Woman's Monday Club Scrapbook

Page 10

Corpus Christi Caller April 9, 1949 p.1

Mrs. G. R. Scott, Clubwoman, Dies

            Mrs. G. R. Scott, an active civic worker in Corpus Christi for 68 years and for almost that long a leader in Texas women’s clubwork died at 3:40 p.m. yesterday at her home at 223 South Broadway where she lived with her only daughter, Mrs. W. E. Pope.

            Her illness, which lasted only two weeks, was almost the first in her long life although for the past 13 years she had been confined to a wheel chair because of a broken thigh.  During the last few days before her death, she had had only fleeting moments of consciousness.

            Funeral services will be held at 5 p.m. Sunday at the home with Dr. George West Diehl, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church officiating.  Burial will be in Glenwood Cemetery in Houston Monday.  Cage-Mills Funeral Home is in charge of arrangements.

            Known to thousands of Texas clubwomen as the “Admiral” a title given her many years ago by the late Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker, Mrs. Scott was a founder of the first woman’s club in Corpus Christi.  The Woman’s Monday Club was organized at her home on St. Valentine’s Day in 1897.

            Since that time, Mrs. Scott has been continuously active in the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs.  An inveterate convention-goer she never missed a state FWC meeting from 1901 until the accident in 1936.  Even after she broke her leg, she attended many meetings in Corpus Christi in her wheel chair, and through correspondence with club women throughout the state she kept up with work of the organization.

Civic Leader

            Besides her club work, Mrs. Scott was a leader in practically every civic movement in early-day Corpus Christi and as late as 1936 was personally active in community work.

            “She had a little gray horse and a buggy,” one of her friends recalled, “and whenever a merchant would see the rig approaching he’d reach for his check book because he knew Mrs. Scott was collecting donations for some worthy cause.”

            As president of the Woman’s Monday Club for the first 12 years of its existence, she led the drive to build a pavilion over the water about where the Peoples Street T-Head now stands.  The pavilion served as an auditorium, concert hall and site for fancy balls.  Later the club provided the money to purchase half of the land for Artesian Park.

            Born Ella Dickenson in Houston, she was the daughter of the late Mr. and Mrs. John T. Dickinson.  She was educated at Mary Baldwin College at Staunton, Va., and in England and Scotland, where her father, a cotton broker, had offices.

            After her father’s death, she returned to England to handle his business there for a time.

            Ella Dickinson and Judge G. R. Scott, who was to become a leading member of the Texas bar, were married on April 20, 1881, at the Episcopal Church in Houston.  They came here to live immediately after the marriage, and their only child, Lucile, was born here.

Entertained for Bryan

            Judge Scott built the house on South Broadway in the middle 1880s and it became a showplace of Corpus Christi.  It was there, in 1909, that a reception was held for William Jennings Bryan and his wife.  Bryan had just been defeated by Taft for the presidency and had come to his farm near Mission to rest.

            “I invited a number of people and a crowd of 30 or 40 showed up,” Mrs. Scott recounted in later years.  The home on South Broadway was surrounded by what was described as the finest display of horses and buggies seen here in years.

Club’s Mother

            By the end of the century the young Mrs. Scott was deep in club work, an interest she never lost.

            The organization of the Woman’s Monday Club was only the beginning of her activities.  Members of the Scott Study Club, named after the “Admiral,” referred to her as the club’s mother.  In turn, the Elysian Club, which began as an off-shoot of the study club, called her its “grandmother.”

            Her namesake club entertained for Mrs. Scott each year on her birthday anniversary, but her age was never revealed.  She once replied to a direct question on the subject: “When I reach a certain year, rather if I do, I’ll tell my age and throw the biggest barbecue for the whole town you ever saw.”

            In 1901 the Woman’s Monday Club joined the Federation of Women’s Clubs, and Mrs. Scott attended her first state convention.  She served for many years as president of the City Federation of Women’s Clubs and in 1909 was elected president of the Fifth District of the FWC.

            Although she never served as state president of the organization she declined nominations on many occasions and it became recognized among clubwomen that the “Admiral” preferred to be a “president maker.”

            “There was never a successful slate of candidates for district or state FWC office that Mrs. Scott didn’t endorse,” her friends maintain.

            Considered a founder of the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs, she was made a life member of the state board of the organization and her portrait, painted by Antonia Garcia, hangs in the headquarters building in Austin.

            In 1913 Judge Scott died, and a few years later Mrs. Scott flung herself into war work during World War I. She headed five Liberty Loan drives in Nueces County, assisted in organizing the local chapter of the Red Cross and served as district chairman of the National Council of Defense and United War Work Campaign.

            Her civic work continued through the years.  In 1926 she headed a group which secured 1,900 signatures on a petition presented by Mayor P. G. Lovenskiold and the city council.  The petition asked that the Corpus Christi bayfront be filled and beautified.

            In 1933, soon after President Roosevelt took office, she headed the woman’s activities section of the President’s Emergency Reemployment Campaign.  In a house-to house canvass, her workers asked housewives’ cooperation in support of the National Recovery Act.  Their slogan was “Every home a blue eagle’s nest.”

            A former director of Corpus Christi National Bank, Mrs. Scott was elected first vice president of the Texas Women Banker’s Association and was later made a life member of the organization.

            Her last big job before the accident in 1936 when she broke her leg was chairmanship of plans for women’s entertainment during the State Bar Association convention here in 1934.  Her husband had been one of the most active hosts at a previous convention in 1913, just before his death, and Mrs. Scott aided at the meeting 20 years later in his memory.

            A long-time friend of Mrs. Clara Driscoll, one of Mrs. Scott’s last trips out of Corpus Christi was to Austin to attend Clara Driscoll Day in 1937.  Despite her broken leg, she insisted on being taken to the meeting and attended sessions in her wheel chair.

            Only survivors, besides Mrs. Pope, are two nieces, Mrs. T. A. Helm of Dallas and Mrs. Philo Howard of Houston.

________________

MRS. G. R. SCOTT

Beloved “Admiral of the Valley”; Organizer and Founder of the Woman’s Monday Club, February 14, 1897; President First Twelve Years; District President; One of Three Living Charter Members; Life Member of the Woman’s Monday Club, and Life Member of the Board of Directors, TFWC; “Founder” Headquarters Building, Austin; A Regular Attendant of All State and National Conventions; Honorary President Woman’s Monday Club, 1937.