Farewell Texas

FAREWELL TEXAS Farewell Texas is an action-packed historical drama, based on real-life characters and actual events. Expanding upon Sarah Ann Lillie Hardinge’s journal and letters, Farewell Texas chronicles Sarah’s four years in Texas, during which time she gave birth to three sons, taught school, found religion, survived Indian scares, and painted. Sarah's watercolors and journals create a unique visual and written history into life in Texas, from 1852 to 1856, shortly after its separation from Mexico and before the Civil War. Farewell Texas is about Sarah Ann Lillie Hardinge, a soft-spoken, twenty-eight year old woman from Boston and her struggle to claim the land she inherited from her brother, a veteran of the Texas Revolution. Sarah’s challenges and struggles were not unique to settlers in Texas, a frontier with battles ranging on all fronts, Mexicans to the south, Indians to the north and west, all fighting for the same land. Sarah faced other battles, challenges women still face today. Although Sarah Ann Lillie Hardinge’s Texas saga was influenced by major events, issues and people of the nineteenth century - events such as The Texas Revolution, The Second Great Awakening, The Goliad Massacre, birth of The Republic of Texas, The Gold Rush and the Texas-Indian Wars; cultural and societal issues such as slavery, patriarchalism, discrimination, frontier gambling, the destruction of Indigenous nations and political malfeasance; and some of Texas history’s most famous and influential individuals: Stephen F. Austin, Santa Anna, General Sam Houston, Colonel James Fannin, The Angel of Goliad, Cynthia Ann Parker, Texas Rangers Jack Hays and Ben McCullough - Farewell Texas is not about these events, issues or people. Farewell Texas is Sarah’s story. And Sarah’s story to tell.