History

   EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the second installment of a multi-part series on the impact of the 1918 Pandemic on Matagorda County.
   As you will read, the disease affected lots of residents.

   EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first of a multi-part series on the impact of the 1918 Pandemic on Matagorda County.
   As you will read, the disease affected lots of residents.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: I came across this history by chance and was impressed by its perspective - from the beginning of the 20th Century.
      Historical Review of South-East Texas illustrated, Volume 1,
Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago  1910
Transcribed by FoFG mj
   Matagorda municipality was created by the Coahuila- Texas legislature, March 6,1834. 
   It’s jurisdiction was over the country between the Lavaca and Caney creek, this being the southwest portion of the Austin colonies. 
   The provisional Texas government in December, 1835, created the municipality of Jackson from the west side of Matagorda.  
   The east and west boundaries were thus fixed as they still remain, and when Wharton county was formed in 1846 the north boundary was made. 
   The municipality was organized as a county under the act of congress, December 20, 1836. 
   The town of Matagorda was incorporated by the act of December 14, 1837. 

   Back in the year of 1936, with the country just pulling out from under the shroud of depression, the 203rd Coast Artillery from Missouri came to bleak, muddy Camp Hulen for National Guard maneuvers.
   So it was that a young armory custodian by the name of Norman E. Runyon got his first look at Palacios.
   A Lt. McGlothlin, close friend to Runyon, noticed that a family with his name lived here, so he went out to pay a call on the J. F. McGlothlin family.
   While visiting with the family, he met their daughter, Gladys McGlothlin, and mentioned her to Runyon.  
   So it was that he first heard of the woman who was to later become the wife, although he didn’t meet her until 1940 and they weren’t married until 1944.
   Runyon, who now operates Runyon Chiropractic offices here and is active in the Chamber of Commerce and the First Baptist Church, was born in Vernon County, Missouri.

   According to Ecclesiastes 3:1, 2ab, and 8 there is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under heaven - A time to give birth, and a time to die; A time to love, and a time to hate; A time for war, and a time for peace. So whether one loves, hates, engages in war, or settles in a reign of peace; death is inevitable. All men must come to that end.
   So it was with SSgt. Parks during the Vietnam Conflict.
   SSgt. Parks represented a legacy of military men before him — his uncle Timothy Parks who was a victim of WW I; and many cousins and friends since him. 
   It was in his nature to service his country. 
   He served with all the dignity and perseverance that was a part of his training from his family, friends, teachers and commanding officers.
   Life was not always a bed of roses for him, but he accepted the hardships and disasters without relinquishing.

   “Who is This Man: Salute to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” is the theme of Donnye Stone’s annual Black History Month exhibit in the lobby of the Matagorda County Museum for February. 
   Stone’s annual exhibits have ranged from black dolls and hats to authors and musicians. 
   “I asked God to give me something or someone with a positive spirit,” she said about her exhibit choice this year. 
   “Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was my answer, with all the negative and craziness going on in our country and our community today, I needed and wanted someone that showed compassion for others and did some good in this world that we live in. 
   “I needed and wanted someone that put himself and his family on the back burner and put the world first. I needed and wanted someone that was a servant, who served others and Dr. King fits this someone.” 

Carlyle Roberson, Continued from History last week
   Carlyle farmed rice for ten to fifteen years. 
   In the late 1940s he bought about 100 acres of land on the Chinquapin Road from a Mrs. Wates whose
husband had died. 
   He farmed cotton, raised stock, drove the school bus, and leased about 50 to 75 acres from LeTulle to farm rice.
   He made an X for his signature, and many times, one of his sons or Mr. Eidlebach signed for him after his X.
Carlyle leased his land to farm rice, signed his lease to contract water for irrigation, purchased his farm equipment, paid his help, and reaped the total percentage for his crops.
   His former house, a two-story building, burned and his later house that he built still stands about 10 miles southeast of Wadsworth on the Chinquapin Road. 
   The land is still owned by the Roberson heirs.
   This information was provided by: Mr. Earl Eidlebach, the “Water Man:” 

   PALACIOS - Palacios Area Historical Association is presenting “Black Art - Ancestral Legacy: The African Impulse in African American Art,” from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. through February at the City by the Sea Museum.
   The traveling display based on the major exhibition organized by the Dallas Museum of Art and produced by Humanities Texas, the state affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities began Feb. 4.
   The Black Art display is a photographic exhibition that addresses the question posed by African American poet Countee Cullen in 1926: “What is Africa to me?” 
   This exhibition provides a number of examples from 20th-century African American artists - both trained and untrained - that visually respond to this question.
   These modern artists draw heavily on African influence, while simultaneously reinterpreting it for a different time and place.