Friday, December 12, 2014


For those of you who are of the “Old Austin” persuasion, you may have visited George Stephenson’s father’s feed store down near the Congress Street bridge.

Kathryn was born in Natchitoches, Louisiana and you can still hear the soft lilt in her voice. She moved to Houston at the age of fifteen, and would later meet George at the local medical/dental office where she worked as a book keeper. They both remember it as love at first sight. George said with a grin, “I cut everybody out, that’s the one for me, I thought.” The Stephenson dove in “head first” and were married six months later.

Saved from the military by double-jointed knees that the recruiter just couldn’t make sense of, and was sure George had broken at some point, he moved into a career that would include employment with Brown and Root, the Houston shipyard and Harris County. George shared an entertaining story about manning the refrigeration plant at Marshall Ford (now Mansfield) dam.

“Water lines ran through the concrete of the dam and we pumped ice water through it to keep it from getting too hot and cracking. I had a lot of spare time in my little office that was right in the dam, near the water, so I’d throw a line over and catch fish. I’d put them in a 50-gallon barrel over by the condenser that was full of water. After work, people would stop by and get some fish to takehome,”helaughed. Sounds like it was a pretty good job.

Kathryn and George have traveled all over Europe including, Ireland and Germany. One more recent traveling highlight was a bed and breakfast tour of Maine.

They are the parents of one son and are over-the-moon proud of their only granddaughter, a Stanford graduate who speaks six languages and is headed to Cambridge for graduate school.

The Stephensons joined First Baptist the initial Sunday they visited. Both said that the minute they came in the door, they knew this was the place for them. As members of the Concordant class for twenty-six years, Kathryn was also active in WMU and Reading Round Table.

If you visit the Stephensons, be sure and make plans to go on a day when Kathryn has been baking. I hear her pie is legend. 

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