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Chapter 2. THE CHILDREN CONFRONT THE LEGACY (1912–1945)
- University of Texas Press
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Chapter 2 THECHILDRENCONFRONTTHELEGACY 1912–1945 Astraightforward time line of significant events in a company, while essential in evaluating its history and future prospects,leaves out the interesting details of how things happened, who made them happen, and especially why they happened as they did.For 120 years,G.B.Dealey and his descendants who followed after him in the leadership of Belo Corp. have wielded a powerful influence in Texas and, ultimately, in the many other states nationwide where the company’s voice is heard.It is impossible to understand today’s Belo Corp.—its business philosophy, its corporate culture,and its power as a media company—without knowing something about the individuals who have enabled it to succeed through four generations. G.B.Dealey entered civic life on October 1,1885,when he supervised the publication of the first issue of the Dallas Morning News.As a young, idealistic newspaperman, he established the voice of the fledgling newspaper as an outspoken advocate for civic improvement; for honesty in business practices; for clean, well-run government at all levels; and for fairness, tolerance, and compassion in human affairs.The moderate and steady institutional voice of A. H. Belo & Co. rang clear under G. B.’s management. He was lionized during his lifetime, and he has been revered by Dallas civic leaders and journalists throughout the country ever since. His successors at Belo Corp. have been challenged to hold on to his 2 idealism about the news media’s responsibility to serve the public.Their interpretations of the precept varied from man to man among his descendants who have led Belo over all these years, and those variations have affected the company profoundly over time. All of the successors have been reminded of G.B.’s legacy every day that they came to work for the last fifty-five years, at least, as they drove past the monumental bronze statue of him standing on a pedestal in the plaza that bears his name on Houston Street in downtown Dallas. G. B. Dealey had been employed by A. H. Belo & Co. for fifty-two years when he finally acquired it from the heirs ofAlfred H.Belo in 1926. By then he had already brought two of his five children into the company ’s management. His son Walter came into the company in 1912, and Walter’s early business acumen changed the company with the establishment of WFAA Radio in 1922. His son Ted joined the Dallas Morning News in 1915 as a reporter.Ted wrote many of the stories that exposed the atrocities of the Ku Klux Klan during the early 1920s, and the News’s extensive coverage of Klan lawlessness was credited nationally with defeating the Klan’s power inTexas. When their father acquired the company, both Walter, with fourteen years’ tenure, and Ted, with eleven, were brought in as equity partners at 8 percent each, and both were elected to the first board of directors. But G. B. Dealey also had three daughters, Annie, Fannie, and Maidie. Although all three were college educated, none of the daughters was invited to become an equity partner or to join the newly reincorporated company’s board of directors, much less to work at the newspaper. In those days it was not the custom to include daughters in the family business , especially since, in this case, all three had married well. However, in the long run,all three of the daughters were to have powerful,if indirect, roles to play in the future of the company. The first two children born to young Olivia Allen and G. B. Dealey were daughters.Their first child was Annie,who was born on February 6, 1885,in Houston,where G.B.was assigned as agent for the Galveston Daily News. Annie was born shortly before G. B. was given responsibility for starting up the new Belo newspaper in Dallas.Annie was followed by a sister , Fannie, only eighteen months later, on October 14, 1886.The family had moved to Dallas by then,but Olivia traveled to her own family’s home in Lexington, Missouri, to give birth in order to have her mother’s help with the eighteen-month-old Annie,who had been seriously ill. The Children Confront the Legacy 43 [18.222.67.251] Project MUSE (2024-04-17 21:48 GMT) Throughout childhood the two young sisters,Annie and Fannie,were actively engaged in the same music classes and social clubs.They finished high school in...