DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, friends — and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, Navarro County has given Texas a good many things over the years, but there's one gift that came quietly, in the form of words — more than five hundred of them published, to be precise — and it all started with a boy of fifteen and whatever was stirring inside him that made him reach for a pen. Whitney Montgomery was born in 1877, right here in Navarro County, in a white-columned house across the pasture south of where this marker stands.
You can almost picture it — those columns, that pasture, the particular hush of a place that doesn't yet know it's about to produce a poet. He was fifteen years old when he began to write poetry. Nobody records what the first poem was about.
But something took hold. And it didn't let go. Montgomery went on to author more than five hundred published poems, poems that found their way into many major magazines, poems that won him numerous prizes.
Five hundred. That's not a hobby. That's a life's work, line by line, word by careful word.
In 1927 he moved to Dallas, and the work expanded beyond the page itself. He became editor and publisher of Kaleidograph Magazine and Press — a name worth turning over slowly, Kaleidograph, like the world seen through a shifting lens. He helped organize the Poetry Society of Texas and served as its vice president.
A man who didn't just write poetry, but built a place where poetry could live and breathe in Texas. He lived until 1966. Born 1877, gone 1966 — those years stand on their own, as years tend to do when a life has been that full.
Now, the marker doesn't just tell you about the home where this began. It hands you a poem — his poem — right there in the stone. The poem is called I Own a Home, and it honors this very place.
Let me give it to you the way it was meant to be heard. I can not boast of a broad estate, but I own a home with a rose at the gate. I hold the title, and I keep the keys, and in and out I can go as I please.
My home is not grand, but I live content, for no man sends me a bill for rent. And no man comes with a brush and a pail to paint a sign on my door, For Sale. I can not boast of a broad estate, but I own a home with a rose at the gate.
There it is. No grand estate. Just a rose at the gate, a title held, keys kept, and the quiet dignity of a man who could come and go as he pleased.
Five hundred poems in the magazines of the nation — and this is the one he wrote about home. The marker was erected by his family in 1967. They knew what they were preserving.
And out across that pasture to the south, those old white columns — whether standing or memory now — they're the place where a fifteen-year-old boy first decided that words were worth the trouble. Turns out he was right.
What the marker says
(1877-1966) Born in Navarro County in white-columned house across pasture south of this site. Began to write poetry when he was 15 years old. Author of more than 500 published poems which appeared in many major magazines; won numerous poetry prizes. Moved to Dallas, 1927. Was editor and publisher of "Kaleidograph" Magazine and Press. Helped to organize and was vice president of the Poetry Society of Texas. His home was honored in this poem. I OWN A HOME I can not boast of a broad estate, But I own a home with a rose at the gate. I hold the title, and I keep the keys, And in and out I can go as I please. My home is not grand, but I live content, For no man sends me a bill for rent. And no man comes with a brush and a pail To paint a sign on my door, "For Sale." I can not boast of a broad estate, But I own a home with a rose at the gate. Incise in base: Erected by the family of Whitney Montgomery, 1967