“It would have been hard to
do what she did at the time she
did it,” Gratts said. “But you know
what, given what her father went
through as a slave, Civil War
soldier and Buffalo Soldier, proba-
bly the stories and the life he lived
made her strong enough to handle
situations like that. Because, what
else could you do? You had to just
live and press forward or give up,
and she wasn’t the kind of person
to give up.”
Ella Mae Gratts Shamblee died
July 8, 1981. In 1982, the City of
Fort Worth honored her decades
of community-minded service by
opening the Ella Mae Shamblee
Branch Library inside the
Southside Multi-purpose Center.
On Friday, June 13, 2008, rela-
tives, elected officials and others
gathered to open the freestanding
Ella Mae Gratts Shamblee Branch
Library at 1062 Evans Ave., in Fort
Worth. The opening was part of
the Evans and Rosedale Business
and Cultural District revitalization
project. The following year the
branch won the Libraries Change
Communications Award from the
Texas Library Association.
Ella Mae’s library stands as a
testament to her lifelong devotion
to equal opportunity and empow-
erment through education. Her
legacy continues.
capernaum gardens
retreats
laser tag parties
event space
film sets
field trips day rentals
2018 SUMMER CAREGIVER SEMINAR
POSITIVE APPROACH ® TO
DEMENTIA CARE AT ANY STAGE
with Beth Nolan, PhD
Tuesday, August 28, 2018
9 to 9:30 a.m. check in,
exhibits and light breakfast
1:00 p.m. adjourn
New River Fellowship Church
3252 I-20 Service Rd.
Hudson Oaks, TX 76087
and
The Billie Clark Fund for
Rural Education Initiatives
For more information, please call 1-800-272-3900
or visit our website at: alz.org/northcentraltexas
Special thanks to event sponsors:
* Somewhere on some
document(s) the spelling of Gratz
changed, twice, actually — the
first time to “Grats,” the second to
“Gratts.” As handwriting was the
method of record, and handwrit-
ing can be difficult to make out,
particularly on time-smudged or
yellowed documents, this sort of
thing happened with some regu-
larity. A state marker for Lawson
Gratz displays both names: Gratz
and Gratts.
www.capernaumvillage.com
25