DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Ellis County Woman's Building: and friends, this one's worth slowing down for. Now picture this. It's a market day in Ellis County, sometime in the mid-nineteen-twenties.
A farm family has hitched up and driven into town, and after the husband's done his trading and the kids have run themselves ragged, the women (the ones who made that whole trip possible) had nowhere to go. Nowhere to sit. Nowhere to rest.
Just the street, and the heat, and the waiting. Somebody decided that wasn't good enough. Her name was Quincy Davis Getzendaner, and she deeded the land herself; land set aside for a public park and, as the record puts it, a rest room for rural women who came to town with their families on market days.
Not a luxury. A necessity. And she had another reason close to her heart: the building was intended in part as a memorial to her own parents.
Dallas architect Bertram C. Hill got the commission, and what he drew up was no plain box. The building went up between 1925 and 1926 in Tudor Revival style; arched entryways, cross gables, casement windows, patterned brickwork.
The kind of details that say someone cared how this thing looked, not just what it did. Inside, the auditorium carries the family name: Davis Hall. And it didn't get built on one person's generosity alone.
The city pitched in. The county pitched in. Local women's clubs pitched in.
A whole community decided, together, that the women who'd been standing out on the street long enough deserved something permanent. The Ellis County Woman's Building is still standing. Tudor Revival arches and all.
Some things get built for the moment; and some things get built to last.
What the marker says
Dallas architect Bertram C. Hill designed this building, erected in 1925-26 on land deeded by Quincy Davis Getzendaner for a public park and a "rest room" for rural women who came to town with their families on market days. Intended in part as a memorial to Mrs. Getezndaner's parents, the building includes an auditorium called Davis Hall. Built with financial support from the city, county and local women's clubs, the Woman's Building exhibits Tudor Revival design features in its arched entryways, cross gables, casement windows and patterned brickwork. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2006