Texas Escapes mission statement. (original) (raw)

Celebrating 25 Years of Texas Stories and Photos
On our 25th Anniversary we would like to thank the hundreds of contributors who have shared their memories, remembrances and experiences of Texas. Our deepest gratitude to our longtime contributors for their dedication and for allowing us to share their efforts with our readers. We enter our 26th year with enthusiastic anticipation for stories and photographs we have yet to share.
- John Troesser and Kate Wong Troesser, Editor and Webmaster, July 2023

We are a husband and wife team / staff of two. John Troesser is the editor, writer and photographer while Kate is the webmaster.

Texas Escapes began as a labor of love of two people, who happen to be fascinated by just about everything that was or is Texas, just about every place in Texas, and who have a driving passion to share Texas with the world.

Our visits to Texas towns and ghost towns lead us to a Texas we never knew existed. Every town had at least one fascinating story or two - if not 50. We decided to tell the stories of EVERY TOWN in Texas and take it a step further by illustrating the stories with both historical and contemporary images.

Telling the story of a town touches people in ways we could not anticipate. A story of a West Texas ghost town brought letters from three generations of citizens. We started getting letters from servicemen homesick for the towns they once couldn't wait to leave. We heard from people who remembered the importance of friendship during the Great Depression - and a woman who remembered watering a lone mesquite tree in her bare broom-swept West Texas yard.

These moving memoirs preserve personal history that would otherwise have been lost. These memories are collected in TE as part of our repository of the living history of Texas towns.

Telling the story of EVERY town and showing the images, past and present, became our mission.

Living Histories - We met people with fascinating tales of their hometowns. Stories that no one now has time to hear. The need to record these stories is paramount. When the storytellers are gone, they take their stories with them.

Recording their stories became our mission.

WWII Chronicles | WWI Chronicles : The real stories about the sailors, soldiers and marines that everyone in the war movies called "Tex." Stories that all too often didn't have a happy ending. Stories of high school classes enlisting en mass - and of heroes returning one at a time.

Telling their stories became our mission.

People: Texans are often extraordinary personalities masquerading as everyday citizens. TE is devoted to recording the stories of local people who have exhibited the quiet virtue of character.

Cemeteries : Our research takes us to many cemeteries. A society cannot call itself civilized if it does not honor the final resting places of its antecedents. With our expanding coverage we join forces with others in their efforts to preserve and protect the state's scattered and neglected cemeteries.

Architecture: This became an important part of TE. Buildings were the dreams of our ancestors in brick and mortar and the demolished architecture alone is strong inspiration to record what's left.

Presenting images of Texas' unique architecture, and telling its stories, became our mission.

Contributors | Forum :

Towns, people, history, and architecture are all threads in the Texas tapestry. Sharing stories and images, and providing a forum for those with stories to tell and images to record, that too, became our mission.

Authorities in their respective fields share their knowledge with their contributions. Readers open their family albums and share their stories. If you have information, stories or images to share, please contact us

OUR MISSION :

What Readers Say About Us

Texas Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history, stories and contemporary/vintage photos of their town, please contact us.