Historical Foundation lecture highlights Florence Ranch, Lawrence Homestead

The Florence Ranch.

ROCKWALL COUNTY, TX (March 17, 2015) The Rockwall County Historical Foundation continued its educational lecture series on Friday, March 13 with a look into a few well-known families in the area surrounding Rockwall County.

Mesquite resident and local history buff Janice Houston provided residents a glimpse into the lives of two prominent Mesquite families during RCHF’s second Stodghill Lecture Series inside the third floor courtroom of the historic courthouse in downtown Rockwall.

Houston’s presentation delved into the humble beginnings of some key members of the Florence and Lawrence family households, and examined a genealogical history behind the historic landmarks known as Florence Ranch and Opal Lawrence Historical Park in Mesquite.

The story behind Florence Ranch begins with one David Walker Florence (affectionately known as Uncle Davey by those who knew him) who first came to the Mesquite area when he was 21 years old – around 1871 or so. David started with around 207 acres of land around the area where Lowe’s now sits just off I-30 in Mesquite. He and his wife eventually retired on the farm he managed, where the two lived out their lives as successful community pioneers. He fathered a daughter and three sons, one of which died in infancy to a nasty case of diarrhea known as “summer complaint.” His two sons – Dr. John Hicks Florence and Emet David Florence – were each successful in their own way, with John becoming chief surgeon at Parkland Hospital and also serving as a state representative under the first female governor of Texas – Miriam Amanda Wallace “Maw” Ferguson – in 1925 and 1926. Emet was born on the family farm and had a knack for raising prize-winning stock, including Bergeron Horses.

David’s daughter, Florence Ella Winn Florence, was also born on the family farm and, with husband Buddy Schultz, raised a daughter of her own who would eventually come to co-author a book on the history of Mesquite called A Stake In The Prairie. Houston had the pleasure last year of hearing the three surviving authors, including Florence and Buddy’s daughter Julie Schultz Morris, speak about the book and how they were able to come up with a title.

“They said, ‘What do you wrap Mesquite around? How are we going to come up with a name for this book?’” Houston recalled. “And then Julie made the comment, ‘Who knows? These people just kind of came out here and put a stake in the prairie and started their lives!’”

Houston also spoke about the historic Lawrence homestead located at the Opal Lawrence Historical Park off 701 E. Kearney St. in Mesquite. The Texas prairie vernacular style home includes a sleeping loft, a kitchen, a dogtrot, 14 total rooms and its signature belvedere.

The Lawrence home in the snow.

Since the Lawrence family was so well respected throughout the community, Houston was not without a couple of interesting stories to tell of a few members of the Lawrence clan, including Hill Lawrence, who’s untimely death due to an injury in a Mesquite High School football game in 1925 caused a multi-year ban on the sport in the Mesquite area.

As the story goes, Hill Lawrence was known to be very vigorous and very athletic, and would go to all the football games with the Mesquite High School football team. During the Mesquite-Terrell football game, because there were no UIL rules at the time, Hill came out of the stands to play for Mesquite in the game. According to an account written in A Stake In The Prairie, Hill’s head hit the knee of a Terrell player during play and he never regained consciousness.

“They cancelled the rest of the football games that season,” Houston said. “That’s how respected that family was in the community. Then the board started discussing the general brutality of the game anyway, and they did away with football for six years in Mesquite.”

Houston graduated with a degree from Texas A&M University and retired from Mesquite in the Social Studies coordination/curriculum writing/teaching business. A current resident of Mesquite, she spends a majority of her time as a volunteer for anything and everything having to do with history in Mesquite, including the We, The People program – a project of the center for civic education through the law-focused education branch of the state bar of Texas.

Join the Rockwall County Historical Foundation on Friday, April 10, for its next lecture in the series over the history of Terrell State Hospital. Lectures are from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m. inside the third floor courtroom at the historic courthouse in the downtown Rockwall square.

By Austin Wells, Blue Ribbon News reporter. 

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