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The Garrett Family By Steven R. Butler The Butler and Garrett families are related by virtue of the 1902 marriage of Lillian Butler, youngest daughter of William O. and Virginia Alice Butler, and Henry Garrett, son of Episcopal Archbishop Alexander C. Garrett and his wife Letitia. The following is from a book, The Makers of Dallas, published in 1912:
Another source contradicts The Makers of Dallas, claiming that Alexander Garrett attended Trinity College in Dublin. It also includes the information that Garrett became a deacon of the church at the age of twenty-one and that his first posting was in Hampshire, England. It was there that Alexander Garrett met Letitia Hope, the daughter of a Dublin lawyer. Its uncertain if Letitia was born in England or Ireland. She and Alexander Garrett were married in 1854. Their first two sons, John and Alexander Jr., were born in England, in 1857 and 1859 respectively. Garrett's 1859 posting to Canada led the family to Vancouver Island where he was a missionary "among the gold-seekers, the pioneer settlers and the Indians." It was there that Henry Garrett was born, about 1861. Indians kidnapped a fourth child - a traumatic experience said to have been the cause of Mrs. Garrett's eccentric nature in her later life. The Garretts arrived in Dallas on a cold New Year's Eve in 1874, by train from Nebraska. According to Mr. Howard Hooper, caretaker of the cemetery where members of the Garrett family are buried, when they first arrived, the Garretts hired a "hack" or covered carriage to take them from the train station to a hotel. Apparently, because there wasn't enough room in the carriage, the oldest boy, John Garrett, was obliged to ride either entirely or partly outside the vehicle, exposed to the inclement weather. Mr. Hooper claims this incident led to the pneumonia that took John Garrett's life on September 21, 1875. (John Garrett was originally buried in Pioneer Cemetery in downtown Dallas, then called Masonic Cemetery. His remains were moved to Oakland Cemetery in 1910, not long after his mother's burial there.) Dallas must have seemed like quite a wild and wooly place to the entire Garrett family especially the Bishop's wife. Shortly after the family checked into their hotel room, the sound of gunfire came from the hotel bar below them and Mrs. Garrett fainted. The Bishop, demonstrating the wry sense of humor for which he was noted, is said to have tried to reassure his journey-weary wife with the remark, "Surely that is only a part of the celebration of our coming by the good people of Dallas." As it turned out, a man had been killed, and the~ Bishop's first duty in the city was to preach the unfortunate fellow's funeral sermon. The Dallas that fourteen-year old Henry Garrett saw when he first arrived on that cold winter's day in1874 was a far cry from the dynamic city that he lived to see Dallas become. There were only 2,000 people in Dallas in 1874 and none of the streets were paved. Henry Garrett showed no inclination to follow in the footsteps of his father and pursue a religious career. About 1879, when he was eighteen, Henry was admitted to the University of the South in Sewannee, Tennessee. There, he studied electrical engineering. It was at the university, tinkering "with the new-fangled telegraph" that he discovered his passion for science, particularly for anything related to electricity. Henry returned to Dallas four years later at an opportune time. Both the telephone and electric lights were new inventions at the time and young Garrett was to become involved with both. The first electrical power plant in Dallas had been installed in 1882 and the fledgling Southwestern Bell Telephone Company had also started service. During their early years, Henry Garrett worked for both the Southwestern Bell and the Texas Power and Light Company. It's not unlikely that his father's standing in the community was of no little help to Henry's career. The Garretts were listed in The Dallas Red Book, a who's who of Dallas society, and many of the city's leading businessmen were members of the Episcopal Church. In 1885, at the age of twenty-four, Henry Garrett was made manager of the newly created (and short-lived) Pan-Electric Telephone Company, a competitor of the predecessor to Southwestern Bell. Among the company's officers were John S. Armstrong, J. P. Murphy, and W. H. Flippen. Unfortunately for Henry Garrett, not to mention all the many subscribers who signed up in advance (including civic leaders Alex and Phillip Sanger, W. C. Connor, and T. L. Marsalis), the Pan-Electric was never able to commence providing service. This was due to a court decision on telephone patents that ruled that the design of some of the company's equipment was the exclusive property of Alexander Graham Bell - the telephone's inventor. During the fall of 1886, all Dallas was abuzz with excitement over the upcoming Dallas State Fair - as well as its rival, the Texas State Fair. One of the attractions of the Dallas Fair, held on the site of today's Fair Park, were the electric lights that illuminated the fairgrounds at night. Twenty-five year old Henry Garrett installed those lights, along with the necessary attendant power plant. At some point, Henry became a repair superintendent for Southwestern Bell. He was also secretary of the Dallas Street Railway Company. During the late 1880's or early 1890's he started an electrical supply business, in partnership with a Mr. Lipscomb, with offices at 313 and 315 Commerce Street. Henry later became sole proprietor. At the turn of the century, when he was nearly forty years old, Henry Garrett was still unmarried and living at home. His father had made quite a name for himself in the community, especially in connection with the exclusive girls' school he founded in 1889, St. Mary's. It was located near St. Matthew's Cathedral, where the Bishop officiated. Henry had done well for himself too but his greatest achievements were still in the future. In 1902, when he was forty-one, Henry Garrett met Lillian Butler, the sixteen-year old daughter of William O. Butler, a poor carpenter. Lillian, said to have been a very pretty young girl, was a native of Mexia, Texas who had also lived in Denison, before her family came to Dallas about 1899. Although in 1902 it was still not uncommon for a man to have a wife several years younger than himself, the twenty-five year age gap between Lillian Butler and Henry Garrett was wide enough to 'cause the Garrett family no little concern. Lillian's working class background was no doubt equally disconcerting. Surely, in view of these considerations, the Bishop tried to talk his son out of marrying his teenage sweetheart. If so, he was unsuccessful. On May 27, 1902 Henry and Lillian were wed at the home of the Bishop and his wife, with Alexander C. Garrett himself performing the ceremony. No doubt out of respect to the sensitivities of the Garrett family, only one short paragraph in a local newspaper reported the marriage. Henry and Lillian reportedly spent their honeymoon in New York. Upon their return to Dallas, the couple moved into with the Bishop and his wife at the Episcopal rectory located at the corner of Greenwood and Oak Streets. They lived there several years before getting a home of their own, at 139 Granwood Street in East Dallas (near Swiss Avenue). 1902 was also the year during which Henry Garrett became the first automobile dealer in Dallas, and, some say, the entire state of Texas. He took orders for the National Electric, as well as the Locomobile and other makes, including the Oldsmobile steam car. In 1904 Lillian Garrett gave birth to her first child, a boy. He was named Charles. That same year Henry Garrett entered the automobile races that were held at the fairgrounds racetrack on the opening day of the State Fair - Saturday, October 8th. Driving a 10 horsepower Oldsmobile, Garrett challenged L. O. Danielin and A. J. Rogers, both driving Cadillacs. Henry Garrett won the race: 3 miles in six minutes, twenty-six seconds. His speed? A breakneck 30 miles per hour! In 1905, Fred A. Garrett was born. His sister, Letitia (named for her paternal grandmother), was born on December 13, 1906. She was nicknamed "Ditsy." That same year, Henry ran a two-line advertisement in the Dallas Daily Times Herald, which appeared almost daily: Henry Garrett Auto and Electric Company, 313-315 Commerce Street. In 1907, the year following the birth of his only daughter, Henry Garrett began his longest career, as superintendent of the Dallas Police and Fire Signal System. A short news story later appeared in the Dallas Daily Times Herald, accompanied by a photograph of Henry wearing his superintendent's uniform and sitting proudly in a brand new open automobile. The article read:
In 1909, Henry Garrett's mother, Letitia, died at the age of eighty-four, at the rectory where she and the Bishop lived. It is said that the Bishop's secretary, Kathleen Lawrence, was not well liked by Mrs. Garrett, chiefly because she suspected Miss Lawrence of being her husband's paramour. Whether her suspicions were unfounded or not is unknown. At any rate, as she lay dying in the rectory, Mrs. Garrett reportedly objected to the presence of Miss Lawrence, exclaiming, "Can't I even die without having to look at that woman!" After her death, which occurred on October 8th, Mrs. Garrett was laid to rest at Oakland Cemetery in South Dallas. Afterward, the remains of her son John were removed from the Masonic Cemetery in the center of Dallas and re-interred beside the grave of his mother at Oakland. Lillian Garrett's father, William O. Butler, died at the Dallas County poor farm in Hutchins, Texas on June 18, 1910. With her brother Herman, Lillian claimed the body but it's likely, given the fact that William died destitute and because Herman Butler had very little money, that Henry Garrett may have paid for his father-in-law's burial. If so, his generosity did not extend to paying for a marker. Additionally, the plot where Will Butler was buried was probably cheap, being situated in the back portion of Oakland Cemetery, in a low-lying area. When her three children were very young, Lillian Garrett took them by train to Denison, where she had lived as a young girl. There, they visited Lillian's grandmother Lucy Babb, and her Aunt Ella and Uncle Charlie Heason at their home, 108 East Morton Street directly across the street from a house where Lillian had lived as a child. Many years later, Fred Garrett, Lillian's youngest son, wrote that the trip was the first time he and his brother and sister had ridden a train and that the journey was made during "the World War I influenza epidemic" of 1918. He was mistaken about the year. Photographs Lillian took during the visit include at least one in which her Aunt Ella Heason, who died in 1913, can clearly be seen. In addition, a photograph of Charles, Fred, and Ditsy, standing in front of the Heason's house on Morton Street, is evidence that all three children were obviously elementary school age - not teenagers as Charles and Fred would have been had the trip been made later. It's likely the visit occurred about 1911 or 1912, although it may very well be that some kind of epidemic in Dallas prompted Lillian's decision to go there at that particular time. The 1920s were Henry Garrett's heyday, the time when he earned his reputation for being both an inventor and an innovator. In 1921, the Dallas Daily Times Herald ran an article about Henry, then being called "Dad" Garrett, which told of his work for both the police and fire department. When Garrett installed a radio telephone set at the Central fire station, said the newspaper, "he solved one of the police department's trying problems - that of broadcasting descriptions of criminals and stolen automobiles." "It had been customary in extremely important cases to notify nearby towns by telegraph or long distance telephone." continued the Times Herald. But this had been both time consuming and expensive. By installing the radiophone set, Henry Garrett made it possible "to broadcast an unlimited amount of such information throughout the state without the loss of time and at no expense other than the cost of maintaining the radio plant and that is very small. " The paper also gave credit to 130 amateur radio operators in small towns near Dallas, who "cooperate fully with the Dallas station in distributing and relaying information for the local police force. " Not long after being installed, the system was already proving to be effective, said the Times Herald. Not only had it aided in the apprehension of several criminals but it had also been instrumental in the recovery of numerous stolen cars. But transmitting messages for the police department was only one of the services the radiotelephone performed for the City of Dallas. For Garrett and his staff of electricians, who had to be on hand to cut electric wires whenever there was a fire, "the transmission of fire alarms by radio is equally important." And no longer was Garrett "compelled to spend his days and nights within ear shot of a fire gong. He has arranged it so he can automatically receive fire alarms by wireless, no matter where he happens to be." Said the Times Herald: "Perhaps you have noticed that big red roadster of his - the one which goes screeching and blaring down the streets about two blocks ahead of other fire apparatus. You may have also noticed that queer looking "mast" which sticks up behind the seat." That, said the paper, was the antenna, a long wooden pole wrapped with wire, for Garrett's portable wireless set which enabled him to receive and respond to a fire alarm even when several miles away from the Central station. It was also reported that the city's radiotelephone station "has a regular daily schedule for transmitting messages" and that "other operators are quite familiar with it." The daily program of this forerunner of what later became city owned radio station, WRR, began at 7 o'clock in the evening: At that time "police bulletins, the weather forecast and baseball results" were broadcast. Finally, between 8:30 and 9:00 P.M., reported the Times Herald, the radio operator "connects his set to a phonograph and treats the amateurs listening in to a musical concert." 1921 was also the year Henry Garrett's father died. Not surprisingly, the Bishop's passing merited a great deal of attention from the local press. On its front page, The Daily Dallas Times Herald carried a photograph of the wizened old churchman, who had been blind for the five years prior to his death, accompanied by a lengthy front page story and articles detailing Bishop Garrett's long years of service to the Episcopal diocese of North Texas. One article hailed the "12 Year Vigil" of the Bishop's "Constant Companion and Guardian," Kathleen Lawrence. Miss Lawrence, said the newspaper, had first come to St. Mary's College in 1902 and had "nursed Mrs. Garrett through her final illness," adding: "She had sworn a vow to the saintly couple that she would remain to the end with each of the two." For twelve years, said the Times Herald, she "was daughter, guide, friend, nurse, and protector." As a result, some said, Kathleen Lawrence "had prolonged [Bishop Garrett's] life' many seasons beyond what it might have been without her guardianship." The article also noted that "her spirit had become so attuned to his that she often executed replies and decisions on important church matters which required only the formal approval of Bishop Garrett himself" Another story in The Daily Dallas Times Herald told how Henry Garrett was deeply affected by his father's death:
On Friday, February 22, 1921, Bishop Alexander C. Garrett, dressed in fine ecclesiastical robes he had kept for twenty-five years, in which to be buried, was laid to rest at Oakland Cemetery, beside the grave of his wife Letitia. In 1922, Henry Garrett perfected a radio station, with the call letters KVP, for the exclusive use of the Dallas Police department. The following year, "Dad" Garrett also installed, on Elm Street, the city's first traffic lights - a system he invented but for which he has never received any credit outside of Dallas. It was probably during the 1920s that Henry Garrett and his brother-in-law Herman Butler used a diver's suit, the type to which a large round iron helmet was attached, to dive to the bottom of White Rock Lake. The lake, which is not very deep, had once been the site of a dairy farm. What prompted their explorations is unknown. Certainly there could not have been much to see through the murky waters. At any rate, it is said they took turns diving, with one man staying ashore or in. a boat to man the pump - needed to keep air flowing through the long hose to which the suit was attached. Years later, after the two men had lost interest in this activity, the diving suit hung on a peg in the Butler's garage, behind their house on Rowan Street. Whatever became of the suit is unknown. By 1927, the Garretts had moved from their home on Granwood Street and were living at 2038 N. Prairie Avenue. By 1930, they had moved again. Their new address was 5719 Palo Pinto Street. Fred Garrett, Henry and Lillian's youngest son, has said that in the late 1920s the family's home burned down (an ironic twist, considering Henry's employment). It may be that it was this fire that prompted the move. During the 1920s Lillian Garrett reportedly became unhappy with her marriage, a result, no doubt (at least in part), of the large age difference between herself and her husband. By 1921, the year the Times Herald article appeared, Henry was sixty years old and Lillian only thirty-five. It is said she started drinking heavily and often, when she felt particularly upset, went to visit her brother Herman, who lived with his family on Rowan Street, seeking a sympathetic ear to listen to her problems. It is unclear whether it was Lillian's daughter Ditsy, or Lillian herself, who began dating some of the young firemen with whom Henry Garrett worked at this time. Perhaps they both did. At any rate, it was on November 26, 1930 that Lillian Garrett was riding in an automobile with her daughter Ditsy "and a member of the Dallas Fire department...when the car went into a ditch." Not only was her back broken but she also suffered internal injuries. Following the accident, Lillian was taken to Baylor Hospital in East Dallas, where her sister Ozelle worked as a bookkeeper. In December she underwent an operation but it was to no avail. Lillian never left the hospital. On February 5, 1931 she died. The following day, she was buried in an unmarked grave in the Garrett family plot in Oakland Cemetery. In 1935, Charles H. Garrett patented a device he built with the assistance of his father Henry--a device that attracted no little attention. (View Patent Drawings and Description. Adobe PDF Reader Required) At some point, the two men had gone into business together, forming the National Electric Signal Company. They rented offices on the eighteenth floor of the Allen Building in downtown Dallas. Eugene P. Aldredge, who rented an office on the seventh floor of the same building, recalled: "I was informed the two were experimenting with an automobile that used water for fuel, that they carried on their experiments in a workshop adjacent to their office on the top floor, and that two separate explosions had nearly blown a hole in the roof of the building...Neither was hurt." On September 8, 1935, The Daily Dallas Times Herald ran a story about the Garretts and their invention:
Not long afterward, Pathe News filmed a car fitted with the device, as it was being driven along Garland Road near White Rock Lake. There, the car was stopped and refueled with water from the lake, before driving off again. This footage appeared on Pathe's "Stranger Than Fiction" series. Charles Garrett told a newspaper reporter that the only items needed to convert a regular automobile to one which ran on water was his electrolytic carburetor and a generator of twice the normal capacity, for the breaking down of the water. Garrett claimed a water-run engine would start in any weather and would operate with plenty of speed and power at cooler temperatures than a gasoline-powered engine. In addition, he said, there was no fire hazard. For some unknown reason, some say because of "Dad" Garrett's past treatment by the patent office (they had refused to grant him a patent on his traffic signal system), the device was never marketed and it soon "disappeared." To this day, no one knows with certainty what happened. Today, it's hard to imagine that such a device would not be in great demand, especially in view of its giving off oxygen as exhaust - rather than the carbon monoxide gasoline-burning engines produce. And of course, water is much more plentiful and cheaper than gasoline. It may seem like a farfetched notion, but one cannot help wondering if perhaps the Garretts were secretly paid by some major oil company to keep their device off the market. Although it seems sinister, it's not entirely unlikely. A lengthy article which later appeared in a Dallas newspaper, probably during the late 1930s, gave "Dad" Garrett, rather than his son Charles, credit for inventing the electrolytic carburetor, announcing that he was "now completing final details." Although no reason was given, the paper also noted that after the device had been patented and demonstrated, "his latest invention...is now being withheld from the public eye." "With three buckets of water I could drive an automobile from here to New York," Garrett bragged, adding, "At least, if I ran out of water, all I'd have to do is find a river or creek." The newspaper article went on to say that Garrett "practically lives by his inventions." In his special quarters in the Central fire station, the paper said, "he has his own alarm clock system. Every night at 10 p.m. his radio is switched on by automatic control by a clock. It plays him to sleep and switches off again at 11:30 p.m. Then it wakes him up again at 6 a.m." Said Garrett: "It's so much better to wake up slowly than with a sudden shock. " Garrett also had a magnet he used for a pin cushion ("All I have to do is throw a pin in that general direction and it hits the mark."), a homemade barometer, and wooden clock he had constructed. On a table in a corner, noted the Times Herald, "is the first police radio transmitter in the world, now just junk." The article went on to tell about Garrett's long life and other inventions and although it noted he was the son of Archbishop Alexander Garrett, failed to mention his wife or children. It ended by saying "although he has been credited with much in the past, Garrett says his work is by no means complete. I'm doing a little scratching around now, but I haven't got anything yet.'" In 1939, Alexander Charles Garrett, Jr., who had lived at 6045 Woffard Street in Dallas, died at the age of eighty. He was buried in the Garrett family plot at Oakland Cemetery. His brother Henry Garrett (so far as it is known) was his only surviving close relative. Nine years later, in 1948, Henry Garrett was officially retired from the Dallas Fire department after more than forty years of service. He was then eighty-seven years old. Henry "Dad" Garrett apparently spent the remainder of his long life living with his daughter Ditsy and her husband Thomas Curtis Johnson, on their farm at Mesquite, Texas - located a few miles east of Dallas. There, Henry Garrett died on January 16, 1952, at the age of ninety. Edwin J. Kiest, publisher of The Dallas Times Herald and a personal friend of Garrett's was moved to eulogize him: "Many of his inventions were quite remarkable and useful, but like any true scientist, he gave his ideas to mankind and never profited by them personally." His daughter Letitia and son-in-law Thomas Curtis Johnson, Johnson's two children, survived Henry Garrett and by his sons Fred A. Garrett - then a purchasing agent for Lone Star Gas - and Charles Garrett, who was then serving in the Merchant Marine. Not surprisingly, Garrett's honorary pallbearers were the surviving members of the police and fire department's signal department, together with the entire police and fire departments of the City of Dallas. He was buried at Oakland Cemetery, beside his wife Lillian, in the Garrett family plot. Like his wife's, Henry Garrett's grave has no marker. Letitia "Ditsy" Garrett Johnson died in 1974 and is also buried in the Garrett family plot. Her husband Thomas Curtis Johnson, born in 1905, predeceased his wife, by almost exactly a year. He too is buried in the Garrett family plot. The whereabouts of Letitia and Thomas Johnson's two children is unknown to this author. Charles H. Garrett, Henry's oldest son, is no longer Jiving but at last report, Fred A. Garrett, now more than ninety years old, still resides in Dallas, on Forest Hills Boulevard, near White Rock Lake. (Note: Since 1994, when the above was written, Fred A. Garrett has probably passed away.)
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