$7.50 a History Journal for Dallas & North Central Texas
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Spring 2014 LEGACIES The A History Journal for Dallas & North Central Texas Unusual Side of LDallas Neighborhood Heroes of the Cedars Cosette Faust-Newton’s Garden Ship of Dreams Citizen Soldier: General Edwin A. Walker in Dallas Citizen Soldier: General Edwin A. Walker Roberta with “Ethereal Charm” Dodd Crawford: The Voice Virginia K. Johnson: Dallas Rescue Home for “Erring” Women Virginia K. Johnson: Dallas Rescue Home for “Erring” Women $7.50 Legacies is a joint publication of: Dallas Heritage Village The Dallas Historical Society The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza Editor Michael V. Hazel Designer Liz Conrad Graphic Design Book Review Editor Evelyn Montgomery Editorial Assistants Sam Childers Stephen Fagin Editorial Advisory Board W. Marvin Dulaney University of Texas at Arlington Elizabeth York Enstam Dallas, Texas Robert B. Fairbanks University of Texas at Arlington Russell Martin Southern Methodist University Jackie McElhaney Dallas, Texas Darwin Payne Southern Methodist University Carol Roark Fort Worth, Texas Gerald D. Saxon University of Texas at Arlington Thomas H. Smith Dallas, Texas Legacies is made possible by the generous support of: A. H. Belo Corporation The Inge Foundation Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Front and back covers Central Texas is published semiannually. The The city’s first zoo, containing a motley assortment editor welcomes articles relating to the of antelope, deer, bears, and wolves, was located in history of Dallas and North Central Texas. City Park in the 1890s. The park was the centerpiece Please address inquiries to Editor, Legacies, 1515 S. Harwood St., Dallas, TX 75215, or of Dallas’s first “suburban” residential development, phone 214-413-3665. The Cedars. Today the neighborhood is being revital- ized by entrepreneurs such as Matthews Southwest, Copyright 2014: which renovated the historic Sears Roebuck complex Dallas Heritage Village into SouthSide on Lamar. See “Heroes of the Cedars,” The Dallas Historical Society The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza beginning on page 52. LEGACIES A History Journal for Dallas & North Central Texas Volume 4 Virginia K. Johnson L26 and the Dallas Rescue Home Number for “Erring” Women, 1893-1941 By Jane Lenz Elder 1 DEPARTMENTS From the Editor The Voice with “Ethereal Charm” 18 African-American Lyric Soprano Spring 3 Roberta Dodd Crawford By John Hanners 2014 Contributors The 63 Unusual 28 Cosette Faust-Newton’s Side of Dallas Then and Now Garden Ship of Dreams Dallas By Cynthia Shearer 64 Citizen Soldier: 42 General Edwin A. Walker in Dallas By Adrienne Caughfield Neighborhood Heroes of the Cedars 52 By Evelyn Montgomery All previous issues of Legacies from 1989 through 2013 are online at the University of North Texas Portal to Texas History. The address is: http://texashistory.unt.edu/browse/collections/LHJNT. Today, Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park provides a dramatic contrast with the gleaming skyscrapers of downtown Dallas. But the history of the park and its surrounding neighborhood, The Cedars, has been shaped for 140 years by unusual individuals who often faced big challenges in preserving and reviving the area. See “Heroes of the Cedars,” beginning on page 52. 2L LEGACIES Spring 2014 FROM THE EDITOR very city’s history is enlivened by colorful and grew increasingly eccentric. Cynthia Shearer Eindividuals who defy convention. Dallas is cer- recalls Mrs. Faust-Newton’s backyard party boat— tainly no exception. In this issue we explore “the her “garden ship of dreams”—that set off a twen- unusual side of Dallas” through people who strug- ty-year legal battle in the town of Highland Park, gled to right wrongs, battled prejudice, stood up and her sad end as proprietor of a seedy museum for unpopular causes, and fought to preserve an on Oak Lawn. architectural heritage. Some were more successful Edwin Walker lived only a mile from Mrs. than others, but all added a distinct flavor to the Faust-Newton in the 1960s, and his house was community. also notorious, for its United States flag flown -up Widowed in 1890, before she reached the age side down to signal what the former army major of 50, Virginia K. Johnson devoted the next four general perceived as a nation in distress. Walker decades to providing a home for young women was as eccentric as Mrs. Faust-Newton, although trying to escape from a life of prostitution. Jane perhaps in a more politically dangerous way. Elder chronicles the surprisingly adventurous life Adrienne Caughfield tells his story, including his of this devout Methodist woman, who used her link with Lee Harvey Oswald. charm and social position to win support for her Individuals can have a profound impact on a cause, while working tirelessly at the grass-roots neighborhood, often against considerable odds, as level. Evelyn Montgomery shows in her article about Roberta Dodd Crawford faced different chal- heroes of the Cedars, the area just south of down- lenges. Born into a poor, black family in Bonham, town. In the 1870s John J. Eakins donated land Texas, in 1894, she was blessed with an outstand- for City Park and created one of Dallas’s first resi- ing singing voice. With the support of generous dential developments adjacent to it. Nearly 100 townspeople, she received excellent training and years later, a group of dedicated women launched earned early success. In 1929 she traveled to France the museum now known as Dallas Heritage for further study, joining other African-American Village by rescuing historic structures and mov- artists escaping racial prejudice in America. But ing them into the park. And then Bennett Miller, there her life began to unravel. John Hanners a visionary developer, began rehabilitating aging recounts the sad ending of Mrs. Crawford’s story, commercial structures by transforming them into as she was trapped in France during the German loft apartments. All met with some skepticism, but occupation of World War II, and died in poverty all contributed to transforming and preserving the in Dallas in 1954. neighborhood. Cosette Faust-Newton, on the other hand, This look at the unusual side of Dallas re- seemed to start life with all the advantages— minds us that history is rarely a steady, predictable financial means, good education, early appoint- unfolding of events. It is more often shaped by ment to the faculty of SMU. But something went dedicated (even eccentric) individuals pursuing wrong. Within two years she was dismissed from goals others might have thought impossible. the university. She turned to travel and lecturing —Michael V. Hazel LLEGACIES Spring 2014 3 Virginia K. Johnson and the Dallas Rescue Home for “Erring” Women, 1893-1941 By Jane Lenz Elder nce upon a time in Dallas, there lived a cape a “life of sin,” as it was euphemistically called. Osingular lady named Virginia K. Johnson. Born Mrs. Johnson created a home from scratch and early enough to remember men mustering for through many vicissitudes kept it going for de- the American war with Mexico under President cades. All told, her home gave nearly 3,000 young James K. Polk, she lived long enough to watch women a new start in life, and it placed more than Franklin Delano Roosevelt mustering the forces 1,000 babies with families able to raise them in of the United States government to combat the comfort and security. All that it took was a dedi- Great Depression. cated and masterful leader with a gift for raising Mrs. Johnson held deep convictions; her sin- money. gularity sprang from her willingness to act upon Post-modern judgments could easily dismiss them with startling tenacity. She was staunchly Virginia Johnson as one blind to the issues of race Confederate, devoutly Southern Methodist, un- because of her focus on rescuing white women, expectedly feminist; cultured, educated, and dedi- or lacking a professional approach because of her cated to her family. She proved equally dedicated initial employment of a trial-and-error strategy. to a cause adopted when she was well into her In other words, she was a product of her age. She middle age: a rescue home for girls trying to es- labored at a grass-roots level, working within ex- 4L LEGACIES Spring 2014 isting power structures of church and city using house, stripped it, and sold all the contents, turn- what gifts she had—good looks, social connec- ing it into the Chestnut Street Prison, a jail for tions, and a self-deprecating sense of humor. She women.6 Conditions there were difficult: inmates charmed the male leaders of her day into giving ate hardtack, spoiled bacon, and coffee so bad as her what she wanted and rallied women to her to be undrinkable “even by prisoners, who are cause by insisting that women should be among not supposed to be fastidious.”7 The building was the first to help other women. She cajoled, she crowded and lacked privacy, even for its former improvised, and she worked relentlessly. She edu- mistress Mrs. McClure. Jennie, though, found cated herself in the nascent field of social work some compensations: “The McClure library was and visited larger welfare institutions in the East, one of the largest and finest then in existence and adapting their strategies for her work in Dallas. I read continuously, between writing appeals for Nevertheless, this remains an old-fashioned sto- liberation,” she said.8 This reading supplemented ry of an old-fashioned lady whose transforming the informal education she had picked up from Christianity worked miracles in the lives of “err- her brothers and their tutors, making Jennie an ing” women in Dallas for nearly fifty years, be- unusually well educated woman for her day. Im- ginning in 1893. prisonment yielded other long-term benefits, as Virginia Knight Johnson, or “Jennie” as she well.