DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one fool enough to say it out loud. Now, somewhere in Bastrop County there stands a house. Built about 1836.
And before you get comfortable thinking this is just some old pioneer cabin story, let me tell you about the woman it was built for — because Sarah Jenkins had already seen more heartbreak than most people see in a lifetime before that house ever had a roof on it. Her first husband was scalped by Indians. Her second was killed at the Alamo.
Let that settle for a moment. Two husbands. Two of the hardest endings a frontier woman could face.
And what did Sarah Jenkins do? She built a home. About 1836, right there in Bastrop County, they built her that house.
And Sarah Jenkins and the family that came after her were not done yet. Not even close. Seven generations called that place home.
Seven. That house has held lullabies and grief and Sunday suppers and going-away mornings across more history than most buildings ever witness. The men of that family went to the Battle of San Jacinto.
They went to the Mexican War. They went to the Civil War. They went to the Spanish-American War.
They went to World War I and World War II. And somewhere in that long line of Jenkinses, there were Texas Rangers too. Every generation this country asked something of that family, and every generation they answered.
All of it traces back to one woman who had every reason to give up and didn't. Sarah Jenkins got a house built about 1836, and that house became the kind of place that seven generations of history couldn't shake loose. Some foundations run deeper than wood and stone.
What the marker says
Built about 1836 for Sarah Jenkins, whose first husband was scalped by Indians, her second killed at the Alamo. Home to 7 generations. Its men were at Battle of San Jacinto, the Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, and in the Texas Rangers. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964