Explore Dallas History

05/05/2024

03/17/2024

https://youtu.be/VGKbOzYiiNM

A short video summary of my upcoming 2024/2025 season reviews.

03/17/2024

2024/2025 Topics are here!

1907 - We dive deep in to Dallas in 1907. From legalized prostitution and gambling to the much-anticipated opening of Neiman Marcus.

Zephyr and Sarah - Zephyr was the African American cook who had LBJ's ear during his years in politics while Sarah T. Hughes was the judge from Dallas that he insisted handle his emergency swearing in ceremony.

11/06/2023

Saturday!

Join me at the Landmark Museum in Garland for a public talk - Garland Between the Wars. We will be talking about the history of Garland between WWI and WWII.

Location: 393 N 6th Street, Garland
Time: 4 pm, Saturday, November 11
Fee: Free for members; $10 all others
Goodies: sweets, coffee, wine!

10/26/2023

Campfire Tales on the Garland Square, this Saturday, October 28th are cancelled.
The weather is predicted to be rough and even if the rain cleared for the talk, the new lawn would be a very soupy mess. I am so sorry!! There was a lot of interest and I was looking forward to an eager crowd.

10/05/2023

Hey! It's me! And a cemetery! And costumed actors! And craft stations! And hotdogs!
Sachse Celebration of Souls is a hayride tour of the cemetery with all kinds of other fun. This Saturday. Kick your halloweekends off properly.

08/21/2023

UPCOMING HISTORY TALKS

September 5 – Fields Center – 9:30 am
Topic: Bootlegging III

September 7 – Carver Center – 9:00 am
Topic: Bootlegging III

October 7 – Sachse Cemetery Celebration of Souls
Topic: Cemetery Tour and discussion of founding folks (Last year these tours were at 6, 6:30 and 7 pm, but needs to be verified for this year.)

October 21 and 28 – Garland Campfire Tales on the Square
Topic: Wild tales from early Garland complete with s'mores! The stories are different, so plan to be there both nights!

October 24 - Fields Senior Center - 9:30 am
Topic: Campfire Tales, Part I. If you prefer your tales with coffee rather than s'mores, now is your chance.

October 26 - Carver Senior Center - 9 am
Topic: Campfire Tales, Part I. If you prefer your tales with coffee rather than s'mores, now is your chance.

All talks are free except the Landmark Museum which is free for members, but $10 for all else. The Sachse Cemetery Tour also requires a ticket. (I will post a link when one becomes available.)

Fields address: 1701 Dairy Road, Garland

Carver address: 222 Carver Street, Garland

Landmark address: 393 N. 6th Street, Garland

Sachse Cemetery address: 6314 Sachse Street

06/17/2023

Come see me at the Landmark Museum today at 4 pm for Bootlegging in Garland, Part II. No worries if you weren't there for Part I!

11/18/2022

4 pm, tomorrow, Saturday, November 19. Landmark Museum.
Free for Members, $10 for the rest of y'all.
Fancy pants shopping and holiday history for the DFW area is our topic.
Not-so-fancy pants free wine, coffee and snacks served.

10/29/2022

Tonight's Campfire Tales are so dangerous, they are being brought to you by Flo from Progressive.
6 pm, TONIGHT, Garland Landmark Museum
Bring a chair! If it is too soggy out, we will move indoors.

10/22/2022

Campfire Tales, Round I.
6 pm Tonight - Saturday the 22nd.
Garland Landmark Museum
Added bonus: The rest of this outfit. :)

10/19/2022

This Saturday, October 22!

Campfire Tales, 2022. All new tales.
This Saturday, the 22nd: Local Legends and Lore
Next Saturday, the 29th: Bootlegging and Bad Outcomes

Landmark Museum greenspace, behind the public library.
393 N 6th Street, Garland

6 pm to 7 pm, s'mores to follow

BYOC - bring your own chair, bring your own cash. We are taking donations to restore the Pullman Car.

10/09/2022

The Sachse Celebration of Souls event which included a hayride through the cemetery was a huge success! Thanks for inviting me!

10/08/2022

Me and a cemetery, tonight!
Hayride tours of the Sachse Cemetery, next door to the Sachse Historical Socity tonight at 6, 6:30 and 7 pm.
Photo ops, a Day of the Dead presentation, crafts - all kinds of good things.
https://sachsehistoricalsociety.com/

10/03/2022

This is my favorite time of year! Please celebrate with me at the following events:

October 8, this Saturday, I am on the hay ride in Sachse around their graveyard. I will be talking about crazy founding fathers/mothers stories, weird deaths, epidemics, burial practices c. 1880 - the usual uplifting stuff. This event also has crafts to make and a woman who will be telling everyone about the Day of the Dead.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1762313904121964

Campfire Tales are entirely researched and written by me - they take place in Garland at the Landmark Museum, outside, with S'mores after. These are entirely FREE.

Saturday, October 22 is all about haunted tales in the DFW area and the real facts behind the case including the original poisoning story that got all of us checking candy.

Saturday, October 29 is all about crazy crimes and bootlegging in the Garland area.

Campfire Tales are kid-friendly in that I won't be swearing. There is no getting around the horrible deaths and poor life choices at the heart of most of these stories.

Join me!

10/03/2022

My favorite time of year is upon us! Here is where you can celebrate with me:

October 8, This Saturday, I am on the hay ride in Sachse around their graveyard. I will be talking about crazy founding fathers/mothers stories, weird deaths, epidemics, burial practices c. 1880 - the usual uplifting stuff. This event also has crafts to make and a woman who will be telling everyone about the Day of the Dead.
https://www.facebook.com/events/1762313904121964

Campfire Tales are entirely researched and written by me - they take place in Garland at the Landmark Museum, outside, with S'mores after. These are entirely FREE.
Saturday, October 22 is all about haunted tales in the DFW area and the real facts behind the case including the original poisoning story that got all of us checking candy.
Saturday, October 29 is all about crazy crimes and bootlegging in the Garland area.
Campfire Tales are kid-friendly in that I won't be swearing. There is no getting around the horrible deaths and poor life choices at the heart of most of these stories.
Join me!

07/27/2022

Elisabet Ney, our intrepid sculptor from (what we now call) west Germany, raised a lot of eyebrows in her time. Reminder that 'her time' was 1833 to 1907. When still a teenager, Elisabet told her parents her heart was set on becoming a sculptor. They said no. She said yes. They said hell no. She said she would rather die than leave her art unfulfilled and immediately started a hunger strike. She was not messing around. Elisabet went weeks without food, resulting in her parents bringing in the local bishop to broker a deal that came with permission for her to attend art school in Munich. In addition to her hunger strike, she got local tongues wagging by:

Stalling her husband for 10 years on his proposal of marriage.
~gasp~

Keeping her maiden name.
~clutches pearls~

Wearing pantaloons.
~bring me a fainting couch~

Riding a horse astride.
~uses couch~

Image: Detail of Lady Macbeth, wringing her hands, stained with imaginary blood. This is an unusual work for Ney in that it was not a commission and done entirely on her own dime. Image courtesy of the Smithsonian website.

Full view of the sculpture in plaster, courtesy of the Elisabet Ney Museum. The finished sculpture in marble is now in the Smithsonian.

07/25/2022

Elisabet Ney - Austinite late in life, sculptor to the rich and famous, including King Ludwig II. Not up on your Bavarian/German/Prussian history? You know him best for Neuschwanstein, the castle that inspired Walt Disney. Ludwig didn't stop with just one spectacular castle - he built as least 5 on level with Neuschwanstein. He was burning through the treasury so quickly, they had to declare him unfit and imprison him in a tower.
He was rather a jerk to Elizabet Ney as he had to sit still for long periods of time with her positioning him and measuring his facial features, but here is the result.

07/18/2022

Y'all know I love to discuss the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Mainly because of serial killer H H Holmes and his connection to the DFW area. But I also like to talk about all of the innovations that came out of that Fair like the brownie (thank you Palmer House Hotel); the Ferris Wheel (which bankrupted the inventor, George Washington Gale Ferris); Wrigley's Juicy Fruit gum; Aunt Jemima played by Nancy Green who finally had a funded headstone placed at her grave during the pandemic; and Pabst Blue Ribbon, which actually won said blue ribbon at the Fair.

But here is one I have not talked about: Elisabet Ney. There are lots of amazing facts about Ney, not the least of which is that she was a highly regarded sculptor. She created incredibly lifelike images of Sam Houston, Steven F Austin and Authur Schopenhauer. People feared for Ney as Schopenhauer was a rather nortorious misogynist. However, he wrote glowing reviews to his friends of their time together.

Elisabet Ney's Steven F Austin and Sam Houston sculptures are on permanent display in the Capitol in Austin, Texas. These sculptures were originally commissioned for display in the Women's Building of the 1893 World's Fair, but Ney missed the deadline. She was 60 years old at the time and the planning for the World's Fair was a hot mess, so I am going to cut her some slack.

Her home/studio in Austin is now a museum with a remarkable collection of her work inside.

Museum image taken from the Elisabet Ney Museum website; Schopenhauer sculpture image taken from Wikimedia.

04/17/2022

Did you wake up this morning pondering this ancient Easter Sunday math mystery: How much hair can one 50 pound, 10 year old boxer mix generate in 2 days, over the course of just 450 square feet, if she sleeps 20 hours a day?
Answer:

03/26/2022

4 pm today, Landmark Museum/Heritage Crossing, Garland
Join me!

03/21/2022

The new corporate mascot gets laser therapy. Dreams of building her own motorcycle from scratch.

03/15/2022

Jackoo - one of the earliest settlers in Dallas.

03/12/2022

Thank you for having me, Sachse Historical Society!

03/08/2022

Join me!

03/08/2022

https://youtu.be/UIuGEwk-r1Y
A short tale about Old Red in Dallas from one of my presentations.

For public speaking engagement enquiries, please contact [email protected]