Lusk House

Duane's take

The official marker's the one doin' the talkin' here, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Now, this is a house with layers, the kind of place that holds more than one chapter of a life. Captain R.

W. Lusk built it in 1866, right there in Waco, McLennan County. A captain.

A house. A fresh start, by the look of it. But the captain himself doesn't stay long in the story.

What the marker gives us next is his widow, Margaret Henry Lusk, and she is a woman who clearly knew what she wanted. In 1885, Margaret married her brother-in-law, Dr. W.

R. Clifton. Now that is a choice.

Keep it in the family, keep it in the house. Dr. Clifton was a pioneer Waco businessman, and he moved right into that same house Captain Lusk had raised nineteen years before.

He lived there, carried on his business, made that house his home. And he kept at it for a good long while. Then came 1925, and the property changed hands one more time.

The Franciscan Fathers purchased it, and that old house, built by a captain, inherited by a widow, and lived in by a businessman, became a monastery. One house, one address, and about as many lives as a place can hold.

What the marker says

This house was built in 1866 by Capt. R.W. Lusk. In 1885, his widow, Margaret Henry Lusk, married her brother-in-law, Dr. W. R. Clifton, a pioneer Waco businessman, who lived here until 1925, when the property was purchased by the Franciscan Fathers for a monastery.