ESTILL, AMANDA JULIA (1882-1965). Amanda Julia Estill, educator, writer, and folklorist, daughter of James Thomas and Ellen Elizabeth (Wiley) Estill, was born in Fredericksburg, Texas, on October 27, 1882. She attended the University of Texas and received a B.S. in 1904 and an M.S. in 1905. She taught in the Fredericksburg schools in 1899-1900 and from 1905 to 1941; for eleven years she was high school principal. She was a teacher and elementary school principal in La Feria from 1947 until 1951 before returning to Fredericksburg.
She was a member of the Texas Folklore Societyqv and served as its president in 1923-24; she contributed numerous articles to the society's Publications. She was one of the first to write about the Sunday houses, Easter fires, Indian rock art,qqv and other landmarks in Gillespie County. She also contributed to the American German Review, wrote many historical pieces for the Fredericksburg Chamber of Commerce, and for twenty years was correspondent for the San Antonio Express. She served on the first board of directors of the Gillespie County Historical Society, and from 1943 to 1947 she was librarian at the Gillespie County Pioneer Museum and Library. She died on July 1, 1965, in Fredericksburg.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Florence Elberta Barns, Texas Writers of Today (Dallas: Tardy, 1935). Fredericksburg Standard, July 7, 1965. Gillespie County Historical Society, Pioneers in God's Hills (2 vols., Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1960, 1974). Ella Amanda Gold, The History of Education in Gillespie County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1945).
Esther L. Mueller
