Lela Alice Covington Cosper

My fifth great grandfather was Reverend Joel Henry Cosper. That name likely doesn’t mean very much — unless you’re from Bell County, Texas. Much of Bell County is descended from the good Reverend. I descend from his daughter, Eliza Ann Cosper.

I’m not here to write about the Reverend today, though. He had a son named Thomas Jacob Cosper, but I’m not going to tell you about Jake today, either.

Today I want to tell you about Jacob’s wives.

Jake Cosper, 21, married Saphronia Saxon, 18, about 1868 in Randolph County, Alabama. Shortly after, the Cosper wagon train set out for Texas. It passed through Bell County, and many families, including the Reverend and his family, settled in the area.

Jake and Saphronia had their first baby, Nancy, in Texas in February of 1870. Their second baby was born in December of 1870. The next three children came along in 1873, 1876, and 1878.

Sapronia Saxon, Cospers of the South and Southwest, p266

Sophronia died in August of 1880 at the age of 29. I have so far been unable to find any details on the circumstances of her death. She had crossed state lines with her young husband, made a home in an unfamiliar place, and borne five children in ten years. 

A few months later, in January of 1881, Jake Cosper married Lela Alice Covington. Jake was 32 years old. Jake’s daughter Nancy was almost 11. The other children were 10, 8, 4, and 2 years old.

Lela Covington was 17 years old.

According to Cospers of the South and Southwest, a family history written by Lela’s granddaughter Willie Zell Ray Hunt, Lela was an orphan with a younger sister and two younger brothers. Before her marriage, the three siblings were living with a family named Henderson in Oakay, Texas — a cousin of Lela’s had married Mr. Henderson, and he had agreed to care for the Covington children until they could care for themselves. Lela was working during this time, running the post office out of a little log cabin in Oakay. When she married Jake Cosper, she took her siblings with her.

So, Lela became a wife and a mother to EIGHT children at the age of 17.

Soon after her 18th birthday, she gave birth for the first time. She would go on to bear ten children in all, including one set of twins. Of those ten, eight survived: her son John Henry died in early childhood, and one of her twins, a daughter named Carol, died of whooping cough at twenty days old. Eight children raised to adulthood. Plus the five stepchildren. Plus her three siblings.

Sixteen children, in total, passed through Lela’s care.

By 1900, the census shows the household still included Charles Covington, Lela’s brother, and six of their children ranging in age from 4 to 18. The farm was owned free and clear. Whatever the texture of Lela’s life, she and Jake had built something.

Lela died at the age of 46. Her death notification lists the immediate cause as apoplexy — what we would call a stroke today — with a contributing cause of neurasthenia, what we now call chronic fatigue syndrome, ongoing for more than seven months. She died at home near Youngsport on June 11, 1910.

The stories of Saphronia and Lela both speak to something larger: the danger and expendability of women in that era. Both married young. Both had children until shortly before they died. Neither one got to grow old.

I came across Lela while researching the maternal side of my family. She was married to the brother of my 4x great-grandmother, so she’s no relation to me directly. Still, I find myself thinking about her often. I know her life was hard — it had to be. But was it what she wanted? Did she have many choices, if she wanted to keep her siblings together and find someone who could act as provider and protector? Was Jacob her protector? Did he treat her well? Was she just a convenient replacement for his first wife, or did he love her? Did she have a good life, or was it all misery and struggle? I don’t know that I’ll ever know the answers to most of those questions. 

What I do know is this: Lela’s firstborn daughter was Mary Ellen — Mollie — born in 1881, the year Lela turned 18. Mollie’s daughter was Willie Zell Ray Hunt, who wrote Cospers of the South and Southwest and preserved what little we know of Lela’s story. Three generations of women, each one a link in the chain of family memory. We know more than just Lela’s name, her age, her children, and the illness that wore her down because a granddaughter thought to write it down. Women’s stories survive when someone makes an effort to remember them.

Dedication page, Cospers of the South and Southwest, signed by the author

Sources

Hunt, Willie Zell Ray. Cospers of the South and Southwest, 1768–1980. Burnet, Texas: Eakin Publications / Nortex Press, 1980. Physical copy held by author.

Texas, Department of State Health Services, “Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903–1982,” digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2272/images/40394_b061778-00156 : accessed 13 March 2026), Lelia Cosper, 11 June 1910, Bell County, certificate no. 4649; citing Texas Department of State Health Services, Austin, Texas.

Texas, Department of State Health Services, “Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903–1982,” digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2272/images/33154_b062749-00959 : accessed 13 March 2026), Mary Ellen Ray, 9 September 1967, Bell County, certificate no. 62645; citing Texas Department of State Health Services, Austin, Texas.

Texas, Department of State Health Services, “Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903–1982,” digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2272/images/40394_b062604-00591 : accessed 13 March 2026), Thomas Franklin Cosper, 31 July 1961, Bell County, certificate no. 75081; citing Texas Department of State Health Services, Austin, Texas.

Texas, Department of State Health Services, “Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903–1982,” digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2272/images/33154_b063025-00793 : accessed 13 March 2026), Harold Poe Cosper, 5 March 1978, Bell County, certificate no. 15536; citing Texas Department of State Health Services, Austin, Texas.

Texas, Department of State Health Services, “Texas, U.S., Death Certificates, 1903–1982,” digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2272/images/40394_b062085-01163 : accessed 13 March 2026), Eliza Frances Ray, 5 February 1935, Bell County, certificate no. 5623; citing Texas Department of State Health Services, Austin, Texas.

Arizona, State Department of Health, “Arizona, U.S., Death Records, 1887–1968,” digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/8704/images/1967_de0027918254-00029 : accessed 13 March 2026), Charles Camden Cosper, 23 January 1967, Cochise County, certificate no. 67-000028; citing Arizona State Department of Health, Phoenix, Arizona.

Marriage Records

Coryell County, Texas, Marriage Records, volume C, page 328, J. T. Cosper and Miss L. A. Covington, 9 January 1881; digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33SQ-GP31-G1S : accessed 13 March 2026); citing Coryell County Clerk’s Office, Gatesville, Texas.

Census Records

1860 U.S. census, Randolph County, Alabama, population schedule, Northern Division, p. 72 (penned), dwelling 514, family 514, S. A. Saxon in Nancy Saxon household; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7667/images/4211195_00076 : accessed 13 March 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication M653, roll 22.

1870 U.S. census, Bell County, Texas, population schedule, Beat No. 5, p. 45 (penned), dwelling 292, family 292, Jacob Cospez [Cosper] household; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7163/images/4275545_00233 : accessed 13 March 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication M593, roll 1575.

1880 U.S. census, Bell County, Texas, population schedule, Precinct 8, enumeration district (ED) 4, p. 19 (penned), p. 458A (stamped), dwelling 159, family 162, Jacob L. Casper household; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/6742/images/4244670-00925 : accessed 13 March 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T9, roll 1290.

1900 U.S. census, Bell County, Texas, population schedule, Justice Precinct 8, enumeration district (ED) 35, sheet 2-A, dwelling 22, family 22, Jacob T. Coffer [Cosper] household; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7602/images/4111918_00910 : accessed 13 March 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T623, roll 1610.

1910 U.S. census, Bell County, Texas, population schedule, Justice Precinct 8, enumeration district (ED) 29, sheet 1-B, dwelling 14, family 15, Jacob T. Cosfur [Cosper] household; digital image, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/7884/images/4449976_01136 : accessed 13 March 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T624, roll 1530.