Fannin County Courthouse

Fannin County Courthouse
Bonham, Texas
(photo from the internet)

When we stopped in downtown Bonham to see the Fannin County Courthouse, we were so disappointed.  It was surrounded by fences as it was being refurbished.

This is how we saw the Courthouse!  And needless to say we could not go in.

The Fannin County Courthouse was built in 1889. It was designed by the artitecture firm of Dodson and Dudley and is made of limestone. It was remodeled in 1925 and again in 1965.  Hopefully they will bring back the original beauty of the building in this re-model.

Outside the fenced off area, was a statute of the town's namesake, James Butler Bonham.  He was killed defending the Alamo.

The county was named for James Walker Fanning who, along with his troops, were massacred at the Battle of Goliad in the fight for Texas independence.  

Perhaps we will make our way back to Bonham to tour the restored Courthouse and obtain better photos to share.

Fannin County map from the internet.

Day Trip to Bonham,, TX part 2

After our burger lunch we headed to the Sam Rayburn House Museum.  We arrived a little after 1:00 and missed the 1:00 tour.  As we did not want to wait for the 2:00 tour because we did not want to participate in rush hour traffic on the way home, we decided to walk around the property. Along with the historic house, there are several outbuildings, including a smokehouse, barn, vegetable garden and a chicken coop.  

the turkey was taking a nap when we walked by
and he was not at all happy at being disturbed
you can't see it but he was giving us the evil eye

One of the most interesting things in the outbuildings was Mr. Rayburn's car.  It is a pristine 1947 black Cadillac.  It was given to him as a gift by House members. When he lost his Speaker's post due to the Republican party holding the majority of the House seats, he also lost his chauffeured car. So Democrat members and some Republican members took up a collection to purchase this very beautiful Caddy for him to use.  

the caddy is often taken to local car shows

Mr. Rayburn was #8 of 11 children. He always had  a fascination with politicians and knew from a young age he wanted to be one. He was married once to his college roommate's sister.  However, the marriage was dissolved after 2 months and 25 days.  His ex-wife did remarry and have children.....but they remained friends all their lives.   

Mr. Rayburn bought property outside town and the home was built in 1916.  Being one of 11, he often hosted his large family of in-laws, nieces, nephews and cousins.  All were welcome to visit the Rayburn House.  

photo of the front of the house

screened in  porch at the back of the house

photo of the back of the house

The house was declared a National Landmark in 1976.  The Texas Historical Commission oversees the property that has a small gift shop and provides the tour guides. 

After we saw as much as we could, we decided to hit the road back home.  

What another fun day trip here in Texas!!

Day Trip to Bonham, TX

Dear Friend and The Travelling Toe took off on the super highways of the Metroplex for a day trip to Bonham, Tx.  The reason for the day trip was to tour the Sam Rayburn Museum.

Sam Rayburn, Texas State Representative, was the Speaker of the House for 49 years.  He is still the longest serving Speaker of the House and served under Presidents from Woodrow Wilson to John Kennedy.

All the Presidents

On display in the museum are personal memorabilia, such as furniture, photographs, paintings and other items.  Also housed at the library are the Congressional records from 1774 to 1980.  Congressional records are the official documents of Congress sessions.  Many scholars travel to the museum to study these important documents that chronicles the young Nation from the very beginning to the end of the 20th Century.  

records from 1780

Mr. Rayburn, was an avid reader, and his personal library is also on display at the museum.  In order to know which book he had already read, he started writing his initials on page 99 of each of his books.

Dear Friend posed with her beautiful blue nail polish to show his initials on page 99 of these two books.
















Another interesting item on display is the Speaker's rostrum that was used from
1857-1950.  

A beautiful chandelier hangs in the reproduction of Mr. Speaker's office that has an interesting story. Theodore Roosevelt, was refurbishing the White House lighting fixtures to modern gas lightning and this chandelier was placed in storage.  Sam eventually requested the chandelier for his office. Later it was presented to him so that it could be hung at the museum.

Pam, our Tour Guide, was very knowledgeable and shared lots of interesting tidbits of
Mr. Rayburn, the museum and his relationship to the community.

There is no entrance fee to tour the museum but donations are appreciated.  

A USS ballistic submarine was named for Sam Rayburn.  It was commissioned in 1964 and decommissioned in 1989.  

 

anchor of sub on display in front yard

After the tour, we drove back to the town square and the Travelling Toe took some pictures of the Fannin County Courthouse....it will be featured in a separate post.

We made a quick stop at an antique shop, "My Clutter" located on the town square.  The Travelling Toe found a cute little cup and saucer as a souvenir of the trip. 

From downtown Bonham, we took State Highway 121 to find some grub.  We stopped for a burger at "Muddbones".  For $7.00 you can get a hamburger, with all the usual fixings, plus a bag of chips and a drink from the cooler.  Just a tad disappointed there were no fries but sorrow was drowned in the very yummy bag of Cheetos.  

After lunch we went on our way to visit the Sam Rayburn House.

rose garden at the museum

Grant Wood And The American Heartland: Prints & Works On Paper

Recently the Irving Arts Center sponsored a wonderful exhibit of lithographs depicting the 1930's "Regionalism" movement. According to the Activity Guide, all the prints in the exhibit were created between, 1937-1941.  The title of the exhibit was "Grant Wood And The American Heartland".  

Grant Wood
1891 - 1942

Grant Wood trained at various artistic venues in the US and even studied abroad. Grant came into prominence when his iconic painting, "American Gothic", was completed in 1930 and placed on display at the Art Institute of Chicago that same year. It is now owned by the Art Institute of Chicago and is part of their permanent collection.

                                                           Art Institute of Chicago

The first picture on view at the exhibit was by Grant Wood and it was titled "The Village", which was oil on canvas and was painted in 1925. The Travelling Toe was able to grab a photo of it before the sign said no photography allowed...yikes!!!

Next to it was a print of a large stained glass window which was commissioned to Grant in 1927. When it was completed, it was titled "The Veterans Memorial Window" and was installed in the Veterans Building in Cedar Rapids, Iowa - where it is still on display.

The window is 24 feet high by 20 feet wide and took 2 years to complete. It is made up fo 10,00 pieces of stained glass.  It honors veterans of 6 different wars:

                                               American Revolution
                                               The War of 1812
                                               The Mexican War
                                               The Civil War
                                               The Spanish-American War
                                               World War I
          
Wood made full scale drawings of the work to use as templates and two of the drawings were on display.  He had used his sister as the female figure in "American Goth" so he used his sister again as the model of the center figure in the stained glass window titled "Republic".

Revolutionary War Solider
96 1/2 X 42 1/2

WW1  Solider
96 1/2 X 42 1/2 inches

Other artist lithographs, were also on view. These artists are considered part of the Regionalist movement and most of them were from the Midwest.  These artists showed the farmers plight, hard working folks and socially related themes. Below are a few of these  artists whose work was on display.

Thomas Benton,  Neosho MO
                                    Slow Train Through Arkansas - 1941
                                    Missouri Farmyard - 1936
                                    The Bull - 1950

John Bloom, DeWitt Iowa
                                    Shocking Oats - 1986
                                    Watering - 1984
                                    Picking Corn - 1988
                                    Cattle Loading - 1986

Jackson Lee Nesbitt, McAlester OK
                                     Water Place - 1939
                                     November Evening - 1939

Bernard Steflen, Neodesha, KS 
                                   Cows In Kansas (colored print) - ?

Grant Wood, Anamosa Iowa
                                  Wild Flowers - 1938
                                  Tame Flowers - 1938
                                  Fruits - 1938
                                  Vegetales - 1938
                                  In The Spring - 1939
                                  Fertility - 1939
                                 Seed Time And Harvest - 1937
               the pictures above were hand colored lithographs on Rives Paper
             
               the pictures below are lithographs
                                 Sultry Night - 1937
                                 Family Doctor - 1941
                                 Approaching Storm - 1941
                                 Midnight Alarm - 1939
                                 Shriner Quartet - 1939
                                 December Afternoon - 1941
                                 February - 1941
                                 March - 1941
                                 July - 1941
                  

Dear Readers, if you are interested, it is still possible to own a lithograph by Grant Wood or one of the other artists. They fall within various price ranges from up to the 6 or 5 figure range to a few lower in price as in the hundreds of dollars or some even lower.

Here are a couple of sites where one can find the lithographs of these esteemed artists.
                           
Artnet

Amazon

Ebay
                                      
Want to know more about lithography, click on the link below.


What is a lithography?
                 

Swan Lake presented by Texas Ballet Theater

SWAN LAKE
program

The Texas Ballet Theater presented the beautiful ballet, "Swan Lake".  The Travelling Toe and Dear Friend attended the Sunday matinee performance at the beautiful Bass Hall.

The music was written by the brilliant Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.  The Bolshoi Ballet premiened "Swan Lake" in Moscow in February,1877.  

 Swan Lake is based on Russian or German folk tales. It tells of a beautiful young princess, Odette, who is turned into a swan by an evil sorceress.  When night falls. she becomes a swan.  A young prince comes upon her while he is out hunting and falls in love with her.  But the evil sorceress and his daughter Odile, dupe the Prince into thinking she was Odette.  When he finds out the truth, he and Odette are doomed forever.

Odette, The Prince and the swans

What a beautiful ballet...the dancing, the costumes, the scenery and the music!!  They all came together to present a wonderful afternoon of enjoyment.

Texas Ballet Theater

Sunset Blvd. the Musical" presented by Tarrant Actors Regional Theatre

SUNSET BLVD
play program

Recently, The Travelling Toe joined in with the Chili Chicks Red Hat Chapter, to see a wonderful production of "Sunset Blvd".  (and yes Dear Readers The Travelling Toe is a happy Red Hatter!)

This musical is based on the film noir movie of the same name that starred Gloria Swanson and William Holden.  The movie was released in 1950.

Sunset Blvd
1950 movie poster

The musical follows the main themes of the movie plot very closely.  The internet describes the movie plot as follows:

An aging silent film queen refuses to accept that her stardom has ended. She hires a young screenwriter to help set up her movie comeback. The screenwriter believes he can manipulate her, but he soon finds out he is wrong. The screenwriters ambivalence about their relationship and her unwillingness to let go leads to a situation of violence, madness, and death.

In this production, Norma Desmond, played by Caroline Rivera and Joe Gillis, played by Anthony Mankins, were absolutely magnificent in their roles. Their voices covered each song perfectly. In the second act, "Joe" seems to acquire weariness that comes from knowing there is no getting out of the situation and his fate is cast.

The music for the play was written by the legendary, Andrew Lloyd Webber, with book and lyrics by Don Black and Christopher Hampton.

"Sunset Blvd" premiered in England in 1991 and made it's debut on Broadway in 1994.  Marvelous Glenn Close played the role of Norma Desmond.

The Travellling Toe must admit that on a trip to NYC in 1996, made a point to see this dramatic musical.  At that time the lovely Elaine Paige was playing the role of Norma Desmond.  What a wonderful night on Broadway!!  She was super!!

Elaine Page

Are You Ready For Your Close Up???



Tarrant Actors Regional Theater

GDPR

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Wikipedia GDPR


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Happy Memorial Day weekend!