Dibrell, Ella Dancy, -1920

Ella Peyton Dancy was born near LaGrange, Fayette County, Texas, on 1863 November 6, the daughter of John Winfield Scott (1810-1899) and Lucy Nowlin Dancy. Her father, who arrived in Texas in 1836 December, served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas and the Texas State Legislature and, as a soldier, helped repel the Mexican invasion of 1842.

On 1879 February 25, Ella Dancy married Thomas A. Hall (born circa 1854). The couple had two daughters, Clara and Olivia, and apparently later divorced. Ella and her children eventually moved to Austin, where she attended the University of Texas. She married lawyer and politician Joseph Burton Dibrell (1855-1934) in 1899 October. The couple had one son, John Winfield Dancy Dibrell (1904-1937), and resided in Seguin and Austin.

Dibrell held leadership positions in a number of local, state, and national organizations. One generation removed from a resident of the Republic of Texas, Dibrell joined the Daughters of the Republic of Texas (DRT) as a “Real Daughter” in 1893 January. She served on the DRT executive committee from 1900-1911 and, as a friend of the sculptor Elisabet Ney (1833-1907), was involved in efforts to have Ney’s statues of Stephen F. Austin and Sam Houston placed in the state capitol in Austin and reproduced in the National Statuary Hall in Washington, D.C.

Ella Dancy Dibrell died on 1920 February 12.

References

Cutrer, Emily Fourmy. The Art of the Woman: The Life and Work of Elisabet Ney . Women in the West, eds. Sandra L. Myres, Elliott West, and Julie Roy Jeffrey. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1988.

Daughters of the Republic of Texas annual proceedings, Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, San Antonio, Texas.

Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Daughters of the Republic of Texas Patriot Ancestor Album . Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Publishing, 1995.

Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Founders and Patriots of the Republic of Texas: The Lineages of the Members of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Volume I . Austin, Texas: Daughters of the Republic of Texas, 1963.

Ella Dancy Dibrell membership application, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, Austin, Texas.

Terrell, A. A. “A Sketch of the Life of Mrs. Joseph B. Dibrell.” In The Part Taken by Women in American History, by Mrs. John A. Logan, 502-506. Wilmington, Delaware: The Perry-Nalle Publishing Co., 1912.

White, W. W. “Joseph Burton Dibrell.” Handbook of Texas Online . http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fdi04 .

From the guide to the Ella Dancy Dibrell Papers Doc 3007., 1905-1909, 1984, (Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library at the Alamo, San Antonio, Texas)