In The Shadow of the Alamo: Short Story Collection

IN THE SHADOW

OF THE ALAMO

Short Story Collection

by

Clara Driscoll

1906

Introduction by Linda Pendleton

2010

© Copyright 2010 by Linda Pendleton

Introduction © Copyright 2010 by Linda Pendleton

Originally Published in the United States in 1906. Public Domain.

Cover Design by Linda Pendleton and Judy Bullard.

Smashwords Edition by Pendleton Artists

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INTRODUCTION BY LINDA PENDLETON

In February 1836, a thirteen day battle between General Antonio López de Santa Anna’s Mexican Army and American defenders of the Alamo left many dead, some have estimated more than 1,700, with the Mexican Army troops being the largest number, nearly 1,500, and about 250 defenders including Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and Colonel William Travis.

The Alamo, Mission San Antonio de Valero, is a former Roman Catholic mission and fortress compound in which construction began in 1724, and in the early 1800’s a Spanish military stationed a cavalry unit at the former mission, and it became known as the Alamo, the Spanish word for cottonwood.

In July 1945, the Lone Star flag was at half-mast above the worn adobe walls of the Alamo. Inside the Alamo Chapel, the body of the woman known as the Savior of the Alamo, lie in state.

Clara Driscoll was born April 2, 1881, on the Texas Gulf Coast. Her father, Robert Driscoll was a wealthy cattleman and business man and her grandfather, Daniel O'Driscoll who had emigrated from Ireland, was a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836. It was this battle that finally determined the independence of Texas. The losing Mexican general, Santa Anna, was captured and temporarily discredited; and the winning general, Sam Houston, though wounded, was soon to be elected president of the Republic of Texas. The battle took place in the area around what is now Houston, Texas, which, of course, is named for Sam Houston.

Clara was educated at private academies in Texas and New York, and finishing school in Bornel, France. She was fluent in four languages. When she returned from Europe she went to live in San Antonio, Texas, home of the Alamo.

In 1905 her first novel was published, The Girl of La Gloria. One year later she published In the Shadow of the Alamo, this collection of short stories. Also a playwright, she financed the production of her three-act comedic opera, Mexicana on Broadway in 1906. She cowrote lyrics for the music and the play was produced by the Jacob Shubert and Lee Shubert.

When she had returned to San Antonio she discovered that the property of the San Antonio de Valero Mission, familiarly called the Alamo, might soon be converted into a hotel. Determined not to let that happen, from 1903 to 1905 she worked with the Daughters of the Republic of Texas to acquire and preserve the Alamo by personally paying most of the purchase price. The attractive young philanthropist received national publicity as the Savior of the Alamo. A few years later she was reimbursed.

In 1906 she married Henry (Hal) Hulme Sevier at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City. Hal was financial editor of the New York Sun. After Clara Driscoll Sevier's father died in 1914, the Seviers returned to Austin to be near her family's lucrative financial interests. There in Austin, Sevier established a daily newspaper, the Austin American and Clara became active in the Austin Garden Club and Pan American Round Table and served as president of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. She also directed construction of Laguna Gloria, a fine Italianate mansion located on the Colorado River near the city.

Then in 1929, Clara's brother, Robert Driscoll, Jr. died, and she left Laguna Gloria and moved with her husband to her family's Palo Alto ranch headquarters to manage extensive land and petroleum properties and to serve as president of the Corpus Christi Bank and Trust Company. Under her leadership the financial dominion almost doubled in value.

Her husband was appointed United States ambassador at Santiago, Chile, and they moved there for two years, returning to Texas in 1935. Shortly thereafter the couple legally separated. When the childless, thirty-one-year marriage was dissolved, Clara legally resumed her maiden name and was thereafter officially known as Mrs. Clara Driscoll.

During the next years, Clara donated Laguna Gloria to the Texas Fine Arts Association to be used as a museum. The Mediterranean-style villa built in 1916 has been restored and today the villa consists of twelve acres of some of the most beautiful parkland in central Texas, including a mile of Lake Austin shoreline and is used for weddings and other events. The Four Seasons Garden feature the original statues that Clara Driscoll acquired while traveling in Venice, and The Temple of Love is a historical replication of a classic gazebo built for Clara Driscoll sited at the original entrance to Laguna Gloria. This gazebo is a small four-column area surrounded by the original rock trail of 1916 and acts as a guide around the structure as well as creating a path to and from the Museum.

Clara was active in many civic affairs and organizations, and in 1936 was president of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, and again used her own money to preserve the Alamo area. She was on the Democratic Party's National Committee from Texas for sixteen years, 1922-1938. She supported her friend, Vice President Jack Garner's presidential bid against President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1939-40, and was said to have given his campaign a substantial amount of money. But when Roosevelt won the Democratic nomination and picked Henry Wallace as his vice presidential choice, she supported Roosevelt.

Following her death in July, 1945, Time Magazine wrote: Politicians soon learned to respect her: she could drink, battle, cuss and connive with the best of them, outspend practically all of them. Uvalde's white-browed John Nance Garner became her great & good friend—in & out of smoke-filled rooms, they understood each other. She made quadrennial $25,000 donations to national campaigns, but know-how, not money, worked her up to national committeewoman.

She was a colorful, determined, and energetic woman. She built the Robert Driscoll lavish twenty-story Driscoll Hotel in Corpus Christi to improve the economic life in the city and as a memorial to her late brother, Robert, but it has been written that she did so after becoming irritated at the unfavorable conditions she had found while staying at a nearby hotel and more less telling the owner she would show him.... The Driscoll was built in 1942 and she occupied the large penthouse apartment.

Always a generous philanthropist, she bequeathed the bulk of her family fortune to establish the Driscoll Foundation Children's Hospital in Corpus Christi. The hospital opened in 1953.

I have only been to the Alamo once. In 1986, my husband Don and I were in San Antonio, Texas while on a book tour and had a weekend of free time. The first place we headed was to the Alamo. As a kid, I always loved reading about Davy Crockett, Jim Bowie, and the Alamo. So I was pleased to finally be able to visit the place. But my pleasure almost immediately faded away shortly after entering the complex. I was overwhelmed with a chaotic, frantic feeling, almost as if I were in the middle of a fierce battle. It was a very disturbing feeling and I had to leave there immediately as I could not stay in the building. I was disappointed