In the bibliography of where this information comes from is a book that was written by Anne Fears Crawford. And Crystal Sasse Ragsdale in the book that they wrote called Women in Texas. There are abbreviated versions of the chapter that about Elizabeth Johnson Williams. In this blog, I’m going to read the entire chapter verbatim. This way the reader can realize what a very unique person she was and a longtime Austinite without having to buy and read the book.
It’s hard to believe that there is so little that has stood the test of time that talks about the life of Elizabeth., but so many of us live extraordinary lives that are never recorded for other people to read. Perhaps the best of us have never recorded our stories.
A Texas Cattle Queen. Lizzie Johnson Williams.
Elizabeth Johnson Williams led a legendary life and when she died, the tales concerning this pioneer, cattle woman and businesswoman only increased.
The notice of her death on October 9th, 1924 merited only a few lines in the Austin newspaper, but for the next several years she was the subject of local gossip, and Austinites regaled strangers with stories of this eccentric financial wizard who lived like a miser in her old age. One childhood acquaintance recalled that the legendary Lizzie had been stingy even as a young girl, saving her hair ribbons while borrowing those of her sisters. When she left no will, townspeople commented, ”She didn’t feel she needed one. She planned to take it with her”.
Stories were numerous along Congress Avenue of Lizzie’s living a bare bones existence in a building she owned at 10th and Congress, and old timers told of how she would go to the Maverick Cafe and order a bowl of vegetable soup with crackers or bread at the summertime cost of 10 cents a bowl. When vegetables were no longer plentiful and the price of the bowl of soup, rose, Lizzie shrewdly contracted with the cafe owner to have her soup at the year-round cost of only 10 cents.
Claims on her estate were as numerous as the legends of her fabulous life, and at her death, relatives combed the BRUEGGERHOFF building, where the heady green of Texas lived out her final years. Her real estate holdings amounted to some $200,000, but her nieces and nephews uncovered $3000 in cash, tucked away in old bookcases and hidden among Lizzie’s random accumulations. She secreted bonds and notes in small crevices, much as a child puts away a cherished doll, and the search went on for the real treasure. Lizzie’s fabled diamonds.
(The BRUEGGERHOFF building. At 10th and Congress has long since been torn down.)
One relative recalls Lizzie’s stealing the show at the wedding of her Shelton nephew. The marriage took place in 1916., and the eccentric Lizzie eclipsed the entire wedding party by appearing at the church in a carriage drawn by two white horses and swept into the church in a turn of the century dress, proudly displaying rings, tiara, and a breast pin of magnificent diamonds. No one had seen the diamonds since, but they were finally uncovered, carefully wrapped in a scorched towel and tucked away in an unlocked, unmarked box.
Crammed into the rooms she occupied was the history of this fabled business woman’s life. Yards of silk, brocades, ribbons, and laces testified to her love of ornate clothing. Quilts, quilt, tops, counterpanes, and 45 pounds of feathers for feathered beds, pillows, and bolsters testified to her days as a thrifty frontier homemaker, and the riding skirts and heavy petticoats were reminiscent of her days spent working cattle. There was even a black laced shawl and a pistol, remnants perhaps, of the time she spent in Cuba marketing cattle.
One trunk contained her silk, beribboned wedding dress, her brimmed wedding hat with a plume, shoes, and a frilly feminine parasol, nestled between nine yards of iridescent silk for an elegant dress never made. Of the most sentimental value to Lizzie, perhaps, were a handful of feathers from her pet parrot, and a bunch of dried flowers from the Reverend Hezekiah William’s funeral wreath, a testament to her husband, who had lived 30 five years with a woman who began her career as a writer. And teacher, drove cattle up the trail, and then parlayed her real estate and ranch holdings into a fortune.
Austin’s Lizzie Williams part 3
Austin’s Lizzie Williams part 1
Austin’s Lizzie Williams part 2
Ann Fears Crawford and Crystal Sasse Ragsdale, Women in Texas (Burnet, Texas: Eakin Press, 1982). Frances Stovall et al., Clear Springs and Limestone Ledges: A History of San Marcos and Hays County (San Marcos: Hays County Historical Commission, 1986). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin (Lizzie E. Johnson).
