Resource Type

Degree Department

Oral History Interview with Jonathan Forbes, December 1, 2009

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Interview with Jonathan Forbes, Canadian-born immigrant to Plano, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Forbes' personal experiences of childhood and education in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and dealing with the U.S. immigration and customs bureaucracy. Forbes also talks about his parent's decision to immigrate to the U.S., the similarities and differences of life in Canada and the U.S., his perception of changes due to 9/11 attacks, his intention to remain in the U.S. and gain citizenship, and views on contemporary political issues.
Date: December 1, 2009
Creator: Truxal, Luke & Forbes, Jonathan
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Mary George Billingsley Sullivan, November 26, 2009

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Transcript of an interview with Mary George Billingsley Sullivan, a longtime Denton County resident, concerning her family history; farming life, religious practice, and education in the public schools of Argyle, Texas; marriage to Carson Sullivan and 1929 move to city of Denton; work for Denton Building and Loan Association; 1951 move to Dallas and 1973 return to Argyle; recollections of Influenza epidemic, Great Depression, World War II, and Kennedy assassination; admiration for Barack Obama. Appendix consists of four photocopies of photographs.
Date: November 26, 2009
Creator: Taylor, D. J. & Sullivan, Mary George Billingsley, 1908-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Kirthica Chandrasekar, November 20, 2009

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Interview with Kirthica Chandrasekar, Indian-born immigrant to Carrollton, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Chandrasekar's personal experiences of childhood and education in India, her arranged marriage to a family friend living in New Jersey, and working in the insurance industry. Chandrasekar talks about her first impressions of the U.S., struggling to keep close ties with her family in India, and the contrast of life in India, New Jersey, and Texas.
Date: November 17, 2009
Creator: Teel, Katherine & Chandrasekar, Kirthica
System: The UNT Digital Library

Hell in an Loc: the 1972 Easter Invasion and the Battle That Saved South Viet Nam

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In 1972 a North Vietnamese offensive of more than 30,000 men and 100 tanks smashed into South Vietnam and raced to capture Saigon. All that stood in their way was a small band of 6,800 South Vietnamese (ARVN) soldiers and militiamen, and a handful of American advisors with U.S. air support, guarding An Loc, a town sixty miles north of Saigon and on the main highway to it. This depleted army, outnumbered and outgunned, stood its ground and fought to the end and succeeded. Against all expectations, the ARVN beat back furious assaults from three North Vietnamese divisions, supported by artillery and armored regiments, during three months of savage fighting. This victory was largely unreported in the U.S. media, which had effectively lost interest in the war after the disengagement of most U.S. forces. Thi believes that it is time to set the record straight. Without denying the tremendous contribution of the U.S. advisors and pilots, this book is written primarily to tell the South Vietnamese side of the story and, more importantly, to render justice to the South Vietnamese soldier.
Date: November 15, 2009
Creator: Lâm, Quang Thi
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Jodi-Anne Davidson, November 14, 2009

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Interview with Jodi-Anne Davidson, Jamaican immigrant, for the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex Immigration Project. She discusses her childhood and family history in Jamaica; parents’ divorce; father’s decision to immigrate to the U.S. with two daughters; experiences with the U.S. immigration system; reminiscences of family life in Jamaica and Jamaican history.
Date: November 14, 2009
Creator: Park, David & Davidson, Jodi-Anne
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Cece Cox, November 6, 2009

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Interview with executive director of resource Center Dallas Cece Cox. The interview includes Cox's personal experiences about childhood in Ohio and Bartlesville, Oklahoma, education at Northwestern University, moving to Dallas, and having a career as a photojournalist and studio photographer. Additionally, Cox discusses her coming out narrative, involvement with groups such as Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and Dallas Gay Alliance/Dallas Gay and Lesbian Alliance, as well as her decision to enter SMU Law School, and her relationship with her partner, adopted son, and family members. The interview includes an appendix with newspaper articles from the Dallas Morning News and flyers.
Date: November 6, 2009
Creator: Wisely, Karen & Cox, Cece
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Andrew Joseph Brenner, Sr., November 3, 2009

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Interview with Joseph Andrew Brenner Sr., Hungarian-American immigrant to Weatherford, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Brenner's personal experiences of childhood and education in Budapest, Hungary, having a career as a tool and die machinist, the involvement with his brothers in anti-Soviet and anti-Communist resistance movements, being captured by Hungarian political police and subsequent torture, his sentence in a Soviet work camp, escaping across the Austrian border, and coping with memories of torture. Additionally, Brenner discusses his father's service in the German Luftwaffe, memories of the Soviet Army entering Budapest in 1945, immigrating to the U.S., settling in Weatherford, his efforts to maintain connections with family in Hungary, and the process of earning his citizenship. The interview includes an appendix with photographs.
Date: November 3, 2009
Creator: Liles, Debbie & Brenner, Joseph Andrew, Sr.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Eleonore Greenfield, November 2, 2009

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Interview with Eleonore Greenfield, Germany-born immigrant to Weatherford, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Greenfield's personal experiences of childhood and education in Germany, escaping to Berlin from the Soviet army, and again to Bavaria, and marriage to an America GI. Greenfield also discusses her family's experiences with occupying U.S. Army forces, the decision to settle in Weatherford, the struggle to pass on German language and culture to her children and grandchildren, and her family history. The interview includes an appendix with photographs.
Date: November 2, 2009
Creator: Liles, Debbie & Greenfield, Eleonore
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Michael Flight, 2009-2010

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Interview with Michael Flight, Argentinian-born immigrant to Roanoke, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Flight's personal experiences of childhood and education in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo, Brazil, being a university student, and the September 11, 2001 attacks and aftermath. Additionally, Flight discusses his parents' backgrounds, life under military dictatorship, perspectives on the Cold War, the Argentinian government's inability to manage the economy, the Falkland Islands War, Argentinian politics, effects of hyperinflation, his work in import-export and manufacturing fields, his wife's work in the information technology field, the 2001 economic collapse and ensuing constitutional crisis, the "cacerolazo" and "choripan and a coka" protests, his decision to emigrate, acculturation struggles, the difficulty finding work in the midst of recession, his perspectives on various aspects of American culture and politics, and his participation in the North Texas Caledonian Pipes and Drums Band.
Date: November 2, 2009
Creator: Park, David & Flight, Michael
System: The UNT Digital Library

Irish Girl: Stories

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Inside Tim Johnston's Irish Girl, readers will find spellbinding stories of loss, absence, and the devastating effects of chance—of what happens when the unthinkable bad luck of other people, of other towns, becomes our bad luck, our town. The contents include: Dirt men -- Water -- Things go missing -- Antlerless hunt -- Jumping man -- Lucky gorseman -- Up there -- Irish girl.
Date: November 2009
Creator: Johnston, Tim, 1962-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Gudrun Raschen, November 1, 2009

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Transcript of an interview with Gudrun Raschen, a German-born immigrant to Denton, Texas, and adjunct professor of Music at Texas Woman's University. Raschen shares concerning her childhood, and education in Kiel and Hamburg, Germany; family history; parents' move to South Africa; own move to South Africa; discovery of the cello and decision to study it seriously; involvement in anti-apartheid movement; decision to move to the U.S. for graduate school; attraction of UNT Doctorate of Musical Arts program; first impressions of the U.S. and of Denton; comparison and contrast of life in Germany, South Africa, and the U.S.; plans for the future.
Date: November 1, 2009
Creator: Schnur, Abra & Raschen, Gudrun
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Ivan Arteaga, October 27, 2009

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Interview with Ivan Arteaga, Mexican national and immigrant to Princeton, Texas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Arteaga's personal experiences of childhood and education in Mexico City. Arteaga also talks about his family's decision to immigrate to Provo, Utah, his first impressions of the U.S., marriage, deciding to relocate to Texas, opinions regarding anti-immigrant feelings prevalent in American culture and regarding the U.S. immigration bureaucracy, as well as his feelings about his two children's U.S. citizenship.
Date: October 27, 2009
Creator: Dunbar, Paul & Arteaga, Ivan
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Kathy Jack, October 26, 2009

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Transcript of an interview with Kathy Jack concerning her childhood and education in Shreveport, Louisiana, and Dallas; "coming-out" narrative; social life in Dallas's gay and lesbian bars; effects of AIDS epidemic on Dallas gay community; career as employee, manager, and eventually owner of various bars; involvement in and support of various Gay Pride events; thoughts about future of gay rights movement.
Date: October 26, 2009
Creator: Wisely, Karen & Jack, Kathy, 1957-
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Ana R. Alonso-Minutti, October 21, 2009

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Interview with assistant professor of music history at UNT Ana R. Alonso-Minutti, Mexican-born immigrant to Dallas, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Alonso-Minutti's personal experiences of childhood and education in Mexico, attending college at Universidad de las Americas, discovering music history as a discipline of study, a one-year course of study in theology in Dallas, choir direction at a church in England, attending graduate school, and accepting a job offer from UNT. Additionally, Alonso-Minutti discusses family history, her grandparents' migration from Spain and Italy, her first impressions of the U.S., the decision to study musicology in the U.S. or Great Britain, the citizenship process, and the contrast of life in Mexico, England, California, and Texas.
Date: October 21, 2009
Creator: Onspaugh, Patrick & Alonso-Minutti, Ana R.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Fort Worth Characters

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Fort Worth history is far more than the handful of familiar names that every true-blue Fort Worther hears growing up: leaders such as Amon Carter, B. B. Paddock, J. Frank Norris, and William McDonald. Their names are indexed in the history books for ready reference. But the drama that is Fort Worth history contains other, less famous characters who played important roles, like Judge James Swayne, Madam Mary Porter, and Marshal Sam Farmer: well known enough in their day but since forgotten. Others, like Al Hayne, lived their lives in the shadows until one, spectacular moment of heroism. Then there are the lawmen, Jim Courtright, Jeff Daggett, and Thomas Finch. They wore badges, but did not always represent the best of law and order. These seven plus five others are gathered together between the covers of this book. Each has a story that deserves to be told. If they did not all make history, they certainly lived in historic times. The jury is still out on whether they shaped their times or merely reflected those times. Either way, their stories add new perspectives to the familiar Fort Worth story, revealing how the law worked in the old days and what …
Date: October 15, 2009
Creator: Selcer, Richard F.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Grace: A Novel

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In the east Texas town of Cold Springs in 1944, the community waits for the war to end. In this place where certain boundaries are not crossed and in a time when people reveal little about themselves, their problems, and their passions, Jane Roberts Wood exposes the heart of each of four families during the last year of World War II. Bound together by neighborhood and Southern customs, yet separated by class, money, and family, they are an unforgettable lot, vibrantly brought to life in this “delightfully perceptive and unabashedly romantic” novel (Sanford Herald). As the war grinds to an end, it becomes the catalyst that drives the inhabitants of Cold Springs across the boundaries that had once divided them, taking them to places both chaotic and astonishing. “A rare novel: intelligent, lyrical, devoid of coyness and manipulative plot turns—a book for old and young.”—Austin American-Statesman
Date: October 15, 2009
Creator: Wood, Jane Roberts
System: The UNT Digital Library

Roseborough: A Novel

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In Roseborough, Jane Roberts Wood returns with a keenly observed tale of bighearted people in small-town Texas. Three weeks after Mary Lou’s Gypsy husband dies, her fourteen-year-old daughter, Echo, runs away. Numbed by grief and grounded only by her job at the Dairy Queen, she impulsively signs up for Anne Hamilton’s single-parenting class at the nearby community college. Anne, complex and passionate, has avoided the risks that come with commitment. Knowing nothing of the stages of grief or the process of recovery, Mary Lou begins a sometimes comic, yet poignant, journey to find Echo. Compelled by Mary Lou’s story and her strange daughter, Anne begins her own journey that can ultimately set her free.
Date: October 15, 2009
Creator: Wood, Jane Roberts
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Estel G. Burns, October 14, 2009

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Interview with Estel G. Burns, World War II veteran and B-17 pilot, as part of the Tarrant County War Veterans Project. The interview includes Burns' personal experiences of childhood and education in Missouri, farm life in the Great Depression, basic training, and training for aviation mechanics at Sheppard Field, Texas. Additionally, Burns talks about his family history, his 1942 enlistment in Army Air Corps, being accepted into pilot training, marriage to Dorothy Perrin, life at Deenethorpe Air Base, England, crew members and their respective duties on his plane, various missions bombing German targets, his feelings about missions against civilian targets, opinions of Luftwaffe pilots and of Germans, and his postwar Air Force career, including service in the Korean War. The interview includes an appendix of photographs.
Date: October 14, 2009
Creator: Hegi, Benjamin P. & Burns, Estel G.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Oral History Interview with Isabel Cano, October 10, 2009

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Interview with Isabel Cano, Argentina-born immigrant to Denton and daughter of Spanish diplomats, as part of the DFW Metroplex Immigrants Oral History Project. The interview includes Cano's personal experiences of immigration, struggling to learn English and acculturate, and provides family history, her first impressions of Texas, and opinions about Denton.
Date: October 10, 2009
Creator: Merrill, Linda & Cano, Isabel
System: The UNT Digital Library

Jade Visions: the Life and Music of Scott Lafaro

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Jade Visions is the first biography of one of the twentieth century’s most influential jazz musicians, bassist Scott LaFaro. Best known for his landmark recordings with Bill Evans, LaFaro played bass a mere seven years before his life and career were tragically cut short by an automobile accident when he was only 25 years old. Told by his sister, this book uniquely combines family history with insight into LaFaro’s music by well-known jazz experts and musicians Gene Lees, Don Thompson, Jeff Campbell, Phil Palombi, Chuck Ralston, Barrie Kolstein, and Robert Wooley. Those interested in Bill Evans, the history of jazz, and the lives of working musicians of the time will appreciate this exploration of LaFaro’s life and music as well as the feeling they’ve been invited into the family circle as an intimate. “Fernandez’ insightful comments about her brother offer far more than jazz scholars have ever known about this significant and somewhat enigmatic figure in the history of jazz. All in all, a very complete portrait.”—Bill Milkowski, author of Jaco: The Extraordinary and Tragic Life of Jaco Pastorius
Date: September 15, 2009
Creator: LaFaro-Fernández, Helene; Ralston, Chuck; Campbell, Jeff & Palombi, Phil
System: The UNT Digital Library

The Deadliest Outlaws: the Ketchum Gang and the Wild Bunch

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After Tom Ketchum had been sentenced to death for attempting to hold up a railway train, his attorneys argued that the penalty was “cruel and unusual” for the offense charged. The appeal failed and he became the first individual—and the last—ever to be executed for a crime of this sort. He was hanged in 1901; in a macabre ending to his life of crime, his head was torn away by the rope as he fell from the gallows. Tom Ketchum was born in 1863 on a farm near the fringe of the Texas frontier. At the age of nine, he found himself an orphan and was raised by his older brothers. In his mid-twenties he left home for the life of an itinerant trail driver and ranch hand. He returned to Texas, murdered a man, and fled. Soon afterwards, he and his brother Sam killed two men in New Mexico. A year later, he and two other former cowboys robbed a train in Texas. The career of the Ketchum Gang was under way. In their day, these men were the most daring of their kind, and the most feared. They were accused of crimes that were not theirs, but their …
Date: August 15, 2009
Creator: Burton, Jeffrey
System: The UNT Digital Library

Saving Ben: a Father's Story of Autism

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Each year thousands of children are diagnosed with autism, a devastating neurological disorder that profoundly affects a person’s language and social development. Saving Ben is the story of one family coping with autism, told from the viewpoint of a father struggling to understand his son’s strange behavior and rescue him from a downward spiral. “Take him home, love him, and save your money for his institutionalization when he turns twenty-one.” That was the best advice his doctor could offer in 1990 when three-year-old Ben was diagnosed with autism. Saving Ben tells the story of Ben’s regression as an infant into the world of autism and his journey toward recovery as a young adult. His father, Dan Burns, puts the reader in the passenger’s seat as he struggles with medical service providers, the school system, extended family, and his own limitations in his efforts to pull Ben out of his darkening world. Ben, now 21 years old, is a work in progress. The full force and fury of the autism storm have passed. Using new biomedical treatments, repair work is underway. Saving Ben is a story of Ben’s journey toward recovery, and a family’s story of loss, grief, and healing. “Keep …
Date: August 15, 2009
Creator: Burns, Dan E.
System: The UNT Digital Library

Winchester Warriors: Texas Rangers of Company D, 1874-1901

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The Texas Rangers were institutionally birthed in 1874 with the formation of the Frontier Battalion. They were tasked with interdicting Indian incursions into the frontier settlements and dealing with the lawlessness running rampant throughout Texas. In an effort to put a human face on the Rangers, Bob Alexander tells the story of one of the six companies of the Frontier Battalion, Company D. Readers follow the Rangers of Company D as—over time—it transforms from a unit of adventurous boys into a reasonably well-oiled law enforcement machine staffed by career-oriented lawmen. Beginning with their start as Indian fighters against the Comanches and Kiowas, Alexander explores the history of Company D as they rounded up numerous Texas outlaws and cattle thieves, engaged in border skirmishes along the Rio Grande, and participated in notable episodes such as the fence cutter wars. Winchester Warriors is an evenhanded and impartial assessment of Company D and its colorful cadre of Texas Rangers. Their laudable deeds are explored in detail, but by the same token their shameful misadventures are not whitewashed. These Texas Rangers were simply people, good and bad—and sometimes indifferent. This new study, extensively researched in both primary and secondary sources, will appeal to scholars …
Date: August 15, 2009
Creator: Alexander, Bob
System: The UNT Digital Library

Yours to Command: the Life and Legend of Texas Ranger Captain Bill McDonald

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Captain Bill McDonald (1852-1918) is the most prominent of the “Four Great Captains” of Texas Ranger history. His career straddled the changing scene from the nineteenth to the twentieth centuries. In 1891 McDonald became captain of Company B of the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers. “Captain Bill” and the Rangers under his command took part in a number of incidents from the Panhandle region to South Texas: the Fitzsimmons-Maher prizefight in El Paso, the Wichita Falls bank robbery, the murders by the San Saba Mob, the Reese-Townsend feud at Columbus, the lynching of the Humphries clan, the Conditt family murders near Edna, the Brownsville Raid of 1906, and the shootout with Mexican Americans near Rio Grande City. In all these endeavors, only one Ranger lost his life under McDonald’s command. McDonald’s reputation as a gunman rested upon his easily demonstrated markmanship, a flair for using his weapons to intimidate opponents, and the publicity given his numerous exploits. His ability to handle mobs resulted in a classic tale told around campfires: one riot, one Ranger. His admirers rank him as one of the great captains of Texas Ranger history. His detractors see him as an irresponsible lawman who accepted questionable …
Date: June 15, 2009
Creator: Weiss, Harold J., Jr.
System: The UNT Digital Library