Heritage Voices · The Archaeology Podcast Network

Bolivar Archaeological Project, Part Two - HeVo 100

·1 hr 8 min·4 clips

Betty Kimball describes Black and white mothers meeting to manage school integration in Denton.

1. Heritage Voices episode 100 focuses on the Bolivar Archaeological Project and the family history tied to Tom Cook’s blacksmith shop. 2. Jessica Equinto hosts Betty Kimball and Howard Clark, who identify themselves as descendants of Tom Cook and Kitty Clark and explain why Maria Franklin contacted them. 3. The episode asks what the archaeology project revealed about the Cook family and how the descendants learned their own history. 4. Betty Kimball says she first heard about the project through Maria and learned more about Tom Cook than she had ever heard before. 5. Howard Clark says Maria Franklin first contacted his family, then asked whether he wanted to help, and he began by trimming and cleaning one location. 6. Both guests say the project connected them to people and places they had known only by name, including Bolivar, Fort Worth, and Quakertown. 7. Howard Clark says the excavations at Tom Cook’s blacksmith shop produced many artifacts, including buttons, marbles, knives, flatware, and crockery. 8. Betty Kimball says one of the items was a union soldier button, and the team dated many finds to the 1800s. 9. Howard Clark says he found a wedding band, a stone awl, and a piece of pocket line, and those objects made him think about ordinary life on the site. 10. Betty Kimball says the family later visited the artifact display on a Saturday and saw the objects that had been found. 11. Howard Clark says the work gave him a new respect for archaeology because the fieldwork involved hauling, sifting, scraping, and careful handling of artifacts. 12. He says the archaeologists were approachable and human, not rigid, and he learned that artifacts can make the past feel immediate. 13. Betty Kimball says the project also changed how she thought about Tom Cook, Kitty Clark, Jack Cook, and the larger family line. 14. Howard Clark says the family learned Tom Cook was a blacksmith, a pastor, and a freemason, which added another layer to his history. 15. Betty Kimball says the descendants still want to know where Tom Cook and LaThea Cook came from before Carolina and Texas. 16. Howard Clark says the project left him with both proof and questions, especially about enslavement, family origins, and the plantation where Tom Cook may have lived. 17. Betty Kimball says the oral history interviews were comfortable because Maria Franklin gave structure but let people talk and remember together. 18. The conversation is reflective and conversational, with long family memories, pauses for correction, and repeated back-and-forth between the two descendants. 19. Listeners interested in descendant memory, archaeology, and Texas Black family history. 20. Listeners wanting a fast, purely technical archaeology episode.

As heard by us

Family memory and artifact detail make the dig feel personal and grounded.

The Bolivar Archaeological Project reads like a family story first and an archaeology piece second. Betty Kimball and Howard Clark talk through their links to Tom Cook and how Maria Franklin brought them into the work, which gives the whole segment an easy sense of lived memory.

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Why you'd press play

You want archaeology that lets descendants and family memory illuminate the Bolivar Archaeological Project.

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