The Liberty County Historical Commission will hear about a spirited, successful Texas woman, Mollie Bailey, at its first 2022 quarterly meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, January 24 at the Hartel Building, 318 San Jacinto St., in Liberty, according to Linda Jamison, commission chair. Guest speaker will be seventh-generation Texan and author Jamie Carter Bollich of Beaumont.
Mollie Arline Kirkland Bailey is one of the most talented, dynamic early Texas women you may never have heard of.
Besides owning a circus that toured Texas and surrounding states starting in 1879, she was also a nurse and Confederate spy in the Civil War, a headstrong young teen who fled her family’s Alabama plantation in the late 1850s to elope with a musician, the mother of nine children, a raconteur who entertained guests in a fancy train car, and a good-hearted philanthropist with a soft spot for veterans.
Speaker Jamie Bollich has roots in Liberty County dating from the early 1800s, and her father Keith C. Carter is a native of Cleveland. She is co-author of the historical fiction book Arvetta, written with distant cousin Herman Wright Jr., which includes some of her Wright family history.
Bollich speaks regularly at history events in Texas and Louisiana. A journalism graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, she worked at the Beaumont Enterprise and Journal in several roles, her favorite of which was as a columnist chronicling “Life in the Slow Lane.” Her family includes husband Andrew, four adult children, and five grandchildren.
The public is invited and encouraged to attend to hear this fascinating story of Mollie Bailey! Also, learn of the many current and future projects LCHC has planned this coming year.
For more information, please email: lchc318@gmail.com or call/text 936-334-5813.