DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Mary Jane Gentry, right here in Palo Pinto County. Now, some folks leave a mark on a place. Mary Jane Catherine Gentry left a mark on a whole state — and she did it with a typewriter and a scholar's eye.
She was born in Boston in 1912, which might sound like an unlikely origin for someone who'd go on to shape how Texas children understood their own history. But that's exactly what she did. By the time she was through, her work was in classrooms from El Paso to Beaumont.
Let's start with the thesis, because this is where things get interesting. In 1946, working under the supervision of Walter Prescott Webb at the University of Texas, Mary Jane Gentry turned in a master's thesis. The title alone tells you she wasn't afraid of big subjects: "Thurber: The Life and Death of a Texas Town." Now you don't subtitle something "Life and Death" unless you mean business.
That piece of academic writing went on to become — and I'm not exaggerating here — a classic in Texas cultural and social history. To this day it guides much of the continuing research and interpretation of that historic town. A master's thesis.
Still doing the work, decades later. And she wasn't finished. Gentry co-authored The Story of Texas, which was adopted as a seventh-grade history textbook and used by children throughout the state.
Whole generations of Texas kids learning their history through her words. She taught in public schools at Thurber, Springer Gap, San Angelo, Austin, and Odessa, and at Odessa College too — a trail of classrooms stretching across Texas like a map of everywhere the state needed a good teacher. Mary Jane Catherine Gentry passed away in Dallas in 1996.
But here in Palo Pinto County, near the very town whose life and death she documented, her story is still very much alive.
What the marker says
Born in Boston in 1912, Mary Jane Catherine Gentry became an accomplished educator, historian, author and world traveler. Her 1946 University of Texas master's thesis, written under supervision of Walter Precott Webb, was entitled "Thurber: The Life and Death of a Texas Town." Today, it is a classic in Texas cultural and social history, and still guides much of the continuing research and interpretation of that historic town. She also co-authored The Story of Texas, adopted as a seventh-grade history textbook and used by children throughout the state. Gentry taught in public schools at Thurber, Springer Gap, San Angelo, Austin and Odessa, and at Odessa College before passing away in Dallas in 1996. (2007)