GEORGE C. DUGAN, MY UNCLE GEORGE

(1879-1961)

by Haynes W. Dugan

My Uncle George was the elder brother of my father and was born September 12, 1879 in Grayson County, Texas, the son of William Preston Dugan (1849-1910) and Lydia Vernon Jones (1658-1908) of pioneer Grayson County, Texas, stock.

Christened George Cox Dugan in the Methodist Church, he made much of his ancestry, his father being a principal landowner and founder of the town of Duganville in the James Crawford Survey, later changed to Bells. This George C. Dugan is not to be confused with his grandfather, George Cox Dugan (1812-1881).

Uncle George had three brothers, my father, Henry Haynes Dugan (b 1881), Dan Dudley Dugan (b 1884) and Henry Preston Dugan, (b 1893), the latter apparently an afterthought.

Lydia Jones Dugan, their mother, obviously of Welch extraction, was a musician and made all her sons one. George particularly took to music and was adept at several instruments, including the piano. One heard stories of their playing at neighborhood gatherings and accepting food in lieu of contributions of a more universal nature and—this is hard to believe—stuffing a guitar to the point where the sound of it was seriously affected..

The boys’ mother was quite a cook, too, and the Dugan household was known for hospitality, with anyone in the area being in that vicinity was welcome at mealtime. As she aged and became heavy on her feet, she made cooks of her sons, there being no daughters.

Both Uncle George and Uncle Haynes, as the second son was known, played in militia bands, this a forerunner of the National Guard. Uncle George was said to have played professionally in the band of what is called a Dog and Pony show, somewhat like a small circus.

On December 5, 1905, he married Laura Elizabeth Adkins, daughter of a neighboring family at Bells. They had no issue but adopted Agnes, said to be the daughter of show people, possibly from the Buffalo, New York area. Agnes came to Texas aboard one of the Orphan Trains loaded with children for adoption. She became a trained musician and singer.

Among Uncle George’s musical accomplishments, he would, when Sam Rayburn was first running for public office, go into a nearby town with Sam (Bonham, Sherman, Denison, or others) and standing on a street corner on Saturday night, begin playing a clarinet. Pretty soon he had a small crowd standing around and he would stop and Sam would electioneer. It worked. Years later, Uncle George’s nephew, Dan D. Dugan, coming back from World War II and looking for work, gained employment with the U.S. Postal Service, from which he retired.

Uncle George and Aunt Laura lived in a well-constructed house in the William Cox Survey on the old road leading from Bells to Sherman, located on a high point with a storm cellar in the front yard. Behind the house was a crib and barn made of logs of the type from which log cabins are made. There was also an outhouse, which children of city living relatives found quite interesting. Later he had indoor plumbing.

While Uncle George enjoyed life and had many friends, a moneymaker he was not. He did teach music and, traveling in a Model T Ford, taught in such nearby towns as Van Alston, Celeste and Tom Bean. In later years he milked cows and left milk cans to be picked up and taken to the Kraft in Denison, before it closed.

He continued to drive his Model T Ford long after everyone else was driving a gearshift and the Highway 82 concrete road constructed from Bells to Sherman and Bonham, it being known as the slab.

Earlier, following the death of his parents, William Preston Dugan November 11, 1910 and Lydia Vernon Jones May 5, 1908, the will was probated and the estate settled by George’s brother, Henry Haynes Dugan, who had been a deputy clerk in Sherman. The estate was settled without employing a lawyer.

Well to do George Dugan may not have been, but he had a host of friends and enjoyed life and a good time. Aunt Laura was a steadying influence and a good wife and mother. While her education may have been limited and her knowledge of anatomy incomplete, it is said of her that, suffering from a female complaint, she told of having prostate trouble.

Uncle George died June 7, 1961, and was buried in the family graveyard at Bells on the highway leading to Denison. Before this writer and his elder son visited him in the hospital in Sherman, he had a leg amputated. We found him there in the hospital flat on his back waving his arms, conducting a band.

May he have joined a celestial chorus.

Haynes W. Dugan

Shreveport, LA