DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out in Trinity County, there stands a house with a story that spans decades and two very different looks. It was built about 1888, and it belonged to a man named Isaac Newton Parker, a local merchant born in 1841.
Parker was a Confederate Civil War veteran, and when he came home and put down roots, he did it right. He and his first wife, Mary C. Ashley, raised eight children inside those walls.
Eight. You think about the noise, the meals, the growing up that happened in that house, and it starts to feel less like a building and more like a small town unto itself. Mary passed away in 1905, and after her death, Parker married Lou Palmer.
Lou would make that house her home too, living there until her own death in 1955. But here is where the story gets a particular kind of interesting. According to family history, somewhere around 1911, Isaac Newton Parker looked at his house, the one he had built back in 1888 with its original Victorian appearance, all the flourishes and ornamentation that style is known for, and he made a decision.
He changed it. Simplified it. Brought it down to a cleaner, Classical style.
Now the marker does not tell us why. It just tells us he did it. And maybe that is enough.
A man who had lived through a war, built a business, raised eight children, and buried a wife, looking at his own home and deciding it was time for something a little less complicated. Isaac Newton Parker was born in 1841 and died in 1918, and the house he built, changed, and filled with living is still standing in Trinity County today.
What the marker says
Built about 1888, this was the home of local merchant Isaac Newton Parker (1841-1918) and his family. Parker, a Confederate Civil War veteran, and his first wife, Mary C. Ashley (d. 1905) reared eight children here. After Mary's death Parker married Lou Palmer, who lived in the house until her death in 1955. According to family history, Parker changed the original Victorian appearance of the house to a simpler Classical style about 1911. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1996