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Part of the American
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Ella Peyton Dancy Dibrell 1862 ~1920
By Hon. A. A. Terrell
Ella Peyton Dancy Dibrell
Ella Peyton Dancy was born in the
Reconstruction Days and reared on the banks of the Colorado at
La Grange, Texas, the plantation where her father settled in
1836, and which is still owned by this youngest child of the
Dancy family. She was married in her sixteenth year and has two
daughters born of this marriage. Her mother inherited the
homestead of her father which was built in Austin, in 1847, in
the primitive days of the capital, built by the hands of her
grandfather's servants. While yet a very young woman, she and
her little daughters removed with her mother, Mrs. Dancy, to
Austin where she then entered the University, taking special
courses in literature under Mark Harvey Liddell, the noted
Shakespearian scholar, who is now editing his Shakespeare under
the auspices of Princeton University.
She was married to Joseph B. Dibrell, member of the state senate
in October, 1899, and is now the mother of John Winfield Dancy
Dibrell, born four years after the marriage, now a lad of eight.
She lived at Seguin, Texas, Mr. Dibrell's lifelong home until
his recent appointment to the Supreme Bench of Texas, when she
has again returned to the state capital at Austin, the home of
her grandfather and distinguished father who was a member of
Congress of the Republic of Texas.
Ella Dancy Dibrell comes of old revolutionary stock. Through her
mother's line she descended from Anne Robinson Cockrell, who
received distinction in the early days as a leader in
establishing the church work in the French Lick where Nashville,
Tennessee, is now located. Her father was John Winfield Dancy
who descended from the Turners, Dancys and Colonel Masons, in
Virginia, and was a direct kinsman of General Winfield Scott,
for whom he was named. Being of a romantic nature, soon after
leaving his home in Virginia, going to Alabama, he cast his
fortune in the Golden West, then the New Republic of Texas.
Mrs. Dibrell is one of the charter members of the American
History Club at Austin; member of the Altar Society of St.
Davis' Church at Austin; first president of the Shakespeare Club
of Austin, which consists of the University circle almost
entirely; organizer of the History Club of San Antonio, the
Shakespeare and Civic Improvement Club of Seguin; state
president of the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs; state
president of the Texas Division of the United Daughters of the
Confederacy, during which time the Confederate Woman's Home was
begun and completed. She is now Texas regent of the Confederate
Museum of Richmond, Va., and Texas director of the Arlington
Monument Committee to be erected at Arlington, in Washington, D.
C. At one time chairman of the Civic Committee of the General
Federation of Woman's Clubs, One of the directors of the
Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Mrs. Dibrell secured the
first appropriation for a memorial to Stephen F. Austin, and
General Sam Houston, by placing statues of these heroes in the
national Capitol at Washington and replicas in the state Capitol
of Texas, the works of the noted European artist Elizabeth Ney,
a grandniece of Marshall Ney, who died in the city of Austin,
June 29, 1907. Two years after this artist's death, Mrs. Dibrell
purchased her studio and the grounds, on the condition that the
valuable property of the artist, the works contained therein
would be given to the University of Texas, in accordance with
the artist's desire. A debt of many thousand dollars upon the
studio prevented the gift being made direct, by this artist
friend in whom Mrs. Dibrell has become deeply interested, after
her exile from Europe. This is now the uppermost work of Mrs.
Dibrell, having formed a Fine Arts Association for the state of
Texas, which will have in charge the management of this
collection in connection with the board of regents of the
University of Texas, and the Fine Arts Association is always to
have its home in this building, and this association is given
the right to develop a Fine Arts Museum without charge, as a
tribute to Texas and her friend, Elizabeth Ney. It was solely
through the efforts of Mrs. Dibrell that the works of Elizabeth
Ney were brought into prominence in the United States.
The officers of the Fine Arts Association are: Mr. James H.
McClendon, president, friend and legal counselor of the artist;
vice-presidents, S, E. Mezes, president of the University of
Texas, and ex-Governor Joseph D, Sayers; secretary, Mrs. Mary
Mitchell; treasurer, Miss Julia Pease, daughter of ex-Governor
Pease. Mrs. Dibrell is chairman of the board of directors of
this institution and Judge A. W. Terrell, ex-Minister to Turkey
(prominent from a political, judiciary and educational
standpoint, submitted the legal transfers of the statuary for
Mrs. Dibrell to the regents of the University, while he was a
member of that body.) During a former administration, the
Library Commission bill, which has been conceived and fostered
by Mrs. J. C. Terrell, of Fort Worth, Texas, was passed by the
legislature, while Mrs. Dibrell as president of the Federation
rendered active support and assistance in the passage of the
bill which had failed for eight years, four legislatures. Mrs.
Terrell was justly accredited the honor of being made the first
lady appointed in the Library Commission.
Governor Oscar B. Colquitt of the present administration has
appointed Mrs. Joseph B. Dibrell and Mrs. Sayers, wife of
ex-Governor Sayers, as the lady members of the State Library
Commission. Mrs. Dibrell not only holds this office, but is the
Texas regent of Confederate Museum, chairman of the Fine Arts
Association Board of Directors, director of the Daughters of the
Republic of Texas, Texas regent of Confederate Museum in
Richmond, Va., and state secretary of the General Federation of
Woman's Clubs. She was elected a member of the University of
Texas "Alumni Association" for the splendid services she had
rendered to the woman's work of the state and the university.
She is one of the directors of the United Charities, has an
interest in all humanitarian and philanthropic propositions, as
well as an advocator of civic and moral beauty and cleanliness.
March loth has been established in Texas through her influence,
while chairman of the General Federation of Woman's Clubs Civic
Committee, as clean-up day for this state, and ordered annually
by the state health officer. This generally observed day has
been adopted by many states.
Mrs. Dibrell stands in the front rank of the women of her state
who have achieved the best for Texas, humanity, progress and
mankind. She has made a distinct impression upon her race and
time, attained by few in any country, and among the "immortals"
in her great state, no name will ever reach a higher plane.
Women of
America
Source: The Part Taken by Women in
American History, By Mrs. John A. Logan, Published by The Perry-Nalle
Publishing Company, Wilmington, Delaware, 1912.
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