It was possible to see in the courtroom seating arrangements portents of divisions to come: Briones sat alone, apart from his friends, worrying a weather-beaten hat between his splayed legs. There was, however, a glimmer that all might not go as predicted. Later, Frankie went back to Corando Perezs house; he heard sounds inside but got no answer when he banged on the door. Jake Floyd, an Alice attorney, was a leader of anti-Parr forces in Jim Wells County. Then please fill out our Contact Form, wed love to hear all about it. You may also light a candle in honor of George C. Parr or send a beautiful flower arrangement to the funeral service. of Benavides, Los Horcones Rch., Duval, Texas Gender: Male Race: White Death Age: 74 years Birth Date: 07 March 1901 Birthplace: San Diego, Texas Marital Status: Married Father's. As the summer wore on, townspeople wished the trial would be movedalmost impossible, unless the defense were to request a change of venue, and unlikely, since the odds for the defendants were so much better in Duval County. He graduated from Shades Valley High School and earned a degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University. George Christopher Parr , age 85 of Hoover, Alabama passed away on December 20, 2022. He didnt mind that, after he announced he would go on to another party with his cousin Roel Soliz, Linda said she wanted to go home to check on Frank Junior, sixteen months old, and Sara, who was just four months old. The people would not speak out against one another, and in refusing to choose sides, they chose one: Linda Gaitan had no family in Sand Diego, her husband had some but little compared with the defendants. Such a pardon would demonstrate Parr's power to the other political jefes in the Rio Grande valley. She is simply a sturdy, pigeon-toed girl who wears that air of stolid resignation common to poor women who, raised to expect nothing, get even less. In San Diego, the Gaitans lives had been on a fixed, if predictable, course. Frankie grabbed hold of his tie and warned him not to make that joke again. If the men had assumed that Linda knew and understood the code of the neighborhoodpoor women did what poor men wanted and shut upthey had seriously miscalculated. He pictures Torres assaulting his wife and fights the urge to ram the car of the he once considered a friend. Felipe Chew played on the county volleyball team; quite a few of the accused had put up campaign signs for the sheriff before election day. Felipe Chew tried to get in on the act as well, but after the muscular Mexican national climbed into the car, the woman struggled and escaped. Although she hasnt eaten all day, she spends thirty minutes letting her children play on the mechanized toysshe smiles when Frank Junior grins in a car that shudders down an imaginary highway, and she giggles and pats his belly when he leans out of a rocket that twists four feet off the ground. His father was Archer "Archie" Parr, a prominent local political boss. Outsiders donated a Corpus apartment to the couple when it was reported that they were being threatened by the accused. Meanwhile a new evil has been introduced into the garden. TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. Parr was charged with embezzlement but beat the case. After all, home was just around the corner. In 1946, through the influence of Texas politicians, President Truman granted George a pardon, which allowed him to return to politics. He thought he heard someone laughing. Mimi Swartz is a staff writer based in Houston. Suddenly he freezes. She enjoyed it.. Texas Rangers, deputy sheriffs and United States marshals in a helicopter found the body of the man, whose political power helped send Lyndon B. Johnson to the United States Senate in 1948. After Archer's death, George inherited the Parr political machine, and the populace passed on the name, "El Patrn", to him as they did his father. It was the home of George Parr, and it is for sale. Archers son George absorbed his fathers lessons and improved upon them. Johnson won the nomination by 87 votes, tantamount to election in an era when Republicans were not competitive in the South, and prompting the sobriquet "landslide Lyndon. Leaving the courthouse to go back to jail, Chew shot the bird at a television cameraman. shines & jecker labs logo Only Federal agents and the Texas Rangers ever successfully questioned his authority. SAN DIEGO, Tex., April 1George B. Parr, political boss of Duval County, Tex., and a former millionaire oilman, banker and deputy sheriff who was facing a prison term for income tax evasion, was found dead today in a pasture of his South Texas ranch with a bullet wound in his head. SAN DIEGO, Tex., April 1George B. Parr, political boss of Duval County, Tex., and a former millionaire oilman, banker and deputy sheriff who was facing a prison term for income tax evasion,. Though women whispered their disgust, few men would admit that gang rape is the result of a world that lets boys be boys to a grotesque extreme. It did not matter so much that the hotel soon closed as a resultno one cared about visitors anyway. In spite of the efforts of family and newfound friends, the place is overwhelmingly grim. Others who did took their lives in their hands. Archie made sure there were no opponents on the ballot. Perhaps the hostile glare of the outside world had finally forced San Diego to see its own in a new light. That another round of publicity would begin on the gang rape made San Diegoans edgy; they wanted to forget while the outside world seemed to remember. Still, after a century, the Anglo had been driven out and with him the days when little boys were told not to bring taquitos to school or were rapped on the knuckles for speaking Spanish in class. No laundry hung on the line, and the curtains were knotted behind open windows and rusted screens. The cameras whirred, and the news that a nineteen-year-old mother of two had been raped by upward of twenty neighbors at an illegal cockfight in San Diego, Texas went out not just all over the country but all over the world. His lawyer advised him to take the Fifth. When she could, the woman screamed for help and begged to be taken home, but no one was in a mood to listen. Frankie wasnt too suspicious when he spied a few of Lindas friends collected on Corando Perezs porchit was, after all, a Saturday night. George Berham Parr (March 1, 1901 - April 1, 1975) was an American politician, who controlled a Democratic political machine that dominated Duval County, Texas and, to a lesser extent, Jim Wells County. marshals, and Texas Rangers was closing in on its man. The old bills have come due for San Diego too. [citation needed], The alliance between the Parr-controlled commission and the Hispanic populace made the county a bastion of Democratic strength. It is possible that he will not be the prosecutor for all the rape and kidnapping cases; the Duval County DA lost to a man from Starr County in the last election, so come January Gutierrez will most likely be out of a job. I dont talk about it, Linda Gaitan tells me with a toss of her head, a grimace, and a finality that brooks no argument. On April 25, 2023, our beautiful mother Julie Parr passed away peacefully surrounded by her loving children Mary Kalec (George), Elizabeth Thomas-Bailey, Jim Thomas (Barb) Ann Thomas-MacDonald (Bill) and Paul Thomas (Amy). I suggest to Frankie that we leave, and he agrees, reminding us that Torres was once in a knife fight with a kid at school. The grave site of George Parr / Plot 82101181. Archer Parr of Alice, Jim Wells County, Texas was born on October 3, 1925. The Duval County empire was started in 1911 by Mr. Parr's father, Archie, a cowboy turned politician. George Parre, born 1570 George Parre was born in 1570. To disobey him was to face punishments expertly devised to poison a close-knit community. 2023 SCI SHARED RESOURCES, LLC. His machine reached the peak of its power in the close 1948 senatorial race between former Gov. A student of history knows the secrets the insiders do not give up willinglythat this is a place where terrible things have happened, a place where justice has been as fleeting and capricious as the dust devils that swirl up and disappear along the back roads out of town. Frank Gaitan knew something was wrong when he got home around two in the morning and found his mother still there with the kids. PORTLAND - George Douglas Parr, 71, of Portland, beloved husband of Kathleen and father of Zack and Jimmy Parr died unexpectedly in the early hours of Saturday, Dec. 10, 2022, in Naples,. Their network tapped into the towns power structure via Roberto Garcia, a member of one of the oldest and most prosperous families in San Diego. In another room, Parrs hats remain preserved in a plastic hanging bag, a Christmas card from Price Daniel lies abandoned on the floor. After college, he served as an officer in the United States Army. Archie Parr retired from politics in 1934 and moved to Corpus Christi, where he lived on Saxet Drive. Parr exercised his political power in the Senate runoff election between Lyndon Johnson and Coke Stevenson in 1948. For San Diego, it was a new beginning, though the new world was not so different from the old one. If you check the "Remember me" box, you will be automatically signed in for 30 days to TIME.com when you visit in the future. He played end on the football team. George B. Parr, the political boss of Duval County for more than thirty years, son of Elizabeth Allen and Archer Parr, was born in San Diego, Texas, on March 1, 1901. They built this thing up in Corpus. When San Diegoans talk of their families, they talk of loss: the mother who went mad, the brother who stole the inheritance, the son killed in an automobile accident on Christmas Eve. Children whose parents tried to fight Parr couldnt sell their stock at 4-H clubs. ", In 1948 Coke R. Stevenson, Lyndon B. Johnson and others ran in Democratic primary election for U.S. Senate. As the nine oclock hearing approached, the men took their places at the courthouse. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. Parrs heir apparent, his son George B., graduated in 1921 from Corpus Christi High School. Wow, a faisait longtemps que je n'avais pas eu autant de plaisir avec un whisky qui n'est pas une licorne. Finally, according to the officials account of the rape, Perez dumped her near the railroad tracks around four in the morning. [1][8], The Parr Machine functioned on bribery, graft, and illegal donations. They started dating. He said no note had been found. Anyone can read what you share. The two men exchanged insults. Historical Person Search Search Search Results Results George Parr (1866 - Unknown) Try FREE for 14 days Try FREE for 14 days. A young man in aviator glasses is walking towards us; he has the long-legged gait I recognize from television clips. When the Corpus Christi Caller Times broke the story on March 31, TV news trucks with satellite dishes began patrolling the streets. A few boys were dragged to the car and told, This is what you can look forward to a nine-year-old was thrown on top of the woman. He was convicted of tax evasion in March, 1974, for failing to list $287,000 in income between 1966 and 1969. He had their support thereafter, and in return gave Duval County LatinAmerican officials. Rebecca Ann Parr Obituary With heavy hearts, we announce the death of Rebecca Ann Parr of Bremond, Texas, who passed away on April 22, 2023 at the age of 96. She was sixteen, he was twenty. Any land held by the old Mexican families was too much for the restless Anglos who coveted it. Parr filed bankruptcy. By the 1880s Duval Countys population had soared to around five thousand; San Diego was a sheep-ranching boomtown, a rough-and-tumble stop on the railway between Corpus Christi and Laredo. Mr. Parr was considered a fugitive after he failed to appear for a hearing yesterday on revocation of his $25,000 appeal bond. When he laughed, everybody laughed, one longtime resident of San Diego noted. The accused were powerfully bound together, not just through blood, marriage, and time but also by their pride in their role as tough guys. In 1958, Parr was found guilty of mail fraud by a federal jury and given a 10-year sentence. In truth, San Diego had been turning a blind eye to these young men for years. Less well loved but far more critical to the survival of San Diegoans was Robertos uncle Frank, who was a county judge and the president of the school board and therefore controls virtually all of the jobs in town. Given her pick of restaurants, Linda opts for Chuck E. Cheese because the kids like it. His mother came in, checked the window, and took him into her room to sleep, promising him that they were safe. They were further protected by South Texas attitude toward sexual morality. He had proved- if anyone needed convincing- that opposition would not be tolerated. Garza told the judge he could not afford to pay the damages; revocation was requested when it was discovered he had easily come up with a cash bond for a friend in San Antonio. Portland Food Map launched in 2007 as a directory of the local food community. The MexicanAmerican population represented the basis of his political power. A memorial service will take place at Trinity United Methodist Church, 1400 Oxmoor Rd, Homewood, Alabama at 11:00 a.m. on January 4, 2023. He went on trial in 1974 in federal court in Corpus Christi on charges of tax evasion. Parrs widow, Eva, lives there now with her second husband. Corando Perez occupied himself on an east-side landing, clicking his heels and snapping his chin when a woman passed who struck his fancy. [9] By 1940, the white educated population had been reduced[citation needed] to a tiny minority amongst a large Mexican-American population. She looked at him and looked at Roel. Under the protection of Lyndon Johnson,[citation needed] Parr eluded all attempts to investigate and convict him for fraud, bribery, corruption, racketeering, and murder. I'll gut you if it's the last thing I do.") Do you have some details youd like to pass on about an upcoming business or development in the Portland food scene? No Linda. The defendants began driving by his house, calling his sisters names like masota (big mama). If it was more wrenching for the town to choose between the woman and the accused, people slowly found the wherewithal to make the decision. Visitors can explore rooms devoted to medical history, famed political boss", "Cowboy from Matagorda founded political dynasty", "George Parr inherited his father's political dynasty", https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=George_Berham_Parr&oldid=1147908956, Duval County Museum displays some artifacts from his life, Thelma Duckworth (m. 1923-divorce, remarried late 1930s, div. Once San Diego was home to Texas most ruthless dynasty. Shortly thereafter, the boy says, he became the subject of threats. For more than 60 years Southeast Texas has been known as the Land of Parr. In 1954 Governor Allen Shivers declared war on the Parr Faction and sent down a team of Texas Rangers and state investigators. Any follower of Duval County or Texas politics is familiar with the name of George B. Parr, the patron and political kingmaker. In a statement the woman later filed with the sheriff, she said she had been abducted from the street near her home and driven to the cockfight after she had turned down an invitation for a ride. San Diegoans didnt consider George Parr an American, an Anglo, or even a Texan. Three men got out and headed for the cockfight. Rape is viewed by man not as a crime of violence but as a crime of passion, something that has to do with sexual attraction. Archer Parr III (19252000), n Archer Weller, Archie's grandson and adopted son, was the third Duke of the Duval County Dynasty. San Diego is under pressure, the DAs investigator told me, and indeed it had been a difficult spring. https://www.nytimes.com/1975/04/02/archives/texas-politician-dead-ruled-suicide.html. George Christopher Parr , age 85 of Hoover, Alabama passed away on December 20, 2022. George B. Parr was born on March 1, 1901 to Archer "Archie" Parr and the former Elizabeth Allen in San Diego, Texas. Many people assumed it was a neighborhood thingnot a good neighborhood at thatsomething best left alone. Six months later Mr. Parr and 10 codefendants were convicted by a Federal court jury in Houston of charges of using the mails to defraud the Benavides school district of more thn $220,000 in tax funds. As his wife drew nearer, Frankie gave his familiar whistle. Many who saw Linda after the gang rape noted that she would shrink from contact, as if slapped. According to the womans statement and those of witnesses, Roel Torres, a long-haired man with a fierce overbite, mounted the woman, as did Ruben Vela, a twinkly-eyed 22-year-old with a halo of black curls and a pregnant wife at home. The Parr Machine maintained control of Duval and Jim Wells counties despite the legal and political backlash. After a group of Anglos shot down three local Mexicans on election day in the dusty main street of San Diego, Archie Parr, who spoke Spanish, took the side of the Mexicans. Alanizs hair is blacker now that it was in photos in the fifties, but that small vanity cannot obscure the weariness in his face and voice. He was elected to the Duval County Commissioners Court in 1898. Here, late in the evening of March 26, an illegal cockfight scheduled as the nights entertainment did not go as planned. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. On March 31, 1975, Parr failed to appear before Judge Owen Cox for sentencing. They eventually got a 10% raise and their workday was reduced from 10 hours to 9. Then Jim Wells County amended its return, adding 202 additional votes, 200 of which were for Johnson. She knew them better than she should have, he said. 3150, and Rule 46(e), Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. Thats Roy, he says slowly under his breath. He never sugarcoated it when it came to fish. He went on to the University of Texas Law School but dropped out before getting a degree; he still passed the state bar exam in 1926. Because winter was coming and most people at the time heated their homes with coal, President . At thirteen he served as his father's pageboy in the Texas Senate. A local fund established for Gaitan came up with only $70; a fund administered by Corpus Christi Crisis Services and fueled by the Chorpus Christi Caller-Times stories raised almost $10,000. The pertinent language of these cited authorities is attached hereto as Footnote 1. When asked whether he had used cocaine, Chew licked his lips, leaned to one side, and shrugged his shoulder. While there were San Diegoans, mostly women, who were outraged by the crime, many followed their first instinct, which was to protect the town by downplaying the episode. a TIME subscriber. The Garcia faction has even been embroiled in political scandals, proof that the old days are far from gone in San Diego. They divorced and remarried, and divorced again in 1949; Parr subsequently married Eva Perez. By then the town had wearied of the gang rape. According to Dudley Lunchs history, The Duke of Duval County, Anglo powers paid off the crucial witness, and the men were acquitted. As in the New Bedford case, the accused who admit to having sex with Gaitan allege consent. Threading her way through the crowd, a baby on her hip and Frankie Junior toddling beside her, she could be any mother out with her family on a Friday night. If you fill out the first name, last name, or agree to terms fields, you will NOT be added to the newsletter list. Archer Weller Parr was the county judge from 1959 to 1975; he died November 2, 2000, in Alice, Texas. He also owned the San Diego State Bank, and the famous Dobie Ranch, including the Parr's Los Horcones Ranch. (In 1934 Archie's reelection to the Texas State senate was in doubt and he hoped that building a road to Corpus Christi across the King Ranch, which was owned by the Kleberg family, would save his political career. A young man who picked up the extra money by mowing the lawns of his parents friends, he was, in the words of many, the shyest, sweetest boy youd ever want to meet. His mother, who worked at the First State Bank, was a deeply loved member of the community. Mexican men always have something on the side besides their family, A woman from an old Hispanic family told me. Other defendants had close ties to local government and law enforcement. In this town of five thousand, everyone belongs. Family and friends must say goodbye to their beloved George C. Parr of Vestavia, Alabama, who passed away at the age of 85, on December 20, 2022. George married Unknown. The house is dark, the drapes pulled against the summer sun. The Corpus people had money to spend, he told me. It is, like most small towns, neither interested in nor of interest to the person just passing through. As he speaks, his eyelids droop and his voice drops from a growl to a slow, weary rumble; he seems to be a man whose mission has finally drained him. Just after the ten men were indicted last May, Orlando Garza, his face partially obscured but recognizable on camera, told a Houston television reporter, It wasnt no rape. The shame of San Diegoans felt at their decades of submission would be forgotten. Under advice from Johnson and other prominent figures, he relinquished control of his machine to his nephew Archer III, by the early 1970s. Being from San Diego, he can accommodate his own homesickness and his nager at what happened to his wife; he is pulled back by a powerful psychic tidefor a few days each month, for Memorial Day, for Fathers Day, to have the baby baptized. The neighbors began to crowd around Frankie and threaten him. One probable motivation was that Parr felt obligated to Johnson, who had helped him obtain the 1946 presidential pardon. There is always time for coffee at the Dairy Queen and Jerrys Diner; one of the worst snubs imaginable is to refuse to say hi to someone. Men like Alex Bear and Ruben Vela had served probationary terms for petty theft. When Parr's machine collapsed soon after his death, Duval County's small Anglo white (but large-landowning) minority attempted to retain control of the county politically but was unable to halt the take-over of the county Democratic party by the now overwhelmingly large Mexican-American population. He married Elizabeth Allen in 1891 and in time they had six children. George Berham Parr (March 1, 1901 April 1, 1975) was an American politician, who controlled a Democratic political machine that dominated Duval County, Texas and, to a lesser extent, Jim Wells County. Implicated in the assassination of the son of a Parr enemy, Alaniz was acquitted in the fifties. Felipe Chew, who had never made bond and had remained in jail since the indictments, was called to the stand the next day for a bail-reduction hearing. There they plotted with Texas State senator Alvin J. Wirtz, Texas state representative Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr., and the Bexar County machine to defeat four term Republican Congressman Harry M. Wurzbach in the upcoming election. Works 1724 mezzotint of Sir John Coke, after unknown artist. The truth will come out at the trial, I was told with great assurance by defense lawyers and other champions of the accused, a curious sentiment for a town that has always viewed the law with a jaundiced eye. George Parr, the founder of Upstream Trucking, passed away at the age of 71. He is preceded in death by his parents George F. and Corinne (Snooks) Parr. George Rembert Parr, Jr. Moncks Corner - George Rembert Parr, Jr., 63, of Moncks Corner, South Carolina, husband of Kathleen Barrett Parr, died Friday, December 22, 2017. The cockfight was really just an excuse for a bunch of guys from the tough side of town to get together and party. Family and friends must say goodbye to their beloved Julie Parr of Columbus, Ohio, who passed away at the age of 85, on April 25, 2023. When she struggles to understand the budget consciousness that he counselors at the crisis center are trying to instill in her, she is desperately afraid they will abandon her. Linda pulls her daughter close and winces from the pain that has returned to one side of her head. The appeal was turned down last week by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit at New Orleans. Marked by history, they had only one place to feel at home. It is Roel Torres, one of the men accused of raping Linda. After Tom C. Clark replaced Biddle, Johnson helped secure a pardon from U.S. President Harry S. Truman. He went on trial in 1974 in federal. Behind his expansiveness lies a certain freneticismhe downs a beer like a man on a mission. On one plot, incongruously prosperous, sits a neat white wide-bodied trailer with a raked caliche drive. Hispanics lined up behind one man whose loyalty had never wavered: Archer Parr. Sign up for service and obituary updates. With over 1,900 locations, Dignity Memorial providers proudly serve over 375,000 families a year. Still, if the crime was not unique to San Diego, the towns response was firmly rooted in its very particular history. They were married by a justice of the peace on Halloween 1985. She was afraid. [9], When George attended the 1928 Democratic National Convention in Houston along with his father, people already understood him to be heir apparent, not merely his father's driver. Established law was something Parr cut to fit his needs: Anglo ranchers tried to roust him by convening a grand jury in 1914 to investigate his abuse of county funds; months later a mysterious fire engulfed the courthouse, destroying records that would have been used as evidence. Also that year, George's father appointed him to complete the term of George's brother, Givens Parr, as Duval county judge. Archer (Archie) Parr grew up on Matagorda Island. Garcia sat far to the left, surrounded by family. Federal Distlict Judge Owen Cox ordered Mr. Parr's arrest. However, political candidates would from time to time make Parr an object of their reforming campaigns. [2][5], In 1923, George Parr married his high school sweetheart, Thelma Duckworth of Corpus Christi. Gradually, other men began returning from the cockfight.
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