Texas A and M University - Aggieland Yearbook (College Station, TX)

Page 10 text:

6 THE LONG HORN VOL. V Her father, Stephen Manning, was one of the earliest settlers in that county, and was forced to take part in the great exodus or “run-away scrape,” as it was called, that took place on the advance of Santa Anna’s army after the fall of the Alamo. After the return of peace, the elder Sansom lived in Nacodoches County until 1859, when he removed with his family to Alvarado, in Johnson County, then on the frontier, where he and his good wife lived out their days and left to their children that priceless heritage, an honorable name. Marion Sansom, though born in Madison County in 1853, was reared at Alvarado, and is essentially a product of western Texas. In those days John¬ son was a frontier county and schools were few and far between, as were also young men who had either time or opportunity to attend them. As a result of these conditions, young Sansom got very little training in the literary schools hut much in the hard school of experience. At the age when young men are usually in college, he was either at work on his father ' s farm or keeping nightly vigils in the piney woods of east Texas and Louisiana, as he drove his father ' s beeves to the New Orleans market. Though he has always felt hampered by this lack of early school advan¬ tages, Mr. Sansom has wasted no time in vain regret. With characteristic energy, he threw himself into his stock business and prospered. With the growth of his wealth his interests multiplied, and he has become interested in several banks, oil wells, a wholesale grain store, and the cattle commission business. In 1902 he removed from Alvarado to Fort Worth, where he has a number of large financial interests. He is a director in two Fort Worth banks, president of the Cassidy Southwestern Commission Company, live stock com¬ missioners in North Fort Worth, a member of the firm of M. Sansom Com¬ pany. wholesale hay and grain dealers in North Fort Worth, and president of the Fort Worth Live Stock Commission Company, of Kansas City. “Depend¬ ing upon his own resources, Air. Sansom has been steadily advancing to a place of prominence, both in the commercial and political circles of Fort Worth, which city owes much to him on account of his connection with her business interests.” Mr. Sansom has always been a lover of fine stock and has given thirty- seven years of his life to the cattle business as a breeder and feeder. He has won premiums on his cattle year after year at the Dallas and San Antonio Fairs, at the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show, at the Chicago International Fat Stock Show, and at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition at St. Louis. Air. Sansom’s connection with the Agricultural and Mechanical College

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1907 THE LONG HORN 5 iHariott Ransom EXAS has no class of citizens more typical of all that is distinctly Texan, or more representative of all that is best in her heroic past an J l ler boundless present, than her successful ranchmen and stock- raisers. They are the descendants of a strong and rugged race of men. They are worthy sons of the daring pioneers who crossed the Louisiana wilderness, seized the inheritance of the savage, drove the Mex¬ ican beyond the Rio Grande, and consecrated these fertile plains to the cause of human freedom. In the clash of those early struggles and the stressful times that followed, amid the hardships, privations, and dangers of the frontier range and of life on the “trail, the law of the “survival of the fittest had ample opportunity to make itself felt. “Natural selection, with unerring precision, sifted out the weak and the vicious and left with us only the strong, the capable, the resolute. If you take the successful stockmen of Texas today, you will find them strong of body, keen of intellect, sound in judgment, and resolute of purpose. They are men of generous disposition, of infinite good fellow¬ ship, of great breadth of view, and of commendable public spirit. Such, in brief, are the most prominent characteristics of the successful stockmen of Texas. And to this tribe belongs Marion Sansom, the subject of this sketch. Few men among them are more typical of the class than he. A native Texan, his youth and young manhood, covered by the turbulent period of Civil War and reconstruction with its adverse conditions, he has slowly but steadily fought his way upward through all manner of obstacles and discourage¬ ments to success in business, to an easy competency, and to an honorable share in the public affairs of his time. The story of the Sansom family in Texas reads like a chapter from the history of the State. It begins with the Revolution and runs through the seven decades of the State’s independent existence. Marion’s father, R. P. Sansom, a Tennessee lad, thrilled with the stori es of the Texan fight for freedom, left his native land and reached the State before the struggle was over. Marion’s mother, Susan Manning Sansom, was a native Texan, born in Guadalupe County, near the town of Gonzales, the Lexington of the Texas Revolution.

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I 9°7 THE LONG HORN 7 began in 1898, when he was named by Governor Culberson as a member of the Hoard of Directors. He was reappointed by both Governor Sayers and Gov¬ ernor Lanham, and was chosen president of the Board by his colleagues, which position he held until his retirement from the Board in January of this year. His connection with the Board, therefore, extended over the presidential admin¬ istrations of Colonel Foster and Dr. Houston, and into that of President Harrington. Each of these administrators in turn found in him a most broad¬ minded and sympathetic supporter of every policy that had for its object the advancement of this School and of the practical kind of education for which the School stands. Keen of mind, frank and direct in speech, always alert and aggressive, he was the most powerful factor in molding the opinions of his colleagues and in shaping the policies of the Board. He was punctual in attend¬ ance upon the meetings of the Board, and remained on the Board from a sense of public duty, and often at the sacrifice of his private affairs. His work was always constructive, never the reverse, and he has left a lasting impress upon this institution. That Marion Sansom has succeeded in business and left his impress upon everything he has touched is not at all strange or surprising to those who know him. The simple truth is that he possesses rare administrative ability. A man of few words, quick perception, sound judgment, restless energy, and uncon¬ querable will, he is equally fitted to engineer a bank, an oil mill, or a railroad, or to guide the destinies of an imperial state like Texas. While residing at Alvarado, Mr. Sansom was married to Miss Eliza Powell, daughter of the Reverend John Powell, a minister well known in earlier days alike in Louisiana and Texas. They have three children, Mrs. Will Schultz, Marion Sansom, Jr., and Nina Sansom, all living in Fort Worth. He is a Knight Templar and a member of the Ben Hur Temple of the Mystic Shrine. Fie is also a Knight of Pythias and an Odd Fellow. Mr. Sansom has a warm place in his heart for all young men and especially for the students of the A. and M. College. The Long Horn regretted exceed¬ ingly to see him retire from the Board, and expresses the sentiment of the entire student body when it wishes him many years of health and strength in which to serve his family, his friends, and the State that claims him as an honored son.