We have some wonderful items available through the SPL Press. Celebrate the history of Sherman and the Texoma area with our books and enjoy a look into the past! 

Publications:

Thank God We Have The Comfort of Heaven:      The 1866-1871 diaries and letters of Maggie Royston
       Edited by Heather Palmer

$20.00

In 1866, when sixteen year old Margaret Hensley Royston began her journal, she had a special need for a confidant.  Even by nineteenth century standards of loss, Maggie's life had been and would continue to be filled with enormous sorrow.  Maggie's diaries and extant family letters from the years 1866 - 1871 tell of her wish--to remain with who was left of her family--led her to make a decision which  extraordinary today, yet when seen in the context of her perception, makes perfect sense.

All Of Sherman Is Looking To Your Success:         The 1898-1899 letters of the Roberts Family of Sherman, Texas and Stanly Roberts at Princeton University
       Edited by Heather Palmer

$20.00

All to often the stuff of daily life is not what makes it into the history text books but it is that very lack of the extraordinary which makes these letters so appealing.  Emma's garden, CN's business and Stanly's bicycling seem so vivid because they have not been drowned out by long historical dramas.  Thanks to thirty-three brittle letters, three people who lived one hundred years ago come to seem like people we know.  In their affection for each other and their desire to share the events of their lives during a year apart they also teach us, today, about a world so like and yet so different from our own.

Sherman's Architectural Heritage
       by Peter H. Phillips

$20.00

Photos and narrative on 75 of 240 architecturally and/or historically significant structure within the Sherman, Texas city limits. This book was initiated in 1983 after completion of the survey directed by the author and Charles Muil, a local architect and was updated in a second edition in 2002.

$15.00

$15.00

$10.00

$10.00

The C.S. Roberts House
       by Cary Wacker

$3.00

Tour the beautiful and historic C.S. Roberts House from your home with the official site guide. What a wonderful souvenir of your trip to this website!

...And on your next stop at the Roberts House, be sure to visit our gift shop for wonderful old fashioned gifts and crafts for children!

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       To be entrusted as guardians of the fragile relics of historic past is an honor that the Sherman Preservation League has enjoyed for over  thirty years. In that time we have worked to preserve and document the architectural history of Sherman, to honor private home owners for their efforts, to maintain the 1896 Eastlake mansion, the C. S. Roberts House, as a museum, and to serve the community with such varied programs as our reference library, the school trunk tour, and numerous special events.

        Thanks to your support, five years ago we were able to also begin a Sherman Preservation League Press. Because of the generosity of the Roberts family we have been able to present two important history books to the public: "All Sherman Is Looking To Your Success: The 1898-1899 Letters of Stanly Roberts at Princeton University and The Roberts Family of Sherman, Texas" and "Thank God We Have The Comfort of Heaven: The 1866-1871 Diaries and Letters of Maggie Royston".  Both of these volumes have added immeasurably to our understanding of the Roberts Family and they have been a vital way for us to meet our goals for sharing important private historic documents with a wide audience.

        Now, a third and even more important book is ready for publication and we need your help to offset the printing costs. "The Family Of Sukey Lewis In The Plantation South" tells the story, through letters and diaries, of the ancestors of Emma Roberts back five generations.  While of great interest to everyone interested in the C. S. Roberts House, the book also has national significance.  Not only do the documents tell a much larger story about the Southern life between 1793 and 1865, but the first letter presented was written by the woman who was not only our own Emma's Roberts great-great-great grandmother but was also a first cousin to President Thomas Jefferson!

        As each of the five generations pushed ever Westward from Virginia towards Texas in the years 1793 - 1865, the letters were the only means for the generations to stay in touch.  Often the emotions are raw as in this 1840 letters; " I had never seen my daughter's child but once and that was at her funeral."  Sometimes less moving words were used to convey subtler but just as powerful emotions as when the men wrote tersely about clouds and rain but the unwritten subtext was that if they misunderstood the signs of the weather there could be loss of a crop and financial devastation.

        Our first two books have sold quite well but we need to have a total of five books under our own ISBN in order to get into the big chain bookstore markets.  Won't you please help us?  Both this book and a book of fifty years of letters written to Emma Roberts by her niece are now ready for publication.  It will cost the League $8000. for the professional typesetting, binding and shipping of "The Family of Sukey Lewis In The Plantation South" and about $4000. for "I Am Always Your Little Niece".  If we can raise the money up-front, through your generous donations, we can keep the books affordable and one hundred percent of the sales (ultimately about double the costs) can go directly to the Sherman Preservation League.  (And wait for the surprise next year, when we tell you what the fifth book will be.)

Thank you so much for your help!

Sincerely,

Bob Cope, SPL Board President

Heather Palmer, SPL Historian

For donations, contact Bob Cope at email address: splcope@aol.com 

Upcoming Books:

 The Family of Sukey Lewis in the Plantation South by Heather Palmer

In a crumbling plantation journal and a large sheaf of faded letters written between 1793 and 1865 every sentence seems drenched with emotion. Worry, exuberance, regret, hope, sorrow, and faith all seem urgent: this I must remember; this you must know.

On one level the contents are not unfamiliar to modern readers: the men wished to secure the stability of their families by making a good living, even if that meant moving far away from where they began; the women worked to keep the ties to all that they had left. The situation in which they tried to achieve these ends, however, was vastly different from our lives today, and these records exist because of those differences.

This book is about the family of Sukey Lewis but it could be the story of many other American families. This book is about the struggles, triumphs and sorrows of those who have gone before.

I Am Always Your Niece: The 1885 - 1933 Letters of Carrie Ewan Johnson edited by Heather Palmer

After the publication of "Thank God We Have the Comfort of Heaven: The 1866 - 1871 Diaries and Letters of Maggie Royston", readers wanted to know "what happened" to little Carrie, Maggie's niece. Carrie Lee Ewan was born 30 September 1866 and as both Maggie's niece and later as her step-daughter was a frequent topic in Maggie's diaries and letters.

Carrie's letters are deserving of attention both because they continue the story of the little girl glimpsed in Maggie's diaries and letters, and because they continue the story of a way of life for her generation. In many ways Carrie's letters tell of the life Maggie might have experienced had she lived longer, for after all, Maggie was only seventeen years older than Carrie. Through Carrie's letters can be seen how seamlessly the ways of the Old South passed into the turn-of-century, the First World War and finally, tragically for all, the Great Depression.

For more information

write to us at:
Sherman Preservation League
PO Box 159
Sherman, TX  75091-1059

or call (903) 893-4067