"The Tie that Binds" • Georgetown

"The Tie that Binds" • Georgetown

By Beth Wade Friday, 09 October 2009

More than a century ago, Southwestern University student Early Price was planning to marry and preparing for her school’s first homecoming, which was held April 21, 1909. Now, as the school welcomes alumni back for its 100th annual Homecoming and Reunion Weekend in November, Price’s granddaughter will make the trip to Georgetown to honor her memory.

Louise Walsh is the author of “The Ties That Bind: A Georgetown Texas Memoir—1904-1909,” which is based on more than 500 letters saved by Price. The book chronicles the lives of six children of an affluent Georgetown family. The letters, found by Walsh while cleaning her aunt’s home, have been incorporated with other materials from family members.

The book was intended to be a gift to Walsh’s mother, but as the pieces came together it evolved from a tribute to her family to a tribute to Southwestern, Georgetown and the state of Texas.

Price, who attended Southwestern from 1901 to 1908 as a student in the fitting school and as a music student at the university, was the youngest daughter of a family whose ancestors arrived in Georgetown in the 1870s. Price’s uncle, Frank L. Price, helped get Georgetown selected as the site for the university.

While the book presents the love story between Price and her fiancé, Morris Fleming, it also depicts the university’s first homecoming, which Price described in her letters as “magnificent” and “full of revelry."

“The entire town was draped with ‘Welcome’ banners in Southwestern’s colors. Everywhere you went, there were greetings between long-lost friends and well wishers exchanging news of their lives since leaving school,” she wrote in a letter to Fleming dated April 23, 1909.

In the same letter, Price describes attending an orchestra and glee club concert that lasted until midnight and closed with the crowd singing “Blest Be the Tie.” Price said it was a moment she would remember forever, and the song was the inspiration for the book’s title.

Along with the letters, Walsh has included period photographs, postcards, newspaper and magazine clippings, greeting cards, invitations, letterhead, telegrams and announcements. The memoir is laid out similarly to a scrapbook that could have been kept in the early 1900s.

The Price family home, built in the 1880s, still stands at 209 E. 10th St. across from a house that was once owned by Price’s aunt and served as a boarding house for male Southwestern students.

Walsh will be at The Williamson Museum Nov. 6 from 6 to 8 p.m. for a book signing. The limited edition, signed books will be on sale at that time.

During homecoming, Walsh will present her book, along with a number of artifacts from Price’s collection, to the Georgetown Heritage Society Nov. 7 at 9:30 a.m. at the Grace Heritage Center, 811 S. Main St. The book will be available for purchase at Hill Country Bookstore, 719 S. Main St., Georgetown, and the Southwestern University Book store, 1001 E. University Ave.