THE PAINTER FAMILY

     Great grandfather, David Painter came from Scotland to the United States
in the year 1840.  He first came to Tennessee, then married and came to 
Coryell County.  They lived for a while at old Fort Gates, near Gatesville, 
TX, then bought a farm later on the Leon River about two miles from Gatesville.  
They had four children.  The oldest was Mary Elizabeth, then Emily, George and 
Robert Davis.  George was named for his uncle, who was a Presbyterian minister 
in Scotland.  Robert Davis was named for Robert E. Lee, as he was born during 
the Civil War.
     David Painter had a good education for his day.  He went to fight in the 
Civil War, but the second year, in 1862, he took a fever, probably malaria, 
but Texas doctors knew little of medicine and less about surgery.  They called 
it brain fever, and operated on his head, removing a round piece of skull to 
let the fever out.  He died and was buried on his farm.  Grandmother couldn't 
finish paying for the farm, so moved to Straw's Mill.
     Mary Elizabeth, the oldest child, was then ten (10).  One day she took a 
bucket to the river for water, her small brother George went along.  They were 
leading a horse to turn into another pasture.  When they got to  the river 
she told George to stay there until she had let the horse loose, and when she 
returned her brother was gone.  She went home thinking he had gone and when 
she returned without him her mother knew what had happened.  His body was 
recovered the next day, drowned in the Leon River.
     The youngest boy, Robert, had a disease that caused him to be lame in 
one leg. He lived to be seventy-five years old and owned two farms located 
between Gatesville and Turnersville.
     Mary Elizabeth married Uriah Deloy Williams in 1870.  They bought a farm 
six miles north of Gatesville and reared four sons and four daughters, Clara, 
Elizabeth, Emma, Robert, Willis and Walter (twins), Bert and Lannie. Through 
the encouragement of Mary Elizabeth, Uriah solicited money from friends and 
neighbors in the community to build the first school building.  It was built 
at the site of the cemetary on Coryell Creek and was called the Coffey School.
     Mary Elizabeth died in 1892.  She was 38 years old and died of blood 
poisoning after childbirth.  Uriah then married Nancy Coskrey, who also 
preceded him in death. She died of cancer.  He passed away in 1929, all are 
buried in the cemetary on Coryell Creek east of the home place.
     The oldest child Clara died in 1894 at the age of nineteen.  She left a 
husband, named Shipman and a daughter, "Little Clara".  She married a man 
named Burl Teague. They had one son, Orvis and then moved to California.

By Linda Sue Reasor     

Copyrighted Linda Sue Reasor & Bobbie Ross Sep. 2000