Mary Catherine Funk Hardin: Philanthropist and Texas Pioneer (1859–1935)

Mary Catherine “Mollie” Funk Hardin, philanthropist, Texas pioneer, teacher, and wife of John G. Hardin, was born to James and Lydia Margaret (Moore) Funk in Harrisonburg, Rockingham County, Virginia, on February 7, 1859. She attended schools in Rockingham County. The 1870 census listed the family in Linville Township, where her father farmed and Mary lived in the household with four siblings. She was still at home there at the time of the 1880 census but left her family to become a schoolteacher in the Red River Valley of rural North Texas. In 1886 she came to the new community of Nesterville (which developed into the town of Burkburnett) in Wichita County and served as the hamlet’s first schoolteacher. She remained active in the community and was a Sunday School teacher and member of the local Baptist church.

On January 20, 1887, Mary Catherine Funk married John G. Hardin, a widower who had established a farm in the area and had also opened a store to trade with the Comanche Indians, cowboys, and settlers. Upon marrying, she left her job as a schoolteacher. In December 1887 the couple lost their infant daughter at birth. They later took in an orphan named Orin L. Clark and adopted him as their son. After John Hardin's brother and his wife passed away, their two children, Egbert and Edna, also came to live with them.

John and Mary Hardin “lived frugally” and in the beginning resided in a simple log cabin and dugout, but they worked hard, and John started investing and loaning his money from farming and stock raising. With the money made from his store, he also increased his land holdings. By 1900 he had amassed approximately 4,000 acres. In addition to lending money and farming, which brought their fortune to more than $1 million in the 1910s, the discovery of oil on their land and subsequent leases to oil companies brought their wealth to more than $5 million. At one time some of the wells produced as much as 3,000 barrels per day.

Described by her husband as “good, economical,” and “industrious,” Mary Hardin was a partner in her husband’s success and in the distribution of their wealth. The couple became known for their philanthropy and generosity, specifically to institutions within Texas and their hometown of Burkburnett. They had many requests for help from students wanting to go to college and at first interviewed each individual, but the sheer number of applicants meant John and Mary Hardin turned many down and then worried about the students they had turned away. Eventually they decided to focus their giving on the community of Burkburnett, orphanages, and faith-based schools. The Hardins donated to the Burkburnett Independent School District; the local Baptist, Methodist, and Church of Christ; and provided money for Burkburnett’s municipal light plant. They gave more than $1.2 million to the Buckner Orphans Home (see BUCKNER BAPTIST CHILDREN’S HOME) in Dallas.

They contributed large donations to a number of Baptist institutions, including Baylor University in Waco, Baylor University Hospital in Dallas, and Simmons University, which changed its name to Hardin-Simmons University in their honor in 1934. The Baptist General Convention of Texas paid tribute to the couple in 1933 for their generosity as financial stewards who “had the industry and thrift to acquire wealth; the frugality and judgment to safeguard it; [and] the vision and consecration to administer their own estate….”

In 1934 the Hardins funded a separate campus for what became Hardin Junior College (forerunner to Midwestern State University) in Wichita County. That same year, Baylor College for Women specifically honored Mary Hardin and changed its name to Mary Hardin-Baylor College after that institution received generous funding from the Hardins that rescued the school (now the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor) from financial ruin. In total, the couple gave away more than $5 million of their estate to charitable causes.

During the last year of her life, Mary Hardin suffered from a pulmonary ailment. Her death, however, came unexpectedly at her home in Burkburnett on September 5, 1935. According to the September 9, 1935, edition of the Wichita Falls Record News, an estimated 3,000 mourners attended her funeral service at First Baptist Church in Burkburnett, where multiple college presidents spoke in tribute to her. Mary Catherine Funk Hardin was buried in Burkburnett Memorial Cemetery.