Meet Overlooked Changemakers and Explore Our Hidden Stories

I began to create my website, HerStories and MoreStories, in 2020 because I wanted to shine light on the hidden community-makers of Georgetown, Texas, my home for 33 years. I wanted women and people from overlooked communities to get the recognition they deserve for a wealth of work that made my town better. I started and continue to give talks and lead walks through neighborhoods and public spaces where these awesome people did what they did. People tell me they’re amazed to learn these hidden stories and pass them on.

Over the past few years, I’ve added in hidden stories from other places I’ve visited. I want readers to be edified and entertained by what I’ve learned. I also want them to consider this, wherever they live: Who are the people who made your community strong and vibrant over the years? Who built the crucial cornerstones of any healthy community: educating children, starting hospitals, running businesses, and fighting for measures that made ALL the folks living there happier, healthier, and more empowered to make our community better? Who helps make our communities rise?

Chances are great that once you dig a bit, you’ll learn that major players include women and diverse community members. Share what you learned, and trumpet their triumphs! Tell your leaders you want a more complete public history. You may find, as I did, that of 200-plus historical markers in Georgetown and Williamson County, very few commemorate a woman for her own accomplishments, and very few commemorate a person of color.

Let’s bring our true community builders into our public history! Let’s shine a grateful and well-deserved spotlight on their transformational and indelible contributions! 

Here’s a small sample of where I take people in my central Texas town on a HerStories and MoreStories walk. Website readers can also use the self-guided walks at the website.

We gather at the former home of Jessie Daniel Ames to learn all about how she was a leader in organizing Williamson women to win the right to vote. She worked nonstop, and concluded with a whirlwind campaign that got nearly 4,000 women registered within a 17-day deadline! Jessie did much racial justice work, including starting an anti-lynching organization in Southern states that mobilized thousands of women to prevent lynching in their communities.

We walk in the neighborhood steps of Mary Bailey, an African-American educator who started a thriving daycare for children of color that continues post segregation to a bustling Head Start program named after her. We gather at the site of “the Mexican school,” where for many years Othelia Giron educated Latino children unable to attend the town’s white schools.

We stop by the spot where a group of dedicated Georgetown women started Georgetown’s first hospital—just in time to protect Georgetown residents from the raging Spanish flu epidemic,and where others started churches and enriching cultural assets. We celebrate local Black cowboy Bill Pickett, who gained fame around the world, as we walk the path named for him.