History

December 9, 1943

Published in the Fairfield Recorder Nov. 28, 1968

Historic old Magnolia Landing, which harbored flatbottom steamboats on the Trinity River a century ago, will live long in the hearts of Texans now sure that towboats and barges will be plying the river within the next few years.

Governor-elect Preston Smith was the principal speaker at a program in Palestine, Nov. 19, dedicating a historical marker and pointing up things to come with navigation of the river all the way from the Houston Ship Channel to Fort Worth.

November 18, 1943

Ira’s – Banjo on my Knee starring Joel McCrea and Barbara Stanwyck; Law of the Northwest starring Charles Starrett and Shirley Patterson; It’s a Great Life starring Arthur Lake and Penny Singleton; Let’s Face It starring Bob Hope and Betty Hutton

Book Review – Mrs. Bowlen Bond will give a book review on “More Than Conquerors” at the First Baptist Church, Nov. 22, at 2 p.m. Members of all churches of Fairfield are invited to come and be with us.

Lurline Tisdale donated her 1904 W.W. Kimball Company upright piano – which graced the halls of the Post Oak Baptist Church for many of the church’s 90-plus year existence – to the Freestone County Historical Museum recently. The July 23, 1888 issue of The Fairfield Recorder states Post Oak “is situated about 4 miles southeast of Fairfield on the Fairfield and Buffalo road. There amid a beautiful clump of post oaks, whose towering heads and gnarled trunks show they have stood the blasts of many winters, stands the picturesque little church of Post Oak.” The road is now known as FM 1580.

November 4, 1943

Weldon Bonner Prisoner In Italy – It is reported here that Mr. and Mrs. Wirt Bonner of Stewards Mill have been informed that their son, Weldon, is a German prisoner in Italy. Weldon, who has a wife and child, was living at Hillsboro when he joined the Army.

Winston Oliver Reported Missing In Italy – Ed Oliver, longtime resident of the Campbell’s Branch community north of Cotton Gin, has been notified by the War Department that his son, Winston Oliver, is missing in action in Italy. Oliver was a member of General Clark’s fifth army, which is seeing active and continuous service against the Germans in Western Italy.

The following stories were found on the Texas Genealogy website for Freestone County. Written by former sheriff Sonny Sessions, the spooky stories are based on tales from residents in Fairfield, Teague, Kirvin, and Donie.

Fairfield ghost tales

October 21, 1943

Ira’s – Crime Doctor starring Warner Baxter and Margaret Lindsay; So Proudly We Hail starring Claudette Colbert and Paulette Goddard; Mister Big starring Donald O’Connor and Gloria Jean; So This Is Washington starring Lum & Abner and Mildred Cole’s

First Grade – Reported by Patty Sue Smith – The first grade can read all their reading charts and know all the flash card words taken from their charts. They will get a reader soon. Kenneth Clary was absent yesterday. Glenda Owens bought a real pretty bouquet of pink roses yesterday.

In October, almost seventy-three years ago, the first school opened at the present site of Dew, in a little hewn, log house, with split log benches and no desks. Among the first teachers were Miss Molly Ruff and Mr. Thyman, with a teacher load of twenty-five pupils this being the largest number of pupils attending school at this time. The opening of the Dew School this year was quite different. With a faculty of six teachers and an enrollment of one hundred and sixty pupils. Dew has one of the most modern schools in Freestone County. A beautiful main building of rock equipped with all modern equipment Science room, library, six class rooms, and an auditorium with a seating capacity of three hundred. On the school campus we have a teacherage and a lunch room equipped to serve hot lunches to the children in cold weather. Our faculty consists of Mr. Gibson, superintendent; Mrs. B.B.

A new exhibit is slated to be delivered to Freestone County Historical Museum in the next six months. The museum is working with Mark Thacker, AIA, a commercial and preservation architect in Tyler. The house will serve as an example of an early 1900s farmhouse and Thacker plans to also relocate and restore a log smokehouse and a detached kitchen. The house will be partially disassembled and then moved to the museum where it will undergo a restoration. The overall floor plan, according to a Facebook post from Thacker, is almost a square. “The house has some of the most amazing geometry I have ever seen in a “farmhouse,” said Thacker in an email to owner Sherry Matthews. “Whoever designed the house knew a lot about cross-ventilation and prevailing winds.” Over the next six months Thacker and his crew will be rebuilding the house.

September 2, 1943

Ira’s – “Alaska Highway” starring Richard Arlen and Jean Parker; The Constant Nymph starring Charles Boyer and Joan Fontaine; Assignment In Brittany starring Pierre Aumont and Susan Peters; Pilot No. 5 starring Franchot Tone and Marsha Hunt

Hill Cash Store Sale Sept. 4