Homesite of Barry Benefield

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the homesite of Barry Benefield, right here in Marion County. Now, Jefferson, Texas has had more than a few chapters worth tellin. And one of them begins on May 12, 1877, when a boy named Barry Benefield came into the world at a time when Jefferson was still a dominant East Texas city.

That detail matters, because the city that shaped young Barry was a city in its prime. He grew up alongside an 1860s house that his family had purchased in 1897, and right next to it, his father ran a wagon yard. Not exactly the kind of upbringing you'd associate with literary fame, maybe.

But there's something about a wagon yard, the characters who pass through, the stories swapped and overheard, the lore of a whole region drifting in on the wheels of every cart that rolls up. Barry Benefield was listenin. He learned well.

He went on to the University of Texas, graduated, and stepped into journalism. That was just the first act. The second act was fiction.

He became a novelist, and two of his works made the leap from the page all the way to the silver screen. Chicken Wagon Family, published in 1925. Valiant Is the Word for Carrie, published in 1935.

Both were made into movies. And both of them carried the name of Jefferson, Texas out into the world, giving the town, as the marker says, international fame. Then, after a full life lived far from that old family house, Barry Benefield came back.

In retirement he lived in that same house again, the 1860s house beside the wagon yard where it had all started. He stayed until his death on September 22, 1971, at the age of ninety-four. From a wagon yard in East Texas to international movie screens and back again, to the same four walls where the story began.

That is one heck of a full circle.

What the marker says

(May 12, 1877 - Sept. 22, 1971) Born while Jefferson was a dominant East Texas city, Barry Benefield learned well the character and lore of this region while working at his father's wagon yard, located beside this 1860s house the family had purchased in 1897. Upon his graduation from the University of Texas, Benefield became a journalist and later a novelist. Two of his works, "Chicken Wagon Family" (1925) and "Valiant Is the Word for Carrie" (1935), were made into movies and gave international fame to Jefferson. In retirement, Benefield again lived in this house until his death at the age of 94.