Walter Gresham (1841-1920)

    Walter Gresham, lawyer, legislator, and railroad executive, the son of Edward and Isabella (Mann) Gresham, was born near Newton, Virginia, on July 22, 1841. He was educated at the Stevensville and Edge Hill academies in Virginia. He enlisted in W. H. F. Lee's rangers, the Twenty-fourth Virginia Cavalry, at the beginning of the Civil War and afterwards served in other regiments. He took part in most of the battles fought in northern Virginia and surrendered at Appomattox. In 1863 he graduated from the law department of the University of Virginia. On December 31, 1866, he moved to Galveston, Texas, where he began the practice of law.

    In 1872 Gresham was elected district attorney for Galveston and Brazoria counties. He was a stockholder, director, and attorney for the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway and served for a time as its second vice president. In the infancy of the railroad he was much in the field, selecting routes, securing rights-of-way, locating towns, and superintending other business. In 1887 and 1888 he represented Galveston at conventions in Fort Worth, Texas; Denver, Colorado; and Topeka, Kansas. At Topeka he was made chairman of a special committee to petition the United States government to finance a deepwater harbor at the best point on the Texas coast. He was instrumental in having the Fifty-first Congress amend the River and Harbor Bill to provide for contracts for work to give Galveston one of the finest harbors on the American coast.

    Gresham's home, known now as the Bishop's Palace for the Catholic bishops who later resided there, was designed by architect Nicholas J. Clayton. Gresham represented the Sixty-fourth District in the Texas House of Representatives from 1887 to 1891. He was elected on the Democratic ticket from the Tenth District to the Fifty-third Congress in 1892 but was unsuccessful in the race for reelection. In 1901 he served as president of the Trans-Mississippi Commercial Congress. On October 28, 1868, Gresham married Josephine C. Mann, with whom he had nine children. He died in Washington, D.C., on November 6, 1920, and was buried in Lakeview Cemetery, Galveston. Source

Section E
Lakeview Cemetery
Galveston

COORDINATES

29° 16.353, -094° 49.502

Henry Lee Lucas (1936-2001)

    Henry Lee Lucas was born on August 23, 1936, in Blacksburg, Virginia. One of nine siblings, Lucas was raised by abusive alcoholic parents. His mother ruled the household with an iron fist and prostituted herself in their backwoods community to make money. As a teenager, Lucas's sexual deviance became increasingly pronounced, and he reported having sex with his half-brother and with dead animals. Lucas spent his teen years in and out of jail. In March 1960, he was sentenced to 20 to 40 years in prison for murdering his mother. He was sent to Jackson State Penitentiary in southern Michigan, but after two attempted suicides, he was admitted to Ionia State Mental Hospital. He was paroled in 1970 after serving 10 years. A year after his release, Lucas was sentenced to five years for attempting to kidnap a fifteen-year-old girl at gunpoint. After his second release in 1975, he traveled to Michigan where he teamed-up with a petty thief named Ottis Toole. They shared an unhealthy interest in rape and death. 

    In October 1979, Lucas traveled the country accompanied by Ottis and his young niece, Becky Powell, who was mildly retarded. According to Lucas, he and Powell became romantically involved, filling one another's lifelong need for love and respect. Despite this romance, however, he eventually killed Powell, along with Katharine Rich, an elderly woman with whom they had been staying. In June 1983, Lucas was arrested for possession of a deadly weapon. In his cell, he began confessing to hundreds of murders. Egged on by investigators from around the country, Lucas's confessions became increasingly farfetched. It is unclear how many murders he actually did commit, but some believe it was just three: his mother, Becky Powell and Katharine Rich. He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment by Texas Governor George W. Bush. He died in a Huntsville, Texas prison from natural causes on March 12, 2001. Source


Captain Joe Byrd Cemetery
Huntsville

COORDINATES

30° 42.732, -095° 32.158

William James Bordelon (1920-1995)

    Medal of Honor recipient William J. Bordelon was born on December 25, 1920, in San Antonio, Texas. He was the son of William Jennings and Carmen Josephine (Pereira) Bordelon. As a youngster, Bordelon attended the local schools and served as an altar boy at Mission San José. In 1938 he graduated from Central Catholic High School where he had served as the top-ranking cadet in the Reserve Officers Training Corps. On December 10, 1941, three days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Bordelon enlisted in the United States Marine Corps. Bordelon excelled in his military training in 1942 and 1943. During recruit training in San Diego, he recorded a score of 214 in rifle fire to qualify as a Marine "marksman." Following recruit training, Bordelon was assigned to the Second Engineer Battalion, Second Marine Division, in San Diego where he underwent additional training, achieved rapid promotions, and attained the rank of sergeant on July 10.

    On October 20 his unit departed San Diego for New Zealand for six weeks of additional training in late 1942. Sergeant Bordelon witnessed his first combat on Guadalcanal during the period from January 4 to February 19, 1943. After the brutal Guadalcanal campaign, Bordelon returned to New Zealand for additional training and was promoted to staff sergeant (SSgt) on May 13, 1943. With members of his Assault Engineer Platoon, First Battalion, Eighteenth Marines (attached to the Second Marines during the invasion of Tarawa), Staff Sergeant Bordelon landed on the beaches of the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands on November 20, 1943. Taking intense enemy fire, Bordelon was among only four Marines from his LVT to survive the landing. Along with a comrade, Bordelon moved out of the vehicle and immediately found himself caught in barbed wire while under heavy fire. After extracting themselves, the four men found some safety behind a four-foot-high seawall. Having lost most of their equipment, Staff Sergeant Bordelon took charge of the desperate situation. He secured two packages of dynamite, made demolition charges, and then eliminated two pillboxes. Bordelon threw a charge at a third pillbox but was hit by machine gun fire in the process. Wounded by enemy fire and from the backlash of the charge, he secured a rifle and provided cover for a number of men attempting to climb the seawall. Hearing two wounded Marines in the water calling for help, Bordelon proceeded to rescue them in spite of his own serious injuries. Though injured from multiple wounds, the Texan assaulted a fourth Japanese position that he managed to destroy with a rifle grenade just before he was killed by a burst of hostile fire. Against enormous odds, the wounded Marine had destroyed four Japanese machine gun positions and rescued two Marines. Bordelon’s actions at Tarawa were described as “valorous and gallant.” His heroic effort came “during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead [and] was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island.”

    In a ceremony at Alamo Stadium in San Antonio, William and Carmen Bordelon were presented their son’s posthumous Medal of Honor by Marine Maj. Donald Taft on June 17, 1944. June 17 was proclaimed “Bordelon Memorial Day” in San Antonio, and Governor Coke Stevenson designated the week “Statewide Bordelon Week” in Texas. A destroyer, the USS Bordelon (commissioned in 1945), Veterans of Foreign Wars William J. Bordelon Post 4700, and American Legion Post 300 were named in honor of the Texan. The San Antonio native was the first Texas Marine to earn the Medal of Honor during World War II and the first man and only enlisted man to earn the Medal of Honor at Tarawa. He was also the first native-born San Antonian ever to receive the Medal of Honor. His other posthumous awards included the Purple Heart, Presidential Unit Citation, Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal, and World War II Victory Medal. In 1994 the Navy-Marine Corps Reserve building in San Antonio was named in Bordelon’s honor.

    Bordelon was first buried at Tarawa in the Lone Palm Cemetery. After the war, his body was reburied in Hawaii in the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific at Honolulu in 1947. In early 1995 Bordelon’s surviving siblings Robert Bordelon and Carmen Bordelon Imhoff, assisted by San Antonio Express-News staff writer J. Michael Parker and others, sought and were granted permission to return Bordelon to San Antonio. On November 19, 1995, the Texas hero’s flag-draped casket flanked by two Marine honor guards lay in state for public viewing at the Alamo - the shrine of Texas liberty. He was only the fifth person to lie in state in the Alamo up to that time. An estimated 2,500 people or more came to view the casket. On November 20, Rev. George Montague of St. Mary’s University concelebrated with Auxiliary Bishop John Yanta and nine other priests a funeral Mass in Mission San José. SSgt. William James Bordelon was reburied with full military honors at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery exactly fifty-two years after his death at Tarawa. In 2007, Central Catholic High School in San Antonio dedicated a new memorial in the lobby, and in 2009 a section of Interstate 37 that ran between IH 35 and IH 10 in San Antonio was named to commemorate Bordelon. Source

CITATION

For valorous and gallant conduct above and beyond the call of duty as a member of an assault engineer platoon of the 1st Battalion, 18th Marines, tactically attached to the 2d Marine Division, in action against the Japanese-held atoll of Tarawa in the Gilbert Islands on 20 November 1943. Landing in the assault waves under withering enemy fire which killed all but 4 of the men in his tractor, S/Sgt. Bordelon hurriedly made demolition charges and personally put 2 pillboxes out of action. Hit by enemy machine gun fire just as a charge exploded in his hand while assaulting a third position, he courageously remained in action and, although out of demolition, provided himself with a rifle and furnished fire coverage for a group of men scaling the seawall. Disregarding his own serious condition, he unhesitatingly went to the aid of one of his demolition men, wounded and calling for help in the water, rescuing this man and another who had been hit by enemy fire while attempting to make the rescue. Still refusing first aid for himself, he again made up demolition charges and single-handedly assaulted a fourth Japanese machine gun position but was instantly killed when caught in a final burst of fire from the enemy. S/Sgt. Bordelon's great personal valor during a critical phase of securing the limited beachhead was a contributing factor in the ultimate occupation of the island, and his heroic determination throughout 3 days of violent battle reflects the highest credit upon the U.S. Naval Service. He gallantly gave his life for his country.

Section AI
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 28.588, -098° 25.976

Alexander Wray Ewing (1809-1853)

    Alexander Wray Ewing, early Texas doctor, was born in 1809 in Londonderry, Ireland. He studied medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, and at the College of Surgeons in Edinburgh. He moved to Pennsylvania and in 1834 to Texas. He lived briefly at San Felipe and acquired a quarter league now in Fayette County in 1835. He was appointed surgeon general of the Texas army on April 6, 1836, and treated Sam Houston's wound at the battle of San Jacinto. Ewing incurred President David G. Burnet's wrath by accompanying the wounded Houston to Galveston. He was dismissed by Burnet but was soon reinstated. The Texas Congress blocked President Houston's move to keep Ewing as chief medical officer in 1837, and he was succeeded in this post by Ashbel Smith. Ewing moved to Houston, where he became first president of that city's Medical and Surgical Society in 1838. He also was a member of a "committee of arrangements" for the proposed Houston and Brazos Rail Road Company. By 1842 Ewing was again serving in the army. He was married three times within a period of ten years - to Mrs. Susan Henrietta Smiley Reid, who died in 1842, to Elizabeth Tompkins, and to Elizabeth Graham, who died in 1904. Ewing had at least two children, and by 1850 owned real property valued at $6,000. He was a Mason. He died on November 1, 1853. Source 

Note: Unmarked. Founders Memorial Park, originally founded in 1836 as Houston's first city cemetery, was rapidly filled due to a yellow fever epidemic and closed to further burials around 1840. The cemetery became neglected over a period of time, often vandalized and was heavily damaged by the 1900 hurricane. In 1936, despite a massive clean up effort, a century of neglect had taken its toll. The vast majority of grave markers were either destroyed or missing and poor record keeping prevented locating individual graves. Several cenotaphs were placed in random areas throughout the park in honor of the more high-profile citizens buried there, but a great number of graves go unmarked to this day. Alexander Ewing's is one of them.


Founders Memorial Park
Houston

COORDINATES

N/A