The American Civil War exacted a terrible price on America as a country as well as for so many individuals. Sophie Bell Wright was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, on June 5, 1866, into a family that had lost everything during the Civil War. Little did they know how their young daughter would change not only their lives, but the lives of so many others.
When Sophie was three, she fell and severely injured her back and hip. She was strapped into a chair for six (some sources say ten) years. Finally, she was able to walk using a brace and a cane. She went to school and received a grammar school education before family finances, which obviously never improved significantly over the years since the war ended, dictated that she help earn money to support the family. When her attempt to find work as a teacher failed, in 1881 she started her own “select school for girls” in her mother’s living room. Sophie was fifteen years old. Her sister, Jenny, also taught in the girls’ school. Later the school became known as the Home Institute and continued in operation until 1928.
But in 1885, a stranded acrobat pleaded with her to teach him. I picture him standing on her doorstep, hat in hand, begging her to help him learn to read and write, hope shining from his serious eyes. Whatever the actual situation, she agreed to teach him at night, and that idea eventually blossomed into New Orleans’ first free night school. The night school operated until 1909 when New Orleans opened a night school of its own. By then, Sophie’s school had taught more than twenty thousand men and boys. That’s a whole lot of people she helped!
But she did more than teach, which is admirable enough. She also advocated for prison reform and started a Home for the Incurables. The city awarded her the Loving Cup for her community service. A school and a street are named in her honor, and a pretty little park on Magazine Street in New Orleans features a sculpture of her.
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The version of how this came about that I think makes the most sense is that she met Hugh McLeod while she was working at the inn, and that McLeod gave her the idea of the star, and asked her to make the flag. She went home and her mother helped her plan materials to make the flag and the motto. Then she made it over the course of the next day or so, and took it to the inn to give it to McLeod.
While her flag no longer exists, the concept of the Texas Lone Star flag remains intact. And several landmarks and exhibits wait for visitors to view and learn of this remarkable young lady’s contribution to American history. A bronze statue marking Joanna Troutman’s grave is easily visible when you enter the State Cemetery in Austin, Texas. The monument also commemorates the men who died at Goliad. A silver spoon and fork from Santa Anna’s private collection, which had been given to Joanna by Sam Houston after Santa Anna’s defeat, now are on display in the Witte Museum in San Antonio, Texas. Joanna’s portrait hangs at the state Capitol in Austin, Texas. A plaque set in white stone stands on the lawn of the Knoxville, Georgia, court house. In part the plaque says, “On this site in 1835, Joanna Troutman gave to a company of Georgia soldiers … a ‘Lone Star’ Flag, which she had made….”
Lucille astounds me by her abilities with both a rope and her equestrian talents. She could ride her horse at a gallop and lean down to snare a handkerchief from the ground – with her teeth! She could out rope men, snagging a calf and tying its feet in record time. She had the reputation of a lady and is credited with helping to integrate women into the rodeo. In 1977, Lucille was inducted into the 
We visited Mulhall and then climbed the hill to Roselawn Cemetery, overlooking the town, where she is buried with her family. She died in December 1940, a few months after her last performance, after being in a car accident near her home on the Mulhall Ranch. She’d been first buried on the ranch in a mausoleum, then all the family caskets were relocated to the cemetery. It wasn’t until the 1980s that the marker was added to the once unmarked grave.
Betty Bolte's Musings 