Facebook Live! with Mister McKinney

Join us on Wednesday, 5/1, on Facebook or Instagram at 7 p.m. with Mister McKinney of Mister McKinney's Historic Houston as he hosts Facebook Live with author Richard Cunningham speaking about West University History in this free, online program.

West University Place’s history over the past 100 years is Harris County history, and Cunningham’s book West University Place will take you on a journey of how it transformed then flourished. The real estate development called West University Place was part of a trend in the early 20th century of building affordable neighborhoods away from city centers; it was never meant to be a city on its own. West University Place evolved from treeless farmland into one of the most livable small towns in Texas—but the journey was not easy. More than once, the enterprise could have failed. If not for the actions of visionary leaders and dedicated residents, things may have turned out quite differently.

Cunningham, who is a freelance science writer, is the author of the novel, Three Good Leads, a sequel to Maude Brown’s Baby, his debut novel. Three Good Leads is set in Houston and Galveston during the 1918 Influenza pandemic.  These fictional books were inspired by authentic vintage photographs that had a life of their own. 

Today, Cunningham serves on the City of West University Place Parks and Recreation Board. In 2021, he originated research into the location of the 1894 Harris County Poor Farm, which led to the approval of a historical marker on the Edloe Street pathway. He and his wife live in a 1948 cottage in West U that they remodeled in 2007.

Join Executive Director Alison Bell and Mister McKinney for a night of Houston history!

Special Book-Signing Event

Babette Fraser Hale, the talented author, has penned a captivating book titled This Familiar Heart: An Improbable Love Story and will be sharing her insights in a speech and signing copies of her book at The Heritage Society, from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., on Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at 1100 Bagby Street.  We will toast with wine in celebration of her recently published book that promises to be a heartfelt exploration of love, life, and loss of Leon Hale. This is a story about appreciation and healing.

This event is free for Members, and $10 for Non-Members. To become a member, please click HERE.

The story unfolds the passionate and unlikely romance between popular Houston columnist and author, Leon Hale, and prize-winning writer Babette Fraser Hale, who was twenty-three years his junior. Their journey begins with a turbulent courtship, gradually evolving into a partnership, and ultimately culminating in a long marriage. The poignant tale concludes with Leon’s difficult passing during pandemic isolation in rural central Texas, leaving Babette to reflect on their shared experiences and face unexpected surprises after his death.

In an interview by the Houston Chronicle, Babette shares -

It’s hard to separate the man from the work,” Babette said. “Hale didn’t have an agenda. He made you feel what was there, what was in the situation, without telling you what you ought to feel. He was really an extraordinary person, but he considered himself perfectly ordinary. And now he’s gone, two months shy of his centennial birthday.

If you’re intrigued by unconventional love stories, this one is definitely worth adding to your reading list!

Book Description:  This Familiar Heart:  An Improbable Love Story

Writer Babette Hale met columnist Leon Hale in Houston in 1980. Their marriage lasted 40 years, until Leon’s death in 2021 during the pandemic.

In this intimate rendering of a relationship, we learn how deceptive surface impressions can be.

Leon Hale, author of Bonney’s Place, was sixty years old, a “country boy” who wrote about rural Texans with humor and sensitivity in his popular column for The Houston Post and, later, the Houston Chronicle. Babette Fraser at 36 was a child of privilege, a city girl educated abroad, struggling in her career while raising a young son. No one thought it could work.

Even Hale himself held serious doubts. But it did endure. The interior congruencies they discovered through a long and turbulent courtship knit them tightly together for the rest of his life.

And when he died during the Pandemic isolation period, searing levels of grief and doubt threatened Babette’s understanding of the partnership and marriage that had sustained her for forty years. Had he really been the person she thought he was? Had he kept secrets that would forever change her view of him?

In candid, evocative prose, she explores the distorted perceptions that often follow the death of a cherished spouse, and the loving resolution that allows life to go on.

About the Author

Babette Fraser Hale is no stranger to literary acclaim. Her previous work, “A Wall of Bright Dead Feathers,” won the debut fiction award from the Texas Institute of Letters in 2022. Her storytelling prowess has also been recognized through the Meyerson Prize from Southwest Review and inclusion in the “Other Distinguished Stories” section of Best American Short Stories, 201534.

“I’ve been writing for publication since I was fifteen, but my passion—of the inanimate variety—is books. I’ve been a journalist, editor, publisher, part owner of a bookstore, and all the time writing fiction. This Familiar Heart is my first book length non-fiction. Both the story collection and the memoir are set in Texas, where I live.”

Speaker Series

Lunch and Learns have returned! Please join us for Black History and Texas History with author Dr. Ronald Goodwin on Thursday, June 20, at Noon. Dr. Ronald Goodwin from Prairie View A&M University will discuss the collection of slave narratives in Texas during the preservation efforts of the New Deal in the 1930s.

About the Author and Speaker: Dr. Goodwin has lectured at The Heritage Society and is a distinguished Co-Chair of the Levi Jordan Plantation Advisory Committee for the Texas Historical Commission, 2020-present. He is the General Editor, PVAMU Book Series, Texas A&M University Press, 2019-present. He has taught coursed in US History Survey, African American History, Urban History, American Chattel Slavery, Military History, Contemporary US History, and Early National US History.

Bring your own lunch or order lunch from Potbelly’s when you purchase your ticket online (please order lunch by June 18).