Robert Francis Catterson (1835-1914)

    Catterson was born in 1835 on a farm near Beech Grove in Marion County, Indiana. He was the son of an Irish immigrant, but his father died in 1840 when Robert was only five years old. Catterson's education began at Adrian College in Michigan, and then he attended Cincinnati Medical College in Ohio, precursor to the University of Cincinnati Academic Health Center. After completing his medical studies, Catterson established a medical practice in Rockville, Indiana, just prior to the start of the American Civil War. When the American Civil War began in 1861, Catterson chose to follow the Union cause. He gave up his medical practice and volunteered to serve in the Union Army, enlisting in the 14th Indiana Infantry Regiment. On April 23 Catterson was mustered in as a private into Company A of the 14th, and on June 7 was promoted to first sergeant. Catterson was then elected as an officer, and he was commissioned a second lieutenant on July 5. The following year he was promoted to first lieutenant on March 15, 1862. In 1862 Catterson saw his first battle during the Valley Campaign, participating in the First Battle of Kernstown on March 23, and was promoted to captain on May 4.

    Catterson next fought during the Maryland Campaign and the Battle of Antietam on September 17, where he was wounded. Upon recovering, Catterson was appointed lieutenant colonel in the 97th Regiment Indiana Infantry on October 18, and its commander as colonel on November 25. Catterson and the 97th Indiana served the Battle of Memphis in Tennessee on June 6, 1862, and the subsequent occupation of the city, until late in 1862. He then took part in the Siege of Vicksburg in the spring of 1863 and the Tullahoma Campaign that summer. Catterson and his command participated in the Third Battle of Chattanooga on November 23-25, and the Atlanta Campaign throughout the summer of 1864. During Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman's March to the Sea in the winter of 1864, Catterson was part of the Army of the Tennessee, heading a brigade in its XV Corps beginning on November 22, 1864. He fought in the Carolinas Campaign of 1865, participating in the Battle of Bentonville in North Carolina on March 19-21, the fight considered the last major engagement of the American Civil War. Also during the Carolinas Campaign, Catterson served very briefly as chief of staff to Maj. Gen. John A. Logan, the commander of the XV Corps. He then returned to his brigade, leading it for the rest of the campaign and to the end of the war. Catterson was brevetted to brigadier general in the Union Army on May 31, 1865, and was mustered out of the volunteer service on January 15, 1866.

    After the war, Catterson chose not to return to practicing medicine; he moved to Arkansas, where he tried and failed at cotton speculation. He then became commander of the Arkansas Negro militia under Governor Powell Clayton, engaged in fighting against the Ku Klux Klan members operating there, and also as a United States Marshal. During Clayton's successful political run for the U.S. Senate, Catterson was removed as marshal when he lost the favor of Clayton, and replaced by Isaac Mills. He would later command the Brooks forces, during the Brooks-Baxter War. Catterson was the mayor of Little Rock, Arkansas, from 1872 to 1874. After serving as mayor, he moved to Minnesota, where he was unsuccessful as both a farmer and a farm implement merchant. He died at the age of 79 at the Veterans' Hospital in San Antonio, Texas, after suffering from a stroke and buried in the San Antonio National Cemetery.

Section A
San Antonio National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.290, -098° 27.997

James E. Robinson (1918-1945)

    James Robinson, Medal of Honor recipient, was born in Toledo, Ohio, on July 10, 1918. He entered military service at Waco, Texas, and at the time of his death was assigned to the 861st Field Artillery Battalion, Sixty-third Infantry Division, United States Army. On April 6, 1945, Robinson was a field-artillery observer attached to Company A, 253rd Infantry, near Untergriesheim, Germany. After eight hours of fighting over open terrain, the company had lost its commanding officer and nearly all of its key enlisted men. With only twenty-three unwounded riflemen and carrying his heavy radio equipment, Lieutenant Robinson led his men through intense fire in a charge against the objective. He killed ten of the enemy with point-blank pistol and rifle fire and with his men swept the area of all resistance. Soon afterward he was ordered to seize the town of Kressbach. After encouraging each of his remaining nineteen men, he again led them forward. In the advance he was mortally wounded in the throat, but refused medical attention and continued to direct artillery fire. After the town was taken he walked nearly two miles to an aid station, where he died. By his intrepid leadership Robinson was directly responsible for the successful mission of Company A, against tremendous odds. He is buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery at San Antonio. Source

CITATION

He was a field artillery forward observer attached to Company A, 253d Infantry, near Untergriesheim, Germany, on 6 April 1945. Eight hours of desperate fighting over open terrain swept by German machine gun, mortar, and small-arms fire had decimated Company A, robbing it of its commanding officer and most of its key enlisted personnel when 1st Lt. Robinson rallied the 23 remaining uninjured riflemen and a few walking wounded, and, while carrying his heavy radio for communication with American batteries, led them through intense fire in a charge against the objective. Ten German infantrymen in foxholes threatened to stop the assault, but the gallant leader killed them all at point-blank range with rifle and pistol fire and then pressed on with his men to sweep the area of all resistance. Soon afterward he was ordered to seize the defended town of Kressbach. He went to each of the 19 exhausted survivors with cheering words, instilling in them courage and fortitude, before leading the little band forward once more. In the advance he was seriously wounded in the throat by a shell fragment, but, despite great pain and loss of blood, he refused medical attention and continued the attack, directing supporting artillery fire even though he was mortally wounded. Only after the town had been taken and he could no longer speak did he leave the command he had inspired in victory and walk nearly 2 miles to an aid station where he died from his wound. By his intrepid leadership 1st Lt. Robinson was directly responsible for Company A's accomplishing its mission against tremendous odds.

Section T
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 28.661, -098° 25.819

Rienzi Melville Johnston (1849-1926)

    Rienzi Melville Johnston, newspaper editor, son of Freeman W. and Mary J. (Russell) Johnston, was born at Sandersville, Georgia, on September 9, 1849 (some sources say 1850). Early in his life he began work in a print shop, and at the age of twelve he became a drummer in the Confederate Army (1862-63). After discharge he reenlisted in 1864 and served until the end of the war, when he returned to newspaper work. In the early 1870s he was city editor of the Savannah Morning News. He traveled to Texas in 1878 to edit the Crockett Patron. After a year he edited the Corsicana Observer and established the Independent there. In 1880 he moved to Austin, where he was associated with the Austin Statesman. The Houston Post secured his service as correspondent to cover the state capital. Johnston was chosen editor-in-chief of the reorganized Houston paper in 1885, and later he became president of the Houston Printing Company. As an editorial writer he was quoted by the press throughout many states. For two years he was first vice president of the Associated Press. 

    Johnston was one of the leaders of the Democratic party in the South. He declined the nomination for lieutenant governor of Texas in 1898. From 1900 to 1912 he was a member of the Democratic National Committee. Early in 1913 Governor Oscar B. Colquitt appointed him United States senator to fill the unexpired term of Joseph W. Bailey. Johnston served from January 4 to February 2, 1913, when he returned to Houston and resumed his duties as active head of the Post. He retired in 1919 and served as state senator from the Houston district; he resigned when he was appointed chairman of the state prison commission by Governor William P. Hobby on January 12, 1920. Johnston married Mary E. Parsons in 1875, and they had three children. He died on February 28, 1926, and was buried in Glenwood Cemetery, Houston. Source

Section H2
Glenwood Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.835, -095° 23.198

Helen Lucy Corbitt (1906–1978)

    Helen Lucy Corbitt, American chef, cookbook author, and the doyenne of food service at Neiman Marcus in Dallas, was born in Benson Mines, New York, to Henry James Corbitt and Eva (Marshall) Corbitt on January 25, 1906. Stanley Marcus called her the Balenciaga of food. Dallas author Prudence Mackintosh named her the tastemaker of the century and credited her with delivering Texans from such foods as canned fruit cocktail and overcooked, limp vegetables. Corbitt’s fame as a food legend rests primarily on her fourteen years at Neiman Marcus, but that is misleading. She had an established career in food service long before she went to Neiman’s. Helen and her younger brother, Michael, grew up in the comfortable home of a prominent lawyer and a dressmaker who had her own business. Food was a central part of family life, and they always employed good cooks, but Helen’s mother baked their bread. Helen apparently learned to cook some basic dishes as a child. She graduated from Skidmore College with a B.S. in home economics in 1928.

    One of Corbitt’s first jobs was as a dietitian at Presbyterian Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, between about 1930 and 1934, followed by a similar position at the Cornell Medical Center in New York City. But she was bored in New York. A job hunt during the Great Depression was unsuccessful until 1940 when she received an offer in Texas. Her first reaction was, “Who the hell wants to go to Texas?” She went because it was the only opportunity offered. Corbitt joined the staff of the University of Texas at Austin where she ran the University Tea Room and taught quantity cooking and restaurant management. Located in a small cottage, the tearoom was the laboratory or practice restaurant for her classes. There, she likely began experimenting with dishes she became known for, such as chicken bouillon and popovers. Asked to do a convention dinner using only Texas products, she reacted with an unprintable phrase and then came up with one of her signature dishes: Texas caviar - black-eyed peas served in a sauce of oil, vinegar, garlic, and onion.

    In 1942, discontent with Texas and homesick, she accepted an offer from the Houston Country Club but intended to work there only long enough to get the money to return east. After six months, she finally unpacked her suitcases. She enjoyed cooking fine food for the club’s appreciative members, but it was wartime, and the Houston Country Club fell on hard times. In 1948 she moved on to run the Garden Room at Joske’s, the first Houston location for a San Antonio furniture store that later became a department store. It was the only job from which Corbitt was ever fired. As she put it, she and the management differed on philosophies about food and cost. While at Joske’s she also ran her own catering service and sold sauces and dressings under a trademarked label. In 1952 construction magnate Herman Brown, an old friend, called her back to Austin to manage food service at the Driskill Hotel, where she could once again serve great food for appreciative Texans, Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson among them. Mrs. Johnson particularly liked what Corbitt called her flowerpot cakes. She worked at the Driskill as their director of food service between 1952 and 1955.

    Stanley Marcus of Dallas’s famed Neiman Marcus specialty store began “courting” Corbitt in 1949 with a telegram offering her a thousand dollars a month, along with an undetermined bonus at year’s end and some participation in the profits from the catering business. He wrote that he was sure she could develop additional income from a local newspaper column and from other consultation jobs if not in conflict with the interests of Neiman Marcus. She put him off for seven years before she accepted his offer to run the Zodiac Room, the upscale restaurant on the top floor of the specialty store in downtown Dallas. Dining service at Neiman’s was neither showing a profit nor serving quality food. Periodically, Marcus called her, but each time she turned him down. That changed one night early in 1955 when, tired of the hotel business, she called to ask, “When do you want me there, Stanley?” and he replied, “Tomorrow.” She began work at Neiman’s that September. 

    During this heyday of fashion at Neiman Marcus, women wore hats and gloves to lunch and gazed at Neiman’s models who sashayed through the dining room. Corbitt’s philosophy of food matched Marcus’s fashion sense: if you please the most discriminating customer, you’ll have no trouble pleasing those who are less discriminating. Corbitt’s food pleased the palate and filled the restaurant. Neiman’s food soon became as famous as its fashion, but food service still lost money. Marcus did not care because all those diners had to go through his store to get to the restaurant - and they shopped, coming and going. Many celebrities, including Bob Hope, Princess Margaret, the Duke of Windsor, and Zsa Zsa Gabor, dined in the Zodiac Room, but the typical Neiman Marcus customer of that day was a middle-class housewife. Corbitt predated the revolutions sparked by Julia Child and Betty Freidan. In her view, post-World War II women still belonged in the kitchen, and Helen Corbitt served them simple, straightforward dishes that they could duplicate in their kitchens. Among her signature dishes were fruit salad with poppy seed dressing, individual baked Alaska, and the Duke of Windsor Sandwich (chicken breast, mango, chutney, and cheddar). During the late 1950s Corbitt also produced the syndicated food column suggested by Marcus in his telegram offering employment.

    A plaque in her kitchen read, “This is the kitchen of Helen Corbitt. I am the Boss! If you don’t believe it...Start Something!” Marcus liked to wander unannounced into various departments in his store. She would have none of it. Once, exasperated with her employees, she fired the entire crew. As they made their way to the elevators, it occurred to her she had a restaurant full of hungry people. She called security, had her staff blocked from exiting, and they returned to work. On another occasion, she made opera diva Maria Callas and a party of thirty go to the end of the line when they were late for a reservation. Helen Corbitt was at Neiman Marcus only fourteen years. While there, she gave lectures and conducted occasional cooking classes, notably one for select businessmen that met in her apartment. She proved that Texas men wanted more than steak and potatoes. Corbitt also taught classes to benefit the Dallas Symphony and raised more than $150,000 for that institution. She retired in 1969 and began a new career as a food consultant - traveling, teaching, and speaking in public.

    Corbitt was the author of several cookbooks: Helen Corbitt’s Cookbook (1957), Helen Corbitt’s Potluck (1962), Helen Corbitt Cooks for Looks (1967, written when her doctor advised her to lose weight), Helen Corbitt Cooks for Company (1974), and Helen Corbitt’s Greenhouse Cookbook (1979, recipes from the spa jointly operated by Neiman’s and Charles of the Ritz). She also edited and wrote the preface for a cookbook, Mexico Through My Kitchen Window (1961) by Maria A. DeCarbia, home economics consultant for the giant J. Walter Thompson Agency. In her cookbooks, Corbitt adapted the recipes for the housewife cooking at home.

    Several honors were bestowed upon Helen Corbitt during her lifetime. According to Patricia Vineyard MacDonald, who compiled The Best from Helen Corbitt’s Kitchens in 2000, the professional honor she most treasured was the Golden Plate Award from the Institutional Food Service Manufacturers Association, received in 1961. In 1968 she received the solid gold Escoffier plaque from the Confrérie de la Chaine des Rôtisseurs, the world’s oldest gourmet society. In 1969 she was presented the Outstanding Service Award by the Texas Restaurant Association. She received an honorary doctor of letters from Skidmore College as a distinguished alumna and trustee, and the University of Dallas awarded her its Athena Award for “indomitable spirit and impeccable character.” Helen Corbitt died of cancer on January 16, 1978, in Dallas. She never married. Source

Patio Mausoleum
Calvary Hill Cemetery and Mausoleum
Dallas

COORDINATES

32° 86.674, -096° 87.471