Katherine Drake Hart

“Bright as a cricket,” according to her father’s report to a family member, Katherine Drake Hart came into the world June 11, 1905, at her parents’ home at 1005 West Sixth Street in Austin. Her mother was Austin native Maggie Myrick Drake (1874-1950). Her father was William Sherman Drake (1864-1934), who with his brother Carl F. Drake came from Connecticut to Austin where in 1883 they founded Drake Brothers Lumber Company, afterward Calcasieu Lumber Company.

Katherine had two sisters, Margaret “Peggy” Drake (Mrs. R. M. Thomson, 1901-1993) and Julia Drake (Mrs. Truman Morris, 1912-1977), and three brothers: Chester Myrick Drake (1897-1984), John Raymond Drake (1899-1958), and William “Bill” Drake (1909-1967). Bill served as mayor pro tem (1949-50) and mayor (1950-52) of Austin. The Drake children were all reared in Austin.

Graduating Phi Beta Kappa in 1926 from Wellesley (Massachusetts) College, with a degree in French, Katherine earned in 1927 a certificate from the University of Lyons, France, after a year of study (1926-27) on a fellowship awarded by the Institute of International Education. In 1928 she received a master’s degree in English from Columbia University; and the following year married Austin native James Pinckney Hart (1905-1987). Following a brief residence in New York City, they returned to Austin, where James practiced law.

James was appointed to the Supreme Court of Texas in 1947 by Governor Beaufort Jester, and won election to the court the following year. Katherine and her children joined in the undertaking, electioneering around the State while traveling in the family station wagon bearing on its side the brand “7-H” (Seven Harts). After serving on the court from 1947 to 1950, Judge Hart resigned in the latter year to become the first Chancellor of the University of Texas System. He left in 1953 to practice law again with his father, James H. Hart (1878-1968), receiving the same year an honorary doctorate from Baylor University.

Katherine and Judge Hart had five children: Sherman Hart (Mrs. Harry M. Little, Jr., b. 1930), who lives in La Marque, Katherine “Kitty” Hart (Mrs. Elwyn C. Williams, 1932-1986), James “Jimmy” Pinckney Hart, Jr. (b. 1934), a lawyer in San Francisco, Richard “Dick” Hart (b. 1937), who works in the computer industry and lives in Grass Valley, California, and Joseph Hart (b. 1941), a former district judge now in private practice. All were reared in the family home at 1800 Forest Trail.

The University of Texas, Austin, awarded Katherine in 1955 a doctorate in French; her dissertation bore the daunting title A Critical History of the Psychological Portraits of Women in French Literature Through the Eighteenth Century. In the same year, her son Dick graduated from Austin High School and Jimmy received from the university a baccalaureate in government.

The year 1955 also saw the founding of the Austin-Travis County Collection, predecessor of the Austin History Center, within the Reference Department of the Austin Public Library. The collection consisted mainly of old newspaper clippings, presided over by two staff members and housed behind bars in a small, cramped room.

Katherine came to the collection in 1957 with considerable energy. She prepared and began a series of slide shows, displayed at schools and organizations, designed to bring the collection to public attention. For want of an instruction book describing the proper management of a local-history collection, Katherine worked with consultant Elizabeth Kemp to develop one. Katherine implemented a system for cataloging materials in the collection; and because the collection was part of a public library, she saw to the careful and extensive indexing of the materials, primarily for the benefit of amateur researchers because a common assumption held that professional researchers wished to do their own “digging.” Surprisingly, they too were delighted with the system.

In 1959 Katherine obtained for the collection one of its most important acquisitions—the papers of Governor Elisha Pease and his family, consisting of books and documents crowding two warehouses, acquired after fierce competition with the Texas State Library and Archives and the University of Texas, Austin.

Katherine’s enthusiasm did not diminish with the passing years. In 1968, her “Waterloo Scrapbook” articles, drawn from materials in the collection, began to appear regularly in the Austin American-Statesman. They ran for almost ten years, attracting to the collection readers bearing additional writings, photographs, and recollections. An oral-history recording project was started by Mary Lou Seamore, a retired school teacher. The slide shows were expanded.

Working with City Librarian Mary Rice and other interested individuals, Katherine joined in initiating a series of publications based in whole or in part on collection materials: Major Buck Walton’s An Epitome of My Life: Civil War Reminiscences (Austin: Waterloo Press, 1965); Alphonse in Austin (Austin: The Encino Press, 1967), writings of Alphonse Dubois de Saligny selected and translated by Katherine; Pease Porridge Hot: Recipes, Household Hints & Home Remedies of the Pease Family (Austin: The Encino Press, 1967), edited by Katherine; James M. Coleman’s Aesculpalius on the Colorado: The Story of Medical Practice in Travis County to 1899 (Austin: The Encino Press, 1971); Lucadia Pease & The Governor: Letters, 1850-1857 (Austin: The Encino Press, 1974), edited by Katherine and Elizabeth Kemp; and Austin & Travis County: A Pictorial History, 1839-1939 (Austin: The Encino Press, 1975), for which Katherine composed the text. The last five publications were Waterloo Press books, published by the Encino Press for the Friends of the Austin Public Library. The Friends gathered together Katherine’s “Waterloo Scrapbook” articles and republished them in six volumes under the same title between 1971 and 1976. Waterloo Press is now a division of the Austin History Center Association and has issued, under its own imprint or that of other publishers, five other works dealing with the history of Austin and Travis County.

Katherine became Curator of the Collection in 1971. She retired in 1975 as Director of the Collection, having “set the tone for the whole state as far as local history is concerned” remarked Library Director David Earl Holt at the time of her retirement. Honors were not wanting. For her contribution to local history, the Austin chapter of Women in Communications named Katherine an Outstanding Woman of Austin in 1974; she received in 1975 the Medal of Honor of the American Institute of Architects, Austin chapter, for contributions to community life through her writings, her assembling a collection depicting Austin’s architectural and cultural heritage, and her stewardship of that heritage.

Katherine has not been narrowly focused. She was a member of the Board of Trustees of the Austin Independent School District (l954-1957), the Texas Association of School Boards (secretary-treasurer), and the Vocational-Education Study Committee of the Texas Education Agency; the State Officials Ladies Club and the Austin Lawyers’ Wives Club; Planned Parenthood and the Board of Trustees of Wellesely College; the English-Speaking Union and the Alliance Française; Open Forum; and, closer to her professional interests, the Heritage Society of Austin (founding member and in 1971 president), the Society of American Archivists, the American Society of Architectural Historians, and chairman of the State and Local History Round Table, Texas State Library Association Archives.

In honor of one who devoted herself, along lines of excellence, to preserving the history of Austin and Travis County, the Austin History Center Association awards annually its Katherine Drake Hart Award to individuals making a like contribution to that history. The first award was given in 1991.

John and Deborah Powers

May 2000