Lessie Upchurch

Upchurch, who was born in Shiro, Texas, moved to Tomball in 1943 with her husband, Mack Upchurch. They raised three children three blocks from Main Street in Tomball. She has lived in the same house since 1955.

"Tomball's history was just interesting to me," Upchurch said. "I just needed to write it all down. I love Tomball. I have everything for a second book, but time is getting by."

As a Tomball resident with a keen eye toward history, Upchurch had always remembered photographs of Tomball's Humble oil camp she had seen in Coronet magazine in 1946.

"She's always been interested in preserving our history," said Courtnay Cross, a longtime friend and former Tomball resident who lived a block and a half from Upchurch while they were raising their children. "The pictures in the magazine piqued her curiosity."

Upchurch had always wondered where those photos were that preserved life in the 1940s in small-town Tomball. Then in 1980, Nicholas Lemann, a reporter for Texas Monthly, was working on an article about the photos and came to Tomball seeking the town's historian.

The reporter told Upchurch the photos she had seen published decades earlier in the magazine were housed at the University of Louisville. The photos were the work of Esther Bubley, a nationally known photojournalist, who was hired by Standard Oil of New Jersey—later sold to ExxonMobil—to photograph different oil camps in the 1940s.

"I knew Tomball had to have those pictures," Upchurch said.

Upchurch and Cross then called the University of Louisville and, with the help of a $5,000 donation from ExxonMobil, obtained 450 of the photos Bubley took at the Tomball oil camp, depicting life in Tomball. Those photos are currently in albums at the Lone Star College–Tomball library and many duplicates are on display at the Tomball Museum.

"These pictures are so important," Cross said. "The summer these photographs were taken, the war ended. So she caught wonderful pictures at the end of the war of small town America. There are pictures like this of places all over the U.S. Wonderful photography has captured these images, but most are still in the basement at the University of Louisville. It's phenomenal what Lessie has done for Tomball. We need to honor Lessie for helping to bring these photographs to Tomball."

Upchurch's health has forced her to slow down in the past year.

"She isn't feeling well now, but before that she never missed any public event in Tomball," Holland said.