Mary Macon Kilpatrick Howard: Merchant, Teacher, Landowner, and Administratrix

Abstract

Mary Kilpatrick Howard (1882-1970) was the first child of J.J. Kilpatrick, a cotton farm owner in Candelaria, Texas who was infamous for his outspoken criticism against the U.S. military presence on the border during the Mexican Revolution. As an in-dependent young woman, Mary was the first Kilpatrick to move to Candelaria, a small village on the U.S.-Mexico border in Presidio County, where she taught in a one-room schoolhouse in 1903. She bought the General Store and hired her teenage brother Dawkins to run it. After her husband, Jack Howard, was killed by bandits in 1913, Mary owned and operated a millinery business in Marfa, raised her two daughters as a single mother, leased real estate in Marfa, and continued to teach for many years. Upon the death of Dawkins in 1947, Mary was given the complicated task of settling the large Kilpatrick estate, most of which was given to her daughters Marion Howard Walker and Frances Eleanor Howard. Mary continued to help her daughters manage the family cotton farm and general store in Candelaria until she was satisfied with their leadership abilities. Mary’s brazen Big Bend pioneer spirit, and determination ensured her family’s success in one of Texas’s most remote landscapes for nearly 100 years.