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Dedication
FOR LIBBIE
-- The Authors
Preface
Why write a history of Hearne?
It could be summed up with,
"The planters came, the railroads came, the town came and is still
going."
However,
it took people to plant, people to build the railroad, and people to
perpetuate the community.
This is a story about people.
People from all stations in
life.
Slave,
cotton-baron, merchant, lawyer, doctor, preacher, workingman.
Actors in a drama that has been played
but does not deserve to be forgotten: the life of a town.
People.
Acknowledgements
Sincere
thanks and appreciation from the authors of this book to the following for
valuable information furnished:
| Mrs. Ray Hyer Brown | Brazos River Authority |
| Herman Matkin Ragland | The Hearne Democrat |
| Mr. & Mrs. J. A. Whatley | The Houston Chronicle |
| Mrs. Valesca S. Marshall | The Galveston Daily News |
| Warren A. Wilkerson | The Waco News-Tribune |
| Randle W. Miller | The Shopcraft Magazine |
| H. J. Heaney | The Houston Press |
| Mrs. P. A. Reed, Sr. | Southern Pacific Bulletin |
| Mr. & Mrs. Otho Mathew, Sr. | Houston Daily Times |
| Mrs. Mary B. Carson | Houston Telegraph |
| Mrs. Roy L. Moss | Illinois Central Magazine |
| Miss Elsie Ely | The Dallas Morning News |
| Mrs. Ruth Boyd Welborn | Dell B. Hostrasser |
Introduction
The
readers of this volume are introduced to a series of advancing scenes in a
drama that had its beginning in the first feeble attempts that were made in
the settlement of the country and area that we call Hearne, Texas.
We
will lead the reader through the past to the present and here leave him amid
active and progressive men and women who are advancing toward the future. This book includes the lives of men and women now living and
constitutes a connecting link between what has gone before and what is to come
after. It is therefore fitting
that this book should in part be dedicated to the people of Hearne both past
and present.
There
can be no foundation for history without biography and the matter presented
herewith is largely biographical. History
is a generalization of particulars. To
use a paradox, history gives us but part of history.
That other part which it does not give us, the part which introduces us
to the thoughts, aspirations and daily life of a people, is supplied by
biography.
When
a good deed is performed we feel that it should be remembered forever.
When a good man or woman dies, there is nothing sadder than the
reflection that he or she will be forgotten.
As far as we can ascertain, no record of the greater number of pioneer
men and women of Hearne has been recorded for those of us who will appear on
the Hearne scene later. As a great philosopher once said, "Today the man is
here; tomorrow he hath disappeared. And
when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind. Tell me now, where are all of those doctors and masters, with
whom thou was well acquainted, while they lived and flourished in learning?
Now others possess their livings and perhaps do scarce ever think of
them. In their lifetime they seemed something, but now they are not
spoken of."
Keeping
alive the spirit of our heritage is greatly aided by preserving the physical
evidence of that heritage and the story of those who pioneered the land and
country in and around Hearne.
One
of the criticisms of the present generation is that we have failed to impress
on youth the values of the past; we have failed to make them feel that they
are rooted in American tradition.
The
adverse effects have manifested themselves in numerous ways.
For example, many young men enter the armed forces of our country and
are sent abroad to battle without any understanding of why our nation needs
defending or what is being defended.
We
need to preserve the relics of our heritage, so that principles and concepts
associated with them may provide a stimulus for the young people of today.
The men and women whose record is recorded in this book were or are deeply identified with Hearne, and the preservation of this volume in enduring form of some remembrance of them - their names, who and what they were - has been a pleasant task to us who feel a deep interest and pride in Hearne - its past history, its heroes aid future destiny. This book is presented to the reader with the hope that he will find both pleasure and profit in its perusal.
-- The Authors