DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says, right there in Bexar County. Now, there are names carved into the story of Texas that most folks know — and then there are names that deserve a longer look, a slower breath, a moment of real respect. Jose Antonio Navarro is one of those names.
He was born right there in San Antonio on February 27, 1795. Think about what that means — born into a world where Texas wasn't Texas yet, where the shape of this land and who would claim it was still very much an open question. And Jose Antonio Navarro would live right through the heart of that question.
Because when the time came to put pen to paper — when the men who believed in an independent Texas gathered to declare it so — Navarro was among them. A signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. That's not a footnote.
That's a man who put his name on something that could have gotten him killed, and did it anyway. He lived a long life after that. He died on January 13, 1871.
A life that stretched across one of the most turbulent eras this land has ever seen. And beside him, in the way that the best of these stories go, was his wife — Margarita De La Garza Navarro. Born October 17, 1801.
She died July 8, 1861, a decade before her husband. The marker holds both their names together, and there's something right about that. The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936, honoring two people whose lives were woven into the very founding of this place.
When you're rolling through Bexar County, that's worth a moment of quiet. Some names deserve one.
What the marker says
A signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Born in San Antonio February 27, 1795. Died January 13, 1871. His wife Margarita De La Garza Navarro. Born October 17, 1801. Died July 8, 1861. Erected by the State of Texas 1936