Women Rock the House

If you’ve walked around Georgetown’s town square and in the Old Town area, you’ve likely seen the markers on historic houses that usually denote the owner’s name or say a bit about the house architecture and history. That’s awesome, and we applaud Preservation Georgetown and others who help document that history.

Ethel Mae Moore worked hard to help create the historic Shotgun House Museum at 801 West Street.

But we’d like to know about the women who lived there as well. A small and growing set of house markers DO have a woman’s name, along with a set whose markers include a wife’s name along with the name of her husband (the house namesake). So this Herstories Tour focuses on houses (mostly still here) with a woman’s name, and you’ll learn more about that woman. AND we’ll include spots where we’d love to see a marker for the woman and the awesome work she did!

🏠 Ethel Mae Moore, Shotgun House Museum, 801 West Street

Ethel Mae once owned this house, and worked hard over the years to have it preserved and made into our awesome Black History Museum. She saved newspaper clippings about the Black community and did much to furnish the Museum.

She also worked to create the Willie Hall Center and helped put on the annual Juneteenth and other cultural events.

Ethel Mae was the owner of Mae’s Beauty Shop in the Museum’s Ridge neighborhood. Her extensive volunteer work includes serving on many city committees and groups such as Georgetown Cultural Citizen Memorial Association. She was a teacher and community resource director at the Friendly Will Missionary Baptist Church. Ethel Mae has many awards marking all her contributions to the community, including ones from Habitat for Humanity, United Way, and Handcrafts Unlimited.

The Shotgun House and the land it’s on have quite a storied past. Ann and Munroe Harris bought the land back in 1879. Munroe was born an enslaved person, but the two made their way to Georgetown in 1867 and were able to build a house here. Sadly, after several years the house burned. What became the Shotgun House Museum was moved to this spot.

In 1930, Gertrude Randolph—sister to Mary Bailey, who opened Georgetown’s first kindergarten for Black children—bought the house. Now Gertrude’s name is on the historical marker on the house, which stands in front of the beautiful mural of Mary Bailey. “I’m glad the sisters are reunited!” noted Preservation Georgetown historian Liz Weaver when the Gertrude Randolph marker was presented in October, 2023.

🏠 Othelia Giron, 526 W. 8th St.

Here’s where Othelia’s house likely was. Othelia was the very dedicated first teacher of the “Mexican School” that educated Latino children starting in 1924. She graduated from Saltillo Normal School in Mexico and led the school for the first several years. She worked tirelessly with children who often missed school to work in the fields, and she helped support their parents with their needs. Read more about this educator and the Mexican School here.

Othelia listed this 8th Street address as her home; the Mexican school was nearby at 10th and Bridge Streets. See Othelia below in the center back to the left of the man in suit and tie. He’s David Carter, a Methodist minister who established a health clinic and job help for the Latino community.

🏠 Annie Purl, 407 W. University Avenue

This beloved educator was living in this house on the corner in the 1916 city map—at that point, she was nearly 20 years into her 60-year Georgetown teaching career. Think of Annie leaving bright and early day after day after day to teach Georgetown kids all day and be a principal—she said she only missed two days of teaching in her life! Find out more about Annie here.

🏠 Mattie Loventhal, 214 W. University Avenue

Walk east on University and look at the south side for the newly refurbished home with gingerbread trim at 214 W. University. That’s the home of Mattie Loventhal, a well-loved math teacher at Georgetown High during the 1950s and 1960s. Mattie also worked to give women educators more recognition and support through her work in the local chapter of the American Association of University Women. She was also active with the local chapter of the sorority Delta Kappa Gamma, which began at the University of Texas in 1929 and has grown to an international association that has given away $5.5 million in scholarships to women teachers.

Mattie inspired Georgetown students to love math.

🏠 The Tisdale House, 1252 Austin Street

Velma is the Tisdale who lived here, along with her sister LaVeta. Velma was musically gifted, frequently performing in Georgetown functions. But she made SU history when she became the first woman to be employed in the sciences department.

Jessie Daniel Ames and (right) Velma Tisdale

Velma got her B.A. from Southwestern and followed with an M.A. from Columbia University. Along with her 20 years teaching at SU, Velma taught at colleges in New Jersey and Oregon.

Here’s Velma with her good friend Jessie Daniel Ames, who led the Williamson County women’s suffrage struggle and started an anti-lynching organization for the Southern states.

🏠 Carolina Lindell House, 1611 Main Street

Carolina Gustafson was born in 1865 in Sweden and married John Lindell in 1886. John died suddenly in 1910, leaving her with nine children. She then ran their farms. Carolina’s eldest daughter was named Ebba Carolina, and she was a fallen shero during WWI. She was serving as a nurse helping sick and dying soldiers at Camp Beauregard in Louisiana when she contracted pneumonia and died.

Georgetownians gave Ebba a shero’s salute. Her body was escorted to the St. John’s Swedish Church on University and watched over by an honor guard. Her funeral was held on the Courthouse lawn, reports the Williamson County Sun, and was thronged. President Bishop of Southwestern University spoke, as did the president of Texas Wesleyan College in Austin. Red Cross members attended in full uniform, and friends and pastors praised her character and sacrifice. Mourners followed her hearse to the Old Swedish cemetery south of Georgetown.

Ebba was lauded with the Boys. She was one of thousands of women who served and died in WWI.

🏠 Annie and W. Behrens House, 1702 S. Main Street

Annie grew up one of 10 children of Ottelia and C. H. Swenson. See more about Ottelia and her industrious family below—Annie’s mom Ottelia lived right down the block after Annie married Walter Behrens in 1906. Walter became a partner in the Stromberg-Hoffman department store downtown—see its name still in the building at 8th and Austin. When Walter died in 1924, Annie became the business partner and raised their two children.

Annie and the Swenson siblings, from left: Bertha, C. R., Edna, Elsie, Harry, Annie, and Jalmar

Annie was involved in many organizations, among them the King’s Daughters, which organized and had Georgetown’s first hospital built just in time for the Spanish flu epidemic which allowed Georgetown to avoid catastrophe, and the Ladies Aid Society at the Swedish Methodist Church. Annie was involved in the Georgetown Business Women’s League, which started in 1918, right after Wilco women scored the right to vote, led by suffragist and racial justice activist Jessie Daniel Ames.

The current owner of this house, realtor Kristi Harvey, says she wanted to honor Annie with her name on the historical marker for the house. Instead of a suggested “Behrens House” or “Walter Behrens House,” Kristi specified having Annie in the name, since Walter died shortly after they moved into the house. “Annie and the kids were the ones who lived here, so that’s what the marker should reflect,” she says.

🏠 Ottelia Swenson House, 1710 S. Main Street

Ottelia Stromberg was born in Sweden and married C. H. Swenson in Indiana. They settled in Georgetown, where they farmed and operated the Swenson Hotel at Austin and 6th Street. Ottelia ran the hotel and also had a clothing store and millinery shop on the second floor of the Stromberg-Hoffman store. She’d go on buying trips with her clothing buyer, Bertha Taulbee. Ottelia rented out rooms behind her millinery parlor. She also raised 10 children.

Her obituary in the Williamson County Sun notes her charitable deeds and says that “she did not confine her kind deeds to her own race and creed, but extended them to all who were in distress and came to her attention.”

🏠 Linnie Campbell, 1502 Ash Street

Linnie Campbell, pioneer female tax collector

Linnie Young Campbell broke the glass ceiling of Williamson County public office. In 1918, she became the first woman to hold the office of county clerk and tax collector. She served until 1922. But her status and independent income didn’t help when she wanted to finance her own home. Women at that time couldn’t get loans on their own.

A friend from the Methodist Church, A. F. Martin, offered to help out, using his name to get a loan that she then paid. This man, says current owner Jordan Maddox, did the same favor for other women unable to move ahead and buy a house or make other purchases requiring loans.

Back then—and until the federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act passed in 1974—women couldn’t get loans or credit cards without a husband cosigning.

Linnie’s daughter, Linnie Lucille, went to Southwestern University, and married Samuel Page Duke. Samuel became known for his advocacy for better education for women. He was appointed president at Virginia’s State Normal School for Women (“Normal School” was a term for colleges designed for teacher education), and he believed that women and all who did not have easy access to higher education should get a good education. The Normal School later became known as Madison College, and in 1938, allowed men to attend.

The second owner of the Linnie Campbell house, notes current owner Jordan, was a divorced mom of four, Marie Woolsey. Like Linnie before her, Marie provided house and home for her children through her work at the Georgetown Railroad Company.

Mom Marie at center, surrounded by lively teens grown up, from left: Amy, George, Dan, Susan

Marie’s daughter Susan recalled life growing up in the house in a letter she sent to Jordan, who with his wife has restored the beautiful home. Susan writes: “Our mother raised four rambunctious kids—our births spread over 20 years—in that house.”

“She had teenagers, bless her heart, from the early 1960’s until the late 1970’s! The house was a lively place, filled with the creaking open and slamming shut of screen doors on hot summer days, the pounding of running feet on the wood floors on Christmas morning, the gush of water into the clawfooted bathtub after a long day of play, the loud and bright “fumph” of a flashbulb in the living room on prom night.”

This house is called the LINNIE Campbell House instead of just the Campbell House, says Jordan, because he wanted passersby to know a historic woman and her family owned the house and not assume it was named for the man of the house. Thanks, Jordan!

🏠 Mary Shipp Sanders, 1516 S. College Street

Mary’s house was probably about where the alley is now, but we can imagine her in her chair, thinking about better schools for children.

Mary devoted her life to education. After graduating from Southwestern University, she ran for Williamson County Superintendent of Schools. With help from her friend Jessie Daniel Ames, she won, becoming Wilco’s first female superintendent. While serving, she and Jessie focused on improving education for children of color, and they got funding for Hopewell School for Black children in Round Rock. Learn more here.

Mary researched rural school problems at the University of Chicago and Columbia University. She was supervisor of education in Johnson County. In Andice, an elementary school was named Sanders in her honor!

🏠 Mayme Burcham, 1310 S. College Street

Shout-out to this historic marker for the Burcham House noting that both dentist William Burcham and spouse Mayme Revelle were “civic and cultural leaders of the community.” William served on the school board, the Lions Club, the Methodist Church, and more, writes historian Dan K. Utley. And Mayme served as president of the Woman's Club of Georgetown and as a member of the state board of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs. Her work with the Woman’s Club locally and statewide focused on increasing literacy.

Jessie Daniel Ames was a close friend of Mayme’s and hung out at this house, along with SU Dean of Women Laura Kuykendall. Mayme was a big supporter of SU programs, and she did much work with the Methodist Church.

🏠 Ruth Morgan Ferguson, 1202 E. 15th St.

This 1890-era house is called Chesser-Morgan for its builder, county judge D. S. Chesser, and for the family of Ruth Morgan Ferguson, the Southwestern University Dean of Women who lived here many years. Ruth’s father Daniel was a minister and his spouse Lula Morgan raised 11 children here. Ruth was a Georgetown High grad who graduated from Southwestern and started teaching English at SU in 1923 with just her BA. She married another Southwestern student, but sadly he died shortly after.

Ruth was one of the most popular teachers, and after she got a master’s degree, she became Dean of Women Students. Ruth gave 37 years to SU. While she was not as adventurous as her predecessor, Laura Kuydendall, she was a strong woman who worked for fairness for women in the American Association of University Women chapter along with Jessie Daniel Ames.

AAUW women reunite in 1965: Ruth Morgan Ferguson; Mattie Loventhal (she taught Jessie’s kids); Jessie Daniel Ames; SU math professor Velma Tisdale; Mrs. E. P. Miles

🏠 Iola Bowden, 1102 E. 13th Street

Iola was born in tiny May, Texas, in 1904, and she cottoned to music early on. She came to Southwestern to study and teach music to children, and taught at SU while she spent summers getting a master’s degree at the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music.

Iola was a very versatile pianist, with a strong classical style but totally able to accompany Southwestern’s swing band at the local U.S.O. during WWII!

Southwestern’s Swing Band toured and got lots of students interested in enrolling, but concerns in 1936 about the “modern dancing” incited by their swinging led to a toned-down music mix.

Iola was teaching piano to a Black youngster, an unusual move for the times. When her SU music student Nellie Ruth Brucke and others told her they wanted to provide free music instruction to other Black children, Iola jumped in. She helped them set up the Negro Fine Arts School, figure out logistics for transporting students from the Black neighborhood to Southwestern, and get a classroom for the School at the First Methodist Church. Iola taught alongside the students, and shepherded the program throughout the years until Georgetown’s schools desegregated and the program closed.

The Negro Fine Arts Program got some 150 Black Georgetown kids learning and playing and giving concerts. Learn more about the program here. Charles Miller, one of the first students in the Negro Fine Arts School who became an administrator for the Georgetown Independent School District, characterized Iola Bowden as "the one that came across the railroad tracks and helped us all. Miss Bowden was to Georgetown what Eleanor Roosevelt was to the United States, because she was one of the first."

When Iola decided to have a house built, her friends decided to have a groundbreaking ceremony for her, as Liz Weaver notes in the Preservation Georgetown tribute to Iola. She dug her spade right into the spot where she’d put her grand piano. Iola walked daily to Southwestern from her house here and devoted endless energy to the students. She married at 51 to Walter Chambers and retired at 62, and endowed a scholarship for music students.

🏠 Kate Torbett, 908 Pine Street

The Arnold-Torbett House honors Kate Torbett. This Georgetown gal graduated from Southwestern University and taught school in Dalhart, Texas. Returning to Georgetown, she ran a boarding house here at 908 Pine for SU men, who dubbed their home away from home “Torbett’s Ranch.”

Former teacher Kate kept these SU boys in line at her boarding house. Find pix of this and other historic Georgetown homes in the booklet, Historic Homes of Georgetown, available at the library and sold at the Georgetown Visitor Center downtown.

Lilburn was involved in realty and owned this house for decades long after C. B. died.

🏠 Lilburn Dimmitt Atkinson Eubank Douglass, 911 Walnut Street

This house marker salutes C. B. and Lilburn Atkinson, and the two did live here for a few years before he died from pneumonia at 35. Lilburn went on to continue the real estate work she’d done over the years, buying and selling and managing properties including the P. H. Dimmitt Building downtown at 8th and Main. Learn more about Lilburn and other rockin’ lady realtors unearthed by historical sleuths Ann Evans and Britin Bostick in a forthcoming HerStory!

🏠Lula Holland Leavell, 803 College Street

Yes, it’s called the John Leavell House, for the man who owned the mercantile store downtown and other properties and volunteered for the Georgetown Fire Department.

But it’s also the place that the Georgetown Woman’s Club was founded by Lula and daughters Blanche and Kate. Its many members did loads of good works in Georgetown and also did a bang-up job of educating themselves further. Here’s more scoop on Lula and Co. Now bop around the corner and a few blocks south to see Kate.

🏠 Kate Makemson, 1002 Ash Street

This home is on the National Register of Historic Places as the W. K. and Kate Makemson House, so let’s give a cheer for Kate, who was born in 1857. At a time when few women were reporters, Kate was a journalist, working as the Georgetown correspondent for the San Antonio Express and a reporter for the Williamson County Sun. She was a officer (and award-winner in 1925 for writing the most articles) of the Texas Press Women, an organization birthed on the same day as the Texas Equal Rights Association! Kate signed up as a charter member of the state equal rights group with others at the Windsor Hotel in Dallas on May 10, 1893.

Kate was also a realtor, buying and renting properties in Georgetown. Despite her groundbreaking accomplishments, no photo exists publicly of her; thus her headstone at the IOOF cemetery will have to do to mark her place in our minds.

As for her husband William, much is written. Born in Illinois, his family moved to nearby Brushy Creek. When the Civil War began, he was opposed to secession and considered sitting out the war in an Illinois law school. He served in the Confederacy, but his Union sentiments remained strong. He ran as a Republican (at that time a pro-Union party and advocates for Black rights) for governor in 1894 after vanquishing his Republican party “Lilly White” faction foe, John B. Schmitz.

William lost, but was appointed a district attorney by Andrew Jackson Hamilton, the Republican Reconstruction governor who fought for Black suffrage. William also published the Georgetown Watchman newspaper and wrote about Wilco history.

🏠 Eubank-Daniels House, 809 E. 4th St.

Guess who’s the Eubank in the house marker here? That’s right—it’s a woman, Caroline Eubank. She was born in Indiana, and at six moved with her parents William and Mary Knight and siblings to Texas. They bought a Georgetown tract the year after, in 1859, on what became Main Street, and it’s there that Caroline lived most of her life. In adulthood, Caroline acquired the property from her mother and was living there with her husband Cyrus Eubank. AND after Caroline’s death, Lilburn (Lillie) Atkinson (yes, the one in the above house list), then married to Caroline’s son, Rex Eubank, owned the property. So that means that two women—Caroline Eubank and Lillie Eubank—and their families consecutively owned the property at 1010 S. Main for 120 years, from 1848 until 1968.

Eurbank-Daniels is on the right—what a journey these two women-owned houses had!

And guess why this 4th Street property—and its neighbor house to the west—used to live downtown on Main? If you like mysteries and old houses, get the skinny from a fascinating installment of the Georgetown history series from Georgetown history librarian Ann Evans and former Georgetown city planner Britin Bostick, who interviewed the curious current co-owner of the property, librarian Dana Hendrix, who did her own mystery solving!

As for the Daniels part of the house marker, that’s Noel Daniels, who was active in Georgetown real estate in the 1960s. He had the house moved to build the strip of businesses remaining there at the location of 1010 Main. AND then (OK, we’re giving away the mystery a little) Daniels separated top floor from bottom floor and toted them over to their two-part 4th Street destination!

🏠 Lavinia Henderson, 407 4th Street

The mail MUST go on! Lavinia did her part, as Georgetown’s assistant postmaster for many years. Picture her making sure daily that Georgetownians got their mail promptly and correctly.

Lavinia was born in 1862, and moved here from Brenham after working in the schools there. Lavinia died in 1942, and leaves her legacy in the IOOF cemetery. Look for Lavinia and other amazing women in The Spirit Lives On herstory cemetery tour.

🏠 Mattie Rouser: 601 Church Street

Mattie was a realtor and mom who really went the extra mile to help soldiers in WWI. She led Georgetown’s campaign during WWI to gather nut shells that were used to make charcoal that was used to protect troops wearing gas masks.

She rallied adults and kids to gather a total of over 5,000 pounds shipped to help our soldiers! And she organized the town’s children to collect tin cans and newspapers for the war effort, and enrolled them in “The Knights and Ladies of the Clean Plate.” By not wasting food, she taught them, more food could be shipped to the soldiers and starving people in Europe.

🏠 Emma Dickman Makemson, 800 S. Austin Avenue

Touchdown! The Makemson included in the name of the Makemson-Steele-Weir building is indeed intended for a woman, Emma Dickman Makemson, who married into the Makemson name.

Emma Dieckman (the real spelling of her birth surname) was born in Germany and came with her family to Round Rock, where young Emma worked in her mother's grocery store. Emma was industrious from early on!

The grocery job was a useful and exciting job—at least the day Emma looked out to see the infamous outlaw Sam Bass in the midst of a bank robbery and ensuing gun battle that resulted in his death. And just the week before the shooting, members of Sam Bass' gang had visited this Square to get a boot mended, possibly at Shaffer's Saddlery right over there.

Later, Emma moved to Georgetown with husband S. B. Makemson and ran a grocery somewhere on this block. She closed the grocery, and started the City Hotel. As a prominent business on the square, her hotel hosted distinguished visitors and political gatherings. She ran the hotel until 1924.

We don’t know if Emma is one of the women in this photo taken at the Makemson Hotel side door, but chances she’s the one with the apron, looking like a hotel proprietor. We do know that Emma is also a brave and true friend as well as businesswomen. As the Sun reports, she gave her own blood to save a friend with a bad case of pellegra, a disease that back then was often fatal.

As Emma got older, she moved near her daughter Mabel Davis in Austin.

Austin rose garden named after Emma’s girl Mabel Davis

Mabel was quite a civic leader in Austin, among other things spearheading the Zilker Botanical Garden with the help of what else? women’s clubs and gardening clubs. The rose garden there is named after Mabel, as is the Mabel Davis regional park.

Walk on 8th Street west back to the Shotgun House Black History Museum.