Texas Independence Week continues in Gonzales with more events

Gonzales will hold two more events for Texas Independence Week as the city pays tribute to those from Gonzales who fell at the Alamo and remembers the harrowing events of the Runaway Scrape.

At 5:15 p.m. Thursday, March 6, there will be a brief program at the Gonzales Memorial Museum where roses will be laid for the 41 Gonzaleans who lost their lives on that date 189 years ago when Santa Anna’s troops stormed the Alamo.

This moving ceremony will include a roll call of the names of the fallen. Descendants of the men often take part in the observance and will lay the rose when their loved one’s name is called.

“The Young Texians will perform along with Fletcher Clark, who has written all the ballads for these performances, including ‘The Immortal 32,’” said Crystal Theatre director Barbara Crozier, who oversees the Young Texians. “But there's a couple of surprises in the staging of it this time, so I'm very anxious for people to make sure that they come and see it. It's a very short program and a very short amount of time to give up in your life to to really understand what Gonzales gave and lost.”

On Saturday, March 8, will be “Fleeing to Freedom: Commemorating the Runaway Scrape” at Texas Heroes Square. The event officially starts at 8 p.m. but Crozier encouraged everyone to arrive early, between 7:30 p.m. and 7:45 p.m., to be able to hear Clark play the ballads he has writen, up to an including “The Immortal 32.”

“It is the story of the Runaway Scrape and we've been building this for the last couple of years, because that is the story that nobody can tell the way Gonzales can tell it,” Crozier said. “It started here, and we’ve got some elements of it that are so poignant it is ridiculous.”

Crozier said during the ceremony, the Young Texians again will perform and Clark will play two ballads. One, “Run, Run, Run Away,” has new, extra verses that no one has ever heard performed before.

“There’s also a new one that we'll be introducing, called ‘Burn, Burn, Burn! Gonzales Must Burn!’ and it is a very, very powerful one,” Crozier added.

The performance re-enacts the return of Susanna Dickinson, widow of Almaron Dickinson, to Gonzales  to tell her tale of the fall of Alamo, accompanied by faithful Old Joe, who will be portrayed by Quincy Johnson.

“As soon as Susanna slides off the mule into the awaiting, remaining citizens who are still here, she tells her story very briefly of what happened to her at the Alamo through her eyes. And then she announces that the soldiers are right behind them, which sets them into a frenzy of terror, which is what starts the Runaway Scrape,” Crozier said. “And this time, the interesting thing is going to be as they are leaving, one of them is going to look back and see the fire.”

The Texas Legacy in Lights is providing a projector that will project the conflagration onto the building in the west end of downtown as the Young Texians sing “Burn, Burn, Burn! Gonzales Must Burn!”

When the ballad is finished, there will be six, short, moving monologues of survival as told by the women of Gonzales, portrayed by the Young Texians.

“I can't wait for people to see it. Those girls do a fabulous job with those and it'll end again with the refrains of the music that's been written for performances there. So I really want to just encourage people to no ends, to come and see these things,” Crozier said.

Crozier said she is excited about the use of the projection technology by Texas Legacy in Lights as “it will also give people a chance to see what can be done with the equipment that was purchased for the museum.”
“I know there's been a whole lot of controversy about this, but you know, Gonzales has always been first (in the story of Texas independence) and we'll be one of the first in the nation to be able to tell our epic tale in lights — not on one weekend, not twice a year, but every night,” she said. “This is something right up there with the draw of music and the draw of plays and the draw of, you know, whatever to keep people here an extra night, or to get people to come here for this when they're doing something else. If you're here at 8:15 at night, you're not going to be driving back to Austin or San Antonio. Hopefully we'll be filling these motel rooms because it gives them an additional entertainment piece, but one with a historic and unique slant that only Gonzales can tell.”