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, “Joseph Shotwell Brown is a converse proposition. He knows the multiplication table and can also do long division. His knowledge approaches infinity as a limit.”
The early life of Joseph Shotwell Brown, born 1858, was marred by unimaginable violence. On Aug. 12, 1863, a band of Indians approached the Brown household. And attacked. Alarmed at the war whoops, Brown hid in a crevice where he stayed until dark. Mom Harriet was impaled with nine arrows, then clubbed to death with a rifle butt. Sixteen year old Sarah was shot twice; the Indians broke off the shafts leaving the arrow heads embedded in her back. She developed an infection and died within two weeks. Nine month old Essie, a twin, refused to eat after the death of her mom, and soon died. Despite this early trauma, decades later his students could recall Brown being keen on mathematics with a somewhat sarcastic wit and a soft Tennessee drawl as he gave unprepared students his favorite advice: “Go home and soak your head in rainwater.”
Brown probably received much of his childhood education in Moulton, Lavaca County. In 1880, he graduated from Sam Houston Normal, Huntsville, now Sam Houston State University. He was one of 37 students who comprised the first graduating class of the first normal school in Texas.
Next, he went to Valparaiso, Indiana, where, in 1882, he received a B.S. degree from Northern Indiana Normal School, now Valparaiso University. Then he spent several years teaching at various Texas schools: Schulenberg, Pilot Point, Dallas and Fort Worth.
In 1885/1886, Brown and Felicia Ann Miller married in Grapevine. Felicia had attended Martin College for Young Ladies in Pulaski, Tennessee, and taught at North Texas Female College in Sherman, at Sherman Male and Female College, and, for many years, at Helen Marr Kirby’s Young Lady’s Seminary in Austin.
In Grapevine, Joe and Felicia purchased the old (1869) Masonic Lodge, a two-story frame structure, and Grapevine College was born. As were their children Ina, Scott, Frank and Mamie, during the twelve years that they owned and operated Grapevine College which, in 1907, became a state high school.
After Grapevine, Brown enrolled in UT and received another B.S. in 1902, and M.A. in 1905 from the University of Texas.
Then, Brown accepted Tom Harris’ offer to be Headmaster of the mathematics department at SWTN, with Jessie Sayers as assistant. He was re-appointed year after year, and he remained a scholar as well as a teacher. He lectured on topics such as “The General Polygon.” In May 1907, his solution to a variant of the trisection problem, an ancient mathematical task, was published to quite some acclaim in the American Mathematical Monthly.
In April 1928, Brown was suddenly taken ill in his classroom at the college. He never fully recovered. His burden increased when Felicia died in January 1929. Brown finally succumbed to influenza in July 1929, six months to the day after Felicia.
In 1963, Brown’s daughter Mamie became the second person to make the list of Distinguished Alumni of Texas State University. The first, in 1959, was LBJ.
More information about his grave can be found at Findagrave # 104415253. Check out the virtual cemetery of the complete first faculty at findagrave.com/virtual- cemetery/1934255.
Joseph Shotwell Brown
