SCOTT, FLORENCE JOHNSON (1890–1981).
Florence Johnson Scott, educator, writer, and historian,
was born in Frost, Texas on February 5, 1890, to Sara
Ellen (Sanders) and Ben Herndon Johnson. She was
privately educated by E. J. L. Wyrick from 1897 to 1904.
In September 1904 she enrolled at North Texas Female
College (later Kidd-Key College), receiving her B.A.
degree in literature in May 1909. In June 1913 she
married Owen Emory Scott of San Antonio, and after their
honeymoon they moved to Mission, Texas, where he worked
as a banker. The Scotts and their two sons then moved
from Mission to Brownsville around 1917 and to Rio
Grande City in 1919. Between 1919 and 1927 Scott became
active in community service and established the first
Rio Grande City library, various women's clubs, and
edited the English section of the town's newspaper. In
1926 she was named trustee of the Rio Grande City Common
School District No. 4 and in November ran as a write-in
candidate in that year's election for the office of
county superintendent, which she won. Scott became
increasingly interested in the educational needs of
Starr County and consequently enrolled at Texas College
of Arts and Industries, receiving her B.A. in education
in August 1932. Between 1929 and 1935, while serving as
superintendent, she reorganized the Starr County schools
and verified that all teachers were certified. She also
standardized bilingual education and obtained a grant
from the Public Works Administration to build two new
schools in the county. She received her M.A. degree in
Latin American history in August 1935 from the
University of Texas at Austin. Her thesis was titled
"Spanish Royal Land Grants in the Lower Rio Grande
Valley." In 1935 she also established the Starr County
Student Loan Fund. Scott served as the Roma School
Superintendent from 1950 to 1957, when she retired from
the field of education. In September 1956 Florence J.
Scott Elementary School was completed and dedicated.
Aside from her work in education Scott continued to
write and do research; in 1937 her Historical
Heritage of the Rio Grande Valley was published by
the Naylor Company of San Antonio. Two years later
"Letters and Papers of Governor David Johnson and
family, 1810–1855," which she edited, appeared in the
Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical
Association. Governor Johnson was her
great-grandfather. Among Scott's other works were
Old Rough and Ready in the Rio Grande Valley
(1935), "The Mier Expedition," "The Last Battle of the
Civil War," and Royal Land Grants North of the Rio
Grande, 1777–1821 (1969). Scott was also involved
in local, regional, and state women's organizations. She
served as president of the Rio Grande Valley Federation
from 1929 to 1931 as well as vice president and as
second vice president of the Fifth District of the
Texas Federation of Women's Clubs between 1942 and
1947. She was president of TFWC from 1945 to 1947 and
was a member of the board of directors of that
organization from 1947 to 1949. Scott founded and was
president of the Starr County Historical Society, the
Rio Grande City branch of the
American Association of University Women, the Rio
Grande City Woman's Club, and the
Pan American Round Table. She was also a member of
the Texas State Historical Association, the
Daughters of the American Revolution, and the
Hidalgo County Society. She was an honorary member of
the Brownsville Historical Society and president of the
Lower Rio Grande Valley Society. Scott died in San
Antonio in 1981.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Isaura Barrera, "Florence Johnson Scott,"
Junior Historian, January 1964.
Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for
American History, University of Texas at
Austin.
