Written by Ben Cox – A chance encounter at a recent librarians conference led to a discovery by Brownwood Public Library Director Becky Isbell of a novel set in Brownwood, and based on one of its citizens.
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Tylene Wilson, an educator and principal for Brownwood ISD during World War II, took on the role of head football coach at Daniel Baker College when the coach left for the war. Wilson is now the lead character in “When The Men Were Gone,” a historical fiction novel by former Dallas-Fort Worth area sports writer Marjorie Lewis.
Lewis, who has a lifelong love of football herself, discovered Tylene’s story during a doctor’s visit for an allergic reaction. The nurse treating her noticed the football t-shirt Lewis was wearing and told her that her great aunt was a football coach during WWII.
After hearing the nurse’s tale, Lewis began the search for anything she could find on Tylene. The search brought Lewis to the Brownwood High School Library, as well as meeting with Dallas Huston and the Brownwood Genealogical Society. As it turns out, the full details of Tylene’s story have been lost to time and a fully accurate historical book could not be written.
“There were too many dead ends in the story,” says Lewis. “As much as I researched I couldn’t find all the nuts and bolts (to write a true account of her life) so that’s why I decided to make it a novel.”
The lack of information on Tylene didn’t deter Lewis, in fact, it may have even increased her interest in Tylene. “I just said, ‘ya know what, I could do what everybody else has done’ and that would be nothing, or just create a novel.”
Some poetic license has been taken with historical events, like placing Tylene in the coaching job at Brownwood High School instead of at Daniel Baker College where she was in fact the coach. However, the spirit of Tylene’s story remains intact.
Lewis would like for people to know that while there is a great deal of fiction, it is not to change the importance of what she, and other women across the country who became football coaches at that time, did. “I want people to know about what they did, so I created a fictional account of what she did based on the core truth that she had done it.”
The book is set for an October 2nd release date, and Lewis has been talking to several people in Brownwood, including Paul and Leo Underwood about a possible release event at their restaurant, as Underwood’s appears in the novel as a favorite place of the Wilson’s.
Becky Isbell is continuing to research Tylene’s life and asks that any Brownwood residents who knew Tylene or has information to contact her at the library.
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