Rash's Surname Index
Notes for Nancy Elizabeth HOUSTON
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From Mood-Heritage Museum (Southwestern University) Hall of Honor Historical Sketches by Clara Stearns Scarbrough, author of Land of Good Water.
Based on biographical material collected by Mrs. Dudley Bryan (Betty) Foyu, Jr., Corpus Christi; recollections of Mrs. Franklin Thomas Baldwin, Sr. (Jean Houston John), Houston; The Writings of Sam Houston, ed. A.W. Williams & Eugene Barker; The williamson County Sun, Georgetown; Land of Good Water, Clara Scarbrough, and personal papers of Mrs. Scarbrough.
Nancy Elizabeth Houston was born September 6, 1846, at the family home known as Raven Hill, near Huntsville, Texas, the eldest daughter of General Sam Houston and Margaret (Lea) Houston. Through the careful training of her mother and grandmother, Nancy Lea, she learned the arts of homemaking and gracious living. "Nannie," as she was called by both family and friends, was enrolled in Baylor Female College at Independence when she was six, and there received her formal education. Known as an apt student, she developed fine penmansip, studied the piano and became an accomplished musician, learned to appreciate good literature, and especially excelled in the study of the Bible. She frequently wrote letters home and her father proclaimed her a genius at letter writing.
At 19, Nannie became the bride of young Captain J.C.S. Morrow. The President of Bsylor College read the vows on August 1, 1866, in the old Baptist Church at Independence. After an extended honeymoon (to New York City, according to Kiki, she refuesed to marry anyone who couldn't "take her to New York on her honeymoon and pay the preacher $50 in gold.") the couple came to Georgetown to make their home. About a year later, her mother died and she and Captain Morrow took the responsibility of her five younger brothers and sisters, four of whom were away at school. Young Temple Houston lived in the Morrow home and attended the Georgetown Male and Female Academy. During the next two decades their own children were born: Margaret Houston (1867), Emily Preston (1869), Jennie Bell (1871), Preston Perry (1875), Temple Houston (1878), and Elisabeth Paxton (1886).
Nannie Houston Morrow joined her husband in generosities to their community, church and Southwestern University. They transferred property to Sourthwestern University, some of it inherited from the estate of Sam Houston. Througout her life, Nannie Morrow attended church regularly, walking to First Methodist in her long "neck to toe" dresses, often adorned with a belt from which hung a fan she carried during the warm months. She taught at Bible class for many,m many years. One of her pupils said that all his life he held a strong feeling that the heaven and hell she pictured in her teachings would be waiting for him according to his good and bad deeds in his life.
Neighborhood children learned Texas history from Mrs. Morrow as she invited them to see items of historical interest in her home, often in some way connected with her famous father. She had a passionate love for flowers, often sharing her favorite roses with young friends as they passed her porch where she loved to sit and rock. A granddaughter who often visited her recalled her definition of a lady: one who never complains of her health, never discusses the cost of material things in terms of money, especially that of food at the dinner table, and one who never should appear to be in a hurry. Nannie confessed that she could not entirely qualify in the latter goal, as her natural pace was a fast one, but said she did try to slow down when she thought about the matter.
Nannie Morrow lived in Georgetown nearly half a century. Because of declining health, she moved to the home of her daughter in Houston, Mrs. Robert A. John, a short time before her death on May 19, 1920. In descirbing her, her hometown newspaper, The Williamson County Sun, declared that this remarkable lady "inherited the strong mentality of her distinguished father, and no observant person ever conversed with her without feeling the thrill of her forceful personality, or the uplift of her simple, quaint philosophy. A conversationalist of rare force and charm, one found no difficulty in connecting the persuasiveness of her idealism with the forceful statesmanship and military genius of her illustrious father."
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