By Tracy Gupton
Two-time Oscar winning screenwriter Horton Foote writes about his childhood in his 1999 autobiography Farewell: A Memoir of a Texas Childhood where he recalls with fondness the annual summer visits he would spend with relatives in East Columbia. Foote, who died in 2009, grew up in Wharton, Texas, but maintained connections with relatives on his mother’s side who once inhabited a beautiful old two-story home on the banks of the Brazos River in the small community near West Columbia originally called Marion (named that by East Columbia’s founder Josiah Bell 200 years ago).
One of those Horton Foote relatives who will be “brought to life” Saturday at the Columbia Historical Museum’s annual Meet Your Ancestors event at Columbia Cemetery is Dr. John Brooks Stafford. James Kowalik will return to take on the role of a Meet Your Ancestors character once again. Kowalik, who portrayed one of the former judges featured two years ago at the annual MYA program, has been researching and preparing his new role as Dr. Stafford for weeks now.
Foote, the winner of Academy Awards for penning the screenplays for “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “Tender Mercies,” was the son of Harriet Gautier Brooks Foote and Albert Horton Foote Sr. His mother “was named for her paternal grandmother, but always called Hallie,” Foote writes in his autobiography, adding that his mother’s parents were Daisy and Tom Brooks.
Dr. John Brooks Stafford was born in Galveston October 5, 1874, the son of Civil War veteran Josiah Seth Stafford and Nannie Brooks Stafford, although the year of his birth is up for discussion. The official death certificate on record lists his birth date as October 5, 1878, while his World War I military draft registration reveals that the good doctor was born in 1876.
He was listed as being five years old when the 1880 U.S. Census of Galveston residents was taken. His younger brother Manos was three and their little sister Nettie was one in 1880. His father is listed as being 40 and his mother 25 in the 1880 Census. Buried near Dr. Stafford at historic Columbia Cemetery in West Columbia are his mother, grandmother and grandfather from the Brooks family, a family Horton Foote writes about in his autobiography.
The February 2, 1939 edition of The Freport Facts newspaper says that Nannie Brooks Stafford, “member of a pioneer Brazoria County family, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Annie Laurie Gayle, in Angleton Tuesday night. Funeral services were held at the home of her daughter with interment in the West Columbia cemetery. Her family was identified with the early setttlement of Brazoria County, residing at West Columbia. She had been a resident of Angleton for about ten years.”
Dr. Stafford’s mother was born in East Columbia April 2, 1854, the daughter of John W. Brooks and Harriet Elizabeth Gautier Brooks, who are both also interred at Columbia Cemetery. Nannie Brooks Stafford died in Angleton at the age of 84 on January 31, 1939. Dr. Stafford’s father was born in Rapides Parish, Louisiana, December 12, 1839, and, along with his brothers Isaac and William Maner Stafford, joined the Confederate Army in 1861 in Houston. Josiah Seth Stafford was promoted to captain in 1865 and, like his two brothers who were also officers in the Confederate Army, survived through the culmination of the Civil War. Dr. Stafford’s father died in 1888 at the age of 48 and is buried in Galveston.
Horton Foote wrote in his autobiography about his East Columbia connections: “My mother’s father, Tom Brooks, was born in East Columbia in Brazoria County, Texas, in 1865 and came to Wharton in 1886. He was one of ten children born to John W. and Harriet Gautier Brooks. John Brooks had come to Texas from Virginia with his Smith uncles and cousins, and settled on the bank of the Brazos River. Harriet Gautier’s family had come from Florida, her family settling in the town of Brazoria, and they were close to Stephen Austin and his family. John Brooks died when my grandfather was five years old.”
Dr. Stafford’s life began in the seaport city of Galveston where the three Stafford brothers all lived when the Civil War started in the early 1860s. Regardless of what year was the accurate birth year of Brooks Stafford, he was the first-born child in his family. His younger sister, Harriett Eva Stafford, only lived 15 years, passing away eight years after her father in 1896. His younger brother, William Maner Stafford, preceded his mother in death. The “Manos” listed in the 1880 U.S. Census as being three years old died at 56 in 1933.
Dr. Stafford attended the University of Texas in Austin where a 1917 listing of former UT students reveals that Brooks Stafford was a physician and surgeon who was a member of the Texas State Medical Society. He had been a member of Sigma Chi fraternity while attending the University of Texas.
The 1900 U.S. Census had Dr. Stafford living on Fort Paint Street in Galveston as a single physician boarding with J.C. Mayfield. He married Edna Mabe July 3, 1919, in Galveston. The 1920 Census showed Dr. Stafford as being 40 years old, residing in Galveston with his wife Edna and their three-year-old son Lawrence Stafford. By the time the 1930 Census came out, Dr. Stafford was divorced at age 50, living in Angleton with his sister, Annie Laura Gayle, and his occupation listed as a general practice medical physician.
The 1940 U.S. Census had Dr. Stafford still living in Angleton with his sisters Annie Laura Gayle and Jeannetta Bennett as a divorced physician one year following their mother’s death. His niece, 26-year-old Jeannetta Gayle, also lived with her mother, uncle and aunt in Angleton.
Dr. Stafford’s maternal grandparents are both buried near his and his mother’s graves. John W. Brooks was born in Texas in 1815 before Stephen F. Austin brought his first group of Anglo settlers into Mexico in the early 1820s. He died at 55 October 4, 1870, according to records on file at Columbia Cemetery. Harriet Elizabeth Gautier Brooks, the daughter of Peter William Gautier Jr. and Lucy Holmes Gautier, was born October 20, 1825, and died at 82 September 27, 1908. Her father, the son of Peter Wiliam Gautier Sr. of England, was born in North Carolina in 1803 and died in Velasco in Brazoria County, Texas, in 1850. He is buried at Gulf Prairie Cemetery in Jones Creek, Texas. Lucy Holmes Gautier was also a native North Carolinian, who is also buried at Gulf Prairie Cemetery. She died in Brazoria at 47 November 25, 1853. Peter William Gautier Sr. was born in Gloucestershire, England, in 1771 and died in Brazoria in 1842 at the age of 71. He is also buried at the historic Jones Creek cemetery in Brazoria County, Texas.
Dr. Brooks Stafford also died in Velasco where he had been transferred for medical treatment on June 9, 1945, when he attempted suicide. The gunshot wound to his head proved fatal when Dr. Stafford died two days later. The long-time Angleton resident was buried in West Columbia near the graves of his mother and grandparents.
Meet Your Ancestors will begin at 5 p.m. Saturday, November 2nd, at the front gates of Columbia Cemetery across East Jackson Street from the Columbia Methodist Church. The program is free and everyone is encouraged to attend.
