Early Dallas Culture, Aid Leader Dies

Dallas Morning News
3 April 1949

Mrs. Elizabeth Leonora Reagin Alexander, early day leader in Dallas cultural and welfare activities, died Saturday in San Antonio.

She was eighty-two years old. Mrs. Alexander died five days after a son, Jay Alexander, died here.

Mrs. Alexander was the widow of the late C.H. Alexander, pioneer capitalist who once controlled the Dallas streetcar system. He headed the Dallas Consolidated Electric Street Railway at the time trolley cars were being introduced in 1898.

The Alexander home at Ross and Annex, now occupied by the Dallas Woman’s Forum, was once a residential showplace.

She was active in many Dallas clubs and aided in the organization of early efforts toward care for needy children. Since her husband’s death in 1927, she had retired from public activities and made her home with a son, Charles H. Alexander, Jr., at 3402 Dartmouth.

Mrs. Alexander was born in 1866 in Bethel, Tenn., the daughter of Drayton Reagin and Leona Parks Reagin. They moved to Texas in 1884 and lived at Forney. She was married to Charles H. Alexander in 1887 and they moved to Dallas in 1888.

She was visiting a daughter, Mrs. W.W. McAllister in San Antonio when she contracted a bronchial infection. Mrs. Alexander remarked that it was the first time she had ever been in a hospital when taken to one for treatment.

Funeral services were held Saturday afternoon in San Antonio. Her body will be brought to Dallas Sunday. Bishop Harry T. Moore of the Episcopal Church will officiate at graveside services at 11 a.m. Monday. Burial will be at the Alexander family’s large lot at Main Drive and Linden in Oakland Cemetery.

Two of Mrs. Alexander’s six children survive. They are Charles H. Alexander Jr., of Dallas, and Mrs. W.W. McAllister of San Antonio. A sister, Mrs. Kate Reagin Latimer, lives in Port Arthur. Mrs. Jay Alexander, wife of the son who died last Monday, lives in Dallas. Other survivors are six grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.