From Great Bend, Kansas, he headed for Dakota Territory-night-clerking aboard a Mississippi River steamboat-then back down to New Orleans, where a family friend helped him become a Senate page in Washington. Described by biographers Glenn Shirley and Bernice Tune as an assured, strong-willed youngster with his father’s build and temperament, he was raised by an older sister.Īt thirteen, skilled with horse, rope, and gun, he signed on with a cattle drive, drawing a grown man’s wages. His father died three years later, and yellow fever took his mother when he was seven. Temple Lea Houston, the youngest child of Texas governor Sam Houston, was born in 1860, when the latter was sixty-seven. Photo courtesy Texas State Library & Archives. A central character in one of Edna Ferber’s epic novels was based on his life, as were two Hollywood movies, one of which would win the 1931 Academy Award for best picture.Īn Old West original who died young, Temple Lea Houston was quick on the draw and even faster to wield his oratorical skills in defense of his clients. Statuesque, articulate, temperamental, fast with a gun, and overly fond of whiskey, he inspired two biographies and a 1960s television western series bearing his name. He quoted the Bible, Greek scholars, and Shakespeare in the course of his work and was, upon his death at forty-five, recognized as one of the finest trial lawyers in the country. The man spoke Spanish, French, Latin, and seven Indian dialects. The life that ended in August 1905, two years before Oklahoma achieved statehood, was among the most remarkable to emerge from the American West. The two men shared much in common: Both were Texas raised, both had famous fathers and ties to the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, both struggled with alcohol, and both loved and married women named Laura. Bush addressed an outdoor throng of nine thousand people gathered for Woodward’s 2009 Fourth of July celebration, he spoke of one of that community’s early citizens who had inspired him.
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