Loraine Leonora Lackey

Loraine Leonora Lackey was the daughter of Leon Lackey and Allie Nuckols. On September 5, 1925, she married Col. John Jackson Ledbetter Jr., then a young engineer in San Antonio.¹

Family Life

The couple settled in El Paso, Texas, where John worked for the International Boundary Commission. Their first son, Jack Wallace Ledbetter, was born on March 31, 1930, in El Paso. Their second, William Burl Ledbetter, arrived on September 15, 1934.¹

The diaries of her husband offer glimpses of their shared life — the financial pressures of the Depression, the winter of 1937 when nearly the entire family fell sick, and the ordinary routines of raising two boys in West Texas. John tracked the family’s illnesses with an engineer’s precision, noting temperatures, doctor visits, and X-ray results as Leonora, Jack, and Bill took turns with pneumonia, measles, and croup.²

In the summer of 1934, when Bill was born at the Hotel Dieu hospital in El Paso, John wrote: “Leonora went into the delivery room at 7:30 p.m. and at 9:31 p.m., a five pound boy, William Burl Ledbetter, was born.”²

Later Years

The family moved from El Paso to Austin, where John practiced law and engineering after his military retirement. Leonora and John’s marriage ended in divorce on November 6, 1958.²

Through her sons, Leonora became grandmother to a large family. Jack had four children and Bill had four, including William Burl Ledbetter Jr., born in 1957 at St. David’s Hospital in Austin.¹