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Demaris Elizabeth KNOX

Female 1918 - 2012  (94 years)


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  • Name Demaris Elizabeth KNOX 
    Birth 13 Apr 1918  Krum, Denton, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [1, 2, 3, 4
    Gender Female 
    Also Known As Elizabeth 
    Also Known As Liz 
    Census 6 Mar 1920  Denton County, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [4
    • Justice Precinct 5
    Census 21 Apr 1930  Denton County, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [5
    • Justice Precinct 8
    Residence 1 Apr 1935  Denton County, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [6
    Census 23 Apr 1940  Denton County, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [6
    • Justice Precinct 8, Bolivar-Slidell Road
    Religion Methodist 
    Education North Texas State Teachers College 
    Occupation Teacher 
    Death 19 Apr 2012  Georgetown, Williamson, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [2, 3
    Burial 24 Apr 2012  Bagdad Cemetery, Leander, Williamson, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [2
    • Plot: Homestead Section, Row 23. Grave 37
    Person ID I12730  Dyal and Speckels
    Last Modified 8 Aug 2017 

    Father Robert Randolph KNOX,   b. 22 Oct 1878, Murphy, Cherokee, North Carolina, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 10 Oct 1953, Denton, Denton, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 74 years) 
    Mother Beneva Claire WITHERS,   b. 5 Dec 1885, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 2 Sep 1983, Denton County, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 97 years) 
    Marriage Abt 1908  [7
    Family ID F8945  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Ernest Walter WUPPERMAN,   b. 6 May 1907, Austin, Travis, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this locationd. 17 Feb 1986, Williamson County, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location (Age 78 years) 
    Marriage 26 Aug 1954  Austin, Travis, Texas, USA Find all individuals with events at this location  [1
    Children 
     1. Living
    +2. Living
    +3. Living
    Family ID F8944  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
    Last Modified 22 Apr 2002 

  • Notes 
    • “Known to her many friends as Liz, she was born Demaris Elizabeth Knox on April 13, 1918, to Robert Randolph Knox and Beneva Claire Withers Knox. She arrived at home on her family's farm near Slidell in Denton County, Texas. She was fourth of five children, and the only girl. As she wrote in a 1996 memoir, growing up with four brothers made her thoroughly resilient and her mother was sometimes hard-put to overcome her tomboy ways with ribbons and dresses.

      “On both her mother's and father's sides, she was descended from men who served in the Continental Army. Her maternal great-great-great grandfather, George Michael Bedinger, was the youngest major to serve under George Washington, and went on to assist in securing the American frontier, including protecting Fort Boonesboro, during the Indian Wars. Her paternal ancestors, the Knoxes and Hamiltons, have a long history in America from colonial times.

      “Even in Liz's farming family, education was an important objective. Her mother's father, John Allen Withers, taught Latin in a Springfield, Missouri college, and his wife, Mary America Coleman, was tutored by her own mother, Anne Bedford, who had been educated at a convent in England. Liz's uncle, Harry Withers, was editor of the Dallas Morning News for more than 30 years, and her grandfather Withers had given land for the founding of Texas Normal College and Teachers' Training Institute in Denton, from which Liz would later graduate -- as a teacher.

      “As a young man, Liz's father, Robert Knox, spent five years in the Alaskan gold fields, and his children grew up with stories of tent towns, miners, the sun shining at midnight, and a tent city called Gold Hill. He owned a mine with his cousin, Henry Hamilton, and the stories of their adventures -- plus her father's unfulfilled desire to go back -- gave Liz a lifelong yearning to visit Alaska. She finally succeeded, some 50 years later.

      “After graduating from the University of North Texas (then North Texas State Teachers College), Liz began teaching in Trinidad, Texas, where she met a handsome young widower and war veteran named Joseph Rowe.

      “Joseph had two adorable children, George and Mary, 10 and 8, and when he and Liz married in 1941, she acquired an instant family. They moved to Austin, where Joseph pursued his degree at the University of Texas, and Liz taught until their son Joseph Jr. was born in 1942. She went back to teaching, but her career was interrupted by the births of Benjamin in 1945 and Ann in 1946. She was soon back in the classroom.

      “Tragically, Liz was widowed herself when her husband died of a stroke in the summer of 1951. They had just moved to Arlington, Virginia, where Joseph, a chemical engineer, had obtained a job with the Natural Rubber Bureau. Liz packed up her five children and moved back to Austin. She resumed teaching and the family lived in a two-bedroom duplex on Bull Creek Road. By this time, George and Mary were in college.

      “One year Liz had a cute little brown-eyed boy in her third grade class at Highland Park Elementary, named David. He had a younger sister, Johanna. Their mother had passed away a few years before. David loved his teacher and insisted that his dad, Dr. Walter Wupperman, a veterinarian, come to PTA. Walter was a native Austinite from a line of Texas Germans that included artists Hermann Lungkwitz, his great-grandfather, and Richard Petri, his great-great uncle. When he and Liz met, it was as if they already knew each other. Walter proposed to her to the strains of Mendelssohn's ‘Midsummer Night's Dream,’ and thus in 1954, Liz again married a handsome widower with two adorable children.

      “She and Walter each adopted the other's minor children, and thus a rowdy and loving family was born. They moved to a modern L-shaped house on 25 acres in the woods outside of Austin, on a country road called Balcones Trail, now known as MoPac and Steck. It took that much land, plus a milk cow and a succession of pet dogs, to get the last five kids to adulthood.

      “Their union was a happy one, filled with barbecues, large Christmas and Easter gatherings, camping trips, many ‘music nights’ (a group of friends listening to the Wuppermans' beloved classical music), a succession of surrogate children, and 10 grandchildren, until Walter's death in 1986. Against daunting odds, they made it work, and Liz's greatest pride was that her children all got along and loved each other all her long life.

      “After her second widowhood, Liz indulged her love of travel and took many trips with friends and relatives. She regularly visited her daughter and son-in-law, Ann and Gary Seaman, in Los Angeles where Gary is a professor of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. One of their traditions was picnicking at the Hollywood Bowl and then taking in a concert that included Mendelssohn's ‘Midsummer Night's Dream.’

      “Liz was a charter member of Cedar Park Methodist Church and also a member of St. Philip's Methodist Church. She had lifelong friends from both houses of worship, and many other friends from all walks of life.” [2]

  • Sources 
    1. [S371] ed., Charles Wilburn von Rosenberg, The Von Rosenberg Family Record, (Texian Press (Waco, TX, 1974)), p. 24.

    2. [S2927] Weed-Corley-Fish Funeral Homes and Cremation Services, Elizabeth Wupperman Obituary.

    3. [S82] Ancestry.com, U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014, (Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011), Issue State: Texas; Issue Date: 1963.

    4. [S14] United States of America, Bureau of the Census, Fourteenth Census of the United States, 1920, Denton County, Texas, ED 63, p. 9A, line 42.

    5. [S15] United States of America, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Denton County, Texas, ED 30, p. 5B, line 96.

    6. [S1629] United States of America, Bureau of the Census, Sixteenth Census of the United States, 1940, Denton County, Texas, ED 61-32, p. 13B, line 63.

    7. [S15] United States of America, Bureau of the Census, Fifteenth Census of the United States, 1930, Denton County, Texas, ED 30, p. 5B, lines 91-92.