ELIZA SIMS AND TWO LIBRARIES

By Clinton F. Cross

16. ELIZA AND TWO LIBRARIES

Oscar Dunlap was a young boy when Sam and Eliza came to Texas. Since there were few if any public schools at the time and his parents could not afford a private school, he was reportedly “home schooled.”
After reaching adulthood, Oscar farmed until 1878 when he was elected a Justice of the Peace. He moved to Waxahachie in 1880, and obtained a law license. In 1882, he was elected County Judge. Four years later, he was elected President of the Citizens National Bank of Waxahachie. In 1907, he served as President of the Texas Bankers Association.

In 1911, Oscar Dunlap befriended a young man by the name of Ely Green, the son of a White lawyer and a Black woman. Judge Dunlap employed Ely as chauffeur and handyman, and provided him with a place to live in the servant’s house behind the Dunlap home. Ely stayed with the family approximately ten years, and became an important member of the family. Ely later wrote a book about his experiences. He dedicated the book to Oscar Dunlap, stating: “I now dedicate this book to that great humanitarian and lover of mankind, of Texas, which he loved with all of his heart which was as big as Texas itself—Judge O.E. Dunlap of Waxahachie.” (Green).

Judge Oscar E. Dunlap

During World War I, Judge Dunlap served as Chairman of the Texas State Council on Defense. After the war, he served as President of the Good Roads Association.

In 1896, Oscar Dunlap, Samuel Dunlap, Jr., and Eliza Sims encouraged Nicholas P. Sims to will his fortune for the creation of a library for Waxahachie.

Nicholas P. Sims wrote his will on September 1, 1896. Because of his advanced age, he signed his will with “his mark.” In that will, he created a trust for the creation of the Nicholas P. Sims Library. Oscar Dunlap and Samuel M. Dunlap, Jr., joined in the creation of the library, donating money and books.

Eliza Sims died June 15, 1897.

Nicholas P. Sims died May 24, 1902.

Oscar E. Dunlap (1849-1925)

Ella Dunlap (Oscar's Wife)

The Nicholas P. Sims Library formally opened on April 5, 1905.

The S.M. Dunlap Library was established many years later. The examples set by his grandmother, his father-in-law, and his brother may have inspired Samuel Meriwether Dunlap, Jr. to create a library.
It is reported, however, that his daughter Edna suggested the idea to him one day when she was very young. Passing a lot that contained a cotton gin and a blacksmith shop, she commented to her father that the lot would make a good location someday for a library. When Edna died, Sam bought the lot. And when he died in 1924, he provided in his will a gift of sufficient monies to construct the S.M. Dunlap Memorial Library.

Edna Dunlap (1892-1910)

(S. M. Dunlap, Jr.'s Daughter)

17. CONCLUSION AND TRIBUTE

Eliza Harlan Sims was born in 1814 (the year Francis Scott Key wrote our national anthem). At age thirteen she married Joseph Oliver Cross who was twenty-seven. She gave Joseph five children, three before she was twenty-one years old.

When she was only twenty-three (shortly after the “Panic” of 1837), she lost her mother, her husband, and an infant daughter.

She became a grandmother at age twenty-nine.

In 1846, when she was thirty-two, a son James Fleming Cross left home to fight in the Mexican war.
The following year, in 1847, when she was thirty-three, she lost her second husband, who was accidentally blown up when a boiler exploded on a steamer loaded with his plantation’s crop.
Eliza married her third husband, Sam Dunlap, in 1848. She eventually gave him five children.
In 1848 Eliza’s great-aunt, Frances Daniel, moved to Dallas with her eight children. Eliza’s first cousin, Nick Sims, followed his aunt and built a cabin in the area a year or two later. Although she didn’t know it at the time, Frances Daniel’s move to Texas in the face of adversity would eventually change her life.
In 1850, shortly after marrying Sam Dunlap, when Eliza was thirty-six years old, a daughter by her first husband, Isabella Cross, died.

Eliza was forty-one in 1855 when her son Samuel Joseph McNeely Dunlap died.

At age forty-three she lost a grandchild, Isabella Calhoun.

At forty-six she lost another grandchild, John C. Calhoun.

At fifty-two, she lost a grandchild, Alice Cross, who was six years old at the time of her death. The Nicholas P. Sims Library has an Appendix to this paper which contains a letter from an unknown source to Eliza Dunlap regarding the death of this child.

In 1870, when she was fifty-six, she lost in the same year two grandchildren, Frank H. Calhoun and James F. Cross.

She was fifty-seven when in 1871 her daughter-in-law Margaret Rose Dunlap died--poisoned, according to at least one newspaper report.

She was fifty-nine when another grandchild, Mattie Leora Cross, died.

Eliza was sixty-four when her son, William R. Dunlap, died.

She was sixty-eight when Jehu’s child and her grandchild T. Calvert Cross died.

Eliza cared for her children, and she provided for them. Although it is difficult to know when she herself had time to study, she was apparently reasonably well educated. She “home schooled” her children, and at least some of them excelled academically.

Most of Eliza’s children and grandchildren and even great-grandchildren succeeded in their chosen careers. Some were outstanding leaders.

In addition, Eliza’s legacy survives in the form of two private libraries, the Nicholas P. Sims Library in Waxahachie, Texas and the Samuel M. Dunlap Memorial Library in Italy, Texas. These two public but privately endowed libraries continue to serve the people of Ellis County today. Hopefully, with our help, and God’s help, they will continue to do so in the years that lie ahead.

Eliza's Grave

Clinton F. Cross
P.O. 5533
El Paso, TX. 79955
Ccross39@aol.com