Stones of memory fall, but legend of Lizzie lives.
The last we hear of Lizzie or Elizabeth Johnson Williams is an article written in 1960 in the Austin American Statesman about her. As the city tore down, the building that she had built, lived in and managed. The old BRUEGERHOFF. Building at 10th and Congress Avenue was demolished. Forever.
In 1960 the old folks still had memories that date back to the cattle days and the Legend of Lizzie.
Her niece remembered finding 2000 or $3000 in cash scattered around inside of old magazines and newspapers in the apartment that Lizzie lived in for many years and the last years of her life. She didn’t trust banks, so she kept everything hidden. In her apartment. They even found diamonds tucked away in old boxes. This is a quote from her surviving niece. ”I was just a youngster when we had a soda fountain across the street, but I can still remember carrying old Mrs Williams’s orange juice up to her room every morning. I’ll never forget the day we had to raise the price from a nickel to seven cents. You’d have thought she didn’t have a penny”. In fact, Lizzie was quite wealthy. She left an estate valued at $245,000. As well as real estate which included the. Bruegerhoff Building and the Warren Store at 6th and San Jacinto. She also owned a 7384 acre ranch in Hays County and a 4257 Acre Ranch in Trinity County and a 10,184 acre ranch that crossed the lines of Culberson and Jeff Davis County. Lizzie also had $25,000 worth of certificates of deposit, $3000 in cash, and $2188 in jewelry stashed in her apartment.
These are quotes from her only living niece, Mrs Shelton. ”She sure didn’t like prices to go up, especially when she was on the paying end. Why? I remember when she moved up to that room, she told the restaurant owner down on the ground floor, she wanted a bowl of soup every day for lunch as long as she lived. And she paid him five years in advance to seal the bargain. This way, if the prices went up, her price would always stay the same. Even when she was a little girl, Lizzie was a miser. My mother used to tell how Lizzie would store her own hair ribbons away and always borrow other people’s ribbons and she didn’t change when she grew up”, said Mrs Shelton.
Born at the Johnson Institute, a school operated by her family on the Driftwood Road in Hays County, Lizzie grew up teaching. At 16, she began teaching multiplication tables in a log cabin at Pleasant Hill. A few years later, she bought a big house on Second Street in Austin and lived upstairs and taught school on the first floor.” Oh, she was smart and she knew cattle. Lizzie knew when to buy and just when to sell. And she always bought good stock”, said Mrs Shelton. Back in the early 80s, Lizzie decided to go on a cattle drive up to the Kansas. ”Don’t think Lizzie ever had better time in her life. Lizzie always liked her cowhands”.
