Editor’s notes: This is another in an ongoing series of articles we call “Marking History” looking at the stories behind the hundreds of historic markers scattered about the Crossroads.
This article includes offensive terms quoted from an 1879 diary. This does not in any way imply the Advocate’s support of such terms, which generally would never be used by the publication.
Personal diaries are a wonderful source of primary information about the past.
Mary Virginia Hogan Regan kept a diary for seven weeks in 1879 detailing her experience on “a little pleasure trip, business & pleasure combined,” taken by her and her husband, Dominick H. Regan, through several states and a portion of Canada.
The couple’s home at 507 S. De Leon St. has a historic marker out front titled “Regan House.”
The Regan House was once located in the ill-fated town of Indianola.
When that town was destroyed by a hurricane in 1886, the home held together; though, it did float down the street a way before resting against some sturdy cypress trees, according to one of the Regan children, Elleanore, who was along for the ride.
“What fun it was when her uncle and older brothers cut holes in the floor and the water came rushing up, along with miscellaneous cats, mice, and dogs, sweeping in on crests of the flood water,” reported Victoria Preservation Inc. from an interview with Elleanore. “When horses swam by and stuck their heads in the windows,” she “squealed with delight and excitement.”
Elleanore was young and did not understand the gravity of the situation, the preservation society noted.
After the devastating storm, Dominick Regan had the house disassembled and moved by rail to the less-vulnerable city of Victoria. It was reassembled and has remained on De Leon Street since.
As the historic marker reads, “A fine example of Italianate Victorian design, the Regan House features jig-sawn porch detailing and polygonal bay windows.”
Dominick Regan was born in Ireland in 1842 and came to America with his parents, John and Mary O’Regan, in 1852. The family settled in New York, according to information found in the Weisiger Collection at the Victoria Regional History Center.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Regan enlisted in the Union Army. The National Park Service Civil War Soldiers and Sailors Database lists just one Dominick H. Regan. He enlisted in the Union Army in Illinois and served with the 89th Regiment, Illinois Infantry.
Regan’s obituary in the Oct. 11, 1927, Victoria Advocate reported Regan served with Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s Army in the western theater of war.
While carrying a satchel filled with mail, Regan was captured by two Confederate soldiers. They kept the mail and released Regan. After the war, he and his captors lived in the Victoria area and became fast friends.
Those two captors were Col. J.M. Brownson and Maj. William H. Kyle, according to Regan’s obituary. Brownson was a pallbearer at the funeral of Regan’s wife, who died shortly after giving birth to the couple’s 13th child in December 1894, according to an article in “Historic Homes of Victoria, Texas,” published by Victoria Preservation Inc.
Back now to the diary kept by Mary Regan. A transcription of the diary is on hand at the Victoria Regional History Center.
She begins her travel diary on July 19, 1879, with the sentence, “Here we are starting off on a little pleasure trip business and pleasure combined. I have left my darlings well and hope they will remain so.”
Dominick and Mary Regan were devout Catholics. Much of the diary, which covered a journey that spanned three months and lasted seven weeks, details the couple’s visit to Catholic churches for Mass and vespers, as well as visits with church leadership.
At one point in the diary, the couple visits the Wisconsin Dells and Mary splurges on the purchase of some postcards, much to Dominick’s dismay.
“Went to a gallery where they had lovely Photographic views of the Dells. I got a dozen & Domenick was not so very pleased at it,” she wrote. “but they are beautiful & I know he will like them after we get home.”
Mary seemed to love scenery, nature, flowers, ferns, church, and the company of others all through her trip.
But also in the pages of her diary are some brief entries that are offensive by present-day standards.
For example, while in New York City, Mary mentions that she and Dominick went to a “Midgets palace & saw the tiniest human beings in the world. I could scarcely believe they were alive but saw it fully demonstrated before us they acted like any other children paid very little attention to the audience they talked, laughed sang & played with each other.”
Mary Regan also uses the term “darkies” when referring to Black people in her diary, a common term in the late 19th century, but discomforting to encounter now, even in the pages of a long-ago diary.
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