FRED OLEN WELDON Jr.

FRED OLEN WELDON JR.  Fred Olen Weldon Jr. grew up in Waxahachie, Texas. Son of Fred Olen Weldon Sr. and Lavena Townsend Weldon, Fred was born in Dallas on April 21, 1931. His father sold cotton gins around the state while his mother stayed home and raised their two boys, Fred and his younger brother Richard. During the depression years, they lived in a large Victorian house at 802 Brown Street, which was then on the edge of the town. After graduating from Waxahachie High School in 1948, he studied physics at Texas Tech briefly before joining the United States Air Force, where he served for four years, stationed in Ohio and New York.  Fred's time in the service was marked most importantly by his engagement and marriage to Elizabeth (Betty) Ann Prugh, the daughter of the artist Philip W. Prugh of Xenia, Ohio. Fred's retelling of his courtship painted a loving picture of the Prugh family, their friends, and the character of that small Midwestern town.  After his discharge in 1955, he completed two degrees, a BA and an MA, in English from the University of Texas, writing a Master's thesis on "Negro Folk Tales." After a brief stint as a newspaperman at the Eugene, Oregon, Register-Guard, he and Betty returned to Austin where he studied law, obtaining his license in 1962. It was just around this time that his son Stephen was born.  He began his law career in the firm Mullinax and Wells in Dallas, representing labor unions in the state and fighting battles on behalf of beleaguered workers. In 1969, he was appointed to set up and direct the El Paso Legal Services Program for the poor. By 1974, he returned to Waxahachie, where he started a private practice before eventually taking a job in Dallas working for the Attorney General of the State of Texas.  Though he prized the life of the mind and embraced intellectual challenges of all kinds, he always made time for projects that required manual effort. He had a natural affinity for woodworking. Eventually moving back into the family home on Brown Street, he renovated and restored the entire house, recreating the aesthetics and character of the period. His passion extended to the grounds themselves, where he established a farmstead ecology. Raising a few goats and sheep, and keeping chickens for eggs, he and Betty also planted a large garden. The rest of the grounds he covered with native plants from around the state.  During much of his adult life in Texas, the state was far more liberal politically than it has come to be at present, and Fred was an aggressive proponent of liberal reform. He was a staunch defender of labor unions, a member of the NAACP, and an avid Democrat. Later in life, as the state veered conservative, so did Fred. He embraced socially conservative ideologies, joined the Catholic Church, and voted with the GOP. Fred's heart and soul was in local issues, though. He worked with candidates for city and county races and frequently wrote letters to the editor about local matters.  He was passionate in his promotion of Waxahachie, its cultural development, and its historical relevance. He was a member of Historic Waxahachie; he worked the Gingerbread Trail; he championed the Chautauqua Auditorium; he helped found the Waxahachie Community Theater; he wrote a carefully researched history of the carvings on the Ellis County Courthouse; he recognized the architectural and civic importance of the Sims Library Lyceum. In all, he saw the promise of Waxahachie as a town that could model a cultural, historical, and educational revival.  Fred was a gifted storyteller and an articulate speaker with an extraordinary range of interests and abilities. Gregarious and sociable, he loved to engage people in conversation and argument (with a little too much lawyerly emphasis on the latter sometimes). He had a big sense of humor and a big presence in any group.  In the end, he loved his family above all else. He deeply mourned the loss of his wife of 63 years, and cherished the time he was able to spend with his son and his family. He moved to Norman, Oklahoma, in 2021.  He is survived by his son Stephen and daughter-in-law Tomoko Yoshida (who live in Norman), their two children Karen (Minneapolis, Minnesota) and Julia (Montreal, Canada), as well as his nephew Scott Weldon, niece Julia Mulligan (both of Colorado), and nephew David Prugh (Sarasota, Florida).  If you would like to remember Fred Weldon, please consider a donation in his name to one of the following organizations:  Friends of Nicholas P. Sims Library (P.O. Box 2511, Waxahachie 75168)  Historic Waxahachie, Inc. (P.O. Box 22, Waxahachie 75168)  Ellis County Museum (201 S College St., Waxahachie 75165)  Chautauqua Preservation Society (P.O. Box 1039, Waxahachie 75168)