Symbol of Troubled Texas : Memories, Pathos on Sale at Connallys’ Bankruptcy

Nellie Connally wandered through the cavernous auction house, looking at the things that were once a part of her life.

Occasionally, she stopped to look at a particular painting, or touch a piece of furniture. Each one had a story and it was like a tour of her own lifetime.

Her husband, John, former governor of Texas, a former secretary of the Navy and of the Treasury, one-time aspirant to the presidency, had gone broke in his 70th year. The silver-maned Connally, himself a symbol of Texas, the man who was seated in the same car with President John F. Kennedy when he was shot in Dallas in 1963, was $48 million in the hole.

“Big John” Connally was the kind of man who ran charity auctions. Yet here were his belongings for all to see at Houston’s Hart Gallery. And tonight, an expected crowd of 2,000 will file in and begin four days of bidding on everything from Connally’s prized gun collection to a Santa Claus cookie jar. The sale has been ordered in the hope of raising $3 to $4 million to help repay creditors.

Connally, who understood the trappings of power so well, is only one of many leading Texans who went bankrupt as hard times came to the Oil Patch. But he had seemed above that sort of thing, and his fall may have been the most significant--final proof, if any was needed, of how bad things were in Texas.

“It is very strange to walk through here and see all these things,” said Mrs. Connally. “I know as time passes I am going to miss them more than I do now.”

John B. Connally was set up for his precipitous fall in 1981, the year after his presidential hopes were dashed. Looking for something else to do--something that would occupy his considerable energy now that the long political chapter of his life was complete--he became a developer.

He joined with his protege Ben Barnes, the former lieutenant governor of Texas, to embark on the business of building offices and condominiums and shopping malls, borrowing millions of dollars on the strength of his famous name, arguably the most famous in the state.

At the time, Connally’s real estate and energy investments appeared to be solid. Oil was selling for $33 a barrel and seemed destined to go higher. Texas was on a roll and John Connally was riding the crest of an economic surge that was making millionaires overnight.

But Connally’s timing was off. The decline of Texas and the rest of the energy belt began in 1982, just about the time he and Barnes began their spending and borrowing spree in earnest, taking the big chances.

Files for Bankruptcy

Five years later, after a fruitless struggle for economic survival, Connally admitted that betting big had been a mistake. On July 31 of last year, he filed for bankruptcy. At the time, he and Barnes owed creditors more than $200 million.

On Thursday morning, Connally was in the auction house early, sitting by himself, munching on a muffin. He had just finished doing one television show and was waiting to do another in advance of the sale. The story of the Connallys had attracted considerable attention.

“Hell yes, you feel a twinge of remorse and regret and sadness,” said Connally. “We have to steel ourselves for when we see all these items carried to the auctioneer’s block.”

Connally said that he and Barnes had gone to every place they could think of, from Europe to Japan, looking for investors to keep them afloat for a bit longer. First the cattle were sold, he said, and then the horses. The pair “hung on and hung on,” losing money and cutting back on expenses until there was nothing more to cut.

There were long nights of worry.

Wakes Up in Night

“I’d wake up at two or three in the morning and stay awake until daylight thinking about what I could do, what I hadn’t done, the humiliation of bankruptcy, thinking about the loss of all our possessions,” he said. “This went on for weeks and stretched into months. I finally made up my mind (to declare bankruptcy). When you start to worry, you stop thinking.”

And so Connally joined the bankruptcy club, a veritable Who’s Who in Texas.

The newest member of the club is famed Houston heart surgeon Denton A. Cooley, who filed for bankruptcy this month with $100 million in debts from his real estate holdings.

Other members include the Hunt brothers--William Herbert, Nelson Bunker and Lamar--who filed for bankruptcy in 1986, owing $1.5 billion to 23 banks. Two of the brothers once tried to corner the world silver market.

Another well known member is T. Cullen Davis, who filed for bankruptcy last December. Once an enormously wealthy man, he gained national attention in 1976 when he was accused of the murder of two people in his luxurious Fort Worth home. He was acquitted in a celebrated trial.

And there was the late Clint Murchison Jr., the former owner of the Dallas Cowboys, who went broke in real estate investments. He died while trying to pay off his debts.

Thousands Join Club

There are more, thousands more--from the rich to the small business owner--who also joined that bankruptcy club. But John Connally was the biggest fish.

Connally was reminiscing about the furniture and artifacts and paintings that filled 18,000 square feet of the auction house, where he sat. He admired a favored mirror and a lion rug and recalled killing the lion in Tanzania. He also pointed out a matched set of rugs that had once belonged to the Saudi royal family and the gun he had used to bag an elephant.

Then he began to talk about the woman--a total stranger--who called and asked if she could pay one of the Connallys’ overdue bills, and of how Nellie burst into tears when she heard the offer. He told of the hundreds of letters of support, many from people who tried to bolster the couple by telling how they had overcome tragedies in their own lives.

“It makes you realize how caring and generous the average person is in this country,” he said.

Retains Ranch House

Connally once owned five homes, but all he has now is the family ranch house in Floresville, Tex. He will be allowed to keep 200 of the 3,400 acres that once made up the ranch and $30,000 worth of goods for the house.

And, because he is still paid for his various board memberships, Connally is not destitute by any means. But, he said, he is going to have to get out and make some money to put some furniture back in the ranch house. He is also thinking about writing his autobiography and is working on a deal that would allow the Connallys to live in Europe several months of the year.

“I don’t believe in retiring,” he said. “I don’t intend to retire. I don’t think anyone should. People start withering. The mind is like a muscle. Unused, it begins to atrophy.”

Jerry Hart, the owner of the auction gallery, has received dozens of calls since the auction was announced from people who would like to buy something of the Connallys and give it back to them.

“The joke,” he said, “is how many trucks is it going to take to go back to the ranch.”