DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — Mame Roberts, Grayson County, Texas. Now, some people are born into a wide world and spend their whole lives chasing the horizon. Mame Roberts was born on August the nineteenth, 1883, just outside the little community of Howe, Texas — and she never left.
Never needed to. Because Mame Roberts had a different kind of ambition. She wasn't going to go find the world.
She was going to make the world come looking at Howe. Her parents were James M. and Martha Sue Roberts — Martha Sue being a Baxter before she married — and Mame grew up largely self-taught in that quiet corner of Grayson County. In the early nineteen-hundreds she worked as a substitute teacher in the lower grades at Howe Public Schools.
That was useful work, good work. But somewhere in those schoolroom years, Mame figured out where her real calling lived. It lived in a weekly column.
She started writing for the Howe Messenger, and if you think a weekly column in a small-town paper sounds modest, well — you underestimate what a determined woman with a clear vision can do with steady ink and a good idea. Mame's idea was this: make Howe the prettiest little town in Texas. That was her campaign, those were her words, and she meant every syllable.
She pushed for civic improvements. She pushed for beautification. And something funny happened — other small Texas towns started reading along and taking similar action.
One woman's column in one small paper, rippling outward. The Dallas Morning News took notice and ran a series of articles — step-by-step instructions, her instructions, for carrying out beautification efforts. Garden clubs throughout that part of the state started calling on her as a speaker.
She was, as they say, in great demand. And then the big names came callin'. Life magazine.
Reader's Digest. Both of them turned their attention to what Mame Roberts was doing in Howe, Texas. But here's the moment that might stop you cold — on May the fourteenth, 1949, Mame Roberts was named Woman of the Day on Eleanor and Anna Roosevelt's national radio program.
A largely self-taught woman from a small community in Grayson County, carrying the name of Howe out over the airwaves of the entire nation. She didn't slow down, either. She served as president of the Grayson County Federation of Women's Clubs.
She led the Texoma Redbud Association — an organization that urged the planting of redbuds along highways in both Texas and Oklahoma. And she founded the Howe Sesame Club, serving as its president. Mame Roberts lived her entire life in or near Howe.
She was born there on August nineteenth, 1883, and she died there on December the twenty-fourth, 1976. Ninety-three years. Decades before World War II and decades after it, she worked — quietly, persistently, one column at a time, one redbud at a time — and her work became a significant part of the civic history of Howe and of every town that picked up her lessons and put them into action.
Somebody once had to convince the rest of Texas that a little town could be the prettiest thing going. That somebody lived her whole life never more than a stone's throw from where she started. And she got the job done.
What the marker says
(Aug. 19, 1883 - Dec. 24, 1976) The daughter of James M. and Martha Sue (Baxter) Roberts, Mame Roberts lived her entire life in or near the community of Howe. Largely self-taught, she worked as a substitute teacher in the lower grades at the Howe Public Schools in the early 1900s before turning to her life's work-promoting civic improvements and beautification. As the writer of a weekly column in the Howe Messenger, Mame Roberts promoted her hometown and encouraged its beautification. Her campaign to make Howe the "prettiest little town in Texas" motivated other small Texas towns to take similar action. A series of articles in the Dallas Morning News provided step-by-step instructions for carrying out beautification efforts, and she was in great demand as a speaker at garden club gatherings throughout this part of the state. Mame's work attracted the attention of Life magazine and Reader's Digest, and she was named "Woman of the Day" on May 14, 1949, on Eleanor and Anna Roosevelt's national radio program. Her leadership positions included: president of the Grayson County Federation of Women's Clubs; president of the Texoma Redbud Association, which urged the planting of redbuds along highways in Texas and Oklahoma; and founder and president of the Howe Sesame Club. Her work, which spanned the decades before and after World War II, is a significant part of the civic history of Howe and of all the towns that put her lessons into action. (2002)