The purpose in this research is to help gain a clearer picture of who this district attorney-- struggling to clean up the judicial district that encompassed not only Alice, Texas, but the territory controlled by the Parr machine in the 1950s and 1960s--really was. Since his mother's family was shown in a previous post, we will complete the picture by revealing the members of his father's family.
It will be recalled that D.A. Sam Houston Burris' father, Jean Holland Burris, had been engaged in farming along with his younger brother Carlos near Pleasanton in Atascosa County in 1920. Both were sons of another Sam Houston Burris, who lived in the Stockdale community in Wilson County, Texas, the area where he died in 1936--Sutherland Springs.
Born in Gonzales County to Charles M. and Charlotte Gandy Burris (both immigrants to Texas from Mississippi before the civil war), they named Sam after the noted hero of the battle of San Jacinto. His wife, Nina A. Barrington Burris, died before 1920, leaving him to rear their children alone. Sam farmed in Wilson County and later classified himself as a merchant. By the year his wife died, he had moved his family to San Antonio to manage a general store in that city, living in the same block with his eldest son, Howard. Sam and Nina Burris had four sons and four daughters, who will be listed below, with the facts that have been found about them from genealogical and newspaper sources.
Children of Sam Houston Burris (1867-1936) - Grandfather of the District Attorney of Alice (Jim Wells County), Texas
It will be recalled that D.A. Sam Houston Burris' father, Jean Holland Burris, had been engaged in farming along with his younger brother Carlos near Pleasanton in Atascosa County in 1920. Both were sons of another Sam Houston Burris, who lived in the Stockdale community in Wilson County, Texas, the area where he died in 1936--Sutherland Springs.
Born in Gonzales County to Charles M. and Charlotte Gandy Burris (both immigrants to Texas from Mississippi before the civil war), they named Sam after the noted hero of the battle of San Jacinto. His wife, Nina A. Barrington Burris, died before 1920, leaving him to rear their children alone. Sam farmed in Wilson County and later classified himself as a merchant. By the year his wife died, he had moved his family to San Antonio to manage a general store in that city, living in the same block with his eldest son, Howard. Sam and Nina Burris had four sons and four daughters, who will be listed below, with the facts that have been found about them from genealogical and newspaper sources.
- Jean Holland Burris (born 1894)
During World War II, Sam Burris joined the Army Air Force, and was a sergeant by 1944, when he returned from Europe after completing his required missions. He gained some attention when he went to Washington, D.C. in 1948 with other veterans lobbying for educational assistance for veterans of the war. |
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Burris was acquainted with (but not necessarily close to) members of an elite clique in San Antonio, as evidenced by the fact that he was asked to serve as a fellow usher with Frates Slick Seeligson (graduate of Phillips Exeter and Yale) in the wedding of William Harmon Darden, Jr. to Lucita Thornton. The social circle in which the Seeligson brothers--Frates and Arthur, Jr.--ran, in the late 1940s, included Tom Slick, James W. Nixon, Jr., George and Ike Kampmann, and Alfred W. Negley (son-in-law of George R. Brown of Brown and Root). Darden was from Archer County in north Texas (where his father was a bookkeeper for an oil company in 1930), and the younger Darden attended the University of Texas Law School at the same time as Burris, his education having been interrupted by the war. (See photos in UT Cactus, 1948.) He was also an associate of noted liberal Texan Ronnie Dugger in the debate society and in Silver Spurs, a service organization. After their marriage, the young Dardens moved to Corpus Christi, where he practiced law. In one case he lost an appeal against the Murchisons' Delhi-Taylor Oil Co. in 1960. Lucita Thornton Darden was a descendant of one of the oldest families in Texas--the Curbelo family. Her grandmother was the former Lucy Elizabeth Tobin, a daughter of Captain William Gerard Tobin and granddaughter of Josephine Augusta Smith, one of the six daughters of María de Jesús Delgado Curbelo. The grandmother's brother was John Wallace Tobin, Bexar County Sheriff from 1900 through 1923, when he then became the first mayor of the city of San Antonio. Apparently, the Thornton branch of the Tobin family was not deemed significant enough to mention in Hugh Best's Debrett's Texas Peerage: Sammy Burris Grows Up Still referred to by his childhood name of Sammy Burris, he ran for District Attorney in Jim Wells County with the help from the anti-Parr ticket known as the Freedom Party. After winning the Democrat Primary against the Parr machine in 1954 (at that time a virtual guarantee of success in the general election), Sammy faced an "independent" candidate in November in the form of Gerald Weatherly of Rio Grande City, an attorney who "read the law" under his father and had never attended college or law school, who claimed in a large political ad: When Sammy prosecuted George Parr for allegedly carrying a pistol — and surely that case should have been important to Sammy as County Attorney —- George's experienced and able lawyers, Mr. E.J. Lloyd, and Mr. Luther Jones, had in their file, ready to use if necessary, a motion to overturn the verdict on the whole case — and a solid line of Texas Court decisions backed the motion up, so that it would have been a lead-pipe cinch — because in the information that Sammy filed in the case, the paper that is the formal foundation and backbone of the case, there was a stenographer's error that Sammy had carelessly overlooked, so that the formalNot surprisingly, this zinger of a campaign attack did not win Weatherly the election. |
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- Bessie Belle Burris Donaho (born in 1893)
- Norine Burris (born 1901)
The Laurel Heights Methodist church was the scene of the wedding of Mrs. Norine B. Duncker and William A. Van Hoogenhuyze which took place Saturday afternoon with the Rev. Richard L. Spann officiating. The couple was attended byFour years after this marriage, Norine's daughter would be married in Randolph Field Post Chapel, to Lt. Edwin Charles Luczak from Pennsylvania. Burris relatives, "Capt. H. Dan Boone of Shreveport, La., was best man to the bridegroom and Sam Burris, of Alice, was a groomsman." Sam's parents were there, as well as most of his father's siblings, although Howard B. Burris and brother Carlos were not mentioned; perhaps they were present but did not participate or travel from out of town.
Mr. and Mrs. Travis L. Burris. The bride wore a navy blue dressmaker suit with matching accessories and an orchid corsage. Following a honeymoon trip
through the southern states, the couple will make their home at 134 West Mulberry avenue.
- Annie Burris Boone (born 1897)
- Carlos Bee Burris (1899-1960)
- Travis L. Burris (1906-1968) married Pauline Brennan in 1936. His sisters gave the couple a shower of gifts. Not much else is know about him.
- Virginia Burris Stewart (born 1908) married John C. Stewart and lived in San Antonio.
- Howard Barrington Burris (1890-1962)
Their son, Howard Lay Burris, by the time the Korean War broke out, was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, serving under Air Force Secretary Thomas K. Finletter, sponsor of a $32,000,000 aeromedical center at Brooke Hospital in San Antonio. Lt. Col. Burris' sister, Virginia Harker, also lived in San Antonio at 350 Rose Mary Ave. She married George Sherwood Harker, son of Col. and Mrs. Thomas R. Harker of Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, who had served in a high post in Washington, D.C. during WWI in the quartermaster corps of the Infantry and thereafter in several national guard postings.
In September 1946, after returning from duty in Europe with the Ninth Air Force, he married the daughter of governor-elect Beauford Jester in Corsicana.
Son-in-law George Harker served in the 5th Engineer Special Brigade and was part of the seventh wave to land on Omaha Beach just before high tide on D-Day June 1944, according to an article in Altoona (Pa.) Mirror June 24, 1999. In June 1973 the following notice appeared in the business section of the San Antonio Express and News:
George S. Harker has been from export division manager to group vice president of the U.S. Carta Blanca Breweries in Monterrey, Mexico. Associated with Carta Blanca Bohemia for 22 years, Harker will represent eight breweries in addition to subsidiaries as well as expedite business for these companies between the U.S. and Mexico.Three years after Howard Lay Burris married the daughter of Gov. Jester, the governor was found dead while alone on a train. The New York Times carried the following article:
6 comments:
Great article, you must have done a lot of research.
A VERY FINE ARTICLE. NINA BARRINGTON BURRIS WAS THE SISTER OF MY GRANDMOTHER, BUENA MAY BARRINGTON MINTS,WIFE OF ROBERT CHAPMAN MINTS; MY FATHER WAS JAMES KELLY "JIM" MINTS. I HAVE BEEN RESEEARCHING FOR SEVERAL YEARS AND WAS VERY HAPPY TO FIND YOUR INFO.
JOY (MINTS) MCBEE. IF YOU CARE TO RESOND, MY E-MAIL IS JOYMCBEE1@GMAIL.COM
Great website and research. I was looking for more info about Colonel Howard Burris, (Howard Lay Burris) LBJ's military aide and the author of the "Burris Memorandum" outlining details about SIOP62 - the plan for a first strike nuclear attack on the USSR in late '63 which was presented to JFK (and which he immediately rebuked). I was also looking for a photo of him which I've not been able to find via google images anywhere. This is how I came upon your article.
Could you please expand upon your excellent detailed research and include information about him and the Burris Memo/SIOP62? According to this article it was not declassified until June of 1993, and the following article states, it had not previously received any public attention until written about in that article.
Thanks, Linda!
http://prospect.org/article/did-us-military-plan-nuclear-first-strike-1963
Regretfully, I am just now reading the above comments. Thanks so much for your kind words and questions. I should check this mailbox more often. Thank you, Izambeni, for the link you shared. I will definitely check it out.
You might find it eye-opening to look deeper into this linkage:
Alfred Walter Negley
b. 19 Nov 1925, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas
d. 12 Aug 1980, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas
bur. Mission Burial Park South, San Antonio, Bexar County, Texas
& Nancy Nelson Brown
b. 3 Oct 1927, Houston, Harris County, Texas
Alice Pratt Negley
b. 20 Apr 1951, Bexar County, Texas
& John Forster Dorn
b. 10 Jan 1950, Bexar County, Texas
m. 21 Aug 1971, Bexar County, Texas
Nancy Negley Dorn
b. 22 Jun 1976
& George Herbert (Chip) Walker IV
b. 30 Apr 1969, St. Louis, Missouri
m. Jun 2008, New York, New York
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Dr. John Newman is coming out with a new book that goes into more detail about the role of Howard Burris. See Armageddon.
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