That summer we drove across the Texas Panhandle in a deep blue Chrysler. Amarillo fell away behind us and the land flattened into the distance. We were headed to Jacksboro, a small town preparing the 120-year celebration honoring Fort Richardson, a post-civil war fort the calvary had been sent to establish. That visit with my maternal grandparents quietly opened the door to a family legacy I had never known - a legacy that would later reveal itself as woven into the larger fabric of Texas history.
In the rodeo stands with my sister and cousins, we witnessed a reenactment of cavalrymen riding into the arena carrying the Texas flag. We heard bugles sound and smelled sawdust in the air. H.H. McConnell’s life came alive. It was the first I learned about his service in the 6th Cavalry during 1866-1871. My great-grandmother played the organ, and the audience sang patriotic songs.
Later, we drove across town and pulled into the iron gate of the Fannie Atkinson McConnell Knox mansion. It was the home of Fannie’s third husband whom she outlived, but to me it was like coming into a movie set. The mansion was a grand three-story house sitting on seven acres not far from the town square. Relatives greeted us with warm hugs. Stories of my Texas roots swirled around me. When I was just nine years old, I had heard about my great-great-grandfather’s first-person account of life on the early Texas frontier. Those stories sparked my imagination and a sense of connection to my family’s history.
There were many visits to Jacksboro growing up, but I lost the thread of history even though we visited Fort Richardson a few more times. I was more interested in the big house with its fancy, exotic furnishings and stories of Sunday tea dances in the third-story ballroom.
In 1967, “Five Years a Cavalryman” was reprinted by the Oklahoma University Press. The first printing was in 1889, twenty years after my great-grandfather’s stint in the cavalry. My grandmother, Amy McConnell, gave copies of the book to all her grandchildren which was the first time I read his personal account of the Wild West. Aunt Jeanne, my biological mother’s only sibling became a funnel of family information since my mother had died of respiratory polio when I was two. I began to ask questions and family secrets were revealed.
My schools bore the names Lamar, Crockett and Fannin - legendary Texas figures whose accomplishments were both educationally and culturally ingrained. Margaret Mitchell’s novel “Gone With the Wind” and the big screen film adaptation lured me into an idyllic antebellum dream of the South. I found myself sucked into both the romanticism of the South and culture of the Wild West.
My interest in Texas history peaked after living away for thirty years pursuing a career. I wondered about the reasons H.H. McConnell left Philadelphia to join the cavalry in Texas, after having been well-educated as the son of a Princeton-trained physician. It didn’t make sense to me that he had also left his wife and first-born son. The lure of the west was prevalent during his lifetime, and I sensed other underlying motivations.
Now, living in what I think of as my “third trimester,” I understand that inheritance is not just what we receive, but what we choose to carry forward. As a great-grandmother of four, a grandmother of six, with two bonus adult children, and now being a family Elder, finding my footing in a shifting family landscape is tricky. I feel the grace of those who came before me. Their courage and contradictions, their risks and regrets, echo in the choices I’ve made and the questions I continue to ask. Texas, like any family, remains a narrative in progress, shaped by reckoning as well as by pride. I have come to believe one enduring truth: our lives are braided across generations, and whatever future emerges will be one we create together.
(DuAnne Redus is an executive coach and change consultant with over three decades of experience guiding individuals and organizations through transformative journeys. Her background in psychology, business, and organizational behavior equips her with unique perspectives on personal development. She is author of three books. [email protected])
