History Not Recorded Is Lost

In October 1971, Thelma Pugh Lindholm wrote to Charles Tips and asked him to set down what he knew. The letter she sent does not survive in the held record; the letter he wrote back does. Tips’ October 11, 1971 response, and the formal account he prepared at her request in May 1973, are the core of ev-0041 — the binder this expert wiki draws on more heavily than any other held document. Without the question Lindholm asked, the answer would not exist in held form.

She was the historian for the Live Oak County Historical Survey Committee, working out of George West, Texas. The committee was erecting a Texas Historical Marker at the site of the former Three Rivers Glass Factory. Getting Tips’ account was part of that project. What she did between October 1971 and May 1973, and the binder she assembled from everything she gathered, are preserved in ev-0041 itself.

The marker project

The Live Oak County Historical Survey Committee decided to place a historical marker at the Three Rivers Glass Factory site sometime before March 1973. A March 8, 1973 item in the Three Rivers News reported the marker’s imminent erection, announced by Mrs. William Hinnant, the committee’s chairman, at their regular monthly meeting [@ev-0041, p. 2]. The committee was also preparing an exhibit for the Live Oak County Fair. The announced theme of that exhibit: “History Not Recorded is Lost” [@ev-0041, p. 2].

The marker itself was cast aluminum in Swedish steel effect, measuring 18 by 28 inches, sponsored by the county and purchased with county funds. The highway department would erect it alongside Farm Road 72, four blocks west of the traffic light in downtown Three Rivers.

Lindholm’s role in the committee was as its historian. The marker dedication program, printed for the May 26, 1973 event, lists “Mrs. Thelma Lindholm, historian” as presiding over the registration portion of the day’s events [@ev-0041, p. 5].

The 1971 correspondence

Tips’ October 11, 1971 letter to Lindholm opens: “Thank you for your letter of October 2” [@ev-0041, p. 43]. Her October 2 letter is not held; what it asked is inferred from his response. He thanks her for the historical survey work, notes his own history with the state committee, and offers to attend the county committee meeting on October 26. He says he does not have much beyond what he had already given to Mrs. Adlof, but offers to answer questions.

This first letter is shorter and more tentative than the 1973 account. Tips says he will look for pictures; he mentions R. A. Ellerman as someone who might have detailed information. He is responding to a request for help, not yet delivering the full account.

Separately, a November 9, 1971 item in the Corpus Christi Caller-Times reports that the Live Oak County Commissioners Court approved a $66 request by Lindholm for two sets of photographs of old calendars of the Three Rivers Glass Company, for the historical files of the county library in George West and a branch library in Three Rivers [@ev-0041, p. 26]. Presenting to the court, she described what the resulting book would look like: twenty pages, each page plastic-covered, with photos of collectors’ items alongside the calendar pictures. She stated she would be responsible for all costs beyond the $66 — organizing, completing, and distributing the books herself.

The 1973 request

By May 1973, Lindholm had asked Tips to prepare a formal account for use at the marker dedication. Tips’ May 18, 1973 letter to her — addressed to “Mrs. Thelma Lindholm / Box 572 / George West, Texas 78022” — opens: “As requested by you, I made an accurate account of the Three Rivers Glass Company, which I will use in my talk when the Marker at the factory site is presented by the Live Oak County Committee” [@ev-0041, p. 20]. He notes that a letter forwarded alongside it contains the historical account.

That forwarded account — the address Tips prepared for the dedication — covers the founding of the factory, the gas supply arrangement, the RFC loan application and its sabotage, the glass trust’s conduct, and the Ball Brothers foreclosure. It is the fullest single version of Tips’ account of what happened. Tips also mentions, in the May 18 letter, his own role in the Texas State Historical Survey Committee: he says he was the first vice-president and then the second president of both the committee and its Historical Foundation, and that the committee’s name had since been changed to the Texas Historical Commission [@ev-0041, p. 20].

The dedication

The dedication was planned for Saturday, May 26, 1973. The printed program assigned Tips the marker dedicatory address [@ev-0041, p. 5]. He did not deliver it.

A May 30, 1973 newspaper account reports: “The program to unveil and dedicate a historical marker was marred by the absence of Col. Ret. Charles R. Tips, keynote speaker, who with his wife, Hazel, was in a car wreck at Waco en route to Three Rivers from Dallas” [@ev-0041, p. 23]. The program proceeded without him. Mrs. Hinnant was in charge; the mayor gave the welcome; the county judge gave the invocation; the American Legion commander led the pledge.

The unveiling was performed by former factory employees named in the newspaper: Lee Wiebush, David Jones, Lucas Diaz Sr., Alex Yendrey, and others who had worked there [@ev-0041, p. 23]. Lindholm had presided over the registration that morning.

A July 5, 1973 letter from S. J. Stewart to Lindholm thanks her for allowing him to photograph the events for the Historical Society’s book: “Since practically all my family, wife, mother and brothers, and of course myself, worked there at one time or another I especially enjoyed the un-veiling ceremonies and exhibits” [@ev-0041, p. 25].

The binder

What Lindholm assembled into the binder is the held record. It includes the March 1973 news announcement; the committee’s May 3, 1973 invitation to the public; the printed marker program; a registration list of approximately fifty signatures from the dedication; the May 30, 1973 newspaper account of the event; Tips’ October 1971 letter; his May 1973 cover letter; the account he prepared for the dedication; employee photographs; newspaper clippings about the factory and its products; the November 1971 Commissioners Court item; manufacturer notes on glass-making processes; and photographs of the factory equipment.

On page 3 of the binder she wrote: “Thank You, To Each Person who helped in gathering the information on the, ‘THREE RIVERS GLASS FACTORY’. I have more pages and space for any other information or pictures you may acquire. Thank you again. Thelma Pugh Lindholm” [@ev-0041, p. 3].

She also added at least one editorial annotation to a clipped article, noting a factual correction about the glass factory’s status in Live Oak County history, and signing the annotation with her name [@ev-0041, p. 42].

The binder was held at the Grace Armantrout Museum in George West, Texas, as of April 2017, when the TIFF scans that became ev-0041 were made.

What this expert does not hold about her

Her birth and death dates are not in any held document. Her family particulars are not stated; she appears in the held record as “Mrs. Thelma Lindholm” and “Mrs. Thelma Pugh Lindholm,” but no held document gives her husband’s name, her origins, or her biography beyond her role in the committee. Whether the twenty-page photo book she described to the Commissioners Court in November 1971 was completed and distributed is not stated in any held document; a July 1973 letter in the binder refers to a history book in progress, but whether it was finished and what became of it is not in the held record. What other historical projects she undertook — whether the Three Rivers Glass Factory was one of many or a singular focus — is not in any held document. Whether she had any prior connection to the glass factory, its employees, or its history before undertaking the marker project is not stated in any held account. What she knew about the company’s history beyond what Tips told her — from other witnesses, from her own research, or from her own memory of the factory’s operation — is not represented in the held record. The letter she wrote to Tips on October 2, 1971, requesting the historical account that became ev-0041’s core, is not held.