Memorial tribute honors Bralley

By WAYNE QUESENBERRY/Staff

The legacy of the late Thomas A. “Tom” Bralley Jr. as a humanitarian and community activist is well known in the town and county he loved. It also stretches to Texas.
Two of the many local projects close to Bralley’s heart serve as reminders of his involvement and commitment. The Stephen F. Austin Memorial Park in Austinville and the Brock Hughes Free Clinic in Wytheville are bringing his name to public attention again.
“Tom Bralley started the campaign to establish the park,” Cecil Jackson remarked earlier this week. “He really started it all. We want to give him as much credit as possible.”
Jackson and his wife, Seawillow, were privileged this summer to deliver a proclamation from the Brazoria County Commissioners’ Court in Texas to the Wythe County Board of Supervisors. The Jacksons spend winters in San Antonio, Texas, and return to Wytheville in the spring.
The proclamation was a response to the supervisors’ resolution establishing a sister county relationship with Brazoria County where Stephen F. Austin lived for many years and was originally buried. The document was accompanied by a handmade brick from Austin’s homesite and a ring from an oak tree that stood on the property.
Austin was born Nov. 3, 1793, in the Wythe County community of Austinville. He was 4 years old when his family moved to southeastern Missouri.
After a deathbed request from his father, Austin took over his contract with the Mexican government to settle 300 families in Texas and later obtained two more contracts to be responsible for settling 1,200 colonists in all.
Amid political tension he was imprisoned in Mexico City and was absent from the colony for 28 months. When war began at Gonzales on Oct. 1, 1835, Austin was elected to command the volunteers and led them against the Mexican army at San Antonio.
After Texas won its independence, he reluctantly consented to stand as a candidate for president of the republic. Austin was defeated by Sam Houston, who then named Austin to serve as secretary of state.
Recognized as the “Father of Texas,” Austin died Dec. 27, 1836, at Columbia, Texas. He was initially buried at Peach Point Plantation in Brazoria County, but his remains were later moved to Austin, Texas, which was named for him.
The Austinville park with a boat launch into the New River began in the mid-1990s as a joint project of the Stephen F. Austin Memorial Foundation, the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
Bralley was president and a charter member of the memorial foundation. He recruited volunteers from clubs and other organizations to maintain the park’s miniature gardens when the site was completed in 2002.
The park project also earned Bralley an honorary membership in the Sons of the Republic of Texas. During discussions about establishing the park, Bralley was contacted by wealthy Texas businessman Billy Price and Sam Houston IV, who came to Wytheville several times.
Price acquired certified oak trees, cultured by Texas A&M from hybrid seeds from the large tree on the plantation where Austin spent his last days. He sent two of the trees to Wythe County where one was planted on the courthouse lawn in Wytheville and the other at the Austin memorial park in Austinville.
“We got involved through the trees,” Mrs. Jackson noted. “If the trees didn’t live, we were to go back to Texas A&M and bring others back to Virginia.”
The Wytheville native’s father owned and operated the Fourth Avenue Hotel in Wytheville until the 1940s. Jackson’s mother was from Texas.
“We were privileged to know Tom Bralley,” Cecil Jackson added. “He was a fine man.”
Bralley worked for more than 30 years in the banking industry and was serving as a regional executive with First Bank of Virginia at the time of his death on Oct. 18, 2006. He has been remembered each year since then with a special tribute by the bank.
Next week, Oct. 14-17 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., First Bank of Virginia will accept memorial donations for the Brock Hughes Free Clinic which Bralley passionately supported. At a reception last November, the bank raised over $9,000 to establish the Thomas A. “Tom” Bralley Jr. Memorial Scholarship Endowment through Wytheville Community College.
“Tom was a wonderful person and we at First Bank miss him as does this community,” remarked Carolyn R. Calhoun, loan assistant at First Bank of Virginia. “Tom was passionate about helping people and we hope to continue his theory.”
Wayne Quesenberry can be reached at 228-6611 or .