We
finally managed to visit the “new” Bryan Museum here in Galveston
yesterday. I still have a hard time
calling it that. When I was in high
school, the Key Club’s primary service project every week was playing touch
football with the orphan guys who lived there.
We weren’t allowed to go very far into the building back then. Pretty much the front entry hall and the
dining hall. The kids talked about their
sleeping quarters, which were on one side of the room and up the stairs, but we
couldn’t go with them that far.
Security, I guess. Not that we particularly
wanted to go. The whole place was always
kind of scary to me. it seemed dark and
dreary all the time. We were pretty much
content to wait for them, tossing the football back and forth on the front
porch. We had some fun games. The front lawn of the orphanage was perfect
for a football field. Well, except for the
strip of concrete running right through the middle of it. Something about a sidewalk leading up to the
front steps. To us it was an annoying
distraction. It stopped being used as an
orphanage back in the ‘80’s I think, and fell into a state of disrepair.
A
few years ago a wealthy businessman from Houston bought the building and began
some major renovations. He was also a
collector of Texas antiquities, so the renovations took on the added purpose of
creating a space where he could showcase his massive collection. Of course I was more interested in what
information they would share about the building as an orphanage, as well as in the
restored architecture itself, and I was not disappointed. They emphasized the collection more than
anything, of course, but the building had been truly restored. Pretty much everything was original to the building
(well, to the building that rose from the rubble of the one that was hit hard
by the 1900 Storm). The wood was
gorgeous. It was hard to focus on the artifacts
because there was so much wood everywhere that had been sanded down and re-stained. From floor to ceiling and even the ceilings themselves
were wood. A carpenter’s dream. A termite’s heaven.
There
were artifacts from every era of Texas history, from the Karankawas through the
Republic and Civil War to the days of the Cowboys. Letters and diaries (even one extremely rare
one from Cabeza de Vaca detailing his journeys in the New World). Several rare maps (One that the Austin Grant settlers
used to find their way around, as well as some of Galveston in the 1800’s). At one point they mentioned a scoundrel named
Bailey who almost got kicked out of the settlement. He made up with Stephen Austin, though, and
later even had a town in Matagorda County named after him, Bailey’s
Prairie. Seems legend has it that the
guy demanded to be buried standing up, with his shotgun and jug of whiskey at
his side. Chris, of course, was born in
Matagorda County, and we have driven through Bailey’s Prairie on numerous
occasions. She had one more little tidbit
to add to the story. The legend also
says that his thirsty ghost roams the town, looking for that jug of whiskey.
All
in all it was an interesting museum experience, if you like Texas history. The panoramic setup of the San Jacinto
battleground that took up half of a room will impress you. All of the saddles will grab your
interest. But if you are a Yankee, watch
out for the fiddle case with the music box inside that automatically plays
Dixie. The inscription on the back warns
that it will be the last sound you hear.
See, the other side of the case hides a Confederate sawed-off shotgun …
Romans
15:1 says, “We who are strong ought to
bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.”
Father,
thank you for tidbits of history. Thank
you for making me in such a way that those history things are exciting to
me. Oh, and I have no idea where any of
them may be today, but would you give a special sense of your presence to those
kids who grew up there? Thanks. Amen.
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