San Antonio Express newspaper, April 22, 1909, Thursday.
Officers of the General Society Daughters of the Republic of Texas were elected this morning at the Business Men's club. The session was consumed with the reports of the various chapters and of the San Jacinto battlefield commission. What threatened to be a very spirited incident occurred when a motion was made to ask W. R. Day, superintendent of public buildings and grounds to go in search of the key of the Alamo.
The officers elected were as follows: President, Mrs. Rebecca J. Fisher; first vice-president, Mrs. Cornelia Branch Stone; second vice-president, Mrs. J. J. McKeever, of Houston; third vice- president, Mrs. Annie Tobin Burrough, of San Antonio, fourth vice- president, Mrs. C. H. Milby, of Harrisburg; fifth vice-president, Mrs. Stephen H. Darden, of Dallas; secretary, Miss Emma Kyle Burleson, of Austin; treasurer, Miss Belle Fenn, of Houston,; historian, Mrs. Nettle Houston Bringhurst. Members of the executive board, Mrs. Sue F. Roach, of San Antonio; Mrs. Cornelia Branch Stone, of Galveston, and Mrs. C. H. Milby, of Harrisburg.
A voluntary contribution was started by J. W. Darlington, of Taylor, for a monument fund which was voted by the organization to be expended in erecting a suitable monument to mark the place where General Sam Houston lay sick when General Santa Anna was brought a prisoner before him. W. F. Zuber, another veteran gave $5 and there were numberous other contributions from individual members and from chapters.
Mrs. Mary H. Dickens read the report of the William B. Travis chapter, which during the year has had painted a portrait of the president, Mrs. Rebecca J. Fisher. They were given a vote of thanks for the patriotic work.
Mrs. Nettie Houston Bringhurst, historian of the society, read a witty paper concerning the various inaccuracies which have crept into Texas history.
Contrary to the usual hunt which is for the key hole and not the key, a resolution was offered by Mrs. Robert Connerly, of Austin, that W. R. Day, superintendent of public buildings, be asked to go in quest of the key of the Alamo which Mrs. J. J. Stevens reported had been turned over by her mother-in-law to Miss DeZavala to be placed in the Alamo. The matter was discussed with great warmth, but at length. Mrs. Connerly withdrew her resolution.
Upon motion of Miss Emma Kyle Burleson, Senator Weinert, of Seguin will be asked by the secretary of the Daughters of the Republic in the name of the organization, to retract his statement made on the floor of the senate that there was no legal chapter of the Daughters of the Republic known as the Alamo Mission Chapter.
A resolution was passed whereby any member of the society who has been delinquent in dues for two years shall be dropped from membership and shall only be restored by the payment of such dues and a vote of the majority of the members assembled in the convention.
An invitation was extended by the Alamo Mission chapter to hold the
next convention in San Antonio. This was referred to the president and
the executive board.
