NELIA ELIZABETH WILKINS BILLINGSLEY, age 102, died in Houston on September 7, 2006. She was a descendant of five settlers in the Republic of Texas. Her great-grandparents, Daniel Greenleaf Wheeler, Jr., a Mayflower descendant from Worcester, Massachusetts, and Hester Trickey Wheeler of New York City, arrived in Houston in 1939. In the early 1840s, they acquired the block bounded by Main, Walker, Travis and Rusk, and built a home in its center. Nelia's maternal grandmother, Hester Elizabeth Wheeler, was born in Houston in 1846 seven months after Texas became a state. Nelia's great-grandparents, Asa Miles Lewis and Ann Browning Lewis, emigrated from Selma, Alabama, to Columbus, Republic of Texas, in 1838. Asa Lewis practiced law in Columbus, where Nelia's paternal grandmother, Eunice Caroline Lewis, was born in 1841. Asa Lewis was a Republic of Texas congressman from Colorado County, and he dined with President Sam Houston and others at Washington-on-the-Brazos on Christmas Day, 1842. In 1844 the Lewises moved to Washington County. Asa Lewis was a founding member of St. Peter's Episcopal Church in Brenham in 1848. He was a delegate to the diocesan convention in 1861, at which it was decided that the Diocese of Texas would join the Episcopal Church in the Confederate States of America being organized in the capital city of Montgomery, Alabama. Both Nelia's grandfathers served in the Confederate Army. Edwin Cicotte Abbott, born in Michigan in 1841, enlisted in 1862 as a private in Captain Z. Hunt's Company F, Flournoy's 16th Regiment, Texas Infantry. William Gaston Wilkins, born in Alabama in 1836, joined in Brenham in 1861 as a first lieutenant in Captain H.H. McPhail's Company, later Company E, 5th Regiment, Texas Cavalry. Lieutenant Wilkins volunteered to join a group of artillerymen and sharpshooters hidden behind cotton bales on two boats going down Buffalo Bayou from Harrisburg (now part of Houston) to the Battle of Galveston on January 1, 1863, in which the Confederates retook Galveston. He was a member of the boarding party that rammed and captured the federal gunboat USS Harriet Lane in Galveston harbor that day. Nelia was born in Brenham on March 6, 1904, the only child of Lewis Tarver Wilkins and Nelia Abbott Wilkins. At her baptism in January, 1905, she became a fourth generation member of St. Peter's church. Her father drowned in a fishing accident near Brenham in 1906. Nelia graduated as salutatorian of her high school class in Brenham and entered the University of Texas at Austin in 1920. Later she transferred to Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, where she met Philip Reddington Masquelette of Houston. After a whirlwind campus courtship they eloped to Galveston, where they married in 1924. After quitting school the couple moved to Port Arthur, where Philip was employed by The Texas Company and their first son Philip was born in 1926. They lived briefly in Manila, Philippine Islands, in 1929, returning in time for the birth of their second son Frank in Port Arthur in January, 1930. The young family moved to Wichita Falls, and six months later Philip died at age 26 in an automobile accident near Sherman, Texas. Nelia and her two sons then came to Houston to live with Philip's parents, Frank G. and Sarah Olive Masquelette. Nelia was a legal secretary in Houston during the Depression. While working at the Federal Land Bank of Houston she met a young attorney, Bruce Calder Billingsley, whom she married at Trinity Episcopal Church, Houston, in 1940. Bruce practiced law in Houston until he contracted Alzheimer's disease, after which he died in 1966. During his illness and after his death Nelia worked in real estate sales in River Oaks, Southhampton, Tanglewood and Memorial for John Goss Realty. In addition to her two husbands, Nelia was preceded in death by her mother, Nelia Abbott Wilkins, in 1969, and her son, Frank Reddington Masquelette, in 1991. Nelia is survived by her son, Philip Abbott Masquelette, and his wife, the Reverend Elizabeth S. Masquelette; and by Nelia's daughter-in-law, Edith Honholt Masquelette of Batavia, Illinois, who is Frank's widow. Other survivors are Nelia's grandchildren, Laura E. Masquelette and husband G. Michael Fjetland of Missouri City, Philip E. Masquelette and wife Melissa of Hope, Rhode Island, Pamela A. Masquelette, and David S. Masquelette and wife Alice of Houston; and great-grandchildren, Elizabeth Selig, Jon Selig, Chris Selig, Philip Selig, Grace Masquelette, Mary Elizabeth Masquelette and William David Masquelette. Nelia is also survived by her first cousins, Elizabeth Wilkins Eastham and Marion Smith Sawyer of Houston, Hester Smith Lockett of Brenham, and a dear friend, Mildred Bennett of Houston. Nelia was a member of Chi Omega sorority, St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, Houston, and the William Fox Brenham Chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. A Requiem Eucharist will be celebrated at St. Peter's Episcopal Church, Brenham, on Saturday, September 16, 2006, at 2:00 P.M., with the Reverend Elizabeth S. Masquelette and the Reverend Cecilia B. Smith officiating, followed by burial in Prairie Lea Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Nelia's grandchildren and their spouses, along with Reese B. Lockett, Jr., Kate Myer Ledbetter and Catherine B. Oliver. In lieu of flowers the family suggests contributions to St. John the Divine Episcopal Church, 2450 River Oaks Blvd., Houston, Texas 77019, or St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 2310 Airline Dr., Brenham, Texas 77833. Funeral arrangements are entrusted to Memorial Oaks Chapel, 1306 W. Main St., in Brenham. For more information, visit the Website: memorialoakschapel.com.
Published in the Houston Chronicle on 9/12/2006.