Welborn-Bostick Home

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. Way back in 1860, a Missouri-born man named James Irby Welborn and his wife Nettie Ann Moore, also a native of Missouri, came to this stretch of Texas and bought this land. Now, they didn't just sit on it.

They donated acreage for what became Moody College, which by the time of this marker had grown into Moody Public School. And if that wasn't enough, they deeded the right-of-way for the Santa Fe Railroad. You want to talk about people who shaped a place, well, there you have it.

The land, the school, the railroad line. The Welborns had a hand in all of it. Then comes 1885, and the land passes to a son, George Yancey Welborn, and his wife Theodocia Wharton.

George and Theodocia are now the owners, standing on the same ground his parents had walked for a quarter century. George, he waited. He sat with that land, knew every corner of it, and then in 1914, on the old family homesite, he built the home.

Not a temporary thing, not a maybe. A home, rooted right where the family had always been. The story doesn't stop there.

In 1938, George and Theodocia's daughter Veda and her husband Seth Pendleton Bostick became the owners. The name on the house changed, but the family holding the deed did not. The marker puts it plainly, and plainly is enough: Welborn descendants have lived on this land one hundred and twenty-one years.

That's what it says. And then it says one more thing. This is the oldest family owned property in Moody.

Not the biggest, not the most famous. The oldest. Some legacies don't need to shout.

What the marker says

James Irby Welborn and wife Nettie Ann Moore, natives of Missouri, purchased this land in 1860. They donated acreage for Moody College, now Moody Public School, and deeded right-of-way for the Santa Fe Railroad. A son, George Yancey Welborn, and wife Theodocia Wharton became owners of the land in 1885. George built this home in 1914 on old family homesite. Their daughter, Veda, and husband Seth Pendleton Bostick became the owners in 1938. Welborn descendants have lived on this land 121 years. This is the oldest family owned property in Moody.