Oakwood Cemetery

Samuel Walker Houston

 

Samuel was married Cornelia Orvis, and had one son. He married Hope Harville in 1915, and had three children with her. After emancipation Samuel attended three university, in which he graduated from each. He worked as a government clerk at the Ford Theater, once his education was complete. After working five years in this position he returned to Texas, and took a teaching position at Red Hill Public School in Grimes County. In 1907 he created the Galilee Community School, which was the first trade school for African American children in Texas. The school educated children from first through eleventh grade. The trades offered were ones that Samuel founded important to know; these include traditional academics, cooking, sewing, wood work, carpentry, agriculture, and humanities and sciences. The Galilee Community School, who formally became called the Houstonian Normal and Industrial Institute consolidated with Huntsville ISD in 1930. Samuel went on to become a principle to ten schools. As well as serve on the National Republican Organization, Texas Commission on Inter-Racial Cooperation, Teachers State Association of Texas, Young Men's Christian Association, the Southern Sociological Congress, the National Association of Teachers in Colored Schools, the National Association of Applied Psychology, and the National Travel Club. He died in 1945 of a heart attack, and rests in Huntsville’s historic cemetery, Oakwood.