Elsie Brown 1897 – 1960
Elsie Brown was born on September 22, 1897, in Hamilton, Texas, according to her delayed birth certificate, dated April 1, 1942. The family Bible records her name as Elsie Dorthy Brown, but the middle name “Dorthy” is marked through with three black lines. There is no middle name on her delayed birth certificate, but her University of Texas record lists her as “Elsie Walton Brown.” Her delayed birth certificate required statements from two individuals with knowledge of her birth: her mother, Annie Brown of Chaves County, New Mexico, provided one affidavit, and the other was provided by Mrs. Carter Walton, who is identified on Ancestry records as Susan Elsie (Bledsoe) Walton of Hamilton County, Texas. It is unclear how Mrs. Carter Walton is related to the Brown Family; she may have been a family friend present at Elsie Brown’s birth and perhaps Annie had told Elsie she was named after this person. Elsie’s decision to use “Walton” as her middle name on her University of Texas record may have been to distinguish herself from other Elsie Browns. However, in most records and documents, she is simply referred to as “Elsie Brown.”
Not much is known about Elsie’s childhood in Roswell, New Mexico, as the only child of Cephas Hampton and Annie Oleana (Stickney) Brown. It seems that as a young adult, she was well accomplished academically. Below is a list she created of the schools she attended and where she taught or was a school librarian.
Elsie Brown graduated from Roswell High School in 1916, a year after her aunt, Clydine Stickney, graduated top of her class at Midland High School in Midland, Texas. Unlike Clydine’s personal papers, where her high school diploma and commencement program listing the graduates were found, there were no items in Elsie’s papers regarding her high school graduation, but the following article was found.
El Paso Herald (El Paso, TX), Saturday, May 13, 1916, GenealogyBank.com
Elsie did match her aunt’s accomplishments of graduating at the top of her high school class, which other newspaper articles stated consisted of fifty-three students. Unlike Clydine, Elsie didn’t have to support herself and was able to continue her upper-level education after high school. It took Clydine eleven years before she completed her degree at the University of Texas in 1926.
As her list above shows, Elsie first attended a junior college after graduating from high school and then enrolled at the University of Texas in the fall of 1918. She may have lived off campus initially since she is listed in an Austin American Statemen article dated November 17, 1919, as among girls initiated into the women’s dorm. On December 21, 1919 the same newspaper tells us Elsie is the reporter for the newly formed New Mexico Club at the University of Texas. In the 1920 University of Texas yearbook, The Cactus, Elsie is photographed in the Pennybacker Debating Club, and later, in December, the Austin newspaper states she was elected president of this club.
Elsie Brown second from left in the second row, from The University of Texas 1920 yearbook The Cactus.
In March 1921, Elsie participated in the finals for the “Boone prize,” an extempore speaking competition held at the University of Texas Law Building. The competition awarded a $50 cash prize to the top boy and girl speakers. Elsie was one of six girls and six boys who gave speeches on the general subject of the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations. She received an honorable mention, coming in second place to another girl.
During her final year at the University of Texas, Elsie was a reporter for the school newspaper, the Daily Texan, and contributed articles to the Austin American Statesman, some of which were published on May 16, 1922. She was also appointed as the chairman of the Woman’s Athletic Association, which aimed to launch a monthly publication titled “The Sports Girl” to showcase the achievements of the Varsity female athletes. Elsie held the position of editor-in-chief for this publication. In addition to her journalistic pursuits, Elsie was actively involved on campus and graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree, majoring in English with a minor in French.
Elsie Brown’s graduation photo and accomplishments in The University of Texas 1922 yearbook The Cactus.
The Roswell Daily Record, (Roswell, NM), Wednesday, Oct. 8, 1930, Newspapers.com.
According to census and voter registration records, at the same time Elsie was living in Los Angeles, her uncle Overton Brown and cousin Joe F. McElhannon were also living in Los Angeles. Over, as he was more commonly known, was working as an accountant for a public accounting firm, and Joe, (the son of Mary Acie (Brown) and Robert Lee McElhannon) was an investigator for a commercial insurance company, as detailed in the 1940 Census. Over had been in the service during World War I, stationed in France from June 1918 through July 1919. Over had sent Elsie a Christmas card from France, which was found in her personal papers, along with a November 11, 1918 Stars and Stripes Newspaper published by the Army in France. Elsie must have cherished these items to have kept them, considering that her diplomas were not found with her papers. It must have been comforting to family members back in Texas and New Mexico that these three relations were together in the same town way out in California.
After Elsie’s father, Cephas, passed away on May 2, 1939, her mother continued to live alone in Roswell for about ten years before Elsie brought Annie to live with her in Los Angeles. This information is based on Annie Brown’s obituary, which stated that she died in Los Angeles, “where she had lived since 1948.” However, Annie’s death certificate indicated that she had lived in Los Angeles County for eighteen years and was residing at 4023 Garden Avenue. Perhaps this was when Annie began extended visits with her daughter in Los Angeles after Cephas died. The death certificate also stated that Annie died of cancer at Westmoreland Sanitarium. After laying her mother to rest in 1958, Elsie spent the next nine months settling her mother’s estate, which mainly involved separating their personal investments. These papers show Elsie had an impressive portfolio, which she had to document during this ordeal.
Through the spring and summer of 1959, Elsie was still working at Virgil Middle School. Now that her mother was gone, Elsie decided to take some time for herself and asked and received a sabbatical leave from her librarian position to take an extensive trip to explore Asia. On May 29, 1959, Elsie acquired a passport and, toward the end of June, began collecting visas for her trip.
In a letter dated July 20, 1959, to the lawyer, Mr. Philip Barnett, who was handling Annie’s estate, Elsie reveals much about her travel plans.
On September 3, 1959, Elsie wrote a check for $537.09 to Allan Cranston, the Controller for the State of California, to settle the state inheritance taxes due on Annie Brown’s estate. It must have been a relief for Elsie to have this task taken care of before embarking on her travels. Her first stop was Japan. The entry and exit date stamps found in her passport detail the countries she visited.
Regrettably, Elsie fell ill during her trip, which resulted in cutting her travel plans short. There is speculation about whether the issues she mentioned in a letter to her lawyer regarding her eyes and a painful neck and shoulder were symptoms of this illness. Nevertheless, after returning home found the illness was medically untreatable, and she spent her last year getting her affairs in order and passed away on September 4, 1960. An obituary in The Los Angeles Times on Tuesday, September 6, 1960, stated, “She became ill last November while touring the world on sabbatical leave.” Her death certificate listed pneumonia as the cause of death with attributing factors of carcinoma of the lungs with generalized metastases. Similar to her mother, Elsie was brought back to Roswell and laid to rest near her parents in South Park Cemetery.
Elsie turned to her Aunt Clydine to take care of her last requests and settle her estate. Elsie had several local friends in Los Angeles that she called on to help her as well. In an old style “air mail” type envelope Elsie had left specific instructions for Clydine. The first page of its contents was dated December 7, 1959, less than a month after Elsie returned from her trip. It contained five handwritten pages of information Clydine would be needing such as the location of her will and her financial report, which was a duplicate of what she detailed six months earlier for her mother’s estate. Elsie also gave instructions on a few material items and money she wanted Clydine to distribute to her Los Angeles friends: Prunella and Frank Schubert, Elsie’s old roommate Mariet Lamb, Constance Sommer, Mary Inverson and to a neighbor who looked after the Roswell property, Jessie Russell .
The settlement of Elsie’s estate dragged on until May 1963. Saying goodbye to Elsie must have been very difficult for Clydine. They were less than two months apart in age, both graduated top of their high school classes and had very similar careers. Neither ever married. Clydine would continue life for another thirty years without Elsie to confide in.
A couple more posts on the Stickney/Brown family will soon follow.
Forwardly Looking Back 