biography – Page 7 – Texas History Notebook

Horton Foote

Albert Horton Foote, Jr. was born March 14, 1916 to Albert Horton Foote, Sr. and Harriet Gautier Brooks Foote in Wharton, Texas. His name Albert is a Foote family name and the name Horton was his grandmother’s maiden name. Horton was in third generation of the Foote family to be born in Texas. His great grandfather S. D. Foote had come to the state in the 1800s.

Michel Branamour Menard

Michel Branamour Menard was the founder of Galveston, Texas and wa a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. He was born on December 5, 1805 in La Prairie, Canada to Michel B. Menard and Marguerite de Noyer Menard. His parents were of French heritage.

Iron Mountain Ranch

In 1881, a retired sea captain by the name of Albion Shepard came to the Big Bend area while working as a surveyor for the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway. In newspaper and other articles, his last name might be spelled Shepard, Shepherd, Shepperd or some other variation. In this article we will use the spelling Shepard.

Ron Ely, Actor

Ronald Pierce Ely was born in Hereford, Texas on June 21, 1938 to Vernon Howard Ely and Sybil Ely. His father Vernon died at the age of 38 the following year, after which his mother raised Ron and his sister. A 1966 newspaper article in the Clay County Reader out of Henrietta, Texas noted that Ron was born and raised in Texas and that he had worked in the summers shoveling grain and working in the oilfield near Amarillo.

John and Cornelia Adair

John George Adair was born in the United Kingdom. His date of birth is thought to have been around 1823 in Ireland and his date of death was March 4, 1885 in St. Louis, Missouri at around the age of 62. Adair had started out as a land owner in Ireland, having invested in parcels that he acquired during and after the Irish potato famine drove real estate prices down. Adair continued in business there until he visited the United States in 1866 where he became engaged in a banking business, primarily making loans to American businesses with an expectation of earning higher interest rates than could be achieved in the United Kingdom.