"Bettie" was orphaned by the death of her 37 year old mother, Jan. 5, 1865, in Texas five months short of her 14th birthday. Her older brother had left Texas in 1864 and was studying in Paris for a four year term. She and her sister spent the next couple of years in Huntsville, TX with her aunt Amanda and uncle Anthony Martin Branch until they passed away in a yellow fever epidemic in 1867. She and Rosalie then went to live with her aunt Sarah E. Branch Palmer in Lynchburg, Virginia. When Bettie reached maturity she first married Edward Milby in 1872 and they returned to Texas. That marriage was without issue and he died in Sept. 1881 in Philadelphia. She married secondly on Aug. 11, 1886 Joseph Chappell Hutcheson. They traveled east after the Houston wedding so that she could be introduced to his family in VA, pick out furnishings for the new home and to bring back his youngest children who were summering in TN. Bettie moved into his newly completed Victorian home in Sept., the foundation of which had been laid down in 1883. From this home she and her husband conducted social events which helped him in his successful bids first as Chairman of the Democratic Party in 1890 and then as a U.S. Congressman after Congressman Charles Stewart decided to not run for reelection for his sixth term in 1892. As the daughter of pioneers Judge Edward and Martha Winifred Palmer she saw Texas and the South pass through their transformative pre and post war years from the family homes in Texas & Virginia. In June 1908 she, Capt. Hutcheson and their two youngest children traveled on the very new liner the "Lusitania" to Europe for a three month. She was a woman of considerable real property and did much of her own rent collection in Houston in a buggy. Later, while firmly established in the social life of Houston, she became active in & served as president of the local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
"Bettie" was orphaned by the death of her 37 year old mother, Jan. 5, 1865, in Texas five months short of her 14th birthday. Her older brother had left Texas in 1864 and was studying in Paris for a four year term. She and her sister spent the next couple of years in Huntsville, TX with her aunt Amanda and uncle Anthony Martin Branch until they passed away in a yellow fever epidemic in 1867. She and Rosalie then went to live with her aunt Sarah E. Branch Palmer in Lynchburg, Virginia. When Bettie reached maturity she first married Edward Milby in 1872 and they returned to Texas. That marriage was without issue and he died in Sept. 1881 in Philadelphia. She married secondly on Aug. 11, 1886 Joseph Chappell Hutcheson. They traveled east after the Houston wedding so that she could be introduced to his family in VA, pick out furnishings for the new home and to bring back his youngest children who were summering in TN. Bettie moved into his newly completed Victorian home in Sept., the foundation of which had been laid down in 1883. From this home she and her husband conducted social events which helped him in his successful bids first as Chairman of the Democratic Party in 1890 and then as a U.S. Congressman after Congressman Charles Stewart decided to not run for reelection for his sixth term in 1892. As the daughter of pioneers Judge Edward and Martha Winifred Palmer she saw Texas and the South pass through their transformative pre and post war years from the family homes in Texas & Virginia. In June 1908 she, Capt. Hutcheson and their two youngest children traveled on the very new liner the "Lusitania" to Europe for a three month. She was a woman of considerable real property and did much of her own rent collection in Houston in a buggy. Later, while firmly established in the social life of Houston, she became active in & served as president of the local chapter of the Daughters of the Confederacy.
