biography – Page 31 – Texas History Notebook

Anne Gwynne

The actress known as Anne Gwynne was born Marguerite Gwynne Trice in Waco, McLennan County, Texas on December 18, 1918. Her parents were Jefferson Benjamin Trice and Pearle Guinn Trice. Her father was in a number of businesses, but seems to have worked as a traveling salesman from time to time. They lived at 1308 N. 15th Street in Waco, just outside of the downtown business district.

Eliza Allen Houston Douglass

Elizabeth Ann Allen was the first wife of Sam Houston. Quite a bit younger than Houston, she was born in 1809 to John and Laetitia Saunders Allen in Tennessee. The Allens were a wealthy family of the Gallatin area. Houston was born in 1793, so he was some 16 years older than Eliza when they married in 1829. Some accounts will give her age to be sixteen but according to genealogical sources, she was about twenty. Although they were only married about eleven weeks, the reason for their separation and eventual divorce has been the subject of speculation ever since.

Tex Schramm

Texas Earnest Schramm, Jr. was born in 1920 in San Gabriel, California. His father was named Texas Ernst Schramm and his mother was Elsa J. Steinwender Schramm. Tex’s father later adopted the spelling Earnest for his middle name, but at birth his father had shared the middle name Ernst with four of his siblings. Tex’s grandfather, Edgar Ernst Schramm had come to the United States from Germany and his grandmother, the former “Tony” Benner, was born in New Braunfels. The Benners had been long time Texas residents, as Tex’s grandmother Benner’s family had had arrived in the 1800s. His Schramm grandparents had resided in San Antonio for many years. Tex’s father had moved the family to California where Tex spent his early years, attending high school there. Tex attended University of Texas in Austin, graduating in 1947 with a degree in journalism, after serving in the United States Army Air Corps in World War II.

Caro Crawford Brown

Thirteen women were inducted into the Texas Women’s Hall of Fame on September 18, 1986. They included astronaut Sally Ride, women’s basketball coach Jody Conradt, business executive Mary Kay Ash, former ambassador Anne Armstrong, rancher Mary Lavinia Griffith, educator and civic leader Ada Simond, educator Wilhelmina Delco, pathologist May Owen, attorney Hermine Dalkowitz Tobolowsky, publishing editor Margaret Cousins, civic volunteers Alicia R. Chacon and Frances E. Goff and journalist Caro Crawford Brown.

Herbert Gibson

Before there were the nationwide chain stores like Kmart, Target, Wal-Mart and various others, there was a chain of stores known as Gibson’s Discount Centers. Gibson’s was founded by Herbert R. and Belva Gibson. The couple exemplified an American dream of starting small and building a national business.