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Elijah Valentine Dale

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Elijah Valentine Dale
February 14, 1807 - Jackson, Georgia
June 17, 1896 - Seguin, Texas

Soldier of San Jacinto

GPS Coordinates
29° 34.393, -097° 56.074


San Geronimo Cemetery
Seguin


Karle Wilson Baker

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Karle Wilson Baker
October 13, 1878 - Little Rock, Arkansas
November 9, 1960 - Nacogdoches, Texas

Poet, Blue Smoke (1919)
Pulitzer Prize nominee (Poetry, 1931)
Author, Star of the Wilderness (1942)

GPS Coordinates
31° 36.206, -094° 38.904


Oak Grove Cemetery
Nacogdoches

Nathaniel Lewis

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Nathaniel C. Lewis
June 11, 1806 - Falmouth, Massachusetts
October 21, 1872 - San Antonio, Texas

Republic of Texas Congressman (1839-1840)

GPS Coordinates
29° 25.282, -098° 27.951


City Cemetery #5
San Antonio

Jose Francisco Ruiz

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Jose Francisco Ruiz
January 29, 1783 - San Antonio, Texas
January 19, 1840 - San Antonio, Texas

Signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence
Republic of Texas Senator (1836-1837)

GPS Coordinates
29° 24.937, -098° 30.740

Section 4
San Fernando Cemetery #1
San Antonio

Madison G. Whitaker

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Madison Guess Whitaker
April 4, 1811 - Lincoln County, Tennessee
January 23, 1893 - Nacogdoches, Texas

Soldier of San Jacinto

GPS Coordinates
31° 40.039, -094° 39.476


Old North Church Cemetery
Nacogdoches

Harris Wittels

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Harris Lee Wittels
April 20, 1984 - Oklahoma City, Oklahoma
February 19, 2015 - Los Angeles, California

Actor, Parks and Recreation

GPS Coordinates
N 29° 40.680, W -095° 31.518

Section 7
El-Emanuel Memorial Park
Houston

José Antonio Navarro

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José Antonio Baldemero Navarro
February 27, 1795 - San Antonio, Texas
January 13, 1871 - San Antonio, Texas

Signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence
Republic of Texas Senator (1836-1839)

GPS Coordinates
29° 24.932, -098° 30.631

Section 16
San Fernando Cemetery #1
San Antonio

Thomas Jefferson Rusk

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Thomas Jefferson Rusk
December 5, 1803 - Pendleton, South Carolina
July 29, 1857 - Nacogdoches County, Texas

Signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence
ad interim Secretary of War (1836)
Soldier of San Jacinto
Republic of Texas Army Commander-in-Chief (1836)
Republic of Texas Secretary of War (1836)
Republic of Texas Congressman (1837-1838)
Republic of Texas Supreme Court Chief Justice (1838-1840)
United States Senator (1846-1857)

Note: Brother of David Rusk.

GPS Coordinates
31° 36.165, -094° 38.979


Oak Grove Cemetery
Nacogdoches


Hamilton P. Bee

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Hamilton Prioleau Bee
July 22, 1822 - Charleston, South Carolina
October 3, 1897 - San Antonio, Texas

Civil War Confederate Brigadier General

Note: Father of Carlos Bee.

GPS Coordinates
29° 25.194, -098° 27.806

Section 4
Confederate Cemetery
San Antonio

Ben Milam

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Benjamin Rush Milam
October 20, 1788 - Frankfort, Kentucky
December 7, 1835 - San Antonio, Texas

Empresario
Texas Revolution officer

GPS Coordinates
29° 25.570, -098° 29.978


Milam Park
San Antonio

Sam Maverick

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Samuel Augustus Maverick
July 23, 1803 - Pendleton District, South Carolina
September 2, 1870 - San Antonio, Texas

Signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence
Republic of Texas Congressman (1842-1844)

GPS Coordinates
29° 25.222, -098° 28.034


City Cemetery #1
San Antonio

Lera Thomas

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Lera Millard Thomas
Aug. 3, 1900 - Nacogdoches, Texas
July 23, 1993 - Nacogdoches, Texas

United States Congresswoman (1966-1967)

GPS Coordinates
31° 36.265, -094° 38.909


Oak Grove Cemetery
Nacogdoches

George Kitchen

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George Krause Kitchen
October 5, 1844 - Lebanon County, Pennsylvania
November 22, 1922 - San Antonio, Texas

Indian War Campaigns Medal of Honor

Citation
Gallantry in action.

GPS Coordinates
29° 25.016, -098° 27.832


St. Mary's Cemetery
San Antonio

Juan Seguin

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Juan Nepomuceno Seguin
October 27, 1806 - San Antonio, Texas
August 27, 1890 - Nuevo Laredo, Mexico

Soldier of San Jacinto
Republic of Texas Senator (1836-1840)

GPS Coordinates
29 33.704, -097 58.251


Juan N. Seguin Memorial Plaza
Seguin

Blind Willie Johnson

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“Blind Willie” Johnson, known as the “Sightless Visionary” and bluesman and virtuoso of the "bottleneck" or slide guitar, was born near Brenham, Texas, on January 22, 1897 (according to his death certificate). He was the son of Willie and Mary (Fields) Johnson. The family moved to Marlin when he was a small child. Reportedly his mother died, and his father remarried. According to one legend, young Johnson was blinded when his stepmother threw lye at his father and some of it got in Willie’s eyes. Johnson had aspirations to be a preacher. His father made for him a cigar box guitar, and he taught himself to play. He performed at Baptist Association meetings and churches around Marlin and nearby Hearne, Texas.

At some point Johnson moved to Dallas. He may have married Willie B. Harris, though no marriage certificate has been found. They had one daughter. Willie B. Harris sang accompaniment with Johnson on some of his recordings for Columbia Records between 1927 and 1930. A second woman, Angeline (listed as Anna in the 1920 census), sister of blues guitarist L.C. "Good Rockin” Robinson, claimed to have married Johnson in 1927. According to Johnson’s daughter, her father lived with the family in Marlin, Texas, until the late 1930s. Eventually he settled in Beaumont.

Blind Willie made his professional debut as a gospel artist. It total, he made thirty recordings for Columbia during four sessions. He was known to his followers as a performer "capable of making religious songs sound like the blues" and of endowing his secular songs with "religious feeling." Johnson's unique voice and his original compositions influenced musicians throughout the South, especially Texas bluesmen. He sang in a "rasping false bass," and played bottleneck guitar with "uncanny left handed strength, accuracy and agility." So forceful was his voice that legend has it he was once arrested for inciting a riot simply by standing in front of the New Orleans Customs House singing If I Had My Way I'd Tear This Building Down, a chant-and-response number that stimulated great audience enthusiasm.

Johnson's celebrity career ended with the Great Depression, after which he continued to perform as a street singer but did no further recording. A 1944 Beaumont city directory listed him as operating the House of Prayer in that city. He died in Beaumont on September 18, 1945, and was buried in Blanchette Cemetery in that city. Anna Johnson was listed as his widow in a 1947 Beaumont directory. Johnson left behind a legacy of musical masterpieces, some of which have been rerecorded on Yazoo Records. His work includes such classics as Nobody's Fault but Mine, God Don't Never Change, Mother's Children Have a Hard Time, Bye and Bye I'm Going to See the King, God Moves on the Water, Jesus Make Up My Dying Bed, and I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole.

His recording Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground was among the musical selections placed on board Voyager 1 in 1977 as a representative sampling of music on Earth. Johnson’s recordings were released by Sony/Legacy in 1993 on a double CD titled The Complete Blind Willie Johnson. A Texas Historical Marker honoring Johnson was dedicated at Pilgrim’s Rest Baptist Church (the site of Johnson’s residence and House of Prayer during the 1940s) on December 15, 2010. Johnson was also recognized as a music legend in the Museum of the Gulf Coast’s Music Hall of Fame in Port Arthur. Texas State Historical Association

Note: This is a cenotaph. Although Willie Johnson is known to be buried in this cemetery, the exact location has been lost over time due to poor record keeping.

GPS Coordinates
30° 03.062,  094° 06.206


Blanchette Cemetery
Beaumont


Gene Elston

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Robert Gene Elston
March 26, 1922 - Fort Dodge, Iowa
September 5, 2015 - Houston, Texas

Sports broadcaster

GPS Coordinates
29° 55.848, -095° 26.759

Section C14
Houston National Cemetery
Houston

Anthony Martin Branch

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Anthony Martin Branch, Confederate congressman, was born in Buckingham County, Virginia, on July 16, 1823, one of ten children of Winnifred (Guerrant) and Samuel Branch III. He graduated from Hampden-Sydney College in 1842 and in 1847 moved to Huntsville, Texas, where he formed a law partnership with Henderson Yoakum and became closely associated with Sam Houston. (When Houston died Branch served as executor of his will and guardian of his children.) On March 18, 1849, Branch married Amanda Smith.

In 1850 he was elected district attorney of the Seventh Judicial District. In 1859 he represented his district in the House of Representatives of the Eighth Texas Legislature, where, according to a contemporary biographer, he "well sustained his reputation for eloquence and ability." In November 1861 he was elected as a Democrat to the state Senate. Although a Unionist, he resigned from the Senate and on March 20, 1862, enlisted in the Confederate Army. A month later he was elected captain of Company A in Col. George Washington Carter's Twenty-first Texas Cavalry. On August 3, 1863, Branch defeated Peter W. Gray in the race to represent the Third District of Texas in the Second Confederate Congress. In Richmond he served as a member of the Elections, Military Affairs, and Territories and Public Lands committees and was vitally interested in the exportation of cotton through Mexican ports. Although a staunch political ally of President Jefferson Davis, Branch was an uncompromising exponent of states' rights. As such he fought to keep Texas troops in Texas and opposed Confederate interference with the Texas economy. After the war he returned to Texas and was elected to the United States House of Representatives in both the Thirty-ninth and Fortieth congresses but was denied his seat by the Radical Republican majority. He returned to Huntsville and helped to incorporate the Central Transit Company in 1866. Branch practiced law until his death during a yellow fever epidemic, on October 3, 1867. He is buried in Oakwood Cemetery near the grave of Sam Houston.

GPS Coordinates
30° 43.604, -095° 32.831


Oakwood Cemetery
Huntsville

Andrew Jackson Houston

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Andrew Jackson Houston, politician, son of Sam and Margaret (Lea) Houston, was born at Independence, Texas, on June 21, 1854. In 1874, after attending various military academies and colleges including Baylor, he mustered the Travis Rifles to protect the new post-Reconstruction Democratic legislature. He was admitted to the bar at Tyler in 1876 and was United States district court clerk from 1879 to 1889. In 1892 he accepted the "Lily-white" Republican nomination for governor, though the party was split and had no chance of winning. In 1898 Houston gathered a troop of Rough Riders for Theodore Roosevelt, and in 1902 he accepted President Roosevelt's appointment as United States marshall in East Texas, a post in which he served until 1910. In 1910 and 1912 Houston again accepted futile nominations for the governorship, this time on the prohibition slate. He then returned to his legal practice in Beaumont. He was awarded several honors in the 1930s, including the post of honorary superintendent of San Jacinto State Park (now San Jacinto Battleground State Park). In 1938 he published Texas Independence, a book about his father's role in the Texas Revolution.

After the death of United States senator Morris Sheppard on April 9, 1941, Governor W. Lee O'Daniel wanted to replace Sheppard as senator himself, but was required to appoint an interim senator to serve until election time. He had to find someone of some prominence who would like to be senator but would not run against him in the special election. O'Daniel selected Houston, who was two months short of his eighty-eighth birthday and disabled by illness. At that time Houston was the oldest person ever to serve in the United States Senate. There was some doubt that he would even enter the Senate chamber, since his daughters did not want him to risk the long trip. He did, however, travel to Washington a few weeks after his appointment. There he died after attending one committee meeting. On June 26, 1941, Houston's body was returned to Texas and buried at the State Cemetery in Austin. He had been married twice-to Carrie G. Purnell, who died in 1884, and to Elizabeth Hart Good, who died in 1907. Three daughters survived him.

GPS Coordinates
30° 43.596, -095° 32.839

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

Greer Garson

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Famed actress Greer Garson was born Eileen Evelyn Greer Garson in London, England, on September 29, 1904. She was the only daughter of George Garson, a London clerk, and Nina Nancy Sophia Greer. Her father died in 1906. She attended East Ham Secondary School in London and the prestigious University of London, where she graduated with a B.A. and with honors in English in 1926. Though family members suggested that she might enter the teaching field, Garson had ambitions to become an actress. She did postgraduate work and studied French theater at Grenoble University in France in 1927.

From 1927 to 1931 she worked at an advertising agency in London where she met another aspiring actor, George Sanders, who later starred in such films as The Gay Falcon and The Saint. She joined the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in late 1931 and made her stage debut in 1932. In just a few short years she landed starring roles in a number of West End productions on the London stage. During one of her productions, she caught the eye of MGM mogul Louis B. Mayer, who was desperate to find a leading lady to revitalize his studio with the impending departures of Norma Shearer and Greta Garbo. Garson signed with MGM in 1937.

Garson’s first Hollywood production, Goodbye, Mr. Chips (1939), won her an Academy Award nomination. This began a remarkable run of five more Oscar nominations during the first half of the 1940s for her leading roles in Blossoms in the Dust (1941), Mrs. Miniver (1942), Madame Curie (1943), Mrs. Parkington (1944), and The Valley of Decision (1945). In 1942 she earned her only Oscar for playing the title role in Mrs. Miniver. Her portrayal of a British homemaker on the home front during World War II was a particular favorite of Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Her remarks upon accepting the Oscar remain the longest recorded acceptance speech (5.5 minutes in length) in the Academy’s history, which afterward prompted organizers to place a cap on them. After her role in Madame Curie, which featured the popular pairing of Garson with actor Walter Pidgeon, she was pictured on the cover of Time magazine. Garson was honored as Hollywood’s most popular star in polls within the United States and throughout the world in 1944.

Her star was waning, however, by the later 1940s. During the 1950s her movie efforts were regarded mostly with disappointment. Garson negotiated the end of her contract with MGM in 1953 after playing a small role in the blockbuster production of Julius Caesar. She made occasional television performances and in 1958 made her Broadway debut in Auntie Mame. Garson’s portrayal of Eleanor Roosevelt in the 1960 movie Sunrise at Campobello earned her a final Oscar nomination.

Garson’s first marriage, to Edward Snelson in 1933, ended in divorce in 1940. In 1943 she married Richard Ney, who had played her son in Mrs. Miniver; the couple divorced in 1947. Garson's third and final marriage, this time to Texas millionaire oil executive and rancher E. E. “Buddy” Fogelson, occurred on July 15, 1949. The union lasted nearly forty years and only ended with Fogelson’s death from Parkinson’s disease in 1987. It was Fogelson who brought Garson to Texas, and she remained connected to Dallas for the rest of her life, although she split her time between Los Angeles and the ranch they shared near Pecos, New Mexico. Garson retired from acting permanently in 1980.

During these years Garson was a generous financier and benefactor to the arts, with Dallas being the recipient of many of her greatest contributions. Garson donated millions of dollars to Southern Methodist University in Dallas and funded the Greer Garson Theatre (part of the Meadows School of the Arts) which opened in 1992. The theater features a 366-seat classical thrust stage, which bears a striking resemblance to the Globe Theater in London. SMU holds many of Garson's papers and personal effects, which were donated to the university’s Jake and Nancy Hamon Library. In recognition for her contributions to the arts in Dallas, Garson received the prestigious TACA/Neiman-Marcus Silver Cup Award. The Meadows School of the Arts awarded her their Medal of Distinction. Garson also established an endowment for theater student awards at the College of Santa Fe (now Santa Fe University of Art and Design) in New Mexico, and the Greer Garson Theatre Center on that campus was dedicated in her honor. Garson received the Women’s International Center (WIC) Living Legacy Award in 1990, and in 1993 she received another honor when Queen Elizabeth II named her Commander of the British Empire.

Fogelson and Garson prized education and the advancement of the arts and sciences, establishing multiple endowments and donatives to Southern Methodist University, Texas Christian University, the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, and the University of Texas Health Science Center. Garson was joined by Fogelson in establishing the E.E. Fogelson and Greer Garson Fogelson Charitable Foundation, which sought to fund a variety of causes, including the creation of the Folgelson Honors Forum at Fogelson’s alma mater, Texas Christian University, through a $1 million dollar donation. In 2010 the Fogelson Honors Forum was in its twelfth year and had engaged some of America’s most sought-after speakers, including Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Governor Jeb Bush, Ben Stein, David McCullough, and Doris Kearns Goodwin. In honor of her husband’s memory, Garson also established the endowed E. E. Fogelson and Greer Garson Fogelson Distinguished Chair in Urology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and the Distinguished Chair in Medical Research at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

Because of her late husband's fight with Parkinson's, Garson had a strong desire to use her name and celebrity status to kindle public awareness of various medical conditions that needed the support of the community in order to make advancements and/or breakthroughs that could only be facilitated through research dollars. By the early 1990s, Garson, a valiant spokeswoman, championed these initiatives at the Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas. The Texas Health Presbyterian Foundation’s most recognized fund-raising event is the annual Greer Garson Gala, a signature event that seeks to raise money and support for programs and services of the hospital. Garson was a zealous healthcare advocate and vociferous supporter of medical research, healthcare, and education.

On April 6, 1996, at Presbyterian Hospital in Dallas, Texas, Greer Garson passed away in the company of her close friend, pianist Van Cliburn. She was buried at the Sparkman Hillcrest Memorial Park in Dallas. Garson's epitaph on her gravestone is a testament to her legacy:

A Dignified Lady of Grace and Beauty
Her Wit, Charm and Talent
Thrilled the World and Touched
All Who Knew Her

GPS Coordinates
32° 52.163, -096° 46.761

Fogelson Triangle
Sparkman-Hillcrest Memorial Park Cemetery
Dallas

Dorothy Ann Willis Richards

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Ann Richards, state treasurer and forty-fifth governor of Texas, daughter of Cecil and Ona Willis, was born in Lacy-Lakeview, Texas, on September 1, 1933. Richards entered Waco High School in 1946 and dropped her first name Dorothy and was known as Ann thereafter. She was a member of the Waco High School debate team and was the state debate champion as a senior. Prior to her senior year in high school, Ann Richards attended Girls State, the annual mock-government assembly of students, where she was elected lieutenant governor. She later acknowledged this experience as fueling her interest in government and politics. Richards graduated from high school in 1950 and attended Baylor University where she received a B.A. in 1954. While at Baylor, Ann Willis married David Richards in 1953. The couple moved to Austin where David Richards attended law school at the University of Texas and Ann taught government at Fulmore Junior High School. Upon David Richards' graduation from law school, they spent a year in Washington D.C. before moving to Dallas, where David practiced law and Ann became active in Democratic politics in Dallas. Their family grew to include four children: Cecile, Dan, Clark, and Ellen. In 1969 the Richards family returned to Austin where David became a labor and civil rights attorney. Ann became involved in local politics and successfully managed the legislative campaigns of both Sarah Weddington (1972) and Wilhelmina Delco (1974). Weddington later presented the oral arguments to the United States Supreme Court in Roe v Wade (1973). Delco was the first African American to represent Austin in the Texas Legislature. Richards also served as Sarah Weddington's administrative assistant in the Texas House of Representatives.

In 1976 David Richards declined a request from the Travis County Democratic leadership to challenge three-term Travis County commissioner Johnny Voudouris in the party's primary election. In David's stead, with her husband's encouragement, Ann Richards won the Democratic nomination for county commissioner and became the first woman elected to that office in Travis County. In 1980 Richards was elected to a second term. In 1982 she entered the statewide race for state treasurer and was not only the first woman to serve in that office, but also was the first woman elected to statewide office in Texas since Miriam Ferguson's successful gubernatorial race in 1932. During this time, Ann Richards and David Richards divorced, and she sought and completed treatment for alcoholism in 1980.

Ann Richards's keynote speech to the 1988 Democratic National Convention in Atlanta brought her national attention when she said of the wealthy, then vice president of the United States, George H.W. Bush: "Poor George, he can't help it. He was born with a silver foot in his mouth." In 1990 Gov. William Clements decided to leave office at the end of his term, and Richards entered the primary campaign for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in a three-way race with Atty. Gen. Jim Mattox and former governor Mark White. In a bruising campaign, Mattox attacked Richards for substance abuse problems beyond her acknowledged alcoholism. Richards won the nomination and defeated the Republican nominee, Clayton Williams, by narrow margin on November 6, 1990.

As governor, Ann Richards led the reform of the Texas prison system, establishing a substance abuse program for inmates, reducing the number of violent offenders released, and increasing prison space to deal with a growing prison population (from less than 60,000 in 1992 to more than 80,000 in 1994). During her term, Governor Richards signed into law the amendment to the Texas Financial Responsibility Law-an act in which motor vehicle registration renewal, as well as initial registration of a new-purchased vehicle, safety inspection sticker, driver's license, and license plates, required that the applicant have a valid auto insurance policy. The Texas Lottery also was instituted during her term of office; Ann Richards purchased the first lottery ticket on May 29, 1992, in the Austin suburb of Oak Hill. Public school finance was a key issue during Richards's term of office, and the "Robin Hood Plan" was launched during the 1992-1993 biennium in the attempt to make school funding more equitable by having wealthier school districts remit property taxes to the state for redistribution to poorer school districts. Governor Richards also vetoed the Concealed Carry Bill that would have permitted licensed citizens to carry firearms for self-defense inside public establishments without the owner's permission. She was asked, in the midst of the controversy, whether the women of Texas might feel safer if they could carry guns in their purses. The governor replied, "Well, I'm not a sexist, but there is not a woman in this state who could find a gun in her handbag, much less a lipstick."

Ann Richards was defeated in 1994 by the Republican George W. Bush and before leaving office, she said, "I did not want my tombstone to read, 'She kept a really clean house.' I think I'd like them to remember me by saying, 'She opened government to everyone.'"

Ann Richards was a political consultant in the years after leaving office. She was the recipient of a number of awards for her years of service, including the Texas NAACP Presidential Award for Outstanding Contributions to Civil Rights, the National Wildlife Federation Conservation Achievement Award, and the Mexican government's Order of the Aztec Eagle. She was also honored by the Texas Women's Hall of Fame. From 1997 to 1998 Richards served as the Fred and Rita Richman Distinguished Visiting Professor of Politics at Brandeis University. In 2003 she coauthored, with Dr. Richard U. Levine, I'm Not Slowing Down: Winning My Battle With Osteoporosis, a book about her experience with that disease. She was diagnosed with esophageal cancer in March 2006 and died at home in Austin on September 13, 2006, surrounded by her family. She was buried in the Texas State Cemetery. In August 2007 the Ann Richards School for Young Women Leaders, an all-girl preparatory school, opened in Austin.

GPS Coordinates
30° 15.934, -097° 43.613

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

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