|
James Claire Lewis Family
Jame s
Claire "Jim" Lewis
was born in
Payne's
Store, Hunt
County,
Texas, on November 28,
1891. He
was
the
son of Emma Lee
Hawthorne
and
John
Floyd Lewis.
Jim
Lewis
began
work for
the Bay
City National
Bank
when
he
was
seventeen,
later
worked for
the
Eagle Lake and
Markham
banks, and
then
returned
to Bay
City to
become
cashier at
the
First National
Bank.
He became President of the First
National Bank
in
1944,
and on
January 9,
1962,
he
was made Chairman
of the Board.
Jim Lewis
enjoyed the
banking business,
and
preferred
to
greet
his
friends and
customers in
the lobby of
the bank
rather
than
from
behind his desk. He
also operated
the Hawkins,
Buckeye,
and Slough
Ranches,
and
the Matagorda
Land and Cattle
Company; and
had an
interest
in the Bay
City Rice
Dryer and
the
Independent Rice Dryer
Under Jim Lewis'
direction,
Bay
City
realized many
benefits from
the Bay
City
Gas
Company
He
served as City
Councilman
for sixteen
years, and served as
both Mayor
and
Mayor Pro-Tern.
He
was a
director
of
the Lower
Colorado
River
Authority for
twenty-two
years;
the local
station
was named in
his honor
Jim Lewis
served on the
Board of
Managers
of
the Matagorda
General Hospital,
was President
of the
Chamber of Commerce, and
received
citations for
meritorious
service
in the
National
War
Fund in
1943,
'44,
and '45.
He
also
received the Public
Service Award
from the
Small
Business
Administration.
Following
hurricane
Carla,
his
relief operations
won him
still another
commendation.
Jim Lewis
was Senior
Warden
of St.
Marks
Episcopal Church and
served for
over forty
years as
President and
Director
of
the Bay
City
Library
Association.
As
a
trustee
of
the
Freeman Estate,
he
was
instrumental in the
building of Matagorda House.
In 1962 the
coveted
Outstanding
Citizen of
Matagorda
County was
awarded
to Jim Lewis.
James
Claire Lewis
married Meta Hawkins,
eldest
daughter
of Elmore
Rugeley
and
Frank Hawkins,
on
October 15,
1917 Their
children were
Frank Hawkins
Lewis and
Margaret
Hawkins Lewis.
Frank Hawkins
Lewis
married Florence
Virginia
Neely and
their children were: Frank Hawkins, Jr.,
Janet Neely,
Meta Claire,
and
James
Neely,
born
on
July 7, 1956.
Frank
Hawkins Lewis
was
President
of
the First National
Bank and
manager
of
the Hawkins Ranch.
Margaret Hawkins
Lewis
married Austin
Furse.
Their
children were:
Jane Hawkins,
Austin
Henry, John
Lewis, and
Mary
Elmore.
Historic Matagorda County Volume II, pages 322-323
|
|
Dean of Banking, J. C. "Mr. Jim" Lewis,
Civic Innovator Dies
Director of the Independent Rice Drying and
Warehouse Company, and Director of the Union Warehouse and
Elevator Company.
He has served the community in many ways,
including 16 years on the Bay City Council. Many of those years
he served as Mayor Pro Tem, serving as Mayor for nine months
when Mayor Paris Smith was elected to the State Legislature.
Mr. Lewis has served as a trustee of the city
gas system for over 30 years and has served as a member of the
Board of Trustees for the Bay City Public Library for more than
34 years. In these capacities he was largely instrumental in the
creation of the fine new building for the Library.
He has served as a member of the Board of
Managers of the Matagorda General Hospital for many years;
member and past president of the Chamber of Commerce; member of
the Board of Directors of the Lower Colorado River Authority of
Texas, serving as Secretary in 1961, and later as Chairman. The
LCRA Building was dedicated to Mr. Lewis Feb. 16, 1978.
A member of St. Mark's Episcopal church, he
is a Past Senior Warden and member of the Vestry.
In recognition for his countless
contributions to Bay City and Matagorda County, he was awarded
the plaque for Outstanding Citizen by the Chamber of Commerce in
1962.
He was married to Meta Hawkins on Oct. 15,
1917 who passed away Jan. 7, 1975. She was the eldest daughter
of Frank and Elmore Rugeley Hawkins, one of the country's
pioneer families.
He is survived by two children: a daughter,
Mrs. Austen H. Furse of Austin; a son, Frank H. Lewis, and eight
grandchildren.
Funeral services will be held Tuesday, May 2,
at 2 p. m. at St. Mark's Episcopal Church with Rev. Melton
McWilliams officiating. Interment will be in Cedarvale Cemetery.
Daily Tribune, May 1, 1978
Photo courtesy of Betty Crosby
|
|
Mrs. Meta Hawkins Lewis
Mrs. Meta Hawkins Lewis passed away at her
home on Tuesday, January 7, 1975. Mrs. Lewis was born March 11,
1891 at the Hawkins Lake House. She was the daughter of Mr. and
Mrs. Frank Hawkins and the granddaughter of Colonel and Mrs. J.
B. Hawkins, pioneer settlers who came to Texas in the early
1840s.
Mrs. Lewis attended Kidd Key preparatory
school in Sherman, Texas, and Chevy Chase College in Washington,
D. C. She was a member of the Colonial Dames, Daughters of the
American Revolution, and served as County Chairman of the
American Red Cross throughout World War II.
Shortly after coming to Texas from North
Carolina, her family established a sugar cane and cotton
plantation on Caney Creek at Hawkinsville where they built one
of the first sugar mills in Matagorda County, and Texas. In
later years they turned their attention more and more to cattle
raising.
She was a life long member of St. Mark's
Episcopal Church where she married James Claire Lewis October
17, 1917.
Mrs. Lewis is survived by her husband, one
son Frank Hawkins Lewis, one daughter Margaret Lewis Furse, a
sister Mrs. Elmore Hawkins McDonald, and an uncle Rowland
Rugeley. Surviving grandchildren are Frank H. Lewis, Jr., Janet
N. Lewis, Meta C. Lewis, James N. Lewis, Janie H. Furse, Austen
H. Furse III, John Lewis Furse and Mary Elmore Furse.
Services will be held at St. Mark's Episcopal
Church, Bay City, Texas, Thursday morning January 9, 1975 at
10:00 a. m., and burial in Cedarvale Cemetery.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests that
those who desire to do so send a memorial offering to the Bay
City Public Library or to St. Mark's Episcopal Church or any
Charity of one's choice.
The Daily Tribune, January 8, 1975
Meta Hawkins Lewis
Meta Hawkins Lewis, 83, of Bay City died
January 7 at her home. She was a life-long resident of Matagorda
County. A member of the Episcopal Church, the Colonial Dames and
U. D. C. Survivors include: husband, J. C. Lewis; daughter, Mrs.
Austen Furse of Austen; son, Frank H. Lewis; sister, Mrs. E. L.
McDonald, all of Bay City; 3 grandchildren. Funeral services
will be held at St. Mark's Episcopal, January 9th at 10 a. m.
with Rev. Milton McWilliams officiating. Interment will be in
the Cedarvale Cemetery. Pallbearers are W. F. Green, Don Haley,
W. M. Penny, Marvin Landry, John H. Wilson and E. M. Landrum.
Arrangements with Taylor Bros. Funeral Home.
Meta Hawkins Lewis
Photo courtesy of Faye Cunningham
|
|
Frank Hawkins Lewis Sr., 83, of Bay City died
at his home June 6, 2003.
He was born January 11, 1920 in Bay City and was a lifelong
resident and prominent civic leader in Matagorda County. Mr.
Lewis was the son of the late James Claire Lewis and Meta
Hawkins Lewis. He was a graduate of Bay City High School,
Woodberry Forrest School in Virginia and Princeton University,
where he graduated cum laude with a B.A. degree in Economics in
1943.
During World War ll, he served as Captain, Field Artillery in
combat in the Solomon Islands and the Philippines. He was also
assigned to the 1st Cavalry Division for occupation duty in
Japan. After completing four years of military service, he
returned to Matagorda County in 1946 and was actively engaged in
ranching, farming and banking. During his banking career he held
offices of Chairman of the Board, Trust Officer and remained an
Executive Officer of The First National Bank of Bay City from
1962 until 1995.
Gov. Dolph Briscoe appointed Mr. Lewis to the Texas Water
Quality Board and the Texas Air Control Board where he served as
chairman. Mr. Lewis was elected as a Director of the Texas and
Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association in 1954, and served as
President from 1970 -1972. He served ten years as a member of
the Advisory Committee of the Texas A&M University Agriculture
Research and Extension Center and as director of the Texas Rice
Council for Market Development. He received the Outstanding
Cattleman Award of the Bay City Chamber of Commerce, served two
terms as president of the Bay City Chamber of Commerce, and was
a longtime Board Member of the Bay City Library Association, the
Matagorda County Fair & Livestock Association, and the Bay City
Cemetery Trust. He was a lifetime member of St. Mark's Episcopal
Church of Bay City and served on the Vestry. Mr. Lewis was a
past president of the Bay City Country Club, a member of the
Argyle Club in San Antonio and a member of Rancheros Visitadores.
Survivors include: two sons: Frank Hawkins Lewis Jr. of Bay
City, and James Neely Lewis of Austin; two daughters: Janet
Lewis Peden and husband, Scott Peden of Bay City, and Meta Lewis
Hausser and husband, Albert Ford Hausser of San Antonio; two
grandsons: John Hawkins Peden and Albert Ford Hausser, Jr.;
sister: Margaret Lewis Furse of Austin and numerous nieces,
nephews and cousins. He was preceded in death by his wife
Florence Neely Lewis.
Funeral Service will be 11 a.m. Monday, June 9, 2003, at St.
Mark's Episcopal Church with the Rev. Bruce Bonner and the Rev.
Harley Savage officiating. Interment will follow at Cedarvale
Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Scott Peden, John Peden, Albert
Hausser, Ford Hausser, Austen Furse, Ill, John Furse and Paul
Hemmer. Memorials may be made to the Bay City Public Library,
1100 7th St. Bay City, TX 77414, Matagorda County Museum, 2100
Ave F, Bay City, TX 77414, Texas & Southwestern Cattle Raisers
Foundation, 1301 W. 7th St. Ft. Worth, TX 76102-2665 or to a
charity of your choice.
The family wishes to extend special thanks to Melba Edison,
Charita Preston, Dorothy Allen, Michelle Smith, Yolanda
Mitchell, Edna Polk and Edna Dickson for the care, love and
companionship. Arrangements with Taylor Bros. Funeral Home.
A00014D2003JN08
The Bay City Tribune, Sunday, June 8, 2003
Photo courtesy of Betty Crosby
|
|
Austen Henry Furse, Jr., a Texas attorney and
thirty-six year resident of Austin, died Tuesday, February 16,
2010. He was 87 years old.
Born in Fort Worth on February, 20, 1922, he was the elder son
of Lillian Ann Brazile Furse and Austen H. Furse, who had
emigrated from England and worked in the west Texas oil business
in Eastland, Texas. It was there that Mr. Furse grew up and in
1939, graduated from high school before attending Phillips
Academy, Andover, Mass.
Following his post-graduate year at Andover, where his
classmates continued his lasting nickname, Fuzzy, he entered
Yale University's Class of 1944. He became an English major and
a starting player on both the freshman and varsity football
teams.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, he enlisted in the
Army Air Corps and served as a bombardier in the Pacific
theater, including the air offensives of the Philippines and
Japan. For his conduct in action he received the Distinguished
Flying Cross, as well as the Air Medal with six Oak Leaf
clusters and the Asia-Pacific Theater Ribbon with six Bronze
Stars.
Discharged as a 1st Lieutenant in late 1945, Mr. Furse returned
to Yale to complete his studies and play a final season of
football. He then entered the University of Texas Law School
where he received his LL.B. degree and was an editor of the Law
Review. In 1957 he received his Master of Laws degree from
Columbia University.
After law school, he settled in Houston, where from 1950 to 1956
he was an attorney for the Texas Gulf Sulphur Company and later,
an associate of Butler, Binion, Rice & Cook law firm. He also
lectured on property law at the South Texas School of Law. He
subsequently moved to Bay City, Texas to become a partner in the
firm of Bell, Camp, Gwin & Furse. In 1967 he was elected County
Judge of Matagorda County.
In 1973, Mr. Furse moved to Austin to become an Assistant
Attorney General of the State of Texas and Chief of that offices
Oil and Gas Division. In the course of his ten years in
government, he successfully litigated numerous land and mineral
cases on behalf of the state. In 1983, he became a counsel of
the General Land Office of Texas.
During their life together, he and his wife, Margaret, traveled
throughout the world and often participated in informal courses
offered abroad. They were also avid theatergoers with as much
appreciation for the American musical theater as for the works
of Shakespeare.
Mr. Furse took a lifetime interest in reading the classics, in
music of all kinds, in politics, and in the game of football.
Quick-witted in conversation, he also had a gift for writing
playful verse that delighted his family and friends.
As a result of a fall in August of 2000, he suffered a spinal
cord injury, which confined him permanently to a wheelchair. Yet
he managed to travel with some frequency to New York and New
England to see friends and classmates.
Austen Furse is survived by his wife of 55 years, Margaret Lewis
Furse, a past member of the faculties of Rice University and the
University of Texas, and by four children and their spouses:
Austen H. Furse III and Anne Seel Furse of Houston, John L.
Furse and Susanne Nitter Furse of Boston, Jane Furse Friedman
and John H. Friedman of New York City, and Mary Furse and Bill
McMillin of Austin, as well as by six grandchildren.
A memorial service was held yesterday (Saturday) at the
Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd in Austin. A graveside
service in Bay City is tentatively planned for April 1.
Bay City Tribune, Published February
22, 2010
Margaret
Lewis Furse
October 25, 1928 - May 1, 2026
Margaret Lewis Furse died peacefully on
Friday, May 1, 2026, in Austin, Texas. A serious intellect, avid
reader, author of scholarly books, professor of philosophy of
religion, and astute business manager, she was also easy-going,
light-hearted and delightful company, right up to the end. The
stroke that brought her to the hospital required some questions
from the doctors: How old are you? “Well,” she said, “opinions
differ.” Do you know this person (pointing to one of her
children)? “Only by reputation.” Are you feeling confused?
“Always.” Later, told that a priest would be visiting, her
family joked they would make sure he was wearing the proper
collar. She was just able to whisper: “And a miter,” attempting
a gesture of a bishop’s hat.
Born October 25, 1928, she was the youngest
child of Meta Hawkins Lewis and James Claire Lewis. She grew up
in Bay City, Texas, a place that formed her, and that she always
cherished. Her extended family of aunts, uncles, and cousins
were sources of special childhood enjoyment. Margaret began
public school with Miss Tenie Holmes, her first-grade teacher
and near neighbor, whom she often visited by skipping down the
alley, even before starting school. In that small, stable town
of 6,300, first-grade classmates were likely to remain friends
through high school and often for a lifetime. During World War
II, Margaret and her schoolmates sold U.S. war bonds from card
tables around the Court House Square, determined to do their
part for “the war effort.”
She attended Sweet Briar College in Virginia
and then the University of Texas at Austin, graduating in 1950
with a B.A. in philosophy, a lifelong interest. She then moved
to Houston, where she met Austen H. Furse, Jr., a young
attorney, recent veteran and Yale graduate, who, like her, had
grown up in a small Texas town. They married in 1955 at St.
Mark’s Episcopal Church in Bay City, the same church where her
parents had wed in 1917.
Shortly after their first child Janie was
born in 1957, Margaret and Austen moved to New York for graduate
study at Columbia University. After Columbia, they moved to Bay
City, where Austen practiced law and was elected County Judge of
Matagorda County. By 1967, she had earned her Ph.D. and, in
addition to Janie, had welcomed three more children: Austen,
John, and Mary. Margaret always laughed that with the birth of
every baby, she had to take another qualifying academic exam.
She wrote “Mysticism: Window on a World
View”, which was used in religious studies courses across the
U.S. and Canada. She joined the faculty at Rice University,
driving the 80 miles to Houston on class days. When Austen
became an Assistant Attorney General of Texas, they moved to
Austin. In 1974, she began teaching at the University of Texas.
She inaugurated new courses, helped establish a minor in
religious studies, and wrote several more academic books until
her retirement in 1986.
Margaret then turned her attention to the
cattle operation her forbears had founded in the early 19th
century. She wrote “The Hawkins Ranch in Texas, from Plantation
Times to the Present”, published in 2014. She had been
encouraged by advice from, among others, Prof. Howard R. Lamar
of Yale University, an authority on the American West, including
Matagorda County.
In their 55 years of marriage, Margaret and
Austen traveled widely. She served on the board of Zach Theater
in Austin, was a delegate to the 1972 National Democratic
Convention, studied Spanish, followed professional tennis and,
with guilty pleasure, the British Royal Family. “My soap opera
with live people,” she called it.
She was always grateful for her family and
forebears, and the possibilities presented by her life’s many
gifts. Of these, perhaps the greatest was her uncanny empathy, a
warm-hearted super-talent that comforted complete strangers,
made a close family, inspired affection, and created deep
friendships. One of her characteristic questions, “Well now,
what about YOU?” signaled her disposition that everyone deserved
her sincere attention. Her kindly power to enter into the
feelings of another person was simply extraordinary.
Margaret was preceded in death by her husband
Austen and daughter Janie. She is survived by sons Austen III
(Anne) of Houston and John (Susanne Nitter) of London, daughter
Mary (William McMillin) of Austin, son-in-law John Friedman of
New York, grandchildren Elizabeth Friedman, Meredith Friedman
Massey (Bryant), Katherine Furse, Claire Furse, Mae McMillin,
and Austen Furse IV, and great-granddaughters Cameron and Avery
Massey.
A funeral service will be held at The
Episcopal Church of the Good Shepherd, 3201 Windsor Rd, Austin,
TX 78703 on May 18, 2026, at 11:00 am. A burial service will be
held at Cedarvale Cemetery, 2293 Golden Ave, Bay City, TX 77414,
on May 20, 2026, at 11:00 am. In lieu of flowers, donations are
suggested to Matagorda Episcopal Health Outreach Program, a.k.a.
Vibrance, and the Bay City Texas Public Library.
Bay City Tribune, May 13, 2026
|
