One who is destined to lament the passing of time would do well to have a bit of chat with Mrs. M. A. Warren, lately arrived for her annual visit with her son, Dr A. A. Warren and family at 220 West Alabama.
Mrs. Warren will be 90 years old in July. Her outlook on life belies her age by many years. She keeps up with events of the day, is keenly interested in the trend of the times; travels to many states unattended to visit her children, and came down here from Rogers, Arkansas alone. Moreover, she is planning to fly to Dallas this week. She tells, with keen interest, of other flights she has made---afraid? not a bit, she says.
Bright blue eyes in a frame of silvery hair sparkle as she visits. Her life has spanned a remarkable stretch of time. She has seen great prairies change into great cities and business marts; great deserts blossom like a rose. She tells in a whimsical manner of driving 25 miles behind an old Dobbin to see the first automoble in the section in which she lived, of seeing the first steamboat that chugged its way through the waters of the Great Lakes. Telephones, other miracles of lessening distances and of communication; radios, airplanes and all the things we accept in so matter-of-fact manner, were unknown in her girlhood days and the days of her early married life when she and her husband, the late E. S. Warren settled on a farm 60 miles from a railroad near Fort Des Moines, Iowa, now a large city.
But the most wonderful thing about her life in the last few years is, she has turned to writing hooks. One volume soon to be in print, called 'Shirt Tail Inn' portrays the life of Sam Warren, her husband, in Colorado and California in the sixties. The title is taken from a brush house built by the hero while prospecting and the little book is written in an intimate manner, with touches of rare humor, touches of pathos and descriptions of those early days which make the narrative of absorbing interest. The forthcoming book on which she is working, 'The Beginning' is a Biblical story equally as interesting.
Mrs. Warren was an ardent worker for suffrage, a close friend of Susan B. Anthony and relates many stories of conventions 53 years or more ago when the cause of suffrage was a subject for scoffing and derision. She also worked earnestly for prohibition, was a W.C.T.U. leader in her state and would take the stand again if the amendinent was seriously challenged.
Mrs. Warren makes her home here most of the time, although she visits her five other children during the vear. "The best children in the world" she declares. Houston, however, is home because in one of the beautiful cemeteries sleeps her husband, who passed away a few years ago.