Joanna Clark is the author/actress of the Sophie Porter series of one-act and full-length plays portraying the life and times of Sophia Suttonfield Aughinbaugh Coffee Butt Porter. Aunt Sophie, as the character came to be known in her later years, was a pioneer of Texas and Grayson County in particular, surviving four husbands, two wars, Indian raids and Quantrill’s company along the way. Putting a new twist on the story is Clark’s recent discovery that she is related by marriage to her subject of many years.
"My friends have been teasing me for years that I’m channeling Sophie, not just researching," says Clark. "Then in 2003 I encountered a woman who was studying the migration of her Coffee ancestors. She revealed that we were both descended from Holland’s sister, making us distant nieces of Holland Coffee and, by marriage, Sophie. Now I feel like I have to continue."
Clark, formerly of Sherman, has spent more than a decade researching, writing and depicting the life of Aunt Sophie. In 2004 a relative of Sophie began corresponding with Clark regarding an ancestor of Clark’s. After several months the woman commented that she had an ancestor on her mother’s side whom she wanted to research, Sophia Suttonfield. Information from this serendipitous new contact supplied an entirely new side of Aunt Sophie.
"Now I’m hearing from folks who are very curious to know about their Aunt Sophie, because their grandparents have referred to her as a wild woman, to put it kindly," says Clark. "The genealogy world is quick to contact when they have something for you or need something that you know, so I’m getting a more rounded perspective on Sophie now."
Clark is currently the resident playwright and director for the French Trading Post Players in Beaumont and is scripting a screenplay for the Southeast Texas Filmmakers Organization. Her film short "The True Story of Charlie Yank" will be included in the Texas Historical Commission/Southeast Texas Arts Council project "If This House Could Talk." She lives in Beaumont with her husband Ron. They have two children.
Darrah Dunn is well known to area audiences for his numerous performances musically and with various theater groups. A graduate of Austin College and lifelong resident of Grayson County, Dunn joined the Sophie project in 1999 as the director of "Eden’s Promise," in which he also played George Butt, the third husband. He reprised that role numerous times in various productions and directed a staged reading of "The Road to Eden." Both plays are based on the middle period of Sophie’s life and were written by Clark.
Audiences will meet husbands one and four for the first time in the new production and Dunn will portray all four men. Sophie’s first husband was her former teacher, Jesse Augustine Aughinbaugh. He was responsible for bringing her to Texas in 1835 before he apparently abandoned her. By 1839 she was married to Holland Coffee and living along the Red River where Lake Texoma now exists. Holland was a prominent and controversial citizen in his own right. Then the Virginia aristocrat George Butt, possibly running from the law, became Sophie’s third husband within a year of Holland’s untimely demise. After he was murdered, Sophie fled to Waco, where she met Judge James Porter. They returned to her plantation, Glen Eden, and became beloved philanthropists. Constantly re-inventing herself through the men she married, Sophie called her estate Porter House until the judge died. He was the only one of her husbands known to die of natural causes.
Dunn is active in the Villager’s Chorale and directs dramatic and musical activities for his church. He and his wife Shann Schubert have six children.
The dinner theatre to benefit the Red River Historical Museum will be held at Blue Door Café, Sherman, on Sunday, January 30th at 6:00 p.m. Tickets are $50 per person. For reservations call museum director Marcia K. Rolbiecki at (903) 893-7623.