Written by: Clay Price III, Mary's great-grandson
Mary Ziller was born in the Missouri House on Pecan Street (6th Street) in 1850, to Michael and Catharine Kuesel Ziller. Mary was the middle child of the five that survived infanthood: August, Anna, Mary, Henry, and William. The photo below of Mary and Henry must have been taken in 1858, the year their father died. The seriousness of the loss can be felt in Mary's eyes while little Henry was too young to grasp the magnitude of the occasion.
Henry and Mary Ziller circa 1858
By the 1860 Census, widow Catherine had 5 children living with her, ranging in age from 3 to 14. Mary was 10. However, the family was not destitute. Property owned by the Ziller family was valued at $24,500. But life was about to get more complicated for the family when Catherine died in 1862. It is not known who took charge of the children. By 1870 Mary's older sister Anna had married John Keller and Mary, just shy of her 20th birthday, was living with them.
About that same time Mary met Leslie Price who had moved to Austin from La Grange. Leslie had opened a dry goods store on Congress Avenue. He had also become involved in Austin's music scene, playing violin in George Herzog's orchestra and alto horn in Herzog's brass band. Mary could have encountered Leslie in either or both of those settings. They married in September 1872, possibly the year when her portrait (below) was taken.
Over the next 10 years Mary gave birth to four children: William August "Billie" (1875), Anna (1878), Mary Malcolm "Monnie" (1881) and Clay (1883). And she managed their house on East 14th street, between San Jacinto and Trinity streets, two blocks east of the Capitol and about three blocks south of Scholz's where Herzog's bands would often play.
Mary Ziller Price circa 1872
The next 10 years of Mary's life may have been her happiest as the children were growing and as Leslie took a job as a patent clerk at the Government Land Office. But then Leslie's health failed. He developed cancer of the neck and had to retire from the GLO in August 1895. He died at home in November of that year at age 48, leaving Mary with all four children, ages 12 to 20. Daughter Anna married deputy sheriff Gene Barbisch in 1900 and had a daughter.
The three of them lived under Mary's roof although Anna divorced Gene after 10 years. Son Billie married and had two children, but divorced in 1912 and Billie returned to Mary's household. Monnie never married and stayed with Mary the rest of Mary's life.
Billie and Clay had vaudeville contracts in the 1900s; Billie as a comedian and Clay as a singer. The anecdote that best alludes to Mary's involvement with her children occurred in 1907. The Austin American Statesman reported this blurb on October 14, "Clay Price, a popular Austin boy, and Genevieve Crowley, a talented young Cincinnati girl, both of Klaw & Erlanger forces, were married in New York City last week."
But then came this retort in the paper the very next day, "The Austin relatives of Clay Price [i.e., Mary] request the statement that the information coming from New York and published in yesterday's Statesman of his marriage there last week is an error inasmuch as he is not married." Mary had no knowledge of any marriage and therefore it could not be true!
However, Clay and Genevieve had indeed married as confirmed in a signed and witnessed New York Certificate and Record of Marriage. It does not appear Clay ever brought Genevieve to Texas. By 1910 he was back in Austin and living with Mary and occasionally singing in Austin venues.
Mary was always a presence in the lives of her children. In 1919 Clay married Jennie Luckett whose family had moved next door to the Price's in 1910. Even as a smiling Clay has his arm around Jennie, Mary dominates the photo below in her white dress as she stares directly ahead with her hand firmly on Clay's shoulder! Jennie's parents, Louis and Louella Luckett, almost have a look of resignation.
Clay and Jeannie Price, Mary Ziller Price, Louis and Louella Luckett circa 1919
Mary lived another 5 years and died in March 1925 at age 74, leaving her house to daughter Monnie and son Billie. She lived a full life. She lost her father when she was young, her husband when he was in his prime, and she outlived her older daughter Anna who died during the 1918 flu epidemic.
Despite these and other trials and tribulations, she was the resolute matriarch of the Price family and one of Austin's recognized "old settlers."
Mary Ziller Price, Section 4 lot 130