The Linden Heritage Foundation is participating in “East Texas Giving Day” organized by East Texas Communities Foundation.
A day of giving it provides critical funding for a 32 county area of nonprofits (including Cass). The purpose is to bring the region together on one day and as one community, to raise money and awareness allowing citizens an easy platform to support the mission of a nonprofit they identify with.
In November 1934 an article was published in the Dallas Journal titled: “Trial in Church in Linden has Novel Features”
(1927 Linden Methodist Church – photo courtesy of Charline Wiley Morris Collection)
The article reported on the prosecution of a Dallas resident indicted for robbery committed in Cass County. The primary source of information for the Dallas Journal publication was Fred Harris an attorney for the defendant who practiced in Dallas. According to Harris when he reached Linden he learned that the trial would take place in the basement of the 1927 Methodist Church understanding the courthouse “had fallen in”. He ridiculed the furniture provided for the judge, attorneys and jurors. He claimed, during the trial 2 jurors got sick and the sheriff died creating unforeseen delays. In spite of the circumstances, Harris said he was not worried. The jury did not convict his client but was discharged after voting nine to three for acquittal. Harris said he expected the case not to be retried.
Enraged by the unfair report in the Dallas Journal, County Judge Sam L. Henderson penned a letter to its editor republished with the Dallas Journal article in the Cass County Sun that demanded a retraction.
He claimed about the only truthful statement in the Dallas Journal article was that “the District Court was being held in a Church” due to the Courthouse having been damaged by fire in 1933.
(1933 photo of Courthouse fire – courtesy of Charline Wiley Morris Collection)
Most of its content was a “scurrilous and false attack” upon the citizens and the justice system of Cass County. It is true when the evidence was closed and the case was about to go to the jury, the Sheriff, E. Lois Johnson, died of appendicitis. The trial was delayed until the following week when his wife was appointed to serve the few remaining months of his term. (Technically, she was the first female sheriff of Cass County) According to Judge Henderson, all that happened should not imply there was no evidence of guilt against the defendant. Although the trial resulted in a “hung jury”, Judge Henderson assured the readers that Mr. Harris’s client would be tried again in Linden, with courtesy shown to Mr. Harris, and felt, after conviction, his client would be turned over to other counties to be tried for other crimes.
Judge Henderson requested his letter be printed in bold type under the heading, “Cass County Challenges and Answers the False Article Published in the Paper about Cass County”.
After receipt of the letter, the Dallas Journal printed a retraction as requested by Judge Henderson.
Credit is given to Gail Dorgan for providing this interesting history of Linden. Transcriptions by Catherine Knapp and Joe Lovelace.
Read the transcription of each publication in the Documents section(Dallas Journal) of this website.
The first meeting of the 2017 Board of Directors for theLinden Heritage Foundationwas held February 18th at the residence of John and Catherine Knapp in Linden, Texas.
Directors present: Sam Higdon, Joe B. Lovelace, Sue Lazara, Jana C. Bounds, John Knapp, Sandra Westbrook Skoog, Ron Calhoun andBarbara Teachey.
Directors absent: Gail Dorgan, Kay Stephens and Anna Barber.
Acting-President Sam Higdon called for nominations for the election of Officers. The following individuals were elected as Officers:
President – Joe B. Lovelace
Vice-President for Preservation & Education – Sue Morris Lazara
Vice-President for Marketing & Development – Sandra Westbrook Skoog
Vice-President for Information Technologies – John Knapp
Secretary – Gail Dorgan
Chief Financial Officer – Jana C. Bounds
Parliamentarian – Kay Stephens
The Linden Heritage Foundation Board will next meet on Saturday, April 29th @ 5 p.m. at the residence of Sue Lazara after hosting activities during Wildflower Trails in front of the 1939 Linden Firehouse.
Original article by Neil Abeles – Texarkana Gazzette
Mason Darrell Barrett is a federal administrative judge now, but he still remembers the highlight in his life when, as a 12-year-old, he power shifted that new 396-horsepower Chevrolet Malibu.
“I remember it like yesterday,” said the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission administrative judge whose Birmingham District Office oversees Alabama, Mississippi and northern Florida.
Barrett, a 1973 Linden-Kildare High School graduate, said he loves his work of almost 30 years in hearing employment discrimination complaints relating to disability, race, age or gender. He has a home in Linden and one day will retire there.
Mason Darrell Barrett has this 1940 photo of his mother, Audrey Mae Barrett, teaching school in the Macedonia Elementary School in Linden. He proudly carries it with him.
He was in Linden on Saturday to help clear the Old Macedonia Cemetery, and several of the local sights reminded him of growing up here and his love of car speed.
In those days he would come to town with his school librarian mother, Audrey Mae Barrett, and her teaching friend Mary Shurn. The two would shop while he would go hang around with Dub Body, the make-ready car employee for Tom Lanier’s Chevrolet Company.
“I would go there every chance I could. I was fascinated with cars,” Barrett said.
“One day this transport truck came in with an ice-blue Corvette roadster and white convertible top. When they backed it off, the driver said, ‘Get in.’ He turned it around on the street and stomped on it, power shifting it down that road so fast that I begged him to stop. My knees were shaking, but I was hooked on speed.”
Some time later, Barrett got the chance again, this time with a new 396-horsepower Chevrolet Malibu belonging to a cousin.
“They let me drive it, so at the stop sign on Highways 8 and 11, I stomped on it and power-shifted it and could feel that big block engine come to life.
“‘Your dad is going to get you,’ they told me, but I could tell they were surprised I knew how to speed shift that car.”
Perhaps those experiences transferred somewhat to the fast lane of life for Barrett because he soon left Linden-Kildare High School for Prairie View A&M University to earn a degree in mathematics. He became a computer engineer, but later, in 1984, decided to attend law school at the University of Denver in Colorado.
“My dad had wanted to be a lawyer,” Barrett said.
Instead, M.J. Barrett had been an important local educator. He was a former principal at Macedonia school in Linden as well as a Perfection Elementary principal in Kildare from 1958 until integration in 1969. His wife, Audrey Mae, was librarian.
Darrell Barrett had one sister, Audrey Elaine Sam, who graduated from L-K High School in 1972 and became an assistant principal in Houston.
Brrett was tall at 6 foot 4 inches and wanted to play football, but his dad had been injured playing and wouldn’t allow it.
“So I played tuba in the band and we were sweepstakes winners for four years, and I was in the all-district band,” he said.
He had two sons who played football, however. One earned a full scholarship to a Colorado school and the other walked on to the team at Texas A&M University. One is now a banker in Colorado and the other is successful in Europe.
Barrett said he’s simply a country boy and glad to be back. He’s had a long association with the Macedonia Baptist Church founded in 1894—the one African-American church inside the Linden city limits, he said.
Like a number of Linden buildings, the church had been made of the red rock, which is substantial and thus the building still serves as the church’s annex.
Barrett also has a great-grandfather who was one of the four Rambo brothers who helped form the Rambo community near McLeod. These were Alonzo, Benjamin, Nate, and Darrell’s great-grandfather Monroe.
His work with the heritage and cemetery associations is an effort to help preserve the heritage of the African-Americans in the area, he said.
“We’ve tried to clean it up before, but now the interest has blossomed,” he said. “We want to fix it up so it won’t be forgotten again.”
Sandra Westbrook Skoog grew up happily in Linden playing with neighborhood friends, riding her horse, swimming at Charlie Wylie’s, and twirling at L-K football games. Newly elected to the Linden Heritage Foundation Board, Sandra wants to preserve and celebrate Linden’s unique history which, in turn, will create new opportunities for future growth and development.
Her Westbrook ancestors came to Cass County in 1848 from Georgia, and their family farm was recently recognized by the Texas Department of Agriculture for 160 years of continuous agricultural production.
A retired school counselor from Pine Tree ISD in Longview, Skoog has volunteered extensively with the Junior League of Longview, the Boy Scouts of America, Newgate Ministries, the Boys’ & Girls’ Clubs, and the Longview Women’s Forum. She has also served as president of Longview Community Ministries, the City of Longview’s Partners in Prevention, Longview Area Chi Omega Alumnae, and the Deep East Texas A & M Mothers’ Club. Skoog has chaired the annual Women in Longview event and was named a Star Over Longview in 2016.
Sandra and her husband Eric, a retired chemical engineer at Eastman Kodak, have been married 29 years and have a son and daughter-in-law, Hunter , a third-year medical student, and Dr. Emily Skoog, a pediatric resident, who live in Temple.
Let’s welcome Sandra as she will bring to the Linden Heritage Foundationboard a vast experience in volunteer non-profit work.
