Texas Confederate Woman's Home Historical Marker

Table of Content

• Historic Central Austin property that once housed Confederate widows now home to ghosts
• Texas -- Travis County -- Austin -- Confederate Women's Home
• Herman: Battle brewing over marker at former Confederate Woman’s Home
• Confederate Plaques & Monuments
• Is The Confederate Women’s Home Haunted?
• Texas Confederate Woman's Home
• A Guide to Confederate Monuments in Austin

Eastside Memorial High is located on the campus of the former Johnston High School, at 1012 Arthur Stiles. (Johnston itself closed in 2008.) Also has a statue on UT's campus, and a large monument and sculpture at the Texas State Cemetery. U.S. rep. from Texas who resigned from the House when Texas seceded, and joined Jefferson Davis' cabinet as Postmaster General. Denounced by Texans for encouraging cooperation with the Union after the Civil War . Also the namesake of a state office building , and one of three enshrined with a statue on UT's campus.

The Home consisted of a large administration building, a hospital, living quarters and private cottages; by all accounts it was a pleasant place to live out your final years. The private cottages were used by married couples for the most part. When a married veteran died, their wives were usually sent to the Confederate Woman’s Home in North Austin.

Historic Central Austin property that once housed Confederate widows now home to ghosts

The facilities then served as a residence for nurses of the nearby Austin State Hospital and later as an annex for the State School for the Blind. In 1970, the vacant part of the original building became the headquarters for various local charitable groups assisting elderly citizens. The Home was run on donations until 1891 when the State of Texas assumed control. The campus was located at 1600 West Sixth Street in Austin’s Clarksville neighborhood.

It’s a big task, and probably one that will never be fully completed. With many of the veterans, the only thing we have to document their lives and place them in history are their military service records and oftentimes those records are far from complete. Due to many reasons, including past fires at military archive buildings or misfiling, misspelled names or lax record keeping during the war, we have incomplete files on these men and their spouses.

Texas -- Travis County -- Austin -- Confederate Women's Home

Watson had already designed buildings at both Texas A&M and Baylor University, the courthouses of Travis, Comanche and Milam Counties, and the First Congregational Church of Austin. In 1903, the United Daughters of the Confederacy officially founded the Wives and Widows Home Committee. They were able to purchase the property three years later, quickly hiring architect Arthur O. Watson for the building’s design. Many of the women who spent their final days in the Confederate Women’s Home became test subjects for experimental procedures.

Throughout its existence, more than 2,000 indigent or disabled veterans stayed in the home. Many of those veterans are buried here at the Texas State Cemetery. We have more than 2,200 Confederates and their spouses buried in the southeast corner of the Cemetery. Confederate Field, with its nearly uniform appearance of small rectangular headstones, is probably the most iconic image of the State Cemetery. To learn more about the former occupants of the home, pick up Haunted Austin or head to the Oakwood Cemetery (Austin's first cemetery, originally named City Cemetery) on October 26.

Herman: Battle brewing over marker at former Confederate Woman’s Home

The last Confederate veteran, Walter W. Williams, was 114 years of age at a time of his death December 19, 1959. Of the three documented burials in this plot, two were later moved to family plots elsewhere and one moved to rest beside her husband in Confederate Field in the Texas State Cemetery. You can use the hashtag #HM1WOK in tweets, and any other place where you might refer to this marker, including when searching on this site. But, like the aging widows, there were some children who moved in and never moved out. Although the building has undergone major renovations during its 111-year history, it is believed that some of the original occupants remain.

(approx. 0.4 miles away); Stanley and Emily Finch House (approx. 0.4 miles away); Elvira T. Manor Davis House (approx. 0.4 miles away). Join Ghost City Tours as we explore the haunted streets of Austin. Realizing they needed to recognize more diverse causes, they began to extend the AGE family. Soon they became a launching pad for nonprofits, at times housing as many as twenty-five emerging organizations at once. Only three women were living within the home less than a decade later. With no easy solution, the Confederate Women’s Home relocated the remaining women before closing their doors.

Confederate Plaques & Monuments

Hallways that were once filled with senior women were now filled with children playing in the halls. CONFEDERATE WOMAN’S HOME The home was opened “to all wives and widows of honorably discharged Confederate soldiers who either entered the Confederate service from Texas or came to live in... The UDoTC is literally a propaganda organization for the Confederacy. Does this plaque exist to white wash the history of a propaganda arm of the Confederacy and advance their image? Texas Confederate Women's and Men's Home Historical Markers (3710 Cedar St. and 1600 W. Sixth).

From 1920 until 1935, the building housed as many as 110 women. Rather, the fact that this monument exists to paint a pro-confederate and white supremacist organization in a positive light is the issue. There were still confederate widows living there when my parents were at UT, but not very many.

To commemorate campgrounds built to house and care for the widows, wives, and veterans of the Confederacy. The marker seems to accurately and objectively reflect an historic building’s history. It does not seem to glorify the Confederacy, other than perhaps to note a Confederacy-related group’s effort to help women in need of help. This monument is located within a fenced-in area of the historic Oakwood Cemetery in Austin, Texas.

After two years of planning and construction, the organization opened its doors to Austin’s widows and wives. Anyone who had married a Confederate Soldier was welcome within the Confederate Women’s Home. It was only after he and Maria met up at their truck that he was able to recover his phone. He was shocked to find that his camera had captured something he hadn’t seen himself. Outside of the elevator, the image revealed a mysterious white mist. Our daughter went to day-care there for a while, about 30 years ago.