Dr. Grady Early, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, taught math and computer science at Texas State University for 29 years, serving briefly as interim chair of the newly-formed Computer Science department. After retirement, Early began researching his family history and gained some familiarity with various research tools: ancestry, familysearch, newspapers, San Marcos Record archives, findagrave and many more. This made it easy for him to segue into the histories of non-family members, which is how he began to write a story about Southwest Texas Normal in San Marcos, also known as San Marcos Normal, which is now Texas State University. This series will highlight the first staff at Southwest Texas Normal.
According to the 1907 Pedagogue, Lillie Terrell Shaver was “A proper noun; third person; plural number; objective case; object of Freshman conversation, is also used as [a] preposition to introduce Freshman to Junior.”
Lillie Terrell was born 1855 in San Francisco, California, the daughter of James Epaminondas Terrell and Rebecca Ann Love. By the 1860 census, Ann, Lillie, and a second child Gertrude, born 1859 also in San Francisco, were in San Augustine, Texas, where two more children were born: Whitfield in 1861 and Conrad in 1862. Meanwhile James went to Dallas where, in 1862, he enlisted in the Confederate army. Enlisting as a private, he was soon the company adjutant, keeping track of paperwork. It appears that James died in Natchez, Miss., in 1864, an appearance not supported by much hard evidence. In 1870, Rebecca, a widow, and the four children were in Kaufman County.
