My Grandmother Was a Brodie

My family are long-time Austinites. My great-grandmother's name was Laura Brodie. She married a wonderful Texan named Frank Beard. He was a Texas Ranger. My grandmother was born Laura Isabell Brodie-Beard. She was born in a beautiful rock house on the corner of Highway 290 and Brodie Lane in Austin, Texas. The home is famous for the donkeys that live there now.

My great-grandmother passed away when my grandmother Isabell was five years old, and my great-grandfather Frank couldn't raise her on his own, so she lived with aunts and uncles. Uncle Emmitt Brodie was one of the first county commissioners in Austin and he and his wife Gertrude Brodie lived on the corner of what is now Highway 360 and South Lamar. The Brodie Oaks shopping center was where I grew up. We had a home on the same property and I vividly remember dove hunting with my father, running from the bulls that were chasing us, and my sweet Aunt Gert who always had a story to tell.

That part of Austin was nothing but land. Land that my family owned and was forced by the State of Texas to sell for a highway. I miss those days very much, especially watching Austin grow as it has done. That was forty years ago...a lot has changed since then.

Cheryl Lozano-Whitten
Elgin, Texas
Published: December 14, 2005

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	AUSTIN, TEXAS
	HIGHWAY DEVELOPMENT
	URBANIZATION
	TEXAS RANGERS