My Descending from Gov. - D. A. Sharpe

Register Report for William Bradford
Generation 8
Highland Park Presbyterian Church, visited me soon after my 1982 arrival on the staff of
that church. He brought the 1918 HighSchool Yearbook of his, and I was able to photo
copy relevant pages. Tass was a "best friend" and the same age as my father's younger
brother, Harry Simons Sharpe, as they all grew up in Georgetown. Harry was known as
"Dede." Tass has now passed on to graduation to heaven, but I was able to get to know
his son, Tom Lee Waterston, and his grandsons, Tass Waterston II and Ted Waterston.
Ted and his family have continued as members of Highland ParkPresbyterian Church,
whereas the rest of the family has moved out of town by now. Ted served that church as a
Deacon.
Dwight worked during high school in a combination general store and grocery store. The
many migrant workers patronizing it created the environment in which he learned to
converse in Spanish pretty well. This enabled him in later years to preach occasionally for
Hispanic Presbyterian congregations.
He attended for one school year (1918-19) the University of Kentucky, the state which had
been his mother's family's home from where they migrated to Texas. While attending The
University of Kentucky, he stayed with a relative of his mother's, in a sense, a man called
Uncle Tom Vance. Next, he attended for a year Southwestern University, a Methodist
institution located in his hometown of Georgetown. Dwight's photograph is in the
1921Southwestern University yearbook that my niece, Nancy Lea Ehlers Reeves, now has
from materials she received after her Mom, Martha deNoailles Sharpe Ehlers, died. Martha
is a daughter of Dwight's and is my eldest of two sisters. Southwestern was began in 1840
during the days of the Republic of Texas, and I believe it is the oldest continuously
operating institution of higher education in Texas.
The 1920 U. S. Census for Lexington, Fayette County, Kentucky has Dwight living with the
family of John T. Vance, age 62, whose wife's name was Glenna (legibility question), also
age 62, and a 26 year old daughter named Mary. Possibly, the middle initial of "T" is for the
Tom that we have understood was the home where Dwight resided while at school. This Mr.
Vance would have been born in 1858. The Census entry shows Mr. Vance was born in
Texas, but that his father and mother were born in Kentucky. The 1860 Census of
Lexington, Burleson County, Texas shows him in the house of Charles Vance, with Tom
being age three.
It is curious to know that a Mr. Charles P. Vance moved from Kentucky to Texas at around
1854, settling initially in Circleville, where the Alfred Simons family settled, coming from
Kentucky. James A. Simons, born in Kentucky in 1852, and whose family came to Circleville
in 1852, later, as an adult, went into mercantile business with Mr.Vance, both in Circleville
and later in Taylor. Both of these towns are in Williamson County, Texas.
Since Mr. John T. Vance, with whom Dwight lived in Kentucky in 1920,was born in 1858 in
Texas, it can be assumed that John T. Vance was a son of Charles P. Vance, and a
brother to the Vance daughter, Sarah. If that kind of family connection does not exist, we
do not have any other logical reason that Dwight went to Kentucky and lodged with the
Vances in Lexington. I think the set of relationships conjectured are likely, and I am
recording them in my records until and unless other proof surfaces. It is interesting that the
Vance families had connections to towns named Lexington, both in Kentucky and in Texas.
Since their move to Texas in the early 1850's was when so many communities were just
being established, one wonders if one name influenced the other.
The Minutes of the Session, July 26, 1922, record the declarations of his presence before
them, seeking endorsement for his candidacy:
"Mr. D. A. Sharpe, a communing member of this, the Georgetown Presbyterian Church (as it
was called then), presented himself before the Session and communicated the fact that he
felt a call from the Holy Sprit to enter the Gospel Ministry, and to devote his whole time, first
to the preparation for such work, and then to the active ministry in the Presbyterian Church
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