All that is known of the first Willis to arrive on US soil is that he immigrated in 1730 and came from Wales. These stories of his descendants, however, offer a glimpse into the development and settlement of the United States and Texas.
Extensively researched and written by Olive Elizabeth Martin Burns (née Willis), a.k.a. Tucker, The Braided Cord: The Story of the Willis Family traces the lives seven generations of Willises through the present day. Tucker brings her family's past to life, chronicling their successes and failures, their military service and businesses, and the family's move to the rough-and-ready farmlands of Texas.
You'll meet Peter J. Willis and his brothers, who first moved to Texas and established a successful business firm only to have a manipulative wife brings down the family empire.
There's the story of Short Adam, a fifth-generation Willis who left Texas to live the life of a country squire in Connecticut, returning late in life with a young wife and three children.
The history of the Willises is always set against the grand backdrop of Texas. To read this book is to understand the settlement of a state and the growth of a family.
About the Author: Born in Texas, Olive Elizabeth Martin Burns, a.k.a. Tucker, has been a teacher, tour guide, art-museum docent, folk-art collector, and family historian.
A sixth-generation Texan, Burns boarded for two years at Ursuline Academy in San Antonio, Texas, and is a graduate of Incarnate Word College. She was married for sixty-one years to attorney Harry J. Burns.
Now widowed, Tucker has retired to Dallas. She has a son, a daughter, and two grandchildren, and has recently taken up historical research and writing.
