Page 43 - Galveston Monthly March 2019

Sallie’s life. first, she had the unenviable task of the same Galveston block her entire life. She, too, was
committing her troubled nephew to the St. Louis buried in the family plot.
insane Asylum, considered at the time to be a first-class On Easter Sunday two years later, a window was
hospital for the diagnosis and treatment of mental dedicated in her honor at Trinity Episcopal Church. The
disorders. stunning stained-glass was created by the famed Jacoby
Then the Great Storm of 1900, a category 4 hurricane Studios in St. Louis, and is still visible in the sanctuary
that raked the island, devastated her hometown in today as the only reminder of the once prominent frosh
Texas. An estimated 8,000 people were killed, at least family.
3,636 structures were destroyed, and some 10,000 After a century-long presence on the main boulevard
residents left homeless. But the frosh-Conklin home of Galveston, the frosh-Conklin home was demolished
survived. to make way for the construction of a Sears, Roebuck &
According to records, the Conklin’s had three sons Company store in 1940. That building was later occupied
- William Thaddeus Conklin Jr., born June 7, 1901, by the Salvation Army and is now the home of the
“Baby Boy Conklin,” who died December 14, 1903, and Galveston historical foundation’s Architectural Salvage
Warehouse.
is interred at Trinity Episcopal Cemetery; and Matthias
Images courtesy of Rosenberg Library Sallie - who continued to run the family businesses and Broadway in 1936, the year Sallie frosh Conklin passed away
Members of the frosh and Conklin families were laid
Dayton Conklin, born April 11, 1905.
to rest in the Trinity Episcopal Cemetery. None of their
descendants remain in Galveston.
even built a new apartment complex on the lot just east
GM
of the family home - was widowed on feb. 7, 1915, with
OPPOSiTE PAGE: The frosh-Conklin Mansion facade that faced
the unexpected death of her husband. Three months
later, on April 25, Sallie’s nephew died in the sanitarium.
and just four years before it was demolished; TOP: This photo
his body was returned to Galveston, where he was buried
from 1945 shows The Sears Building that was constructed on
at Trinity Episcopal Cemetery.
the former site of the frosh-Conklin Mansion and opened its
Sallie herself passed away in 1936, having lived on
doors for the first time on October 17, 1940.
MARCH 2019 | GALVESTON MONTHLY | 43