Panola County Historical & Genealogical Association is now housed in the Old Panola County Jail Museum and Genealogy Library

213 North Shelby • Carthage, Texas 75633
(903) 693-3388       http://oldjaillibrary.org/

Panola County, adapted from the Cherokee word for cotton, ponolo, is located in northeastern Texas. Carthage is the county seat. In 1846, the Texas Legislature incorporated Panola County from pieces of Shelby and Harrison counties. Two years later (1848), Panola County chose Carthage as its seat. Various tribes of the Caddo Indians inhabited the area until European advancement in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

During the fifteen years before the Civil War, the county expanded in size and diversified its economic infrastructure through the sale of cotton, sweet potatoes, and livestock. After the war and through the 1920s, Panola County began to stabilize and recover, primarily through the cotton and logging industries. Railroads created additional jobs and helped to build the county's infrastructure. Throughout the 1920s, the county's population decreased slightly, but cotton helped stabilize the uncertain market.

After the Great Depression, the population declined because of a sharp nosedive in property values and available land. The only industry that remained strong through the depression, cotton, took a permanent hit and never recovered. After World War II, Panola County's population decreased over the next several decades because of a combination of permanent decreased land values and decline of the cotton industry. However, by the 1960s and 1970s, the county government worked hard to reinvigorate the depleted soil, but the oil and gas industry became the prominent economy force in the 1970s.

Panola County Historical and Genealogical Association and The Leila Belle LaGrone  Family History Center

213 North Shelby

Carthage, Texas 75633

(903) 693-3388

info@oldjaillibrary.org

Our History

The Panola County Historical and Genealogical Association (PCHGA) was founded by ordinary people in the community  who had an interest in family and local history and who  wanted to preserve our heritage. So, they met and formed  PCHGA to serve those ends. The charter members were all volunteers, so they asked  Panola County to give them a long-term lease on the old  1891 Panola County jail which was no longer in use. The  jail use was discontinued in 1954 and the old jail had fallen  into a state of disrepair.  These charter members not only raised money from others,  but also donated their own time and money, and ultimately  rebuilt a structure  that would house history, family books  and artifacts in a stable, controlled environment. The upstairs of the Old Jail is now used as a museum.  The old cells and locks are still intact. The bottom floor of  the jail is where the jailer's family lived and where meals  were prepared for the prisoners by the jailer's wife. The  bottom floor now has three book rooms with a good  representation of states, counties and family history ; a computer room with four computers for public use;  and an office with one computer for keeping up with  the daily affairs of PCHGA. The PCHGA Old Jail Library is open three days per  week: Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday afternoon.  There is no user fee or membership  cost. Normal hours  are from 10:00 AM until 3:00 PM on Tuesday and  Wednesday, and from 1:00 PM until 5:00 PM on Sunday.  We invite the public to visit us during any of these times. We have three to four volunteer staff members to assist  you with researching your family tree  or maybe the history  of your home county, town or state. You can also use our  computers to research on the internet. We also welcome  any and all tour groups.

Dr. V.M. Holland, M.D. : The Life of My Husband, an East Texas Country Doctor

Dr. V.M. Holland M.D.: The Life of My Husband,an East Texas Country Doctor,
 by Mrs. V.M. Holland, Evangeline Neal Dennard Holland, R.N., Captain US Army WWII
Trans-scripted letter posted by Fred L. Holland, entitled "Virgil M. Holland, V.M. Holland, M.D"., dated 4 March 1995


Virgil Holland was born in Fairplay, Panola County, Texas, on 4 March 1918. His parents were Lois Allison Holland of Fairplay, Texas and Mordie Holland of Benton County and Carol County, Tennessee. Virgil had one sister, Marguerite, and three Brothers, Samuel, Leland, and James (known as “Bill”) Holland. His Father was a farmer, rancher and carpenter. His mother was a homemaker. Both parents were life long community leaders in the Methodist Church, local schools, county fairs, soil conservation, home demonstrations, and youth socials and activities.

Virgil attended the rural school in Fairplay and graduated from from Carthage High School in 1934. Only 11 years of public schooling was required for graduation at that time, and he had been advanced two grades. He was valedictorian and only 15. After graduation, he enrolled in the Baptist College of Marshall in Marshall, Texas. His Uncle Sam Allison paid his tuition and book fees: he paid his room and board by waiting on tables and washing dishes in the college cafeteria, managed by Mrs.Fant, mother of the Mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, Mr. Clyde E. Fant. [ Mayor Clyde Fant would be the guest speaker at the CHS graduation commencement of Virgil’s son, Frederick Leon Holland, in 1971.] According to Wikipedia,

Clyde Fant was a native of Linden in Cass County, Texas. He was one of six children of Mr. and Mrs. John Preston Fant. John Fant was a cotton gin owner and a onetime Texas state legislator. Fant graduated in 1925 from the former Marshall (Texas) College, now East Texas Baptist University. He taught school for a year in Blocker, a since abandoned community near Marshall, the seat of Harrison County. He then worked for a lumber company in east Texas and was thereafter associated with Southwestern Gas and Electric Company. He was an executive with Interstate Electric Company, with seven years of service with the firm, when he was transferred to Shreveport.]

Mrs. Fant was a lifelong friend and was admired and respected by her “helpers.”

Virgil was a “whiz” in math, chemistry, biology, physics, and history. This background provided good career choices and upon completion of enough hours for a teacher’s certificate and for graduation, he taught in the Fairplay School. He was a scholar, educator, hard worker, and teacher all of his adult life.

In May 1941, Virgil Mordie Holland joined the US Navy and served 4 years, 4 months, and 22 days. During those years of service, in Florida and California, and overseas on Guam and Australia, he was honorably discharged in 1945 as a Chief Pharmacist's Mate, (A.A.). It was during his WW II service that he decided his goal was to “ enter medical school after his discharge from the service, and to become a general practitioner (G.P.) of medicine after graduation and proper training.”

Virgil obtained a B.S. Degree through extra college work at Stephen F. Austin College, Nacogdoches, Texas. Graduating from there with honors, he was admitted to the University of Texas Medical School at Galveston, Texas without having to take an entrance exam in 1946. While there for four years of study, he worked at night for the Sisters of Charity and the John Sealy Hospital in Galveston. During the Summer, he “externed” at the Memorial Hospital in Henderson, Texas, and the Marshall Hospital in Marshall, Texas. In school, he was a member of a fraternity, living in their house and enjoying all their activities. Virgil graduated from the University of Texas Medical School in June 1950. He was third in his class of 96 and was admitted into Alpha Omega Alpha, the National Honor Medical Society.

The Texas Board of Medical Examiners granted Virgil M. Holland, B.S., M.D., this license to practice medicine in Texas in July 1950. Before the examination, he had taken time to marry Evangeline Dennard, Carthage I.S.D. public school’s first and only school nurse from 1947 - 1951. The couple felt they were very fortunate to be able to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary together, before his death in 1990.

Dr. Holland interned at John Sealy Hospital in Galveston, Texas. Dr. Gregory, head of the Medical Department in the school wanted him to specialize in internal medicine and become an internal medical diagnostician. Dr. Holland was pleased to receive the offer, but he he felt it “would take too long and I wasn’t getting any younger.” He wanted to enter general practice, become a family physician, and fulfill his goal. He was a life [“Old Red”] member of the U.T. Galveston Medical School’s Alumni Association.

Upon completion of his John Sealy service, Dr. V.M. Holland had been offered a partnership to enter general practice at the Carthage Medical and Surgical Clinic in Carthage, Texas with Dr. Carl Prince and Dr. W.C. Smith: Mrs. V.M. Holland would continue to be the school nurse, but their plans had to change. Dr. W.C. Smith notified Dr. V.M. Holland that the partnership had an obligation to take back their partner, Dr. James M. Ashby, who was returning from the Korean War. The office space that was to be Dr. V.M. Holland would instead be returned to Dr. Ashby.

Dr. Lynn Hooker, whose clinic was also on West Panola, wanted Dr. V.M. Holland to join his clinical practice: but there was not enough room to set up an immediate practice there. This emergency need was taken care of by Dr. D. B. Daniel graciously offering to rent an office to Dr. Holland at the Panola Clinic on North Daniel Street for solo general practice. This help at this crucial time, after years of study and work, was always appreciated by both Dr. and Mrs. Holland in the years that followed.

However, Dr. Holland desired to enter a group practice, and soon he received an offer to join Dr. Coy Stone and Dr. Alfred “Al” Menson in Hobbs, New Mexico. It was too good an offer to turn down. Mr. Q. M. Martin, Superintendent of Carthage Independent School District, promised to release Evangeline, if she could talk Lou Tatum, R.N. into becoming the school nurse for Carthage I.S.D. The rest became history for Lou Tatum and school nursing in Panola County!

 (Hurray for Lou and Coach Tatum --- God Bless you! Always!)

-Evangeline, March 4, 1995


TO BE CONTINUED...