By Elvis Allen
The mores of our ancestors dictated a far more restricted role for women than for men, incomparable to those of today. For some reason it seems that more men of adventurous spirit and independent mind succumbed to the mystic and lure of Texas than any other region of America. It was written by far too many people that the wives of these independent thinkers and doers, because of the social atmosphere of the times, simply followed along with their husbands without choice or voice in the matter. A closer look at many of these women reveal a far different story. Texas was the spawning ground for many men of legendary stature. Many Texas women also emerged bigger than life. Following is but a sample of the stories deserving to be recounted during National Women’s History Month.
Mother of Texas: Jane Long
If the celebrated General James Wilkinson didn’t already know his orphaned relative Jane was headstrong, he found out in the early spring of 1815 when she was 17-years-old. The war of 1812 was won over Great Britton by the United States at the battle of New Orleans in January 1815. Many of the wounded of that battle where brought up river to Natchez where Jane lived. They were cared for in private homes, and one of those in the care of Jane’s sister, Barbara Calvit, and her husband, was a soldier, a patient of 22-year-old Dr. James Long. Long was also a lieutenant in the army and a veteran of the war. Jane and Dr. Long fell in love. But when Dr. Long asked General Wilkinson for Jane’s hand in marriage he was rebuffed. Even Jane’s pleading did no good. The General’s reason, he said was that she was too young to marry.
At that time there was a Mississippi law stating that at a certain age an orphan had to select a guardian. That time had come for Jane and she chose Dr. James Long. Dr. Long immediately gave Jane permission to marry him. It was probably at this time that Dr. Long also realized he had a headstrong girl on his hands. The newlyweds moved to Port Gibson and later to Walnut Hills where their first child, Ann Herbert was born in November 1816. Deciding to return to Natchez the Longs sold out to a man named Vick, thus came the beginning of Vicksburg.
Natchez, always a hotbed of intrigue during this period had an element wanting to “liberate” Texas from Spain. Long was one of the main ones. It had been tried twice before by others and twice ended in failure. Long was elected to lead the army of 300 and was given the title “General.” Even though pregnant with their second child Jane was determined to go with her husband to Texas. Dr. Long, after much difficulty persuaded her to remain behind. Only 12 days after Rebecca, the second child was born, Jane, still weak from childbirth, sought passage to Alexandria, Louisiana, where the Calvit’s now lived. Leaving little Ann with relatives in Natchez, Jane, her newborn and a servant girl, Kian, were put on a horse and mule by a family friend, James Rowen because she found no passage by boat but was determined to go at all hazards.
Persuading Rowen to help her to Alexandria, he soon found her intentions were to join up with her husband in Nacogdoches where he had set up his “Republic of Texas” government in the Old Stone Fort, and over which he had raised the flag made by Jane while at Natchez. After receiving word of Long’s occupation of the town of Nacogdoches, Colonel Ignacio Perez left San Antonio with 650 men and easily drove Long’s forces back into Louisiana. The next day, October 27, 1819, more bad news befell the Longs. They received word of the death of Rebecca, left in the hands of the Calvits in Alexandria. Jane went to her sister while Dr. Long and his force moved down to Bolivar’s Point on Galveston Bay to build a fort for their second attempt to take Texas from Spain. The Long expedition was plagued by delays and setbacks. The sought for assistance with supplies by the pirate Jean Laffitte on Galveston Island proved fruitless. He did however furnish Long with lumber with which to start the fort.
Not long after, Jane with little Ann and Kian rejoined her husband on Bolivar. Jean Laffitte sent a rowboat across the bay with a request for the Longs to dine with him and other guests. The Doctor declined the offer, but Jane accepted. This was yet another assertion of her independent mindedness, a trait she would show throughout the rest of her long life.
All the preparations were made and Long’s men set out to take the La Bahia garrison. Dr. Long extracted a promise from Jane that she would stay at the fort until his return, which he expected would be about three weeks. He left September 19, 1821, and his wife was expecting another child in December. Fifty guards were left to protect the fort and the women, of which there were five counting daughter Ann and the slave Kian. Supplies were soon depleted and the captain in charge ordered the abandonment of the fort.
No amount of pleading however could induce Jane Long to go with the party back to Louisiana. She intended to keep her promise to her husband to stay put and wait. Little did Jane know that her husband had been captured and sent toward Mexico City.
In spite of the fact that the winter of 1821-1822 would prove to be the coldest in recorded history for the Galveston area, Jane, six-year-old Ann and twelve year old Kian maintained lookout from the half built fort. They subsisted on fish and oysters they caught and birds shot by Jane. Sick and covered with snow Jane gave birth to one of the first white children born in Texas December 21, 1821. The girl was named Mary James to honor her father. The very next day Jane was out helping Kian retrieve fish frozen in the waters of the bay. They stored them in the brine of an emptied pickle barrel. On the 26th she received a message from Capt. Rafael Gonzalez that her husband was alive and a prisoner on his way to Mexico City.
The year 1822 brought the first of Stephen F. Austin’s colonists to Texas and Jane was in the path of at least three groups. None could induce her to leave her post but all shared their food and what news they knew about Dr. Long’s fate. When one ship’s captain told Jane he read in the papers that it would take Dr. Long at least a year before he could leave Mexico City, she finally relented and allowed him to convey her to Austin’s Colony.
Dr. James Long was killed by a guard April 8, 1822, a few days after his release, his pass to come home in his hand.
Jane Long, at 24 was a widow with two children to support in a recently won independent Mexico. After 10 months in San Antonio, unsuccessfully seeking compensation from Governor Tresplacios for the death of her husband, Jane returned for a visit to her sister in Alexandria. The lure of Texas brought her back to San Felipe de Austin in 1823. Jane spent three years there where she came to know and became friends with many of the people who would later shape the destiny of Texas. Impresario Austin deeded Jane Long a league of land and Jane became one of Austin’s “Old Three Hundred,” a term used to distinguish the first 300 settlers into Colonial Texas.
She opened a hotel in Brazoria, which, with her cooking became famous throughout Texas. Jane had the respect for, and the confidence of, such men as William B. Travis, Ben Milam, Sam Houston, Stephen Austin and Marabeau B. Lamar, and her inn became a point of gathering where many discussions about the fate of Texas were carried out. It was at her hotel that a celebration was held following the return of Stephen F. Austin from 28 months of confinement in Mexico, and here that the people of Texas learned that Austin decided war with the Mexican government was inevitable.
Jane’s inn became the stockpile location for arms, powder and lead. When the revolution started Jane Long aided the cause in every way she could. In 1837 Jane opened a hotel in Richmond. It was from this place that Marabeau B. Lamar conducted his campaign for the presidency of the New Republic. Lamar and Jane Long developed a loving relationship at this time and most expected them to marry but Jane remained steadfast in her resolve to remain a widow.
Being southern born Jane supported the independence of the southern confederacy and worked hard in its achievement, just as she had worked for the independence of Texas. The Texas Veterans Association held its first convention in Houston in May 1873. In appreciation of the contributions she had made to her state, Mrs. Jane Long was made an honorary member of the association; an association of men, for men.
In November 1880 Jane, sensing she wasn’t to live much longer, directed Kian, granddaughter of the original Kian who had already died, to hitch up the buggy and drive her around to all her friends and relatives for a last visit. After returning home she took to her bed and never left the house again. Jane Long died December 30, 1880. The following day the Galveston News carried but three lines below the heading ” Death of the Mother of Texas,” however the next day the News devoted over 600 words in a tribute to this remarkable lady. Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long 1798 – 1880, Mother of Texas.
Angel of Goliad: Francita Alavez
Not even her name could be agreed upon by those who came to know her so briefly in Victoria, Goliad, Copano, and Matamoros. It has been reported variously as Francisca, Panchita, Pancheta, and her surname as Alvarez or Alevesco. In his book GOLIAD 130 years after, Roy Grimes miscalls her Francisca Alvarez. Even Dr. Joseph Barnard, whose life she saved called her Sinora Alinez. All who knew her, however agreed on one thing—she was a true heroin deserving her place among those tall men of the Texas Revolution.
She came ashore at Copano in March 1836 on her first trip to Texas in company with Captain Telesforo Alavez. Historical research has not yet proved if she was his common law wife or just a “soldada,” camp follower, however she is usually referred to as his wife.
It was at Copano just off the ship that she performed her first heroic act. William P. Miller had come to Texas in late 1835. The General Council commissioned Miller a major in the Texas Cavalry and sent him back to Tennessee to recruit men to aid in the Texas cause. Miller arrived at Copano on March 20,1836, with his 75-man “Nashville Battalion.” Unfortunately for them Copano was occupied by Mexican General Jose de Urrea’s force, of which Capt. Alavez was an officer. The battalion was promptly put under arrest.
After many hours of confinement without water and with their hands too tightly bound the battalion was given refreshment and had their hands less tightly bound. This was wholly due to the intercession of Francita Alavez, and this would not be the last time she would put herself between them and her husband’s army.
While these actions were taking place other dramas were being enacted throughout the area. The Alamo was being stormed by Gen. Santa Anna, Urrea’s forces were battling and capturing the ragged volunteers of Col. James Fannin in Refugio, Victoria and at Goliad. Two of Col. Fannin’s scouting parties had already been killed or captured by the time Fannin decided to retreat from Goliad to Victoria. Fannin began his retreat March 19 under a heavy fog. He stopped a mile short of Coleto Creek to rest his 330 men and oxen. The fog had lifted and he found 1400 Mexicans bearing down on his force. Fannin formed his men into a hollow square and repulsed the first attack. Three attempts to overrun the Texan position failed and night overtook them before a fourth assault could be effected. The Texans lost ten men dead and 60 wounded, but the Mexican side suffered about 50 dead and 140 wounded. Col. Fannin himself was wounded three times, twice in the leg and once in the hip.
The next morning as the Texans prepared for another assault on their position, they saw a flag of truce instead. The lengthy negotiations ended in the surrender of Fannin and his men, most believing they would be sent to New Orleans and paroled. This had been told to them by some of the officers under Urrea’s command. The prisoners were marched and carried back to the presidio at Goliad.
On March 23 at Victoria, the Georgia Battalion under Maj. William Ward surrendered his 85 men to the Mexican troops and was also marched to the presidio at Goliad to join those of Fannin and also the Nashville Battalion under William P. Miller who had been transferred there after capture at Copano. The Mexicans were camped around the Goliad presidio guarding the Texans within the chapel and another room, 400 herded together too tightly to breath, almost.
The kind hearted and persuasive Francita Alavez was once again put into close proximity to human suffering. When she learned that the Texans were to be shot, she first interceded on behalf of Maj. Miller and his 75 men. She presented the argument that since the Nashville Battalion had not embarked onto Mexican soil under arms, they should not be executed. In this she was successful and Miller’s men were sent to Matamoros and imprisoned there. Perhaps emboldened by this success in saving Miller and his men, she later went into the prison alone and personally brought out as many prisoners as she could get by with, “a handful.” She secreted them in houses throughout the village of Goliad.
Next she beseeched Col. Garay to do the same. Col. Garay went in and told the guards he needed carpenters to do some work for him and doctors to look after some Mexicans. Garay took the little band of Texans and told them to remain inside, quiet and out of sight. Gen. Urrea had been ordered by Gen. Santa Anna to execute all of the prisoners. Urrea disregarded the order and left Col. Jose Nicolas de La Portilla in charge.
Portilla, on Palm Sunday 1836, marched the prisoners out of the fortifications in two directions. One group believed they were going to New Orleans for parole. The other group was told they were to gather wood. Instead both were lined up and shot. A few ran for their lives and a part of those lived. Some of the wounded feigned death and lay with the bodies of their less fortunate comrades until nightfall and made their escape.
The next day the citizens of Goliad were ordered to collect and pile the bodies of the Texans into a funeral pyre and burned.
After the Texan victory over Santa Anna’s army at San Jacinto, April 21, 1836, the remaining Mexican army retreated to Matamoros to await orders for further retreat or regroup. Francita Alavez went with her husband to that place, then on to Mexico City. While in Matamoros she once again befriended the Texas soldiers imprisoned there.
At Mexico City Capt. Alavez abandoned Francita just as he had abandoned his first and legal wife, Maria, back in 1834. Francita made her way back to Matamoros and it was there that some Texans whom she had saved and befriended found her penniless and in destitute circumstances. These grateful men saw to it that she was well taken care of.
It was at Matamoros that the history trail goes cold in tracing Francita Alavez. Two of the men she saved at Goliad were doctors, Barnard and Shackleford. Barnard kept a journal that has become a great source of reference for the Goliad Massacre and he recorded that when Dr. Shackelford had confirmed that his son had been among those who had not escaped, but was shot, Francita wept and said, “Why did you not tell me you had a son here? I would have saved him at all hazards.” Dr. Joseph Barnard, in his journal said it well, “I must not omit to mention Sinora Alinez (sic), whose name ought to be perpetuated to the latest times for her virtues, and whose action contrasted so strangely with those of her countrymen, her service to be recorded in the annals of this country and treasured in the hearts of every Texan.”
Circus Queen: Mollie Bailey
We’ve all heard the stories of the boys who ran away from home to join the circus. Imagine the horror in the hearts and the weight upon the minds of William and Mary Kirkland when they realized this happened to their 13-year-old daughter Mollie.
Mollie was born into the plantation life in November 1844 near Mobile, Alabama. In 1858, at the age of 13 and a half, she married the son of a circus owner. James A. Bailey played the cornet in the circus band. Leaving his father’s circus, James Bailey, whom everyone knew as Gus, together with his new wife, his brother Alfred, and Mollie’s sister, Fannie, formed the Bailey Family Troupe and entertained throughout the south with their dancing, singing and acting.
When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Gus and Mollie had one child, the first of nine. This child, Dixie, was left with friends in Richmond, Virginia, while Gus joined Hoods Brigade as bandmaster. Mollie also served the brigade, first as a nurse then as a spy. Dressed as an old woman she would use her acting skills and infiltrate the enemy camps selling cookies and would bring back military information. She also brought back valuable medicines, especially quinine which was impossible to obtain in the south. Reportedly she smuggled it back in her hair.
In 1864 she joined her husband and his brother in Hood’s Minstrels and entertained the troops. During the war Gus Bailey wrote the now classic song, “The Old Grey Mare.” It became a marching song for one of Hood’s regiments.
The Bailey Concert Company was formed by the pair after the war was over. By 1879 the troupe had a showboat from which they played up and down the southern rivers. That year they traded their enterprise for a traveling circus and moved to Texas. The Bailey Circus was billed as “A Texas Show for Texas People.” They wintered in Blum, and it was there that Gus retired because of failing health. Mollie continued with the show and with her guidance The Mollie Bailey’s Show grew to 31 wagons with about 200 animals. Poor children, Union veterans and Confederate veterans were never turned away and were admitted without cost. She always flew a Confederate, Union and a Texas Flag wherever she set up her circus.
Gus and Mollie had established a pattern of travel through the state. After wintering in Blum the route was always the same and the people came to expect the circus to arrive at their town at the same time each year. Later Mollie bought town lots in the towns on her regular circuit. By doing this she avoided the high occupation tax levied on her show in every town, and at the same time assured herself of permanent locations with which to set up her business. The rest of the year the people of the towns were allowed access to her lots for the purpose of leisure, picnics, revivals and baseball games.
Mollie is credited with having the first movie theater in Texas. In a tent in her show, she showed a one- reel movie about the sinking of the USS Maine, the act of aggression by Spain in Havana Harbor in 1898 that brought on the Spanish-American War.
Ill health in 1917 forced her to run her circus from home for the next year. On October 2, 1918, Mollie Arline Bailey died in Houston and was buried there in Hollywood Cemetery. In life she was known by her friends as “Aunt Mollie.” In death the press dubbed her ” The Circus Queen of the Southwest.”
Our Aunt Jemima: Lillian Richard Williams
Coming down the road eastward from the cemetery, if one stops where the road forks and absorbs the surrounding sights, the Baptist and Methodist Churches off to the left, the towering spreading oaks and the way the road forks and moves through the scene, then on past the scattered houses, one can’t help but be transported back to a simpler time and to a very different way of life. The road is wider now than it used to be and the sandy bed is layered with asphalt, but standing there it’s easy to believe you can detect in the air the smell of a wood burning cook stove and the whiff of a coal oil lamp at dusk, and the sound of children playing off in the distance. This scene is disturbed a little as a car whizzes past going south down farm road 2869, the road that takes you to the rest of the world.
Fouke, Wood County, just a little northwest of Hawkins, in a simpler time was the world of Lillian Richard. She was born there March 23, 1891, the fifth of 12 children born to Derry and Cornelius Richard. It is not fair to say that Derry was just a farmer. In those days and with such a large family, every member of the family old enough to work was a farmer. The Richard family owned and worked about 100 acres on the west side of Little Sandy Creek about a mile southeast of the center of the Fouke Community.
In the early days school was held in the Methodist Church and sometimes in the Baptist Church and the Masonic Hall. It was here that Lillian and the rest of the Richard children received their education. It was at the Methodist Church on Sundays that Lillian received her religious instruction and teachings that would serve her well for the rest of her life. She carried the teachings of her Lord with her wherever she went.
Farm work and the sawmill industry was the mainstay of the whole area around Fouke and at Hawkins not much more could be offered a young woman just coming into adulthood, so Lillian like many others headed to Dallas to find employment. Young Lillian Richard found temporary employment as a cook and as a domestic in private homes until suitable permanent work could be found. This happened when in 1911 Quaker Oats Company of Paris, Texas, contacted her saying they were in need of a spokesperson to represent the company in a traveling capacity to promote their line of “Aunt Jemima” products.
The first “Aunt Jemima” was a Mrs. Green but after a period she was forced to drop out due to ill health. Between Mrs. Green and Lillian there were a few others who for some reason or other simply did not work out. Lillian took to the job right off. It was as if the role was made for her. To use the old quote “And the rest is history” would be too easy to say. Actually, there is much more to tell.
One part of Lillian’s life has not yet been fully uncovered. During this early period she met and later married a man whose last name was Williams. No children were born to them. Lillian Richard Williams continued to travel around representing the company as “Aunt Jemima.” Her natural outgoing personality coupled with her enjoyment of her role and her Christian upbringing always drew a crowd wherever her employment took her. In the role of “Aunt Jemima” for an impressive 37 years Lillian represented the Quaker Oats Company instructing young homemakers in the art of cooking with the Quaker line of products.
It would be nice to be able to record that she ended her career peacefully and happily. Sadly, that is not the case. In September 1947 Lillian sponsored a trip for her pastor Rev. Mearell T. Reed and congregation at St. Luke Methodist Church in Dallas to drive down and worship with her friends and relatives in the Center Methodist Church in Fouke where she had so many wonderful memories of childhood. After their return home to Dallas, Lillian suffered a stroke which left her paralyzed. Lillian was moved back to Hawkins where she lived with and was cared for by her sister, Ollie. She lingered in this condition for over eight years then succumbed on July 4, 1956.
A whole generation grew up seeing only the woman in the wheelchair, never realizing what a vibrant outgoing person she had been. Lillian’s niece, Jewel McCalla wanted others to come to know the real personality of her Aunt Lillian but was at a loss to know how to bring it about. In 1995 the Richard family, working with Bill Jones, chairman of the historical society, Cecil and Beth Bishop and the Hawkins Chamber of Commerce, the City Council and others, finally caused a resolution to be passed by the Texas Legislature designating the city of Hawkins as the Pancake Capital of Texas because of the history of Lillian Richard’s role for so long in the industry.
On her birthday March 23, 2001, the city of Hawkins declared Lillian Richard Day. Following on the 24th the congregation of the Center United Methodist Church in Fouke celebrated a memorial to Lillian’s life. Jewel McCalla, her cousin Bobby Richard and others went to work planning the next Lillian Richard Day to be held March 23, 2002, both in Hawkins and at Fouke. It is shaping up to be a good one.
In the south line of the Fouke Memorial Cemetery rests a modest but appropriate headstone. It reads, “Lillian Richard Williams, Mar. 23 1891-July 4, 1956.” There is one other line on her stone that brings it home to those who were fortunate enough to have known Lillian. It reads simply, “Our Aunt Jemima.”
Lady With the Pen: Elise Tvede Waerenskjold
The Lutheran minister’s young daughter had a reputation of not quite fitting the mold of the conventional Norwegian female. Elise Tvede, at 19, was a school teacher, a role traditionally held by men.
Born February 19, 1815, to Nicolai and Elisabeth Tvede, Elise was educated at home at Dypvag parsonage, near Tvedestand in Southern Norway. When Elise wanted to open her own school, not the traditional kind, but a handicraft school, teaching young girls practical crafts to aid them in homemaking, she was denied public funding. Elise opened one anyway. This school stayed open past 1845.
When Elise was 24 she married a young sea captain, Svend Foyn. After three years the couple mutually agreed to separate even though they remained friends for the rest of their lives. She said it was due to incompatibility. Another time she wrote that he was critical of her independent activities.
Elise went back to her maiden name and began writing articles advocating temperance and helping editors Christian and Johan Reinert Reiersen publish the Christianssand Posten. She herself published a pamphlet on the negative effects of alcohol.
This is a woman who truly interjected herself into the man’s world. The Reiersen’s were advocating immigrating to the United States and when they were sent by prospective settlers to scout out likely settlement locations in America, Elise was chosen to edit their magazine in their absence.
Johan Reiersen returned to Norway in 1844 with favorable reports of settlement opportunities. He had gone to Wisconsin to the newly established Norwegian colony there and found the climate similar to that of his native land. Immigration to the Republic of Texas was on the lips of every American during his visit and he decided he owed it to his subscribers to at least check out this new country. He was delighted in what he saw and decided that when he came back to settle he would seriously consider Texas.
When Reiersen immigrated in 1845 he was undecided on settling in Texas or Missouri another place that was pleasing to him. After he and his party arrived in New Orleans, Reiersen found that Texas was about to join the Union as a state. This was the deciding factor and before leaving New Orleans Johan’s father, Ole, bought a land script for 1,476 acres of unclaimed Texas land.
From New Orleans the Norwegian party went up Red River to Natchitoches and across to Nacogdoches where they arrived in time to take part in their first Fourth of July celebration. There the party met, dined and partied with such Texan notables as Thomas Jefferson Rusk, James H. Starr and Judge Adulphus Sterne.
Having been delayed in Nacogdoches waiting for an available surveyor to accompany them, the party decided to head out on their own. The Reirsen party moved north, up the Old Caddo Trace into what would become Henderson County. There, in the fall of 1845 they located the 1,476 acres plus another tract of 640 acres and erected log cabins. They named the place Normandy, now Brownsboro.
Soon Reiersen began sending letters and articles for publication to his paper in Norway, extolling the virtues of living in Texas. Elise Tvede the dutiful acting editor, printing his work soon caught the “Texas fever” herself and packed up all her belongings and signed up with the next group booking passage for Texas. The fact that she was a woman alone bothered her none at all. She had to experience this exciting new land she was reading about.
The 32-year-old Elise arrived in Texas in the summer of 1847, traveling through Nacogdoches and up the trail to Normandy as had the earlier party. She reached there in October. Whether by design or coincidence Elise and a few others left the Brownsboro area and settled on Four Mile Prairie, Van Zandt County. This was late 1847 or very early 1848. The area was on the eastern edge of Charles Fenton Mercer’s Colony and the move may have been planned because being a colonist under an emperasario’s umbrella would entitle a colonist better chances that his title would “prove up.”
The leader of Elise’s party from Norway was 25-year-old Wilhelm Waerenskjold. He was also one of those who moved to Four Mile. Waerenskjold, (pronounced Warrenschold and later Americanized into Vanshaw by some) and Elise Tevede were married at Four Mile September 10, 1848. Without realizing it Elise had committed bigamy, as her husband did not obtain a divorce until January 10, 1849. They would have three boys together, two living into adulthood.
Both Wilhelm and Elise were born into privilege and neither had experience in pioneer or farm life, but both tackled it with enthusiasm. Elise wrote back to Norway from the beginning giving people advice about immigrating, what to expect, what to bring and what to leave behind. She recommended bringing fruit stock, seeds, plants and good books. She told them what kinds of plants, fruit, and seeds would not grow in Texas and what not to bother with because of the abundance of it growing wild, such as plums and grapes.
On one occasion a man from Norway visited the Norwegian settlements in the United States, and once back home wrote scathing articles about Texas and Texans. This set Elise off in a defensive mode and she defended her adopted state point by point. By the end of her defense letter it is quite clear that she had a far superior knowledge of Texas, both geographically and socially, than one would have imagined for someone who had been in the state for such a short time. She dismissed his work as lies and fiction.
This, however is not to say there were things Elise did not like about Texas. She abhorred slavery and she particularly didn’t like the fact that some of her Norwegian friends and neighbors practiced it at Four Mile and Prairieville. She also disagreed with the Texan notion of defending their honor with a gun or knife, a subject that would become personal to her later in life.
A thriving community was built at Four Mile and much of its success was due directly to Elise and her husband, Wilhelm. Wilhelm started a temperance society at Four Mile in the mid 1850s and had a thriving sawmill business at Brownsboro, from which no doubt most of the lumber for the Four Mile and Prairieville settlements came. The settlement grew fast and by 1852 the Waerenskjolds had built a larger house and were renting the cabin. At this time there were already at least three businesses operating and three more planned.
Among the exciting news Elise shared with the people back in Norway was that Johan Reirsen was building a schoolhouse. The Waerenskjold cattle herd had increased in just 10 years to the point that the 1857 spring crop of calves numbered 70. They also owned 62 sheep and numerous hogs. The community now numbered more than 80 citizens with a temperance society and a reading club. Elise implored the editors of the Norwegian press to mention that the communities of Four Mile and Prairieville were in need of donated Norwegian books. She never ceased reminding the readers in the old country, that if industrious, Norwegians were much better off in Texas than remaining in Norway.
Elise began very soon after her arrival in Van Zandt County to agitate for a Lutheran Church in her community. The results were that in 1854 the very first Lutheran Church in the state of Texas was organized and dedicated at Four Mile, Van Zandt County. At the site a church was built where in 1875 a replacement would be built to stand to the present time.
After the Civil War, which Wilhelm had been a forced participant, the Provisional Governor, A.J. Hamilton, appointed him Justice of the Peace for the Four Mile precinct in 1866. They had renewed hopes of rebuilding from the hard times brought on by the war.
Tragedy struck the Waerenskjold household twice in rapid succession. In January 1866 they lost the youngest of their three boys, Thorvald, not quite eight-years-old. He and Elise had been on a visit to neighbors and started home in the afternoon to pin up the sheep for the night. As they walked along talking, Thorvald became silent, and then passed out on the road. Elise carried him home where he remained unconscious for three days. On Wednesday he awoke for a short time, then died.
As if this were not bad enough on October 18 the men of the community were busy digging another grave beside that of Thorvald; this one was for his father. The day before, Wilhelm had gone to the post office in Prairieville and as he stepped back through the door leading outside an adversary of his stabbed him with a newly made hunting knife. It was reported Wilhelm was killed because of differences about the Civil War held between he and his killer, N.T. Dickerson. Trial records however, indicate it grew out of an insult by Wilhelm to Mr. Dickerson weeks earlier.
Elise, though grieved by this double loss, remained strong, perhaps even stronger because of it. She continued her writing for the papers in Norway and doubled her workload by taking on what her husband had been doing. Anytime a journalist, newspaper editor or even just an interested citizen of Norway needed information about Texas or any of the State’s Norwegian communities, they knew they could rely on Elise Waerenskjold to give them the information they needed and that it was accurate to the best of her ability, which was considerable.
When Elise got older and was not able to do all the things she once did, she had the presence of mind to realize it and submitted to the wishes of her two remaining sons Otto and Niels and allowed them to help with the farm. She continued with her writing, painting and even teaching school one term.
Their farming was extensive. In 1868 Elise wrote that due to a drought she lost five horses, half of her sheep and 27 milk cows because of lack of water, fires and grasshoppers. Gradually she relinquished more and more of the responsibilities to her son Neils after Otto moved to Hamilton County.
Being freed up this way allowed her to write and travel more. She visited people in Norse, Clifton and Hamilton as well as her friends in Van Zandt and Kaufman Counties and Brownsboro.
Elise was persuaded, in January 1895 to move to Hamilton and spend the rest of her days living with Otto and his family. It was there that year that historian R.B. Anderson found and communicated with her. He said when she died January 22,1895, she had written to him saying she was writing the history of the Norwegian settlements of Texas.
It’s a shame she never finished it because it would have been interesting. But in a way she did. She wrote life as she lived it and she wrote her observations of the lives she touched and saw around her. So completely did she record hers and her neighbor’s time here that in 1961 the Norwegian-American Historical Association was able to compile her writings into a book. In it 63 of her selected letters are reprinted. This book’s title describes her as aptly as any one line can—”The Lady with the Pen.”
