Our Founders
Algur Hurtle Meadows was born in Vidalia, Georgia, in 1899. Virginia Garrison Stuart was born in Ryan, Oklahoma, in 1902. After moving around the south, Al also settled in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he met Virginia. They married in 1922. Al worked for Standard Oil by day and studied law at night.
Al left Standard Oil to start his own finance firm and later founded an oil and gas production company. He and Virginia moved to Dallas in 1936 where he built General American Oil Company of Texas into one of the largest independent producers in the nation.
While they gave to causes in Louisiana, Georgia, and other national and international areas, Al and Virginia chose to give the majority of their wealth to benefit Texas as an everlasting gift to the state and its people who had been so generous to them. At the heart of their philanthropy was a commitment to be a perpetual resource for good in Texas.
“Since all of us are part of the great human society, it pleases us to give back to that society in proportion to what we ourselves have so generously received.”