Dr. Adolphus Leander Patten

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. We're talking about Dr. Adolphus Leander Patten, a man who set out for one place and ended up somewhere else entirely, and Texas got the better end of that deal.

Born in 1823 in North Carolina to Elijah and Nancy Watson Patten, young Adolphus came into a world that expected a man to move, to learn, to plant his roots wherever the ground would hold. And hold it did, just not where anyone planned. He trained as a physician and opened a medical practice in Rome, Georgia, where in 1846 he married Emeline Eliza Trout.

Now by 1854, Adolphus and Emeline and a company of family members packed up their lives and pointed themselves toward California. California. The dream of the age.

They were going through Texas, not to Texas. That's the part worth remembering. Somewhere along the way, the journey found its own answer, and the Pattens settled in Quitman instead.

No explanation offered by the marker, none needed. Some places just hold on to you. In Quitman, Patten worked as a physician, stayed active in civic affairs, and took up the Masonic order with the kind of dedication that marks a man who means to be part of a community for the long run.

Then came the Civil War, and Dr. Patten answered that call too, serving as surgeon with the 22nd Texas Regiment. The work of a surgeon in wartime is not a gentle story, and we'll let that gravity sit right where it belongs.

After the war, life moved forward. In the 1870s, the family relocated to Mineola, and Adolphus kept right on practicing medicine, tending to whoever needed tending, all the way until 1900. A man born in North Carolina, married in Georgia, headed to California, who spent his life in the towns of East Texas.

Some roads take you exactly where you're supposed to be.

What the marker says

(1823-1900) Adolphus Patten was born in North Carolina to Elijah and Nancy Watson Patten. He opened a medical practice in Rome, Georgia, where he married Emeline Eliza Trout in 1846. In 1854, they set out with family members to California via Texas but settled in Quitman instead. Patten worked as a physician, and he was active in civic affairs and as a Mason. During the Civil War, he served as surgeon with the 22nd Texas Regiment. The family moved to Mineola in the 1870s, and Patten continued practicing medicine. Recorded - 2006