Thursday, March 28, 2024

A dream come true — literally | Dee Gormley's 'prophetic' dream led to revitalization of Granbury square

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Sometimes divine intervention plays a role in our lives, whether it be the town we choose to live in, the person we fall in love with or the career we choose.

For Dee Gormley, one dream led to a decision that ultimately changed her life — and the town of Granbury — forever.

Originally from Nebraska, Gormley and her husband, Don, lived in San Antonio, Corpus Christi and Houston before finally making their home in Granbury in the late 1970s.

Dee, now 83, taught fifth grade for three years at Granbury Intermediate School before deciding to take a year’s leave of absence.

“Teaching here in Granbury, these small-town kids were just so ready for whatever. They were just like little sponges. I just opened my mouth and they would just (soak in the knowledge),” she said. “They were easy to teach, but it was a double-edged sword because they wore me out. A few of them told me that they would come to school sick because they didn't want to miss what had happened that day.”

It was during Dee’s leave of absence from the school that she had a vivid dream that she was restoring an old house.

"I woke up and I thought, ‘Well, why would I dream that? I don't want to restore an old house. I don't care anything about that.’ So, I had a little cement mixer and I was laying steps down in the backyard, but that dadgum dream wouldn't go away, and I felt this compulsion to go to the square,” she said.

Dee walked into Books on the Square — a former bookstore that at the time was located where Silver Saddle is now that has since closed down — and talked to the store’s owner at the time, Mary Downs.

“She said, ‘Well, what are you doing?’ And I said, ‘Well, I think I'm gonna take a year's leave of absence from teaching.’ She said, ‘Well, I'm restoring an old house, and I would really like to give that my full attention. Would you like to buy the bookstore?’” Dee said. “It was the only business in the whole world that I would want to buy, and I said, ‘Yes.’ That's my prophetic little dream. It really did happen.”

Dee and Don purchased Books on the Square in 1982, and with Dee at the helm, the bookstore quickly became a hub of information.

PROMOTER OF TOURISM

“It was kind of a game that we played at the bookstore,” she said. “We all tried to figure out everything that was going on in Hood County. If the Granbury knitters were doing something, we would tell each other and so we kept the customers informed of that. Even the locals would come in and say, ‘Well, what's going on in Granbury this week?’ We were the other chamber of commerce. We prided ourselves that we knew everything that was happening.”

Because Dee was instrumental in bringing more tourism to Granbury, she received the “Friend of Tourism" award from the Convention and Visitors Bureau.

In 1984, Dee was vice president of the Granbury Chamber of Commerce board for tourism. Under her leadership, the board applied to the city of Granbury to use hotel/motel tax to promote tourism, which eventually led to the creation of the first tourist bureau, the Granbury Visitor Center.

Dee also helped organize several book and author lunches that took place every spring and would normally feature about four authors. The lunches were popular and brought in tourists to Granbury — some even traveling from as far as Minnesota.

“We were lucky. We got some really famous authors, and we would just fill the dining room at DeCordova and we'd sell out,” she said.

Because of the bookstore, Dee became close friends with Fort Worth author Dan Jenkins, Glen Rose author John Graves and Granbury authors Jon McConal and Thomas R. Hargrove, the latter of whom published a book detailing the events of his own kidnapping by Colombian narco-guerrillas.

“This man lived in Granbury, and he worked for the Rice Institute,” Dee said. “He was in Colombia, and he was kidnapped by the drug cartel down there and held hostage for 24 months. He had a money belt. They took the money out, but they let him keep the belt, so he found little scraps of paper and he kept a diary. This is probably the only book that Random House ever published where they did not edit it at all. They just put some typists in the room and said, ‘Here, transcribe this,’ and they published it. (The book) was more meaningful to me because I knew him.”

Knowing these authors personally helped enrich Dee’s life even more, allowing her to really appreciate the talent and art involved in writing as a whole.

“One of the most important parts in my life is having known those people,” she added. “I would not have ever had that wonderful experience if I hadn't owned the store.”

ENRICHING THE COMMUNITY

Back when Dee was still a teacher, she realized that her students didn’t know much of anything about the history of Hood County, so when there was time left at the end of class, she would read from an old history book that had been published in the 1970s.

“They were so interested in it, and I carried it into my reading class, too. I just created this course that wasn't really a part of the curriculum, and we had so much fun doing that,” she said.

One of her assignments was to have her students interview an “older citizen of Hood County” and ask them to describe what it was like when they were growing up. Her students recorded their interviews on cassette tapes.

“I have the interview with Joe Nutt, his voice on tape, and probably nobody else even has him on tape talking about his ancestors that started Hood County,” Dee said.

She transcribed each interview and submitted them to the Bridge Street History Center.

“To me, Dee's life has been about cultural enrichment here in Granbury since I've known her, and I've now known her since we met in 1984, so it's been a long friendship,” said friend Mary Saltarelli. “But she taught. She sold books. She did book and author lunches. She did volunteer work for the library, historic preservation to Preserve Granbury, and not to mention that she is one of the strong women who revitalized the town square, having a strong business down there. Being president of the Historic Granbury Merchants Association and then serving on the school board, that's all about enriching the community.”

Dee served on the Granbury ISD School Board for nine years, from 1985 to 1994. During the time she was elected, the current superintendent was leaving, which started a “time of great change” for Hood County, beginning with the bond election that passed in 1994 that expanded the high school and created the STEAM Academy at Mambrino campus.

While Dee was still on the school board, a girl who attended Granbury High School walked into the bookstore with her mom. The mother explained that her daughter was a great soccer player and she had asked if she could try out for boys’ soccer since there wasn’t a girls’ team at the time.

“They said, ‘Oh, no, no, no.’ Title IX had already passed, and so I said, ‘Well, you know, she has a right to do this to see if she can make the boys’ team,’” Dee said. “I can't even tell you exactly how all that happened, but she made the team. She rode separately from the boys to the games; I think they wouldn't let her go on the bus with the boys. They provided her a space for her locker away from the boys but that's how we ended up with girls’ soccer — just took that one little gal being brave enough to stand up."

“You know, now that I think about it, I don't think that time of great change ever stopped,” Saltarelli added. “If you look at the statistics for population growth in Granbury, it's probably never stopped growing. It was like a momentum that some really strong women started, and it just has multiplied itself.”

“It's like opening Pandora's box — you sometimes wonder whether you should have even set all this in motion, because then you don't have control,” Dee added. “We want growth and change but there is a point at which we wish it would slow down or that we would not lose this wonderful small town, a sense of place. We were concerned that we would lose that, but it was the beginning of things and it's improved ever since.”

Dee also served as president of Preserve Granbury, served on the Opera House board and served on the Granbury Chamber of Commerce board twice. She was elected Bean Queen in 1989 and has been a member of Friends of the Library for several years. She was also instrumental in saving the Harvest of the Arts Festival.

“We were talking about it and how it would be a loss to the community and Dee said, ‘We're not going to lose it. It’s not going to die. We're doing it. We're gonna have it,’ and she renamed it Harvest Moon Festival,” Saltarelli said.

Dee owned Books on the Square for just under 20 years, which led to her becoming heavily involved in the community. Her dedication to historic preservation and cultural enrichment helped shape Granbury into what it is today — and it was all thanks to a dream.

“I feel that I have had the ideal life experience,” Dee added, choking back tears. “I feel so fortunate that I had those experiences. Granbury is so special. It is just the best small town you could ever hope for. I wish everybody would realize how lucky they are if they live in Granbury.”