Joseph William Bailey MUIR

                   Worked in the general offices of the Southern Pacific Railroad as of about 1918.

As of 1934, was a majority member of Reagan Chapter, Order of DeMoloy, Masons.  Also member of Will N. Kidd Chapter R.A.M. and San Jacinto Council Royal and Select Masters.  (Letter from brother, Andrew)
                  

                   Lived for 5 hours.
                  

                   Letter from Andrew dated 1934 mentioned that he was currently attending the Civil Works Administration school in the evenings.

Obituary [The Houston Post, 84th year, Number 30,622,  circa 4 February 1969]

"DR ANDREW F. MUIR, AUTHORITY ON TEXAS HISTORY, DIES AT 53
"Dr. Andrew Forest Muir, 53, the leading authority on Texas history of professor of history at Rice University, was found dead in his car Monday morning [3 February 1969] in a field off the 9300 block of Knight Road.  Dr. Muir had been seriously ill for many months, but had recently resumed his classes and had seemed better. . .

"Born in Houston Heights in 1916, Dr. Muir lived most of his life in the house in which he was born.  He was the son of J. B. Muir, a native of England, and of Annie Jane Ewing Muir, decendant of an early Houston family.

". . . Bachelors degree from Rice University in 1938, master's there in 1942, also completed studies in US hisory, Modern European history and American Literature at the University of Texas in 1949. . . taught history in various colleges around the world. . .

"In 1957 became a Guggenheim fellow. . . He was a contributor to the 'Handbook of Texas' and to the 'Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church'. . . was a key figure in the lawsuit filed by Rice University to open the way for integration of the student body and the charging of tuition. . .

"'He was a hard taskmaster', said Dr. Marilyn Sigley, Dr. Muir's first candidate for PhD,  'He never accepted anything less than perfection from himself or from his students.'

"'His knowledge was unequaled in Texas history.'  Dr. Frank Vandiver said, "He was one of the gentle people, on of the best graduate teachers I know, was a meticulous scholar, and a great friend to all his students. '  He was devoted to the building of the Fondren Library Collection.

"He was found in his car Monday morning by Marcus Perry, employee of an oil lease firm.  Perry noticed that a hose was running from the exhaust pipe through a window in the car, and that the motor was still running.  Dr. Muir had left a handwritten will beside him on the seat, leaving his estate to his brother, Lawrence Windham Muir. . . Funeral services. . . will be at.. . . Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church at 1819 Heights Blve [houston Texas]."

BELOW AN ARTICLE FROM THE HOUSTON POST, FRIDAY, FEB 7, 1969 (George Fuermann's Post Card).

" I say with regret tht I could not call Andrew Forest Muir a friend.  He was hard for me to know, but it was natural to like and esteem him as a man and as a historian.  The story in The Post about his death Monday told of his great gift as a historian, bit it failed to note something else that set him apart from most historians.

"He could write.  His prose possessed character and a sinewy grace that masked his extraordinary and unbelievable scholarship.  The clarity and directness of his style made his work shine, not alone in comparison with the articles on either side of his own in the quarterlies in which much of his writing appeared.

"A Texam to the nines, he was the antithesis of the professional Texan who has for so long made a monkey of this state.  An he was a Houstonian.  He knew more about this city's past, and he knew it more exactly and mor accurately, than anyone else living or dead.  He was a well-tempered man, perhaps tempered too finely to receive the equity from life that he so much deserved.

"He was intellectual in the classical rather than the egg-head sense.  Wry and unbeholden, a spare man physically, but vigorous and powerful mentally, he possessed a courtliness that was apt to deceive those who took his lightly.  His death at age 53 reduced Houston by much more than most Houstonians will ever know."


BELOW IS AN ARTICLE FROM A NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, SOURCE UNKNOWN, BUT PROBABLY A PAPER IN HOUSTON, TEXAS.

"With the death of Andrew Forest Muit, Texas lost an outstanding historian and a unique treasure of the mind.  Dr. Muir was a fourth-generation Houstonian who had built an unequaled knowledge of this city and this state--in terms of human comedy as well as of historical facts.  Roaming the world from New England and London to Puerto Rico and Australia, he had acquired so vast a knowledge of Western American history that only a fraction will endure in his published works.

"As a professor of history at Rice University, Dr Muir gave his interest as courteously to freshmen students as to his graduate scholars working toward master's or doctoral degrees.  A man of quiet voice and gentle manner, he delighted his students with dry humor and sometims acid wit.  As lecturer and as writer, his style was distinctive and charming.

"A man of total intellectual honesty and integrity, he was merciless toward anyone who was careless with facts.  Contemporary authors attempting to reap profits from the field of Texana learned to fear him as a book reviewer.

"But he was also intellectually generous--freely giving his own research discoveries to any scholar whose integrity and accuracy he trusted, sharing material from his files, offering leads on where obscure data might be found, tracking down a detail or confirmation of a theory for one of his students as intently as he would for his own work in progress. . .

"It is appropriate that in tribute to him an Andrew Forest Muit Memorial Collection for Fondren Library has now been started.  The memorial fund will be used for purchase of books and papers in the field of Western American history--a subject which absorbed and delighted him all his life. . . "