DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. Now, before Gonzales had much of a reputation for anything, a man named Almaron Dickinson and his wife Susanna put down roots here — right here, on this very ground — in 1834. Built a home.
Started a life. The kind of thing folks do when they believe the future is wide open. Then came 1836.
On March 13th of that year, two survivors came back to this homesite. Two. Out of everything that happened at the Alamo, two souls made their way home to this spot in Gonzales.
One of them was Susanna Dickinson, carrying her infant daughter. And she carried something else, too — news. The kind of news that lands like a stone in still water and changes everything around it.
She brought word that the Alamo had fallen into Mexican hands. March 6th, that happened. And she brought word of the death of its defenders — the heroic defenders, the marker calls them — men from Gonzales among them.
Her young husband, Captain Almaron Dickinson, was one of those men. So this ground you're standing near or passing by — it's not just a homesite. It's the place where the news of the Alamo first arrived.
Carried by a mother and her baby. That's who history handed that burden to. Some stories don't need embellishment.
They just need to be told straight, and then let to sit.
What the marker says
1834 Homesite of Capt. and Mrs. Almaron Dickinson Site of the home to which two of the survivors of the Alamo returned, March 13, 1836. Susanna Dickinson, with her infant daughter, brought news of fall of Alamo into Mexican hands (March 6) and of the death of its heroic defenders from Gonzales, among whom was her young husband. (1969)