A
Volunteer of the Year Award in 1962, an early recogni-
tion of her community zeal. She also tried her hand at
retail.
“She opened a little dress shop called the Little Miss
Shop, and sold little girls’ apparel,” Bryan said. “After she
did that, she opened a shop here in Weatherford and [one
in] Granbury and they sold blue jeans and western wear.
Then she went to work for the Weatherford Chamber of
Commerce and then Weatherford National Bank (now
First Financial Bank).”
Jean Bryan spent many years at the bank, serving as
Senior Vice President of Marketing. During those years
she did her best to make newcomers to the community
feel welcome; after all, she knew what being an outsider
felt like.
When Pat Deen came to the county from Crowley
over two decades ago with the goal of going into busi-
ness, he was quickly pointed toward Jean Bryan.
“It was somebody on York Avenue that told me, ‘You
need to meet Jean Bryan,’” Deen recalled. “And so I just
walked into her bank one day and introduced myself to
her, and it was like we’d known each other for a long
time. She is very special. I can honestly say, had it not
been for Jean’s guidance and friendship and introducing
me to people in the community — because at that point
we’d probably lived here three or four years — that busi-
ness would not have survived the time that it did.” Deen,
who has served on the Hudson Oaks City Council and as
mayor of Hudson Oaks and is currently the County Judge
for Parker County, operated Lighthouse Publications for
22 years.
“Jean grew into a close and dear friend,” he said.
“She’s loyal, hardworking and has a passion for her
community. I think that you leave Jean Bryan better
Noel and Jean Bryan
t one time, long ago, while attending Texas A&M,
legendary Weatherford vet Dr. Noel Bryan pumped
gas at his brother Arnold’s service station in Robstown,
Texas. That’s how he met his wife Jean.
“She worked in Corpus — Robstown is just 14 miles from
Corpus,” Dr. Bryan, turning 91 in December, said. “So
when she needed gas she came in. That’s how the great
romance started.”
After meeting in 1948 and sparking for a respectable
length of time — actually, they were waiting for the doc
to finish school — the couple married in 1953.
The young vet worked in Houston three months and
four months in Shreveport, LA, before setting his sights
on a veterinarian practice in Weatherford. One of Dr.
Bryan’s college buddies was from Weatherford and told
him about an older vet here in Parker County looking to
sell his practice and move. So the Bryans drove west to
scout out the possibilities.
Luckily, first impressions did not kill the deal; but
where the good doctor saw endless possibility, his wife
saw a desert.
“When we first moved to Weatherford it was still in
the drought,” Dr. Bryan recalled with a chuckle. “There
was a drought from 1950 to 1957, and we moved here
in ’54 in the middle of that drought. Of course, people
in Weatherford were sweeping their yards like they do in
New Mexico; they didn’t have any water to water their
yards — no grass on their yards. We drove around town
to see what we’d gotten ourselves into, and she started
crying, saying, ‘What have you done, what have you
done, what have you gotten us into!’ I said, ‘Well, let’s go
to Mineral Wells and see what that looks like,’ and she
really went to bawling when we hit Mineral Wells.”
The Bryans moved to Weatherford Jan. 16, 1954, and
both have left an indelible mark on the community.
Dr. Bryan said that during those early years there were
200-plus dairies in the county. “Every family had a dairy.”
The young vet had plenty to keep him busy.
“When we first moved here, me and another vet were
the only ones here in the county,” Bryan said, “and I
practiced in eight counties. We had one vet in Decatur,
nobody in Jack County, one vet in Palo Pinto, one vet
in Eastland, two in Stephenville, nobody in Hood, and
two vets in Johnson County. There were about four large-
animal vets in Fort Worth, and that was it.”
In short, it was pretty cut and dried for the doc — life
in his new North Texas home meant working from “can
’til can’t.” Business was booming.
On the home front, Jean Bryan began her adjustment
to life in an alien land, a land quite unlike her coastal
home of Corpus Christi. She was used to a little water
with her sand. But as the Bryans started their family —
they had three girls: Diana, Denise and Deborah — she
began to acclimate to Weatherford, her new brown and
dry reality. By the time her girls were in high school, Jean
was starting to volunteer in the community, something
that became a passion and almost staggering in volume.
It started in the schools. She served as room mother in
three schools from 1960 to 1972 and as a PTA member
and officer 1962-1972. She received the Weatherford
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