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To the editor:
Seldom do the residents of Conroe have an opportunity to speak out on a city matter. Ordinarily, we wake up to changes made as reported in The Courier.
While this is not meant to be a commentary about any proposed name of the park or past honorees of anything in Conroe, it is a suggestion for future naming of anything in or around Conroe. The Wahrenberger family had a mercantile store, a grocery store
and a funeral home. One or more of these stores was in business, downtown, from the turn of the 19th century to the 20th for about 70 continuous years.
Robert “Robin” Carter ran his drugstore on the square
for more than 60 years; Sam Hailey owned the Capitol
Drug Store for about the same amount of time; the Cartwright family bought out the Ptak shoe shop downtown. The Cartwright family is still in business in 2010 – the Cartwrights are pioneers to Montgomery County.
“Buddy” Mark Everett already has been mentioned by a council member: Not only was he
mayor, the Everett family had a business downtown for 80 years.
The Weisinger family (all of them) contributed to
downtown, community and county business for what combines to hundreds of years of business in the area; McGee Hotel was run by Mrs. McGee for at least 50 years – one block from where this park is;
Dr. Tom Falvey was the first trained surgeon in the area, and his office was
downtown. The Woodson family came to Conroe in 1914 and
worked in the banking business here, downtown, for about 80 years. O. Etheridge came to Conroe in 1911 and his son – yes, his son – continues to practice law in this city. He practiced law on the square, in the same office, for about 60 years.
Rosamund Stewart: This woman taught school in the county
more years than I can recall. She was married to an attorney who came here in the 1930s, raised their children (one who practices law in Conroe) and single-handedly urged Conroe to preserve its precious history. Mrs. Stewart has a grandson who is an
attorney and is currently a judge in Conroe. These three generations of Stewarts have practiced law continuously for about 80 years.
I can go on and on.
I don’t mean to leave significant people out of this discussion, rather it is meant for all of you to begin your own discussions of early Conroe merchants and professionals and just who you think should be honored now and in the future, and how the city
should go about honoring them.
If you do not know the names above, all the more reason they should be considered. Without their contributions, there would be no streets, no buildings, no prosperity, no downtown and certainly no city in which our City Council governs.
Courtenay Crane Cross
Conroe |
