Jacob Pope And Elizabeth Ann Barnes

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do it justice. Two Mississippi natives, Jacob Pope Barnes, born in 1832, and Elizabeth Ann Rankin, born in 1834, said their vows on June 12th, 1860. Now, they didn't stay put.

Six years after that wedding, they packed up and moved to Texas, and by 1872 they had settled themselves right here in Trinity. Jacob was a man who kept busy. He opened a mercantile store in partnership with a fellow named Frank Lister, and on top of running a business, he was serving as county treasurer.

That is a full plate by anyone's measure. But here's where the story takes its turn. Jacob Pope Barnes died in 1877, and Elizabeth, forty-three years old, was left standing.

Nine children to rear. A mercantile store to run. And she did both.

She didn't close those doors and she didn't fold. She kept that store going, with the help of her eldest son, Samuel Edward, born in 1861. Elizabeth Ann Rankin Barnes lived all the way to 1912, and what she built in the years between tells you everything you need to know about what kind of woman walks into a hard wind and keeps walking.

What the marker says

Mississippi natives Jacob Pope Barnes (1832-1877) and Elizabeth Ann Rankin (1834-1912) were wed on June 12th, 1860. They moved to Texas in 1866 and came to Trinity in 1872. Jacob opened a mercantile store in partnership with Frank Lister and was serving as county treasurer at the time of his death. Widowed at age 43, Elizabeth reared nine children and operated the mercantile store with the help of her eldest son, Samuel Edward (1861-1914).