Launch

community | events | food

Lake Highlands history 101

Ted A. Campbell teaches church history at SMU Perkins School of Theology and does prestigious things such as write books about Methodist doctrine and spend time in Oxford editing John Wesley’s letters. For recreation, he obsesses over the history of Lake Highlands, specifically Forest Meadow, where he lives, Moss Farm and Town Creek, which he has incorporated into two brief, yet illuminating, YouTube videos. Thanks, Professor.

When did you first start digging into the history of Lake Highlands?

Starting on a Saturday morning in June 2010. I told my wife, ‘You know, I don’t know anything about the history of this area.’ So I got on one of the apps that show you where the historical markers are located. It was a hot-as-fire June day, and we went around Dallas and Richardson. I just started piecing things together. That’s what historians do, putting all the chronology down. Within a year, I was able to piece together where our house was and who owned the farm there.

I came out with [the videos] in May 2011. It has become a great interest of mine since then. Councilman Jerry Allen named me to the Landmark Commission in 2011, and I served on that for two years. That was interesting because it introduced me to a range of stuff that I’d never encountered before. We don’t have any historical landmark districts in the Lake Highlands area, and we should. There are some things we need to work on. The McCree Cemetery and the Fields Cemetery on Skillman probably should be protected. I think there should be some kind of historical marker for the neighborhood Hamilton Park. That’s very historically significant.

How is it historically significant?

In the year I was born, 1953, Dallas held a bond election that expanded Love Field. They expanded it in such a way that they had to bulldoze a black neighborhood that was down near there. It left professional, middle-class African-American people in Dallas without housing. They had nowhere to live. It was very unfortunate. So black leaders got together and started pressuring the city, and they worked very fast because by October they established Hamilton Park as a neighborhood that was geared toward black professionals. It ended up being right next to Texas Instruments when TI moved out there four years later in 1957, so a lot of people went to work at TI. It was immensely successful. It was a civil rights issue that became very economically viable. I think that’s a significant part of our history. I don’t think it needs to be a historic district necessarily, but it needs to have a marker of some kind.

How was working on this project similar to or different from your professional work?

It’s a little different. I’ve worked in England, and I’ve done American church history as well, but going to the Dallas Records office and looking up who sold what property and photographic records, that’s all new to me — and interesting.

I’m also an amateur photographer, which is what comes out in the video. There’s almost no real video. You know Ken Burns right? He uses so many historic photos, and I love that. We’ve got tons of them for Dallas. But I think viewing a historic photograph lets viewers say, ‘That’s not me; that’s long ago.’ So what

I want to do is a photographic thing — a visual history, is what I call it — where you don’t let the viewer get away with thinking it’s only in the past.

Did you find anything interesting about your own home?

The one thing I found is that the very space where our house is, was originally owned by a family named Houx. There was a woman whose maiden name was Houx who sold the property in 1964. So 50 years ago this property was still in the name of the original family. She sold it to a guy who owns nurseries. You know where the Kroger is on Forest, near Forest and Greenville? That lot used to be a nursery, but then he sold it to the developers.

I kind of got interested in that family. They’re buried in the Mount Calvary Cemetery near High Five, north of LBJ. What I found was a very sad story. One of the graves in the cemetery is Amanda

L. Houx. Her death date is June 30, 1847. She and her husband had come down the Shawnee Trail from Missouri, and they had just arrived. Then you go down the row and find her son’s grave, and you see he was born June 30, 1847. So she died during childbirth, and she was pregnant when she came down the trail. Just imagine. And she was 18. Then the husband died just three years later and left the son as an orphan. He was adopted by John Thomas, who was one of the first judges in Dallas. So the kid ends up in a kind of fortunate position, and the judge was able to secure this property for him. But it’s a sad story. —Brittany Nunn

SEE THE VIDEOS

To watch Campbell’s videos, go to lakehighlands. advocatemag.com and search “Ted Campbell.”

Trinity toll road: Why should we care?

As the local election approaches, the most heatedly discussed topic is the Trinity Toll Road. But how much does the Trinity Toll Road issue impact our neighborhood?

The current version of the toll road plan has been a headline mainstay since the first public vote in 1998. In this Dallas City Council election, 17 years after the electorate first approved the concept, where does it sit in the collective minds of the voters of District 10 and the candidates vying to represent them?

“The transportation issues for Lake Highlands voters are 635 East improvements and the Skillman gateway, not the Trinity Toll road,” candidate Adam McGough says, adding that he understands that some Lake Highlands residents “are not close to the toll road but will be affected by it.” He supports the Balanced Vision Plan and Mayor Mike o Approved as is o Approved with corrections o Additional proof needed Signed

Rawlings — no surprise given his most recent position as the mayor’s chief of staff.

Please proofread carefully: pay attention to spelling, grammar, phone numbers and design. Color proofs: because of the difference in equipment and conditions between the color proofing and the pressroom operations, a reasonable variation in color between color proofs and the completed job shall constitute an acceptable delivery.

Paul Reyes, also running in District 10, is a previous chief of staff as well (for former state Senator John Corona) and also supports the Balanced Vision plan.

Thank you for your business!

Reyes believes that it’s not only a Lake Highlands issue but an issue “for all communities” as funding and resource commitments from the city will be affected by a toll road between the levees.

The third candidate for District 10, James White, says, “ I f 635 East will cost $ 6 50 mil li on and t he Sk i ll ma n work will be $50 million and the Trinity Toll Road sucks resources from there, it’s definitely a neighborhood issue.”

White is a vocal opponent of the toll road, a position that distinguishes him from opponents McGough and Reyes.

—Sam Gilespie

Watch Us Grill The Candidates

This game-changing city council election has three men vying for Lake Highlands’ District 10 seat. But how would they actually govern? In a series of quick-hit videos, we’ve cornered the candidates with questions that go beneath the surface. We test their knowledge of the neighborhood, gain insight into their personalities, and find out just what kind of leaders they are.

DON’T MISS AN EPISODE.

Visit lakehighlands.advocatemag.com and click on “2015 Election” at the top of the page to see the videos along with our full coverage ahead of the May 9 election — and stay tuned for a possible run-off.

Bright light

She helps moms cover their babies’ bases Diapers. You probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about them unless, like Lake Highlands neighbor Caren Bright, you didn’t have them when you desperately needed them.

“There are no government funded programs for diapers and wipes,” Bright explains. “That’s at least $20 a week. If you are homeless and you are on a strict budget, you’re choosing between food, gas and diapers for your baby.”

Bright grew up in extreme poverty with an abusive mother. She ran away from home at 17, a broken young woman with no self-worth. At 20 she became pregnant, and by the time her son was 11 months old, they were in a homeless shelter.

“My mom’s favorite line for me was, ‘Who do you think you are?’ And I had to respond, ‘I’m nobody, mom. I’m nobody,’ ” Bright recalls. “My son took his first steps in a homeless shelter, and that’s when I realized, ‘I am somebody. I’m a mom. I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but it can only go up from here.’ ”

She managed to pull herself up by her bootstraps — Texas style. She earned her GED, took classes at a community college, spent eight years in therapy, took addiction recovery classes to curb an ongoing eating disorder, learned how to be a better parent to her children, and spent a year and a half fixing her broken spiritual life.

In early 2014, she felt God tell her to use her past experiences to help other people, so she thought back to her life in the homeless shelter.

“When we were at the homeless shelter, we could have three diapers a day,” Bright recalls. “If your child needed more, then you just had to find diapers.”

Bright’s family wouldn’t give her diapers or money for diapers, but someone in her dad’s office heard she needed them and anonymously donated diapers and $20.

To this day Bright doesn’t know who it was, but it made such an impact on her that she decided to establish Pamper Lake Highlands, which hosts annual diaper drives. Pamper Lake Highlands collected 450 diapers in 2014, and it has rapidly expanded to collecting more than 38,000 in 2015.

Five areas education, counseling, parenting classes, Bible study and addiction recovery — were game-changers for Bright, she says. So she eventually added onto the program by requiring parents to participate in one of these five areas in order to receive diapers.

“We want to walk next to them to help break the cycle of poverty,” Bright says.

—Brittany Nunn LEARN MORE at pamperlakehighlands.org.