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Authors Jane Clements Monday and Frances Brannen Vick |
On Tuesday, May 8, Laura and Bob Wilson, Dub and Jane Roberts Wood, and
Mel Crews and Thomas Adams hosted a launch party in Dallas for TAMU Press’s new
book Letters to Alice: Birth of the
Kleberg-King Ranch Dynasty written by Jane Monday and Fran Vick with a
foreword by Thomas Kreneck.
In the summer of 1881, Robert Justus Kleberg rode across the hot, dusty
South Texas brush country to the palatial home of Capt. Richard King to consult
with the cattle baron about attending to his legal affairs. On that same
journey, the young lawyer also first laid eyes on Alice King, “Princess of the
Wild Horse Desert.” Neither of their lives would ever be the same.
Published for the
first time in this book, the love letters written by Kleberg to Alice Gertrudis
King provide a glimpse of the lives of two of the most influential people in
Texas history. Letters to Alice: Birth of
the Kleberg-King Ranch Dynasty represents the only existing collection of
letters between any of the great Texas cattle barons and their wives. Although
a great deal is already known about the ranch and its development, Monday and
Vick present for the first time Robert Justus Kleberg’s personal perspective on
his first meeting with Alice King, their early courtship, the difficulties
obtaining her parents’ permission to marry, and the poignant time surrounding
Captain King’s death.
Monday and Vick are the coauthors of the award-winning Petra’s Legacy: The South Texas Ranching
Empire of Petra Vela and Mifflin Kenedy, published by Texas A&M
University Press in 2007. Monday has served as chair of the Texas State
University System Board of Regents and mayor of Huntsville, Texas, and is a
distinguished alumna of the University of Texas at Austin. Vick, cofounder of
the University of North Texas Press, has served as president of the Texas
Institute of Letters and the Texas State Historical Association. She is also a
Fellow of the Texas Folklore Society and president of the Philosophical Society
of Texas.
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