since then. Throughout his career he has been specializing so far as possible in science, and he studied in the Missouri School of Mines and Metallurgy at Rolla, and in the Illinois Medical College at Chicago, specializing in bacteriology and chemistry. His home has been in Texas since 1893, and during his residence in this state he pursued his studies in the Fort Worth University, where he received the de- gree of B. S. in 1900, and the degree of M. S. in 1903. Before coming to Texas, he had been superintendent of the city schools at Sweet Springs, Missouri, for seven years, and for three years at Harrisonville, Missouri. In 1893 he became superintendent of schools at Ennis, Texas, a position he held for ten years, and since that time has been superintendent of schools at Beaumont. He is an ex-member of the State Board of Normal Examiners and of the State Board of Examiners, and was an instructor in the Texas University Summer School several sessions. As superintendent of schools Professor H. F. Triplett has done a large and distinctive work. He has kept up the effi- ciency of the school system to its very highest mark, and has made the schools the co-ordinate factor in the in- stitutional life of the city. During this decade the local school system has improved in every way to a greater degree than could be claimed by any previous decade. There has been a notable increase in the school popula- tion and in the school facilities. There are now seven school buildings for white pupils and four for colored children. The four latest buildings, completed in 1910, are the Pennsylvania Avenue School, the George O'Brien Millard School, the Averill School, and the Fletcher School, all of the most modern construction, and among the best of their kind anywhere. The school attendance for the year 1913-14 was 4,450.

Professor Triplett has membership in the Texas State, the Southern, and the National Educational Association. He is a former president of the State Association, and has been a member of its executive committee since 1904. He is the author of several books, among them being "Civies: Texas and Federal, " the adopted text on civics for the schools of Texas, 1914-1920.

Religiously he belongs to the Methodist church, and is prominent in Masonry, having taken the Knights Tem- plar degrees in the York Rite, thirty-second degree of the Scottish Rite, and is affiliated with Galveston Con- sistory, and with EI Mina Temple of the Mystic Shrine in Galveston.

Mrs. Triplett before her marriage was Miss Amanda Wheeler, who was born in Loudon county, Virginia. Her family came to Missouri at the same time with the Tripletts in 1870. The four children in the family of Professor and Mrs. Triplett are: Mrs. Lena Milam, Mrs. Olive Broek, Mrs. Juanita Alexander, and Mason Triplett. Mason Triplett, the only son, is engaged in the lumber business at Beaumont.

TEMPLE DOSWELL SMITH. The standard of every com- munity is measured by the character of its financial insti- tutions, for unless they are stable, the credit of the munic- ipality and its people is impeached. The Bank of Fred- ericksburg, Texas, is an institution which grew out of the needs of its locality, and was organized by a mau of ex- ceptional standing, whose interests have been centered in

it, and whose honor and personal fortune are bound up in its life. Under such desirable conditions, a bank is bound to maintain a high standard, and make money for its stockholders, and at the same time to safeguard the interests of its depositors. For more than a quarter of a century, Temple D. Smith has been one of the lead- ing financiers of Gillespie county, Texas, and has been president of the Bank of Fredericksburg since he organ- ized that institution in 1887. He is a native of Hanover county, Virginia, where his birth occurred August 22, 1846, and is a son of J. Snellson and Paulina Thilman (Doswell) Smith. The former was a son of Snellson Smith, who married Martha Bickerton Lewis, a member of the eminent Lewis family in Virginia. The Smith family is of English ancestry. Mr. Smith's father was a planter in Hanover county, Virginia, prior to the out- break of the struggle between the North and the South. In 1860 he removed with his family to Marion county, Indiana, establishing a home near Indianapolis. His wife was a member of a prominent Virginia family. She was a daughter of Paul T. Doswell, a son of James Doswell, who was a captain of infantry during the Revo- lutionary war and who married Jane Thilman. Paul T. Doswell married Fannie Gwathmey, of Welsh ances- try, and Major Tom Doswell, his brother, was also a prominent member of this family.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 164

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960 Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society Number of Pages: 906

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 906