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Edna, Texas, March 28.—Mrs. Lucy Flournoy, aged 77 years, died at the home of her son-in-law, W. H. McDowell, Wednesday from a paralytic stroke. Mrs. Flournoy was one of the oldest settlers of Jackson county and was known to practically all of the old residents of Jackson county. For many years she was an active and enthusiastic worker in the Methodist church and has always been a consistent and useful member of that church.
The Houston Post, March 29, 1918 |
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Mrs. Lucy Dever Flournoy was born on the Mustang River in Jackson County, Texas, February 18, 1841. Her marriage to Rice Flournoy took place in 1858. They had two children; one son, Matt, died at the age of seventeen years, and a daughter, Mrs. W. H. McDowell, died in 1916. After marrying, this young couple settled at Texana where they ran a boarding house for a number of years. When Texana was abandoned, Mrs. Flournoy was the first to promote the town of Edna. She surveyed and laid off the town site of Edna. In other words, she was the founder of Edna and rightly bore the title of “Mother of Edna.” She was a business lady, a builder, an organizer and a promoter. She was all of this in the days when a woman’s place was considered limited to the home. She was a very prominent member of the Methodist Church, a great worker in the Sunday School and the Missionary Society. Wherever there was work to be done for the church, Mrs. Lucy Flournoy would be found taking the lead and the responsibility. She died March 27, 1918 at Edna and is buried in the Edna cemetery [Memory Gardens of Edna).
The Cavalcade of Jackson
County, by I. T.
Taylor, Third Edition, Pages 379-380 |
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Decades later, group funds headstone for Edna's 'mother' Roy Ortolon stepped into the graveyard and turned left. The old maps a worker had copied for him showed the grave site to be about 150 feet from the entrance, but the lack of a headstone made his search more difficult. Eventually, he arrived at what he thought was the right spot, and he double-checked his location on the paper. This was it. This was where Lucy Flournoy, the so-called "Mother of Edna," was buried. "Her grave was never marked," Ortolon said of Flournoy, who owned the property that would eventually become the city of Edna. In 1881, she deeded part of her property to the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway to bring trains through the area, according to the Texas State Historical Association. But Ortolon, a self-described community historian, said Flournoy is left out of most histories of the city. That's why a headstone for her was important, he said: When people come through town, they have something tangible to visit. "Now we can really tell them what took place," he said. In January, after Ortolon located Flournoy's grave site, he approached the Texana Arts Council in Edna to assist him in raising money to erect a headstone for her. The Memory Gardens of Edna cemetery has a stone for the Flournoy family, but not one for Lucy herself. During the course of a few months, they raised about $1,000, Ortolon said. In May, they revealed the headstone at a ceremony. Flournoy - Dever at the time - was born Feb. 18, 1841, near the Mustang River in what is now Jackson County, according to Ortolon's research. At 17, she married Rice Flournoy and had two children. In 1880, Flournoy came to own the more than 4,000 acres that Stephen F. Austin had granted to her grandfather in 1824, according to the research. A year later, she provided the land to let the railroad come through. Ortolon said he tried to find Flournoy's descendants. He wanted to ask them whether they objected to the headstone, he said. But he couldn't track down any of them. "There's nobody around here that's kin to her," he said. "We can't find anyone who claims heir to her." At the time of her death in 1918 at age 77, Flournoy's children and grandchildren had already passed away. It's believed her son-in-law installed the family marker. For years, it was the only thing marking the Mother of Edna's grave. Now, she has one of her own.
Victoria Advocate, June 7, 2016 |
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 Ana Ramirez, Victoria Advocate, June 7, 2016 |
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Cuero Star: Rice Flournoy died at his home in Jackson county last
week.--Galveston Daily News, April 27, 1880 |
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Mrs. W. H. McDowell was a native of Jackson County, born December 14, 1859, at old Texana. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Rice Flournoy. She was united in marriage to W. H. McDowell in 1879 and three children were born to this union: Henry Behn McDowell, Roy McDowell and Jesse McDowell. She joined the Methodist Church early in life and always lived a devout and consistent Christian life. Mrs. McDowell died in 1915.
The Cavalcade of Jackson County, Third Edition, page 400 |
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Copyright 2022
- Present by Jackson County Historical Commission |
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Created Apr. 17, 2022 |
Updated Apr. 17, 2022 |