From Slavery to Farm Legacy

Someone beautiful once said, “It’s always best to start at the beginning,” and every great story opens with a vision. The dream of The Dirden Farm has been through many iterations and generations. The land was there long before any family came along to try to wrestle something out of the stubborn Texas crackling clay. Whether it was cattle, crude oil, or cotton, the vast state held promise for dedicated and hardworking people. For Taylor Dirden, the sticky Southern fields became a way of life—and a lifelong pursuit—along with the sweet freedom of being able to call the land he had once worked for others his own. Passing this heirloom down through the ages to his very kin, some 150 years after first setting foot here in the early 1870s, was probably a dream he only dared.

But here they stand today, ready to honor Taylor’s vision with the establishment of a historical property: from slavery to farm legacy. Seeing that the original 22.8-acre parcel Taylor purchased in 1880 has never been out of the family, the notion to preserve the site for the community became paramount. The move to designate the farm an official historical site was spearheaded by Steph Dirden, Taylor’s great, great-grandson. After a 37-year career at the Getty Center in Los Angeles and the Getty Villa in Malibu, California, Steph returned to Austin, Texas, to retire.

In tracing The Dirden family tree, Steph centered his research around Taylor and Lucy’s son, George Elijah Dirden. George had two children, the oldest being Lucille Dirden Lacy. Steph’s aunt, Jackalyne Lacy, is Lucille’s daughter, and the great-granddaughter of Taylor and Lucy. Aunt Jackie, now retired and living in Jacksonville, Texas, remembers visiting her great aunt Beulah Dirden at the farm when she was young. She even recalls the old white clapboard house on the property and some of the fruit trees that were still producing in the early 1960s. One of Lucille’s other children, Wanda Sue Dirden, is Steph’s mother and Jackalyne’s sister. Trying to decipher lineage seems an endless pursuit and is never easy to follow. To help navigate their relationships, check out the family tree diagram here.

With vast experience managing staff and creating exhibit programming and interactive spaces for the Getty museums, taking on the restoration of the farm property fits perfectly with Steph’s skill set. “The Dirden-Lacy Family is honored to be part of an esteemed community of Texas Historical Marker recipients. Our ancestor’s journey from enslavement to historical farm legacy is nothing less than remarkable,” he said in a statement following the Historical Committee’s approval.

The legacy of Taylor and Lucy lives on today. While the Dirden family name is in jeopardy due to a lack of eligible children to carry on the name, their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren have excelled in their lives and careers and continue to give back to their communities. Their descendants have vocations in a wide range of professions, including nursing, construction, law enforcement, military service, ministry, accounting, museum design and art installation, and television production.

In honor of their pioneering great, great-grandparents, the Dirden family will evaluate the best way to celebrate their achievements. One idea is to establish a non-profit organization that could develop plans and build a reconstruction of the original home with an updated design to include an educational gallery space. A series of visual displays, including period-appropriate farming equipment exhibits, photography, and electronic media will juxtapose elements of the Dirden family lifestyle and illustrate how freed slave families began their lives in East Texas after the Emancipation Proclamation.

Whatever the next phases will be, the family hopes anyone interested will become involved to watch the old farm take new breaths. Stay tuned for more news and information on how to help continue Taylor’s vision for many years to come.