Everett Taylor: Taylor's Yarns

By EVERETT TAYLOR

History buffs in East Texas welcomed back an old favorite this week, the award-winning magazine "Chronicles of Smith County, Texas," after a two-year absence.

There were a lot of happy reunions when the Volume 44 issue arrived. Originally scheduled for publication in 2005, work on the issue was not completed until October 2007.

From its inception in 1962, the magazine was published continuously until this newly completed issue: Volume 44, 2005, a statement from a volunteer committee of Alex Beall, James Boucher, Andrew L. Leath and James Wilkins noted.

"For four decades, two annual issues were produced for members of the Smith County Historical Society, subscribers, libraries and friends of local history," the statement said. "Unforeseen difficulties in gathering, editing and publishing the magazine ... as well as the costs to print each issue ... have caused the delay and this statement."

"It is good to have it going again and we are trying to get back on track," said Wilkins. The objective now is to "catch up," something they hope to achieve in perhaps a couple of years.

Featured in the issue is "The Loy Gilbert Story." Gilbert was a longtime active member of the society, serving as president in 1969, 1970 and 1987. He died earlier this year.

Material in the articles by Loy Gilbert is based on extensive taped recollections recorded and transcribed in the last year before his death in May 2007. The recollections were completed and prepared for publication by his son, Randy Gilbert.

Topics under the Loy J. Gilbert byline in the issue are "The New Surrey," "The Death of W.H. 'Bill' Gilbert in a Wagon Accident in 1899" and "The Marriage of Julius M. Gilbert and Louella Walsh March 25, 1900."

In early 2005, Tyler writer/photographer Randy Mallory chose Gilbert to be the subject of an East Texas early cotton farming video titled, "Loy Gilbert Remembers ...When Cotton Was King."

The 20-minute film was written, directed and filmed by Mallory and was underwritten by the Jack T. Greer Memorial Trust Fund. The short film was premiered at the May 2006 meeting of the Society. It is available for viewing at the society's museum in Tyler.

Another feature of the latest edition of "Chronicles" is titled "Prominent Tylerites" as portrayed by writer/artist Dennis McCarthy in the 1930s.

McCarthy was from the East Coast and made a stop in Tyler after spending four months in New Orleans gathering material for a series of illustrated newspaper articles to be published in Eastern newspapers, the article said.

"While in Tyler, McCarthy wrote a series of articles on prominent Smith County business and professional men which the Tyler Daily Courier-Times started publishing twice a week in September 1932. Then he accompanied each article with his illustrations of the person and incidents from their lives."

The report said McCarthy "visited Tyler" again in the summer of 1937, and the newspaper published at least four of a new series, which included pen illustrations of the county courthouse, the Fred V. Hughes house on Fifth Street, the L.E. Pool house on the Henderson Highway and the Woman's Building in Tyler.

Several of the articles he wrote and illustrated are featured in this issue of the "Chronicles," with the date of the original publication of each included. Also included is an article from the Tyler paper in which McCarthy said his pen and ink drawings contained as many as 7,000 pen strokes.

Other articles in the latest "Chronicles" include "The Cedars of Lebanon Club of Tyler" by Edmond W. Schaded; W. Edwin Ray, map-maker, abstractor, title man, author, photographer, artist, by James Wilkins; Mechanicsville by Vicki Barron Kruschwitz; and a compilation of Smith County Tax Rolls, 1847, by Andrew L. Leath.

This delayed issue of "Chronicles" offers plenty of interesting reading, and prompts a heartfelt "thanks" to those involved in getting it completed.

Everett Taylor
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