Miriam "Mollie" (Watson) DuBose

Mollie Watson DuBose was the last of the Watsons by birth in our direct line of descent. She and her siblings maintained close family ties which endured throughout their lives and, indeed, the lives of their children. All Colonel Watson's children remained in Waxahachie, Texas but some of his grandchildren began to leave as they became adults. Except for Mollie's sister Elizabeth (Aunt Lizzie) her brother and sisters lived within walking distance of each other. Indeed, Bennie and Mollie lived next door to each other except in their early married life when the DuBose and Kemble families shared the same house.

When Mollie's husband died in 1913, she lived with her maiden daughter, Helen, in the home she began married life in. Some winters she would spend in San Antonio in the old Menger Hotel and alternatively in some of the colder weather she would move to the Rogers Hotel in Waxahachie. Although Mollie Watson DuBose died about seventy years ago, she is remembered as a warm and tolerant grandmother. It is possible, however, that the black mourning dress she adopted and wore the rest of her life after grandfather DuBose died, and her regal manner impressed some non-family members otherwise. She was a devoted and generous mother and grandmother. Her death came 28 May 1923 in her home in Waxahachie from an inoperable abdominal malignancy. As in the case of all the family members both before and after her death, the funeral services were held in the family home.

(By Lewis L. Shackelford, Jr. - January 1994)