Eunice Brooks and Simon W. Freese Papers:

A Guide

Biographical Note

Mrs. Eunice Brooks Freese and her husband Mr. Simon Wilke Freese were primarily responsible for the fifteen year collection of materials which have become the Freese Family Papers. From these papers, Mrs. Freese published her book, William Rose of Surry County, Virginia in 1976 in which she traced her ancestors' genealogy. She also published a revised edition in 1981.

Mrs. Freese was born Eunice Elizabeth Brooks in Washington, D.C. on July 27, 1905. She graduated with honors from Southern Methodist University in Dallas in 1927. That same year Eunice Brooks married Simon Wilke Freese on June 30 in Dallas. The marriage produced one daughter and two sons: Eunice McLean Freese born in Dallas on November 22, 1928; John Wilke Freese born in Fort Worth on December 11, 1930 and Lee Brooks Freese, also born in Fort Worth, on September 21, 1935.

During Mrs. Freese's lifetime she was a member of numerous civic and educational organizations. These included the Woman's Wednesday Club, a literary study club; the Woman's Club of Fort Worth (President, 1954-1956); The American Society of Civil Engineer's Wives Club; The Round Table; Y.W.C.A.; P.E.O. sisterhood, a service organization, and the Colonial Dames of America. She also served on the first grand jury in Tarrant County to empanel women and was an active member of the First Methodist Church. Mrs. Freese died on November 28, 1985 in Fort Worth.

Mr. Simon Wilke Freese was born December 4, 1900 in Blossom, Texas. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1921 with a B.S. degree in Civil Engineering and pursued graduate studies at Cambridge University, Cambridge, England. In 1930, Mr. Freese, Major John B. Hawley and Marvin C. Nichols formed a partnership, naming their engineering firm Hawley, Freese and Nichols. It became Freese and Nichols after Hawley's retirement in 1937. During his almost 70 year career as a professional civil engineer, Mr. Freese played a major role in conceiving and designing more than 150 water and sewage systems now serving Texas. Some of those projects included: dams for the Eagle Mountain and Bridgeport Lakes which were the first large dual-purpose supply and flood control reservoirs in the United States; J.B. Thomas reservoir on the Colorado River in. Scurry and Borden counties; E.V. Spence Dam on the Colorado River in Coke County; Cedar Creek Lake-Rolling Hills Water Treatment Plant in Tarrant County; and the Richland-Chambers Dam near Corsicana. In May 1990, the S.W. Freese Dam on the Colorado River near Ballinger was dedicated to Mr. Freese.

Sources:

William Rose of Surry County, Virginia by Eunice Brooks Freese (1976), p. 248-250;

Fort Worth Star Telegram, November 30, 1985 and July 28, 1990.

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Scope and Contents

The Freese Family Papers are an extensive collection of genealogical history researched and compiled primarily by Eunice Brooks Freese. The collection focuses on Mrs. Freese's family in particular, especially the Rose, Washington, Scott, McLean, Brooks, Burleson, Hancock, and Freese families. Contained in five (5) boxes, the Freese collection spans several centuries from the 1600's through 1990. The materials primarily include legal records, both original and photocopied; compiled correspondence and research notes; published articles; photographs; genealogical charts; and handwritten journals.

The bulk of the collection is research material collected for a book published by Mrs. Freese in 1976 titled William Rose of Surry County, Virginia. A revised edition was later published in 1981. Of special interest may be the handwritten daily business and social journals of Mr. Simon Wilke Freese, the husband of Mrs. Freese. These journals incorporate the years from 1922 until Mr. Freese's death in 1990.

Mr. Freese's journals were not included in the book, but were published under a separate title, Diaries of Simon W. Freese, 1922-1987 in 3 volumes. The journals are filed in folders in chronological order and are located in boxes 4 and 5. The entire collection is numbered by folder.

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Restrictions

Access

Open for research.

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Administrative Information

Provenance

The Freese Family Papers were given to The University of Texas at Arlington at three different intervals over a seven-year span (1985, 1990, 1992). The collection was donated by Eunice Brooks Freese and her children: Mrs. Eunice McLean Freese Rutledge, Dr. John Wilke Freese, and Mr. Lee Brooks Freese. The Freese family transferred to UTA all legal titles, copyright, and literary property rights to the materials included in the collection.

Citation

Eunice Brooks and Simon W. Freese Papers, AR348, Box Number, Folder Number, Special Collections, The University of Texas at Arlington Libraries.

Acquisition

Gift, 1985, 1990, 1992.

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Administrative Information

Grant Support

The retrospective updating and conversion of this finding aid was supported with funds from the National Historical Publications & Records Commission (NHPRC) for the Special Collections "Documenting Democracy: Access to Historical Records" project, 2014-2015.

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Note to the Researcher

This collection is the result of several years of accumulated work in many forms. This work and research resulted in the book William Rose of Surry County, Virginia and later its revised edition.

Due to the voluminous research material in the collection, it is recommended that the book be used as a reference work when examining the collection. Whenever possible, the order of the folders generally followed the chapter sequence of the book. However, the folder title may not be identical to the chapter title. Some material in the folders house legal records (wills, certificates, deeds, etc.) corresponding to the chapter. The legal records are photocopies unless otherwise stated. Please consult the library's online catalog for the call numbers of the two books published by the Freese family.

The date range listed on folder headings signify when the document was originally created, not the photocopy date. Researchers will note numbers placed next to families with the same name. These numbers differentiate the generations of a family's records. Names in parenthesis, listed as part of the folder title, denote direct lineage.

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Container List

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