George Rolando Baird

(28 November 1849 - 25 January 1895)

 

"Rowe" was probably one of the first persons born in Dallas, evidently born there within six months of his parents’ arrival.  He seems to have been named for his father, but the source of his  middle name is a mystery.  He is listed in the 1850-1880 censuses as “George R.” and signed his name that way to at least two letters.  His name is “George Rolando” in  the family Bible and “Rolando” in the newspaper article announcing his father's death.[1]  We also have a receipt dated in 1864 for “tuition of Rolando” made out to his father George W. Baird.[2]

 

He was not only the eldest child, but evidently the most enterprising of the sons, at least as a youth.  He bought his first piece of property, two acres on Elm Street, on 14 February 1868 at the age of 18.  The 1870 census shows him (at age 20) living in his parent’s house, but with real estate valued at $1,000 and personal property valued at $2,000.[3]  His occupation was "clerk in store", apparently referring to his father’s business.  Shortly after the census was taken, his father sold all the stock of his grocery store on the public square on Jefferson Street to Rolando for $500 in gold.[4]  Judging from entries in the Dallas Weekly Herald, Rowe was apparently running his father’s store after 1870.

 

For example, the 21 December 1872 issue of the Dallas Weekly Herald carried the following advertisement:

 

            Geo. R. Baird of the Friendly Groceries on Jefferson has just received a large shipment of smoking and chewing tobacco direct from Richmond, Virginia, among which are the celebrated brands of "Hog's-Eye", "Temptation",  and "Virginia Belle".  If you use the weed, give them a call.

 

Rolando married Emma Stewart on 23 February 1874 in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas.  I have a copy of the marriage certificate, which shows they were married by a JP named W. R. Bright but which contains no witnesses.[5]  Why they married so far from Dallas is a mystery.  On possibility is that her father Moses Stewart (see separate page), who was thought to be associated with railroads, may have been in Dallas in 1872 when the railroad arrived there, and by 1874 may have moved south following the  railroad construction.

 

They probably lived in Dallas after the marriage, as the 1878 city directory shows them boarding with his mother on Houston Street.  In the 1880 census he was living at 1110 Elm St. near his mother and gave his occupation as "Farmer" evidently having abandoned the grocery business.[6]  The first three children shown below were in the household.  In the 1883 city directory he was a bartender for Gluckman & Co.  In 1884 he was still living on Elm St.  From 1886 through 1890 he does not appear in the Dallas city directories. 

 

The court records of the 1878 suit by Alzeda Persise against Roloando’s mother Mary Baird (see George W. Baird page) contain two letters by George R. Baird to an attorney in Robertson County, Tennessee.  Both were signed “Geo. R. Baird”.

 

In June 1890 Rolando and Emma bought a place in the Highland Addition of Oak Cliff, across the Trinity River from Dallas.  The Dallas city directory for 1891-2 lists him as a printer for Ford Brothers, on Polk Street in Oak Cliff.  They sold the Oak Cliff place on 14 December 1891 and disappeared from Dallas records for a few years.  The land was evidently involved in a lawsuit indirectly mentioned in the Dallas Times Herald and not pursued by me.[7]

 

My father said that his father, Harry L. Baird, told him he was born in Temple, Bell County, Texas on 18 February 1892.  There are no deed entries in Bell County for the Bairds.  If they left Dallas temporarily after selling the Oak Cliff property, Emma would have been seven months pregnant and it's possible Harry was born en route to someplace else.  By early 1895 they were back in the Dallas area, apparently living in or near Lisbon.

 

The Dallas Daily Times Herald issue of 25 January 1895 reported, under the headline "Rowe Beard loses an Arm" (the only time his surname was spelled this way):

 

                Taken off at the shoulder.  His gun, which he believed to be unloaded, had been charged by his son, and it went off while being handled

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                Dr. Williams this morning went out to Mr. Rowe Beard's home, three miles west of the river, to amputate his right arm at the shoulder.  As stated in the Times Herald yesterday Mr. Beard was shot in the biceps muscle by the accidental discharge of a shotgun two days ago.   Mr. Beard took the gun to the field with him.  It was unloaded when he last handled it, but his son loaded it when his father was not observing, and when Mr. Beard took hold of it by the muzzle to handle it as he would an unloaded gun it went off, the charge of the shot tearing away almost the entire muscle of  the right arm.  The attending surgeon at first wished to amputate the arm, but Mr. Beard would not consent to the operation.  Yesterday mortification set in.  Mr. Beard is 45 years old, and has been a resident of Dallas for twenty or more years.

 

The issue of 30 January 1895 carried this follow-up story under the headline "Lost His Arm And His Life":

 

                Rowe Beard dies from the effect of his accidental wound

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                Rowe Beard, the farmer living west of the river who accidentally shot himself in the biceps muscle of the right arm, in pulling his shotgun out of his wagon by the muzzle last week, died yesterday.  The arm was amputated at the shoulder., but the operation was delayed too long, as mortification had already set in above that point.  Mr. Beard believed that he would die under the operation, and had it postponed until some of his relatives whom he wished to tell good-bye could reach him, and the delay was fatal.  Mr. Beard was 46 years old and had lived in Dallas County for upwards of twenty years.

 

The Dallas News issue of the same date adds that he “was accidentally shot while pulling his shotgun out of a wagon at Pemberton’s place two miles south of here…(he) leaves a family in destitute circumstances.”  Pemberton’s place apparently refers to the Lisbon farm of Alfred Pemberton (1839 – 1887), whose son William Pemberton had recently married George Rolando Baird’s eldest daughter.

 

I can't explain the "Beard" spelling of these articles, but it was certainly our George Rolando Baird.  The circumstances of his death match the story told by my father's relatives, and the date of his death is within four days of the date recorded in the Bible.  These same relatives thought he was buried in the Lisbon cemetery.  If so, he is apparently in one of the unidentified graves.

 

At her husband’s death, Emma Baird was nearly 40 years old and was left with several small children, including at least two babies.  Indeed, she may have been pregnant with her last child, Dolly.  She would likely have married again, but there is no clear record of what happened to her.  Her husband’s six brothers and sisters died long ago, and collectively they produced only one child, who was herself dead by 1951.  Emma Baird’s own children were all dead by 1966.  We are forced to rely on the recollections of two of her grandchildren who were still alive in the 1970s, and who were interviewed by my father. 

 

One of those grandchildren was Ramona Bevills Molen, daughter of Elizabeth Baird Bevills.  Ramona’s parents died sometime before 1910, and she was taken in by her aunt Daisy Baird.  Repeating what she had heard form Daisy, Ramona related that she thought Emma Baird remarried to a farmer who died not long thereafter.  Emma then married to a miner named Williams.  The only marriage record for an Emma Baird in the area is the Dallas marriage of an Emma Baird and T. E. Crow dated 14 April 1896.  There was also a record for the marriage of  a “Miss” Emma Beard and W. W. Howard on 30 March 1898.[8]   I could not find any trace of either Emma Crow or Emma Williams in any state in the 1900 census.  Ramona further thought that Annette, or “Nettie”, died young, perhaps prior to 1900, and that Emma, Elizabeth and Dolly lived in New Mexico. 

 

Another grandchild was Ruth Pemberton Alexander, born in 1897.   Ruth related that her mother, Effie Baird Pemberton, separated from her husband about 1903 and took Ruth with her to live with Emma and Williams in New Mexico.  Ruth thought that Emma died before Effie Pemberton and said that her mother Effie died in April or May of 1904 near Santa Fe.  That would seem to place Emma’s death about 1903.  Ruth also said that Annette was dead when Effie arrived in New Mexico, and that Elizabeth and Dolly were living in New Mexico with their mother.  After her mother’s death, Ruth was returned to Texas to live with her father.  Her impression was that Elizabeth and Dolly may have gone to California after 1904 and died there within a year or two.  I could not find any record of them in New Mexico.

 

What we know for certain is that Daisy and Harry Baird were living with their sister Effie Pemberton by 1900.  The 1900 Dallas census shows Daisy, age 19, and Harry, age 13, living with their sister Effie Pemberton and her husband.  George Washington Baird, the eldest son, was not found in 1900.  If Ruth and Ramona are correct, only the three younger girls continued to live with their mother.   

 

I have a photograph of George Rolando Baird taken in the 1880s.  I also have a scrapbook dated 1890 done by Mary Jane Stewart, Rolando's mother-in-law, for her grandson George Washington Baird.  It has no entries of genealogical interest but is otherwise quite interesting.  (See also the Moses Stewart family page.)

 

George Rolando Baird and Emma Stewart had two sons and five daughters:

 

 

1.      Effie M. Baird  (April 1876 - c1904)  She is shown in the 1880 census as age 4, her birth date in the 1900 census given as April 1876.  She married William Meredith Pemberton in Dallas on 28 August 1892.[9]   They moved briefly to Jackson County, buying land there in 1897 but selling it within two years.  This matches Ruth Pemberton’s recollection that her parents lived briefly in Edna, Jackson County, Texas until 1899, when they moved back to Dallas.  They appear in the 1900 census of Eagle Fort, Dallas County, with a daughter Ruth and sons Alfred and Raymond (who was listed as Raymon in 1900 and Raymond in 1910).  Both Harry Baird and Daisy Baird are also in the 1900 household, identified as brother and sister (of Effie rather than her husband). 

The daughter Ruth Pemberton Alexander, born in 1897, was known to my father.  Effie and her husband petitioned for divorce in 1902.[10]  According to Ruth, Effie then left her husband and joined her mother in New Mexico, where Effie died in the spring of 1904.  Ruth apparently returned to live with her father, as the 1910 Tarrant County census shows William Pemberton as a widower, with daughter Ruth and sons Alfred and Raymond in the household.
 

2.      George Washington Baird (16 November 1878 - 27 April 1955)  He was evidently the son who loaded his father’s shotgun.  He did not go to New Mexico with his mother, but I did not find him in the 1900 census.  He married Sarah Virginia Hensley on 5 August 1906 according to his children.  They had at two children, both known to my father: Don Virgil Baird (18 March 1909 – 18 March 1991) and Helen Baird Berry (1920).  George is in the 1910 census of Camp County, Texas (shown as age 30) with his wife Sally (age 26) and son Don (age 1).  In 1920, he is in the Camp County census (age 42) with Sallie (38), Don (10) and Helen (6/12).  In 1930 he was still in Camp County, with Sally, Don (21) and Helen (10).

3.      Daisy Baird (16 May 1880 - 30 August 1966)    Ramona Bevills Molen insisted that Daisy’s birthday was 16 May, but the 1880 census shows her as four months old on 1 June 1880.  However, the 1900 census gives her birth date as May 1880.  Her death certificate (she died in Houston) shows her father's name as "Roe Baird” and her birth date as 16 May 1889 (clearly a misstatement of her age).  Ramona said that Daisy had polio and was taken in by her grandparents, the Stewarts, after her father's death.  Ramona may have been incorrect on this point, for Daisy is in the 1900 household of her older sister Effie Pemberton.  According to Ramona, Daisy married Louis A. Bradley, then William David Vick.  She had no children herself, but did rear her niece Ramona Bevills.  

4.      Harry Leon Baird (18 February 1887 -  24 December 1945)  My grandfather, he married Allie Anthony on 21 February 1915 in Omaha, Morris County, Texas.  They had one child, my father.

5.      Elizabeth  Baird  (c1885 – c1909)  According to her daughter, she married George Bevills after 1904 and moved from New Mexico to California after her mother’s death.  She had one daughter, Ramona Bevills Molen, who died in Harris County, Texas 20 February 1985.  "Bess" died sometime before 1910, when Ramona (just an infant) was given into the care of her aunt Daisy Baird.  Ramona had a photograph of George Bevills, his father William Bevills, and Bess, but did not know when or where the photo was taken.  George Bevills was apparently the person (age 23) who appears as the only child in the household of William Bevills in the 1900 census of the (Oklahoma) Indian Nation.[11]  She also had a photograph obtained from Daisy Baird which showed Emma, Elizabeth, and either Annette or Dolly on a porch – again the time and place were unknown.

6.      Annette Baird  (??? – by1910)  Annette and Dolly are supposed to have died young, but after Emma, in an accident of some sort, according to Ramona Bevills Molen.   This must have been prior to 1910, for neither Annette nor Dolly seem to appear in the 1910 census.  Daisy Baird called her “Nettie”.

7.      Dolly Baird  (ca1895 – by1910)  According to Elizabeth Baird’s daughter Ramona, Emma Baird was pregnant with Dolly when Rolando died.  She also thought that Dolly died after 1904 but before 1910, perhaps in California.