The Cox-Murray family is best described when relationships are drawn to Maggie Cox, the donor of the collection, and former librarian at the University of Texas at Austin. Her father, Ben Cox, attended White Point High School in Concho County, Texas, and worked in livestock, including sheep and cattle trading. Additionally, he was a member of the Agricultural Conservation Program, 1936-1939. Maggie’s maternal grandparents, Annie and Zack M. Murray, saved letters from their World War II soldier sons and nephews, 1942-1945. Dan Malloy is Maggie Cox’s nephew, her sister’s son.
The most frequent writer was Maggie’s uncle John Carol Murray (brother of Evelyn Murray), nicknamed Pete, who was a waist gunner on a B-29 bomber and survived many bombing missions over Japan with Deacon’s Disciples, led by Major Charles J. Deacon Miller. Dan Malloy is Maggie Cox’s nephew, her sister’s son.After the war, Murray settled in Great Bend, Kansas, and established the Murray-Simpson Oil Well Casing & Tubing Co.
An ancestor of John Carroll Murray, Baptist missionary and minister Zachariah Martin Wells (1829–1896) was born in Maury County, Tennessee. In 1857, he moved to a farm in Burleson County, Texas, with his wife and son. After the death of his first wife and two sons from illness in 1861, he married Nancy Autry of Caldwell, and moved to San Saba County in 1875. Affiliated with the San Saba Baptist Association, Wells was a pastor to numerous Baptist churches in Edwards, Lampasas, Mills, San Saba, and Menard Counties throughout the 1870s and 1880s. In 1889, Wells settled on a tract of land between present-day Moore and Norman, Oklahoma, and established Baptist churches in both towns. A tornado in 1893 destroyed Wells’ farm, but spared his life.
Source: Flores, Vetal. “Wells, Zachariah Martin.” Handbook of Texas Online. Accessed on April 7, 2011. http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fwe68.
From the guide to the Cox-Murray Family Papers 89-157; 96-108; 96-175; 96-195., 1920-1961, (Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin)
