Tennessee Colony Order of the Eastern Star No. 102
Tennessee Colony, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Tennessee Colony Order of the Eastern Star No. 102 The first Order of the Eastern Star (OES) Chapter chartered in Anderson County, this organization was founded in 1902 for the wives and female relatives of the members of Tyre Masonic Lodge no. 198. Originally known as the Redbud Chapter, it took the name of the Tennessee Colony Community in 1936. Charter members of this chapter, which included members of the Tyre Masonic Lodge, were: Will H. and Annie Calcote, Pete Oldham, Tom Wyley, H.H. Auld, Marcus E. and Tennie Avant, Albert Dupuy, T.F. Wylie and John l. Carroll. Officers elected for the first year were: Bula Graham, W.N. Montgomery, Mamie Dupuy, Fannie Holt, Jesse Graham, Missie Swayze, Maud Montgomery, Emma Swayze, Eva Woolverton, Addie Carroll, D. Welborn Gore, Carrie Carroll, Annie Calcote, Alice Swayze, Vera Vannoy, Mattie Woolverton, E.A. Swayze and Will H. Calcote. The Order of the Eastern Star is always associated with a Masonic Lodge, and its purposes are fellowship and charitable works. Meetings of the Tennessee Colony Chapter were held once a month until 1940-41, when a change was made to hold meetings twice monthly. The chapter met in the Masonic Lodge hall. Membership in the Tennessee Colony OES increased substantially after World War II, with many local and area residents accepted into membership. Members have been active at the district and state level, and their charitable works have played an important part in the cultural heritage of Tennessee Colony. (2002)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1902 as the Redbud Chapter, this was the first Order of the Eastern Star chapter chartered in Anderson County, organized for the wives and female relatives of the Tyre Masonic Lodge. It took the Tennessee Colony name in 1936 and met monthly, then twice monthly, in the Masonic hall. Membership grew sharply after World War II as the chapter's fellowship and charitable work became part of the community's fabric.
Why it matters
The chapter shows how women built their own civic and charitable organizations within the fraternal world of small-town America.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By 1902, Tennessee Colony had been settled for more than half a century, and its Masonic lodge had stood at the center of community life since the 1850s. The new century brought a wave of club-forming across America. Women especially joined church societies, study clubs, and fraternal auxiliaries in large numbers during these years.
The Order of the Eastern Star took shape in the nineteenth century as a fraternal organization open to Master Masons and their female relatives. Women could not join the Masonic lodge itself, so the Eastern Star gave them a formal organization of their own, with offices, rituals, and charitable work, connected to the lodge and still distinct from it.
The chapter lived through the decades that followed: World War I, the Depression, and World War II. The marker notes that its membership grew substantially after World War II, a time when civic and fraternal groups across the country saw a postwar surge in joining.
People & events
In 1902 local families founded the first Order of the Eastern Star chapter chartered in Anderson County. It was organized for the wives and female relatives of members of Tyre Masonic Lodge No. 198. It began as the Redbud Chapter, a name drawn from the flowering trees that brighten East Texas in early spring. In 1936 it took the name of its hometown and became the Tennessee Colony chapter.
The chapter included men from the start. Charter members included lodge members such as Will H. Calcote, Marcus E. Avant, and Albert Dupuy, alongside women like Annie Calcote and Tennie Avant. The first year's officers show how much of the community took part. Women such as Bula Graham, Mamie Dupuy, Fannie Holt, Eva Woolverton, and Vera Vannoy served alongside men. Several of those surnames also appear in the early history of the Masonic lodge itself.
For its first decades the chapter met once a month in the Masonic Lodge hall. Around 1940–41 it began meeting twice a month, a sign of an active, growing group. After World War II many more local and area residents joined. Members went on to take part in district and state Eastern Star work, and their charitable projects became part of Tennessee Colony's heritage.
Its place in the American story
The Eastern Star is one of the largest fraternal organizations in the world that admits both women and men. Its local chapters were an important, often overlooked part of women's public life in small-town America. Before many women could vote or hold office, organizations like this gave them experience running meetings, keeping records, handling money, and organizing charity.
That matters for understanding American women's history. The big national moments, like suffrage, get the attention. But much of women's civic life happened in local chapters, auxiliaries, and clubs, where they built skills and networks and quietly ran a good deal of their communities' charitable work.
The Tennessee Colony chapter also shows how fraternal life in rural America was organized around families. The same surnames run through the lodge and the chapter, and the same hall served both. Their organizations kept a small community connected across generations.
If you visit
The chapter met in the Masonic Lodge hall in Tennessee Colony, so this marker belongs with the one for Tyre Masonic Lodge No. 198. Seeing them together shows how a community's men and women built parallel institutions side by side under one roof.
Tennessee Colony is a small, rural place in Anderson County, so expect a quiet stop, not a museum. If you're traveling in spring, watch the roadsides for redbud trees in bloom, the flowering trees that gave this chapter its first name.
The hall is a working meeting place for active organizations, so view it from outside and respect the members' property. It's an easy stop on a slow drive through East Texas. For families, it's a chance to talk about how ordinary people, many of them women whose names appear only on lists like this marker's, held small towns together.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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