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W AV E S H I S T O R Y

Notable Galveston Women

Betty Eve Ballinger

etty Eve Ballinger, the Texas, and Sidney Sherman, a veteran of
co-founder of the Daughters the battle of San Jacinto.
of the Republic of Texas, was
born on February 3, 1854, in After reading Henderson K. Yoakum’s
BGalveston, one of four chil- History of Texas (1855) in the Ballinger
dren of Harriett Patrick (Jack) and William library, the cousins planned to solicit
Pitt Ballinger. Her maternal grandfather, support from other women of Texas
William Houston Jack, fought at the battle whose husbands or ancestors had helped
of San Jacinto and later became a lawyer the republic achieve and maintain its
and a statesman for the Republic of Texas. independence. To this end, Hally’s father,
Her father received the first license to Guy M. Bryan, president of the Texas
practice law issued by the state of Texas; Veterans Association, introduced the
Ballinger, Texas, is named for him. women to Mary Smith (Mrs. Anson)
Jones, widow of the last president of the
Betty was raised in the Ballinger home, the Republic of Texas, and to Mary Harris
Oaks, at Avenue O and Twenty-ninth Street Briscoe, widow of a Texas patriot.
in Galveston. She received her education, traditions of family, children, domesticity, and
along with her sister Lucy (Mrs. Andrew G. The organization was approved, and on church. Ironically, however, such women’s or-
Mills), in the French school of Miss Hull November 6, 1891, seventeen wom- ganizations as the DRT, whose purpose was to
in New Orleans and later in the Southern en assembled in Houston to form the perpetuate domestic values, encouraged women
Home School in Baltimore. Daughters of the Lone Star Republic. to participate in the future of Texas primarily
Ballinger was chosen as the member of through an emphasis on improvement in edu-
In the spring of 1891, she and her cous- the Executive Committee that drew up cation for Texas children and the maintenance
in Hally Ballinger Bryan Perry decided the organization’s constitution and by- of historic sites such as the Alamo and the San
to form an organization dedicated to the laws. Jacinto battlefield.
perpetuation of the memory of the heroes
of San Jacinto. Their interest in this pursuit The first annual meeting of the Daugh- In the twentieth century, Miss Ballinger (she
was aroused by the recent discovery in an ters took place on April 20, 1892, in never married) no longer believed that the
old Galveston cemetery of the neglected Lampasas; at that time the organization future of Texas should be left in the hands of
graves of two Texas patriots, David G. was officially named Daughters of the the men alone. Between 1891 and 1912, she
Burnet, first president of the Republic of Republic of Texas. The next year Ball- fulfilled her duties as a guardian of tradition,
inger delivered the keynote address to the but also helped to form new women’s organiza-
Daughters, in which she explained the tions, each of which brought women more and
purpose of the DRT. more into public life.

The future of Texas, she said, “is in the After the initial organization of the state DRT,
hands of her sons [who,] dazzled by the she organized and presided over (1891–93)
splendor of the present...have forgotten the Galveston chapter of the DRT, named for
the heroic deeds and sacrifices of the Sidney Sherman. The group’s first task, not
past. But it is not so with woman.... Sur- surprisingly, was the removal of the remains of
rounded by the history of the family life, Burnet and Sherman to a new cemetery in Gal-
it is her duty to keep alive the sacred fire veston, wherein 1894 a twenty-three-foot stone
of tradition.... Daughters of the Republic obelisk was formally placed as a memorial. A
of Texas, our duty lies plain before us. dedication ceremony attended by 1,600 dignitar-
Let us leave the future of Texas to our ies and citizens marked the occasion.
brothers and claim as our province the
guarding of her holy past.” Betty Ballinger also served from 1895 to 1899
Betty Eve Ballinger. as DRT chairman of the Stephen F. Austin
Courtesy of Lela Parris These were the words of a woman born Statue Fund, the purpose of which was to com-
Koch. in the antebellum South, where cultural mission Elisabet Ney to produce statues of Sam
proscriptions confined “ladies” to the Houston and Stephen F. Austin to be placed in

46 | Waves Magazine | June 2019 Issue