Legends and Stories of the Big Bend Area
Excerpted from: The Old Timers Talk by Kathryn W. Walker (1968)
Sisters United in Old Age
When I first came to Alpine there were two sister who lived here together but who had different surnames. One was Miss Elizabeth Williams and the other Miss Julia Morean. Their parents had been born in Ireland but died young, leaving the daughters as orphans in Canada. Miss Moran had come to West Texas about 1887, and had taught in Marfa and in Alpine for ten years or more. She was joined in 1890 by Miss Williams, and the two lived together until their deaths. The difference in names was explained by the fact that Miss Williams had been adopted by an uncle and aunt in St. Paul, Minesota, and had taken their name. The two sisters, because of living in different homes, were strong adherents of different religions; Miss Moran being an ardent Methodist and Miss Williams a devoted Catholic, but both must have been true Christians because they lived together in love in spite of differences caused by long sepapration and different environments during their formative years. Miss Moran died in 1922 and Miss Williams in 1934.
The widow of a Shafter miner, Mrs. Lucia Rede, has an unusual accomplishment to her credit. She has seen seven children and one grandchild get degrees after graduating from college. Several of the children hold master's degress and have become successful teachers, four of them at one time being teachers in the El Paso System. Mrs. Rede herself became the first teacher of Mexican descent in the Big Bend area. When she was young, she spent the moneyt earned by doing fine needlework to pay for lessons in English, and she studied Spanish grammar and mathematics from a priest stationed at Ojinaga who had come from Castile, Spain. Her first teaching was in Shafter where she had twenty-five pupils, and in 1917 she became the first postmaster of Redford.
In the Chisos Mountains there is a lonely grave bearing a strange inscription, which reads:
L. W. Owen
Hit Man
Killed Self
April 4, 1897
No one living in the area can remember a person of that name, and the meaning of the inscription is far from clear.
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