Today we walked the town and found out exactly where my grandmother grew up. We started at the courthouse, the centerpiece of Fort Worth. In today's world, near the majestic courthouse, the Criminal Court is on the site of my great, great grandfather, Dr. Wade Hampton Pollard's home,
and the Justice Center sits where my grandmother's childhood home once stood two blocks away on the same street. In between the two and one street over was the site of my great grandfather's grocery store, G. J. Pollard Groceries, now a multi-story parking garage. At first I was quite disappointed, wishing there were some original buildings. But as we stood on those streets, we looked out over the bluff at the most beautiful scene...the Trinity River.
Such a grand view! No wonder my grandmother only had the most lovely things to say about growing up in Fort Worth.
Today we walked the town and found out exactly where my grandmother grew up. We started at the courthouse, the centerpiece of Fort Worth. In today's world, near the majestic courthouse, the Criminal Court is on the site of my great, great grandfather, Dr. Wade Hampton Pollard's home,
and the Justice Center sits where my grandmother's childhood home once stood two blocks away on the same street. In between the two and one street over was the site of my great grandfather's grocery store, G. J. Pollard Groceries, now a multi-story parking garage. At first I was quite disappointed, wishing there were some original buildings. But as we stood on those streets, we looked out over the bluff at the most beautiful scene...the Trinity River.
Such a grand view! No wonder my grandmother only had the most lovely things to say about growing up in Fort Worth.
4 comments:
It was a fun time, walking these streets, imagining them when they were unpaved, people on horses and in buggies...she was born in 1895, and was ten years old, Nancy says, when President Theodore Roosevelt came to town.
amazing thoughts; being there looking out at the nature that has been there all along despite progress and thinking "she looked at this too". WOW!
That is cool. Kinda like you are there together. Can just imagine you and here looking at the same river.
It was a good feeling. I was so close to my Nana. She talked endlessly to me (and listened to me, too), so I have a lot of impressions from way back. I think the amazing thing to me was to go from census records online which are recorded every ten years, to visiting the library right here in Fort Worth and looking at the city directories that were published nearly every year, to walking out of the hotel and finding the addresses. THEN to realize they were all so close you could most likely stand in any of the three locations and see the other two, really made her childhood and the major players pop into view. Plus, they were in the middle of town--the town square and courthouse where everything happened. I didn't mention that Nana's uncle John was the city treasurer and he worked right there and lived close, as well. Pretty fun stuff.
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