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I was given the following newspaper article:
From the Austin American-Statesman, Friday, April 26, 1985.
A CENTURY OLD. Austin resident has roots buried deep in city. Tomorrow is a very special day for Melissa Debardleben May. She celebrates her 100th birthday. Melissa's roots go back to the very beginning of Austin. Her great-grandfather was Alexander Murchison, one of the pioneers who settled in Austin as it was being laid out as the new capital of the Republic of Texas. Murchison and his wife and two young daughters arrived in Austin in the summer of 1839. Shortly after their arrival, another daughter was born, the first child to be born in the new capital city. The family tells the story that when the men who were in charge of planning the new city heard the news of the brith, they offered the Murchison family several city lots and a Jersey cow if the baby would be named Austin. The parents, however, refused, and named the little girl Nancy Jane. The Murchison family brought the first black person to Austin. Mahala, a 10-year-old mulatto girl, was Mrs. Murchison's maid. Mahala raised several generations of Murchison children as well as six children of her own. One of Alexander Murchison's daughters married Dr. Debardleben, and their son Dick was Melissa's father. Melissa grew up in Cedar Creek, near Bastrop. Her father was a cattleman, and three times drove cattle up the Chisholm Trail. (Today, Melissa is an active member of the Old Trail Driver's Association of Texas, and still attends the conventions each year.) The family moved to Austin in the early 1920s. Melissa married Lawrence May and lived on a ranch until her husband's death less than 10 years later, when she returned to Austin. Many Austin citizens remember Melissa, for she spent a good part of her life in downtown Austin. She worked for many years for Kresses, and probably is best known as a long-resident at the Alamo Hotel. Melissa and her sister Ann lived at the hotel for almost 19 years. Ann died in September, 1983, and Melissa continued to live there until the hotel was torn down in the summer of 1984. Friends and family will gather at the Oakhurst Manor Nursing Home, where Melissa is a resident, tomorrow from 2 to 4 pm to wish her a very happy 100th birthday. --Audray Bateman, curator of the Austin History Center of the Austin Public Library.
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