DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, out in Grand Prairie, there's a white clapboard house with narrow windows and a high-pitched roof that's been standing since 1902. That's a long time to hold your ground in Texas, and this house has got the stories to prove it.
It starts with a man named Barney P. Hale and his wife Ruth, early Grand Prairie residents who built that home for their family. A solid farmhouse, the kind you'd recognize anywhere across this part of the state — nothing fancy, but nothing flimsy either.
The Hales kept it six years, and then in 1908 they sold it to a man who would go on to leave his mark on just about every corner of that community. That man was Dr. Horace Victor Copeland.
Born in 1875, out of the pioneer Watson Community in Tarrant County — country that's now part of the City of Arlington. He got himself educated at Barnes University in St. Louis and Fort Worth University, and in 1901 he walked out of Fort Worth University with a medical degree in hand.
He spent a year practicing medicine over in Euless, and then he made his move to Grand Prairie. Now, Grand Prairie at that moment was a small railroad town of five hundred people. Not a metropolis by any measure.
But Dr. Copeland didn't need a metropolis. He needed people who needed a doctor, and out in those surrounding rural stretches, there were plenty.
He made his calls on horseback. Think on that for a moment — saddling up, riding out across the countryside to wherever somebody needed him, in all weathers, over all manner of roads and no-roads. And he did that for more than fifty years.
Over the course of that local medical career, Dr. Copeland delivered over four thousand babies. Four thousand.
That is not a small number. That is generations. He was also a prominent community leader, active in the First Presbyterian Church and the Sam R.
Hamilton Masonic Lodge. He and his wife Frances Willard Watson Copeland raised two children in that house — Frances and H. Victor.
Dr. Horace Victor Copeland died in 1969, at the age of ninety-four, and the family home passed to a grandson, Wayne Noble Doyal. The house Barney and Ruth Hale built in 1902 is still standing.
Still got those narrow windows, still got that high-pitched roof. And somewhere inside those walls is the quiet history of a doctor who rode out on horseback to meet a community, and never really left.
What the marker says
Dr. H. V. Copeland Home Early Grand Prairie resident Barney P. Hale and his wife Ruth built this home for their family in 1902. The white clapboard residence, which features narrow windows and a high-pitched roof, is typical of early area farmhouses. In 1908 the Hales sold their home to local physician Dr. Horace Victor Copeland (1875 - 1969). A native of the pioneer Watson Community in Tarrant County, now part of the City of Arlington, Dr. Copeland was educated at Barnes University in St. Louis and Fort Worth University, where he graduated with a medical degree in 1901. After practicing medicine in Euless for a year, he moved to Grand Prairie, then a small railroad town of 500 people. Here he served residents of the surrounding rural area, often making calls on horseback. During his local medical career, which spanned more than fifty years, he delivered over 4,000 babies. Dr. Copeland was a prominent community leader and was active in the First Presbyterian Church and the Sam R. Hamilton Masonic Lodge. He and his wife Frances Willard Watson Copeland were the parents of two children, Frances and H. Victor. Following Dr. Copeland's death in 1969 the family home was owned by a grandson, Wayne Noble Doyal. 1982