DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Foster Home in Grimes County. Now, every house has a story, and this one starts the way a lot of Texas stories start: with loss, and with what a determined woman decided to do next. Mattie Brigance Foster was the daughter of Franklin Brigance, a settler right here in Grimes County.
And in 1900, not long after the death of her husband, Mattie did what some folks might not have the grit to do in that moment. She had a home built. Her home.
Built to her purpose, on her terms. Now, what she commissioned was no small thing. The house went up in cypress frame construction, which tells you something right there about the care and the intention behind it.
It features a multi-gabled roof, and its design draws from two architectural styles, the colonial revival and the shingle styles, woven together in the same structure. And here's where the story gets a little bigger than just one woman and one house. The design of Mattie's home was, as the marker puts it, indicative of the movement away from the elaborate detailing of the Victorian era.
She wasn't just building a house. She was building in step with a whole turning of the tide in American architecture. Simpler lines.
Quieter elegance. The kind of beauty that doesn't need to shout. That house stayed in the Foster family for sixty years.
Sixty years of seasons and generations under that multi-gabled roof. Mattie Brigance Foster, daughter of a Grimes County settler, made sure of that.
What the marker says
Mattie Brigance Foster, daughter of Grimes County settler Franklin Brigance, had this home built in 1900 shortly after the death of her husband. Incorporating elements of the colonial revival and shingle styles, the house is of cypress frame construction and features a multi-gabled roof. Its design is indicative of the movement away from the elaborate detailing of the Victorian era. The home remained in the Foster family for 60 years. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1982 Incise on base: Sponsored by Salih M. Yilmaz, M.D., Ph.D.