Sarah Rosalie Patten Buchanan

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Born in Quitman on April 23, 1855, Sarah Rosalie Patten was the kind of woman this part of Texas has a way of producing. You might know her as Rosa.

In 1877 she married a man named John Creighton Buchanan, who was headed for the state senate. They moved to Mineola, and by all accounts things were going along fine. Then 1884 arrives.

Rosa is twenty-nine years old, she has three young children, and John Creighton Buchanan is gone. Just like that, she's a widow with a family to hold together and nobody handing her a plan. So she made one herself.

She became a schoolteacher. Now, that alone is a story. But Rosa Patten Buchanan was not a woman who stopped at the first chapter.

By 1892, her friend Governor James S. Hogg, the governor of Texas, appointed her to a teaching position at Sam Houston State Normal College up in Huntsville. A friend in high places, maybe, but you still have to do the work once you get there.

And Rosa did the work. She rose to full professor. She became Dean of Women.

She became head of the English department. Think about what that means for a woman who eight years earlier had been left alone with three children and nothing but her own resolve. In 1916 she retired and came back to her family's home, right here in Wood County.

But retiring didn't mean sitting still. When World War I came, Rosa supervised the county's war work. Then from 1928 to 1932 she served on the school board.

She was born April 23, 1855, and she lived until February 24, 1941, dying at age 85. She was buried next to John Creighton Buchanan in the Mineola City Cemetery. The man she'd outlasted by more than half a century, still beside her in the end.

What the marker says

(April 23, 1855-February 24, 1941) Quitman native Sarah Rosalie "Rosa" Patten married future state senator John Creighton Buchanan in 1877. They moved to Mineola, and in 1884 Sarah was left a 29-year-old widow with three young children to support. She became a schoolteacher, and in 1892 was appointed by her friend Governor James S. Hogg to a teaching position at Sam Houston State Normal College in Huntsville. She became a full professor, Dean of Women, and head of the English department. Retiring to her family's home at this site in 1916, she supervised Wood County war work during World War I and served on the school board from 1928 to 1932. She died at age 85, and was buried next to her husband in the Mineola City Cemetery.