The Texas Czech Heritage and Cultural Center (TCHCC) is pleased to open a beautiful new display, Texas-Czech Wedding Apparel and Traditions, of wedding dresses, associated apparel, and information on early wedding traditions in the main Museum.
The following is an edited presentation given by Lori at the Texas Folklore Society 2019 Meeting.
While perusing old Texas newspapers looking for information about dance halls, one comes across a lot of interesting, although sometimes extraneous information. One piece seen over and over in the newspapers in several the counties was the “free wedding dance.” Admittedly, I had heard of it before; but I really didn’t know much about the practice. It’s a practice that is hard to imagine happening in modern times.
Harvey Phillip Wise, a contributing photographer for the Texas Polka News, passed away on February 4. He was born on July 14, 1951 in Cameron, Texas to William Jasper Wise and Ruby Elizabeth Hunt. Harvey grew up and attended school in Cameron, Texas. He was heavily involved in rodeo and was a leather smith at Courts Saddlery while also working at Luza Dairy. He met the love of his life, Helen Margaret Cahill, at the Shell station that is now currently the 101 Bar.
Texas lost three of its major troubadours, Johnny Bush, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Billy Joe Shaver in the latter part of 2020. These three diverse gentlemen represented a wide portion of the beautiful scope of Texas music. Their skills that set them apart was that all three could write and sing eternal songs that influenced hundreds of other future musicians and defined Texas music in the late 1900s and still are today. All three were beloved in Texas and it was because of their abilities to sing from the heart and to tell the story from their personal experiences. Any association with major record labels were short lived and prevented the massive marketing which would have boosted their voices outside the Texas borders. This meant that none of their songs were ever Number 1 on national music charts.