MARY ELIZABETH (Lizzie) BULLARD WHITTENTON
   
Mary Elizabeth (Bullard) Whittenton, third child of Stephen Alfred and 
Amanda (Spence) Bullard was born on 11 October 1854, in Stewart County 
Georgia. By 1860, they were living in Coweta County, Georgia, close by 
her paternal grandparents. Following her father's death on 6 July 1862, 
her mother Amanda moved with her children to Pike County, Alabama, to 
be near her grandfather, William Hilliard. On 2 September 1869, Lizzie 
married Marion Andrew (Bud) Whittenton in Pike County, Alabama. From 
this union, daughter Mattie Evie(b1871) was born in Pike County while 
Alonzo Gaston (b1875), Minnie Michel (b1877), Marion Warner (b1879), 
James Sylvestor (b1881) Lillie Odessa (b1883), Melvina Pearl (b1886), 
Calvin Robert (b1888), Ruth Jewel (b1890), Ruby (b1896),and Addie 
Zell(b1899) were born in Hamilton County, Texas. 

    While returning to his unit after home-leave, Lizzie=s Confederate 
soldier-father died from unexplained circumstances in a Civil War 
train incident, and her mother never remarried. Extreme and bitter 
suffering resulted from the harsh treatment by the Carpetbaggers, 
Scalawags, and Military Governors during the twelve years of 
Reconstruction in Alabama, so Lizzie and her husband Bud, accompanied 
by her brother James and his wife, Tempe, moved westward for a new 
start in the fertile farm lands of Central Texas. They chose the thick 
tall wild grass and the fertile virgin soil of the Blue Ridge community
in Hamilton County. By mid-1877, Lizzie=s mother, Amanda, and two 
younger siblings, Sarah and Alfred Davis, along with older brother, 
William and his young family, had followed Lizzie and Jim to settle at 
Blue Ridge. Gone, but never forgotten, were those dissonant days in 
Alabama following the War. Here they avowed to make good homes and rear
their families in the peace and tranquility of the rolling Texas 
prairies.
 
Lizzie died on 19 April 1921 and was buried in the Whittenton Cemetery 
near Blue Ridge in Hamilton County. 



Source: Great-Nephew Gerry Gieger, Everman, TX - Winter, 1998