Greer Garson (1904-1996)

    Famed actress Greer Garson was born Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson in London, England, on September 29, 1904. She was the only daughter of George Garson, a London clerk, and Nina Nancy Sophia Greer. Her father died in 1906. She attended East Ham Secondary School in London and the prestigious University of London, where she graduated with a B.A. and with honors in English in 1926. Though family members suggested that she might enter the teaching field, Garson had ambitions to become an actress. She did postgraduate work and studied French theater at Grenoble University in France in 1927. From 1927 to 1931 she worked at an advertising agency in London where she met another aspiring actor, George Sanders, who later starred in such films as The Gay Falcon and The Saint. She joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in late 1931 and made her stage debut in 1932. In just a few short years she landed starring roles in a number of West End productions on the London stage. During one of her productions, she caught the eye of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who was desperate to find a leading lady to revitalize his studio with the impending departures of Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Garson signed with MGM in 1937.

    Garson’s first Hollywood production, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), won her an Academy Award nomination. This began a remarkable run of five more Oscar nominations during the first half of the 1940s for her leading roles in Blossoms in the Dust (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Madame Curie (1943), Mrs. Parkington (1944), and The Valley of Decision (1945). In 1942 she earned her only Oscar for playing the title role in Mrs. Miniver. Her portrayal of a British homemaker on the home front during World War II was a particular favorite of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her remarks upon accepting the Oscar the longest recorded acceptance speech (5.5 minutes in length) in the Academy’s history, which afterward prompted organizers to place a cap on them. After her role in Madame Curie, which featured the popular pairing of Garson with actor Walter Pidgeon, she was pictured on the cover of Time magazine. Garson was honored as Hollywood’s most popular star in polls within the United States and throughout the world in 1944. Her star was waning, however, by the later 1940s. During the 1950s her movie efforts were regarded mostly with disappointment. Garson negotiated the end of her contract with MGM in 1953 after playing a small role in the blockbuster production of Julius Caesar. She made occasional television performances and in 1958 made her Broadway debut in Auntie Mame. Garson’s portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1960 movie Sunrise at Campobello earned her a final Oscar nomination.

    Garson’s first marriage, to Edward Snelson in 1933, ended in divorce in 1940. In 1943 she married Richard Ney, who had played her son in Mrs. Miniver; the couple divorced in 1947. Garson's third and final marriage, this time to Texas millionaire oil executive and rancher E. E. “Buddy” Fogelson, occurred on July 15, 1949. The union lasted nearly forty years and only ended with Fogelson’s death from Parkinson’s disease in 1987. It was Fogelson who brought Garson to Texas, and she remained connected to Dallas for the rest of her life, although she split her time between Los Angeles and the ranch they shared near Pecos, New Mexico. Garson retired from acting permanently in 1980. During these years Garson was a generous financier and benefactor to the arts, with Dallas being the recipient of many of her greatest contributions. Garson donated millions of dollars to Southern Methodist University in Dallas and funded the Greer Garson Theatre (part of the Meadows School of the Arts) which opened in 1992. Because of her late husband's fight with Parkinson's, Garson had a strong desire to use her name and celebrity status to kindle public awareness of various medical conditions that needed the support of the community in order to make advancements and/or breakthroughs that could only be facilitated through research dollars. By the early 1990s, Garson, a valiant spokeswoman, championed these initiatives at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas. The Texas Health Presbyterian Foundation’s most recognized fund-raising event is the annual Greer Garson Gala, a signature event that seeks to raise money and support for programs and services of the hospital. Garson was a zealous healthcare advocate and vociferous supporter of medical research, healthcare, and education. On April 6, 1996, at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas, Greer Garson passed away in the company of her close friend, pianist Van Cliburn. She was buried at the Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas. Garson's epitaph on her gravestone is a testament to her legacy: A Dignified Lady of Grace and Beauty/Her Wit, Charm and Talent/Thrilled the World and Touched/All Who Knew Her.  Source 

Fogelson Triangle

Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery

Dallas

COORDINATES

32° 52.163, -096° 46.761

Wilson Carl Whitley (1955-1992)

    Wilson Whitley was a consensus All-American defensive tackle at the University of Houston from 1972-1976 under defensive coordinator Don Todd. He led the Cougars to the Southwest Conference championship in football during Houston's first season as a conference member and won the 1976 Lombardi Award as the nation's top lineman. Former President Gerald Ford presented him the award at a ceremony in Houston. He was drafted in the first round by the Cincinnati Bengals and started alongside another Lombardi Award winner, Ross Browner, for six seasons (1977-1982) before being traded to the Houston Oilers for one season (1982). He was later named to the Southwest Conference "All Decade Team" for the 70's. Whitley died on October 27, 1992 in Marietta, Georgia, at the age of thirty-seven due to a heart condition. In 1988, he was inducted into University of Houston's Hall of Honor and was a perennial candidate for the National College Football Hall of Fame until his selection in 2007.

Note: The year of death on his stone is incorrect.

Washington Cemetery

Washington

COORDINATES

30° 19.594, -096° 10.058

Maxime Allen "Max" Faget (1921-2004)

    Max Faget was born at Stam Creek, British Honduras, on August 26, 1921. His father, noted physician Dr. Guy Faget was conducting research on tropical diseases there for the British government at the time (he later developed the first successful treatment for leprosy).  Max attended San Francisco Junior College in San Francisco, California, before receiving a Bachelor of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering from Louisiana State University in 1943. He then served as a naval officer during World War II, seeing considerable combat in the Pacific Theater as a submarine officer. In 1946, Faget went to work for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), NASA's precursor. At the Langley Aeronautical Laboratory in Hampton, Virginia, he designed ramjets before being assigned to the propulsion-and-performance team that helped develop the X-l5, the experimental plane that flew later flew at Mach 6 speeds.

    When NACA was transformed into the civilian space agency NASA in 1958, Maxime Faget joined the transition team and later the Space Task Group organized to manage Project Mercury.  He headed the flight systems division that designed America's first manned spacecraft, the Mercury capsule. A manned spacecraft must protect its occupant from high G forces and atmospheric friction upon re-entry; Faget successfully argued for a blunt bodied capsule because it could slow down high in the atmosphere where the friction and heat were less. As one of the 35 engineers originally assigned to the Mercury project, Faget devoted time to follow-on programs after Mercury would end, and led the initial design and analysis teams that studied the feasibility of a flight to the Moon.

    As a result of his work Faget was appointed chief engineer at the Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston (now the Johnson Space Center) at the start of the Apollo program in February 1962. In this role, Maxime Faget helped to design the Apollo capsule and service module for lunar landings. Due to the problems of launching the capsule as a single unit he converted the Apollo design into two parts, a command-service module that would orbit the moon and a separate lunar-landing craft. His innovation would play a key role in the success of the Apollo lunar landings. A few months before the Apollo 11 Moon landing in July 1969, Faget organized a team to study the feasibility of a reusable spacecraft.  They produced the final design of the space shuttle that lifted off from Kennedy Space Center in April 1981.

    Max Faget retired from the space agency after the second shuttle flight in November 1981. In 1982 he helped to found one of the early private space companies, Space Industries Inc. As a visiting professor, Faget taught graduate level courses at the Louisiana State University, Rice University, and the University of Houston. He wrote many technical papers on aerodynamics, rocketry, high-speed bomb ejection, reentry theory, heat transfer, and aircraft performance. He was co-author of two textbooks, Engineering Design and Operations of Spacecraft and Manned Space Flight. Faget held joint patents on the "Aerial Capsule Emergency Separation Device" (escape tower), the "Survival Couch," the "Mercury Capsule," and a "Mach Number Indicator." Among the many awards he received was the Arthur S. Fleming Award in 1960, the Golden Plate Award in 1961 (presented by the Academy of Achievement), the NASA Medal for Outstanding Leadership in 1963, and in 1965 the Award of Loyola. In 1966 the University of Pittsburgh awarded him an honorary Degree of Doctor of Engineering. Faget died at his home in Houston on October 9, 2004.

Chapel Mausoleum

Mount Olivet Cemetery

Dickinson

COORDINATES

29° 26.370, -095° 04.586

Hiram George Runnels (1796-1857)

    Hiram G. Runnels, planter and representative at the Convention of 1845, was born on December 17, 1796, in Hancock County, Georgia. At an early age he moved with his parents to Mississippi. During the Indian wars he served for a short time in the United States Army. From 1822 to 1830 he was state auditor of Mississippi. In 1829 he was elected to represent Hinds County in the Mississippi legislature. He was defeated in the race for the office of governor of Mississippi in 1831, was elected in 1833, and ran unsuccessfully again in 1835. Runnels' service as president of the Union Bank in 1838 led to a dispute wherein he caned Mississippi governor McNutt in the streets of Jackson and dueled with Mississippian editor Volney E. Howard in 1840. In 1841 he again represented Hinds County in the legislature. Runnels moved to Texas in 1842 and became a planter on the Brazos River. He represented Brazoria County in the Convention of 1845. He died in Houston on December 17, 1857, and was buried in Glenwood Cemetery. On February 1, 1858, Runnels County was named in his honor. Source

Section C3
Glenwood Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.974, -095° 23.215