A dvancement
The Ties That Bind
Chapman first among transformative Trinity families By Michael Hardy
Walk around the Trinity campus and you’ll
notice two names pop up again and again: Chapman and McFarlin. There’s the Chapman Center, which includes the recently reconfigured 178-seat Chapman Auditorium; the Chapman-Cowles Fountain; the Isabel McFarlin Residence Hall; and the Myrtle McFarlin Residence Hall. Many more buildings have plaques acknowledging the generosity of the James A. and Leta M. Chapman Trust. What you may not know is that the Chapmans and McFarlins are part of the same family, a family whose involvement with Trinity dates from the University’s origins in Tehuacana, Texas. They are to Trinity what the Kennedy family is to Harvard and the Bush family is to Yale. The history of the Chapman family, as documented in separate books–Trinity University: A Record of One Hundred Years by late history professor Donald Everett and Trinity University: A Tale of Three Cities by professor emeritus R. Douglas Brackenridge–is, in large part, entwined with the history of Trinity. The family’s patriarch, Texas rancher and oilman Phillip Chapman (married to Roxanna McFarlin), helped fund the school’s relocation from Tehuacana to Waxahachie in 1902. When Philip died in 1924, he left Trinity $100,000, the largest gift in its history. But it was the next generation of Chapmans who would leave the greatest mark on the University. One nephew, Oscar Chapman, a Waxahachie businessman, became an important Trustee and served as treasurer of the University for several decades. He was so powerful that in 1934 President Raymond Leach, who often clashed with Chapman, said in frustration that Trinity had been “practically the personal possession of one man [Oscar Chapman] for the past twenty years.” In 1962, another son, James Chapman, the co-founder, with his uncle Robert McFarlin, of the McMan oil company, agreed to fund the $1.5 million graduate
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center that now bears his name. Eighty-nine members of the Chapman family attended the dedication ceremony. James, the Texas-born rancher who made his fortune with McMan in the Oklahoma oil fields, was at one time rumored to be the wealthiest man west of the Mississippi. When he died in 1966, he left Trinity 25 percent of the income from his $120 million fortune. At the time, it was one of America’s largest educational trusts. (Most recent estimates value the various Chapman trusts around $1 billion.)
The family’s patriarch, Texas rancher and oilman Phillip Chapman, helped fund the school’s relocation from Tehuacana to Waxahachie in 1902. When Philip died in 1924, he left Trinity $100,000, the largest gift in its history. Devotion and service to Trinity continued well into the third Chapman generation. John Chapman Jr. ’49, a south Texas rancher and one of Phillip’s grandsons, served as president of the National Alumni Board, and later, 1966-1996, as a Trinity Trustee. In 1993, he was honored as the Distinguished Alum-
nus. John dedicated a good part of his life to recruiting students and making it possible for them to attend Trinity. Once, on a biographical questionnaire, he was asked how many relatives were alumni of Trinity. He simply wrote, “Thousands.” Although John died in 2008, his legacy remains strong. Literally. It seems he was drafted into posing for the bronze statue commissioned by his uncle Andrew Cowles that dominates the Chapman-Cowles fountain. Today, the two patriarchs of the Chapman family are brothers Fred, 83, and Bill Chapman, 76, of Ardmore, Oklahoma, nephews of James Chapman, sons of Fred Chapman Sr., Class of 1910, and grandsons of Phillip. Trinity magazine recently sat down with the brothers at their shared office in downtown Ardmore to discuss their family’s long involvement with Trinity. The two brothers sat around a conference table in a room decorated with large oilfield maps and Western-style paintings. Fred, the more voluble of the two, did most of the talking. As he spoke, he hooked his thumbs around his suspenders and leaned back in his chair, exposing a large silver belt buckle. A spotless straw cowboy hat rested on the table in front of him. “My father always loved Trinity,” Fred recollected. “He made so many friends during his college years, and when he lost a lot of money during the Depression, they helped him out.” Like their father, Fred and Bill both attended Trinity, although each would stay only two years before transferring to universities in Oklahoma, where Fred studied agriculture and Bill eventually earned a law degree. Both brothers have sent children to Trinity, and both look back fondly on their time in San Antonio. Fred, who is seven years older than his brother, entered Trinity in 1946, when classes were still being held on the defunct University of San Antonio’s Woodlawn campus in west San Antonio. Trinity was in the