Fannin County Witnesses to History

A Joint Project of the Sam Rayburn House Historic Site and the Fannin County Historical Commission.

Celebrating America 250 with Spotlights of Fannin County Citizens who Participated in or Witnessed Historic Events.

Articles published in 2026 in the North Texas e-News and the Fannin County Leader.

Willilam Tabor Alford. During World War II he flew low-level, covert midnight missions in a stripped down, jet black, unarmed B-24 to aid the Resistance movements in Nazi occupied nations. He dropped arms, munitions, supplies, and secret agents. Link to eNews Article

Leonard Addison Bailey. A talented musician who served in the China-Burma-India Theatre in World War II and directed the 14th Air Force Band, where he played piano. After the war, he continued to play piano at nightclubs across the U.S. and the world. Link to eNews Article

Albert Sidney Broadfoot. He served as a District Judge and later presided over the 79th Judicial District, which covered Duval County, home base for George Parr (“the Duke of Duval”) as part of a state-led investigation into the financial affairs and political control of George Parr. Link to eNews Article.

Buddy Clayton. He joined the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), eventually working as the Director of Computer Operations. Buddy created the program that fired the rockets that returned Apollo 13 to Earth in 1970. Link to eNews Article

Dean Chambers. During World War II he was the radio operator on the Walkout from Burma to India with General Stilwell. Link to eNews Article

Genie Broadfoot Chance. During a major earthquake in Alaska in 1964, she broadcast crucial information over the radio. Link to eNews Article

Roberta Dodd Crawford. This black woman from Bonham was a very talented singer who studied music with the help of five socially prominent white women benefactors from Bonham. She toured with great success in the US and then went to Paris to continue her studies, marrying an African prince, Kojo Marc Tovalou-Houenou, in 1932. She was trapped in Paris when the Nazis occupied France in 1940. WIth her health failing, she returned to Bonham in 1948, but never sang again in public. Link to eNews article.

John F. Day, Jr. During World War II, he became Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Headquarters Commandant and later served in New Guinea and the Philippines, later serving in the occupation of Japan including constructing orphanages in northern Japan. Link to eNews Article

Joe Denton. Joe, who worked at Wise Funeral Home, was friends with Sam Rayburn and conducted Rayburn’s funeral on November 18, 1961. “Mr. Joe lived a professional closeness to hundreds of families that had been touched by death.” Link to eNews Ariticle

Joseph E. Deupree. He attended Baylor University in 1857 when it was located in Independence, Washington County and “I had the great pleasure of seeing and hearing Gen. [Sam] Houston on all sorts of occasions. I have heard and seen him when talking to his old neighbors, in the stores and on the streets.” Link to eNews Article

John Dibley. He came to Bonham in 1898 on an “orphan train.” Link to eNews Article.

Joseph Fenner. He came to Texas in 1835 with a group from Alabama to fight for Texas Independence. His brother died at Goliad, but he survived, eventually returning to Fannin County with the Leslie family. His tombstone reads: “He was with Fannin at Goliad and Houston at San Jacinto.: Link to eNews Article.

John H. Floyd. He operated the Floyd Quarry south of Honey Grove which furnished building material throughout north Texas. Link to eNews Article

Cleo Morrison Foreman. In 1941, as a missionary in China, she was captured by the Japanese. She was held in prisoner of war camps for 39 months and in 1945 returned to Fannin County after liberation. She then returned to China in 1947 to teach English and Bible Study, returning to Texas in 1951. Link to eNews Article

William “Bill” Freeman. Once the U.S. entered WWII, Bill was stationed in the Pacific Theatre flying a Grumman-Wildcat airplane. He helped achieve six aerial combat victories in Guadalcanal, received the Distinguished Flying Cross, and became an ace fighter pilot (meaning he had five confirmed aerial combat kills). Link to eNews Article

Myrtle Hancock. She was the first woman to register to vote in Fannin County and the first woman to vote in an election in Fannin County. Link to the eNews Article.

James Marcum Hardaway. He was killed in the Mexican-American War in 1847. Robert H. Taylor, his uncle, later returned to Mexico to retrieve his remains, which were interred in the Pace Cemetery in Bonham and then moved to Willow Wild Cemetery. He was buried 3 times. Link to eNews Article

Florence Fogle Keahey. She was the Fannin County Treasurer for 28 years. In her obituary, Florence was cited as the person who took the much-publicized photograph of President John F. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and former presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman in Bonham, TX, for Sam Rayburn’s funeral in 1961, but she was never given photo credit. Link to eNews Article

Max Levine. One of Bonham’s Jewish merchants, Max’s sister Hannah and her husband Henry, Max’s sister Flora and her daughter Bertha "Birdie” and son Leo, and nephew Carroll were all killed during the hurricane that destroyed Galveston, TX, on September 8, 1900. Link to eNews Article

Smith Lipscomb. He was at Fort Sumter in South Carolina on April 12, 1861, when the Confederate States of America military forces attacked the U.S. military forces at Fort Sumter, beginning the Civil War. He participated in the Battle of Appomattox Station on April 8, 1865, and witnessed General Lee surrender to U.S. General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865. Link to the eNews Article

Grace Dupree Ridings and Hope Ridings Miller. Both born in Fannin County, Grace was a writer and poet who once hosted Eleanor Roosevelt in her home in Sherman. Her daughter Hope was the society editor of the Washington Post from 1937 to 1944. Link to eNews article.

Earle Newton. Earle survived the Japanese military attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 and took part in the Battle of Midway in June 1942. Link to eNews Article

Lelia Roberts. She was a Methodist missionary in Mexico for 43 years. Link to eNews Article

Erwin Evans Smith. "“One of the greatest photographers of cowboy life who ever lived.” (Quote from Imagining the Open Range: Erwin Smith, Cowboy Photographer.) He visited and worked on ranches in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas, documenting the cowboy way of life at the time when the open range was disappearing. Link to eNews Article

Margaret Smith. During World War II, Margaret joined the WAVES and worked around the world, including Rhein-Mein, Germany, in 1948 as the only WAVE operating in support during the Berlin Airlift. Link to eNews Article

Dr. Tom Spies. He was among the first to prove that pellagra was caused by a deficient diet, and among the first to use nicotinic acid, a constituent of Vitamin B-2, as an inexpensive cure for pellagra. Link to the eNews Article

Bob Weddle. His scholarship led to the discovery of the remains of La Salle’s ship the Belle in Matagorda Bay. The remains of the ship are now at the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum in Austin. Link to eNews Article

Alonzo John Wemple In 1865, he piloted the train carrying former President Abraham Lincoln’s body from Schenectady to Troy, NY. Alonzo eventually moved to Texas in 1886 and worked on the Texas & Pacific Railway. Link to eNews Article

Earl “Red” W. Young. Red joined the Army medical corps on May 2, 1944, and served in the European Theatre with the 120th Evacuation Hospital in General George Patton’s 3rd Army during WWII. He was with the 3rd Army when they liberated Buchenwald Concentration Camp near Weimar, Germany, on April 11, 1945. Link to eNews Article

Harriet Zumwalt. During World War II, Harriet made fourteen Atlantic crossings caring for both wounded soldiers and prisoners-of-war. Link to eNews Article.

D-Day. This article lists young men of Fannin County who were killed at D-Day or soon thereafter in Europe. Their deaths touched every part of the county. Link to eNews Article.