Thursday, November 16, 2000

Abilene lass refused to wait on vote
By Bill Whitaker

A lot of my Republican friends say if the ongoing election dispute resolves their way, we won’t just see another Texan in the White House, we’ll also have an area native in the governor’s mansion who can champion West Texas.

Natural-born skeptics are holding their applause till seeing what fate allots Lt. Gov. Rick Perry, a Haskell County native. But someone from rugged, sparsely settled West Texas inhabiting the governor’s mansion is a blue-moon occurrence.

The closest Abilenians got to seeing one of their own in the governor’s mansion came in 1927, after corruption-busting, Ku Klux Klan-bashing Texas Attorney General Dan Moody defeated Gov. Miriam “Ma” Ferguson in one of the nastiest gubernatorial races ever.

Although Moody hailed from the Hill Country, he fell in love with Mildred Paxton, a liberated, well-educated Abilene lass who taught journalism at Simmons College, wrote for the Abilene Daily Reporter and came from one of the most influential families in town.

An enchanting woman who spoke her mind and earned a degree from the prestigious journalism school at Columbia University, Paxton was introduced to Moody through mutual friends. The pair married April 20, 1926 — her 29th birthday.

The wedding of the 32-year-old Texas attorney general and one of the jewels of Abilene was the town social event of the year, if not the century. Everyone was invited to the old First Baptist Church at Hickory and North 2nd. The Abilene Daily Reporter covered it on Page One.

“Oh, good night, First Baptist Church was crowded and running over, and the reception was at the Paxton home, which is now North’s Funeral Home,” 83-year-old Elizabeth Baugh told me. “It was the grandest affair ever held in Abilene.”

Paxton’s two nieces and nephew, then mere tots, took part in the huge wedding.

“Hal, Joy and I were attendants at the wedding, and the pictures are on display even now at The Grace,” recalled 82-year-old Mildred Pender Deaton, named for her aunt. “Joy and I strewed rose petals down the aisle and Hal was the ring bearer. It was quite elaborate.”

It was a sweet prelude to a bruising campaign. Moody announced his candidacy for governor shortly before the wedding. The fact he’d busted up Ma Ferguson’s corrupt system of letting highway contracts promised a bumpy road to the governor’s mansion.

So it was.

Local businessman Hal Pender, 78, remembers “Auntie” recalling tales about the campaign, including how Ferguson forces tried to trick the newly married candidate into lodging in a hotel room occupied by a prostitute, then photographing the scene.

But when Ferguson forces and their shutterbug burst into the room, neither prostitute nor politico was anywhere to be seen, let alone photographed.

“Maybe,” Pender said, “it was just the wrong room.”

Although Moody (whose son Dan died a few weeks ago) proved one of Texas’ most honest, progressive governors, he feared the worst during that first campaign. He even suggested to his fiancee they postpone their wedding till afterward.

Feisty Miss Paxton wouldn’t hear of it.

“Not in your life,” the Abilene woman told the gubernatorial candidate. “I’m not going to have people saying I was waiting around to see if you got elected or not!”

Contact associate editor Bill Whitaker at 676-6732 or whitakerb@abinews.com. Check out Bill’s previous columns at www.brazosbill.com.