Allie Nuckols

Allie Victoria Nuckols was the daughter of Alpheus Burl Nuckols, a Confederate Civil War veteran who became a prominent photographer in Austin, Texas. A.B. Nuckols operated a studio at 915 Congress Avenue and was profiled in the Daily News-Tribune (Industrial Review Edition) in February 1906 as one of Austin’s foremost photographers, praised for “the most up-to-date poses and styles of mounting.”

Allie married Leon Lackey (also known as Leon Wallace Lackey). Their daughter Loraine Leonora Lackey married Col. John Jackson Ledbetter Jr. on September 5, 1925.¹

Family Life

The Lackey family was close to the Ledbetters throughout the 1930s and 1940s. JJL’s diaries record Allie and Leon visiting El Paso to help care for their grandsons Jack and Bill, and family road trips between El Paso and San Antonio.²

In the winter of 1937, while the Ledbetter family was fighting a three-month siege of pneumonia and measles in El Paso, Leon was hospitalized with flu in San Antonio — the illness cutting across both families at once.²

Leon’s Death

Leon died on October 28, 1946, at Nix Memorial Hospital in San Antonio. The funeral was held at Porter Loving’s, with interment at Sunset Memorial Cemetery.²

Later Years

After Leon’s death, Allie survived him by more than thirteen years. She remained close to her daughter Leonora and the Ledbetter grandchildren in Austin. She died on December 30, 1959, outliving her husband by thirteen years and her son-in-law JJL Jr. by none — he would die three and a half years later.²