Monday Is for Mothers: Sarah Elizabeth Chappell (1830 - 1917)

Sarah's father Abram Heath Chappell was the brother of Sarah Heath Chappell Hardy (my great great great grandmother) which makes her one of my first cousins, four times removed.

[Posted to her Ancestry.com family tree by suzannepatton1]

Sarah was born in Cotton Valley, Macon County, Alabama, and that's probably where she met and married James Campbell Gambill Russell Patton*who had begun his teaching career there and that's where the couple's first child was born in 1851. 

Sarah and J.C.G.R. had six children, only three of whom lived to maturity. After her husband's death in 1912 Sarah moved from her home in Grandview, Johnson County, to Waco, McLennan County, Texas, where her youngest son Abram Chappell Patton had established himself as a successful business man and community leader. 

The abbreviated biography in the first paragraph of Sarah's obituary doesn't completely agree with existing information we have for her husband.**

[31 Mar 1917, Page 11 - Waco Morning News at Newspapers.com]

She's buried with J.C.G.R. in Grandview Cemetery.

[Findagrave.com memorial #31497872; photo added by Judi W #46932124]

Here's how we're connected:

[Ancestry.com]

*He's always referred to as J.C.G.R. Patton.
**As you can see he was a well-respected teacher and Methodist Episcopal minister.

[From manuscript at Layland Museum in Cleburne Texas "The Churches of Grandview" and clipping from article written by Al Smith published in the "Texas Christian Advocate," and information given by Mrs. Virginia Heath Freeman, Cleburne.
Posted to her Ancestry.com family tree by suzannepatton1 ]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Working on Wednesday: Mabel Myrtle (Bryan) Morriss (1895 - 1991)

Without knowing her story, anyone looking at the 1940 U.S. Census record for Mabel Morriss (one of my second cousins, twice removed*) would have no reason to think that her life was any different from the other farm wives in Cass County, Texas. It seems there's no census category for "tireless pioneer."

[1940 United States Federal Census. Online publication - Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.Original data - United States of America, Bureau of the Census. Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940. Washington, D.C.:

National Archives and Records Administration, 1940. T627]

The Bowie-Cass Electric Co-op wouldn't exist without her vision and hard work. This is from the co-op's history page:

The slight, pleasant East Texas lady with limitless hope for the future and belief in her fellow East Texans brought the Douglassville co-op into being almost single-handedly, braving numerous condemnations of the project as "economically unfeasible." A few years back when employees and members of Bowie-Cass Electric Cooperative were asked about the organizing of the co-op, they would reply, "Ask Mabel Bryan Morriss. She did it." 

It all started one warm night in May 1935, as Mabel Bryan Morriss read the latest issue of the Atlanta Citizens-Journal. If she hadn't been too interested in the story about the new-born Rural Electrification Administration and its offer to finance electricity for everybody who could qualify, Mrs. Morriss could have heard the whispers from other pioneers about the obstacles to be encountered along unblazed trails, and the heartaches and rebuffs that go hand in hand with the challenge of leadership.

Over the years she served on the board of directors, as secretary-treasurer, and even donated the land that the co-op's offices occupy to this day. Go read the rest of the story to get an appreciation of how hard Mabel worked to achieve her goal: "John Carmody [the government official in Washington DC] approved the project in August 1937, but his reservations were far from resolved, for he commented even while approving, "I know this thing will never pay out, but this is the only way to get that woman off our necks!' "

The Cooperative currently serves over 36,000 members.

[Originally posted on her Ancestry.com family tree by SummerGBmore]

[From the Bowie-Cass Electric Cooperative website]

You can read more about the Cooperative here, which includes some background on the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). Here's the application form that Mabel had to fill out to start the process:

[Source: East Texas History-Bowie-Cass Electric Cooperative]

*Here's how we're related:

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.