The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 55, July 1951 - April, 1952 Page: 303
562 p. : ill. (some col.), ports., maps (some col.) ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Collection
all classes and ages, and his generosity and desire to help those about
him endeared him to hundreds. It is said of him that he knew more
people by their given names than any other man in the entire county.
"Uncle Erk," as he was affectionately called by all, was a wonderful
teller of tales of the old days. In 1898 he was elected district clerk
of Wilson County, an office which he held for many years. He helped
to organize the Presbyterian church in Floresville and was for a long
time superintendent of the Sunday school.
The original settler's fourth and youngest son, Samuel Pressley
Wiseman, was the scholar of the family. Steeped in Shakespeare and
the Bible, he became a ready speaker, and at the family altar and in
the various churches of his native village he prayed long and beauti-
ful prayers. He fell in love with learning at the University of Missis-
sippi in Oxford, where he was sent to school in 1874. While there he
acquired many of the abiding habits and interests of his life. He
became a "joiner." He was a member of Phi Gamma Delta fraternity,
which he loved, and it was not until forty-five years later that he
gave his fraternity pin to his grand-daughter, Allie Mae Wiseman.
He continued to prize his affiliations in organizations all his life.
He was proud of being a York Rite Mason, a Knight Templar, and
he enjoyed being a Shriner. He had a passion for grammatical pre-
cision and correct pronunciation, and he taught the classics and pro-
nouns to a score of his own nieces, nephews, great-nieces, and great-
nephews and to dozens of other young people for three generations,
but not in the schoolroom, only incidentally. "Uncle Sammie" and
his wife "Aunt Izzie" loved young people, and after they had raised
their one son and five orphans, constantly entertained the young
people of the town and took them about in their big cars.
They were such faithful members of the Presbyterian Encamp-
ment at Kerrville that one day the Encampment assembly voted
that they could come free for the remainder of their lives as a reward
for their services to the Presbyterian church. It was partly their
influence that some girl from their little Sunday school at La Vernia
was a student at Texas Presbyterian College every year for a quarter
of a century-from the opening year until it merged with Austin
College. These girls were Hattie Wiseman, Mattie McCrary, Nannie
Fly, Lydia Wiseman, Allie Mae Wiseman, Marguerite Wiseman, and
Frances Wiseman.
The centennial celebration and homecoming was too short; it
should have lasted a week. There were Wiseman families from
Floresville, Houston, Dallas, Covington, Cleburne, San Antonio,
Taft, and La Vernia, Texas, and from Laramie, Wyoming. Foreign
Missionaries Glenn and Betty Murray and their children were from
the Belgian Congo, Africa. Other Murray relatives came from
Harlingen, Taft, and San Antonio. From San Antonio, too, were303
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 55, July 1951 - April, 1952, periodical, 1952; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101139/m1/353/: accessed April 25, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.