Our Unlikely Fathers - Signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence

"To my knowledge, no other person did more during his lifetime to preserve the great heritage of Texas than did Lou Kemp."

Governor Price Daniel said that.

What merited such a statement?

Lou Kemp was the driving force behind placing markers at hundreds of historical sites for the Texas Centennial in 1936.

He saw to it that over 100 of notable Texans were moved to places of honor in the Texas State Cemetery.

He lead the fight to get the San Jacinto Monument built.

And he wrote this book.

It contains detailed biographies of each of the sixty signers of the Declaration. Four hundred sixty-two pages in all.

Lou Kemp follows each man from his earliest days, to his arrival in Texas, his work at the convention and during the Texas Revolution, and all the way to his last days on Earth.

If you think that sounds like dry reading, let me correct that notion.

You can chalk it up to Divine Providence that these men were able to assemble in one room, refrain from killing each other and forge a nation.

What an unlikely bunch they were. So different from the men who met in Philadelphia in 1776. Wild men as much as statesmen.

The Texas founders were not a powdered wig crowd. They were men with the bark on, their passions and foibles unhidden (except maybe to themselves.) In other words, they were real people, just like you and me.

Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night, "Some men are born great, some men achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them."

Our sixty signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence can be divided into those same categories, but you would find a disproportionate number tallied in the third column.

Most of them had left the settled country to start new lives here in the land of second chances.

Here they are... 

Maybe you've come across some of these names in your reading.

Maybe you're descended from one:

There's statecraft, noble deeds, politics and intrigue. There's also fighting Indians, fighting over women, castrating, bloody political feuds...and a Ring Tailed Panther!

I don't know if it's a better reference or a better read, but it's outstanding in both regards.