Juana Navarro Alsbury

Juana Navarro Alsbury (1812-1888) is noted for being a nurse for Jim Bowie at the Battle of the Alamo in 1836, and also as one of the few survivors of that battle.

Biography

Juana Navarro Alsbury was born in San Antonio de Bexar in 1812, one of three daughters of Jose Angel Navarro and his wife Concepcion Cervantes. Her father Jose was a government official of San Antonio de Bexar and he was also a Mexican loyalist during the Texas Revolution. Her uncle was Jose Antonio Navarro, a loyal Tejano, who was one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.

After the death of her mother, Juana was raised by her aunt, Josefa Navarro Veramendi, and her husband Juan Martin de Veramendi, who lived in the Veramendi Palace which was near present day Main Plaza in San Antonio, Texas. In 1832, Juana married Alejo Perez Ramigio and the couple had a son named Alejo and a daughter who died in infancy. Her first husband Alejo died in 1834 during a cholera epidemic. In January 1836, Juana married Horace Arlington Alsbury, brother of Young Perry Alsbury who fought at the Battle of San Jacinto.

Her cousin Ursula Veramendi married Jim Bowie, who brought Juana, her baby son Alejo Perez, and her younger sister Gertrudis to the Alamo when Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna arrived at San Antonio de Bexar on February 23, 1836. Juana's husband, Horace Alexander Alsbury, left the Alamo that same day with John Sutherland, carrying dispatches. During Jim Bowie’s illness at the Alamo, Juana helped to nurse him.

Susanna Dickinson later accused Juana Alsbury of being the legendary Mexican woman who had carried William B. Travis's message to Santa Anna on March 4 from the Alamo. She also stated that Juana had left the Alamo with her father Jose before the siege began on March 6, 1836. But several other sources contradict these statements. Juana Alsbury herself stated that she remained at the Alamo throughout the siege. She said that on the final day during the last moments of the siege, she was protected by two men who were killed by the Mexican soldiers, who then broke open a trunk containing valuable items owned by Juana and her family. Juana stated that after the battle, she and her son, and sister, stayed at her father's home in San Antonio de Bexar.

Juana’s second husband Horace Alsbury was marched to Mexico with other San Antonio captives of Adrian Woll’s invasion in September 1842. Juana traveled to Coahuila to wait for him until he was released from Perote Prison. Horace was later killed in the Mexican-American War in 1847. After Horace Alsbury's death, Juana married Juan Perez, her first husband's cousin. In 1857, she petitioned for and received a pension for the belongings she had lost at the Alamo and for the services she had rendered there. Juana died in San Antonio, Texas on July 23, 1888. Alijo Perez Jr., Juana's son, became a prominent San Antonio city official, surviving till 1918, with descendants still living in San Antonio, Texas.

ources

*Daughters of the Republic of Texas Library, The Alamo, San Antonio, Texas.
*Republic of Texas Claims, Texas State Archives, Austin Texas
*The Women and Children of the Alamo, Crystal Sasse Ragsdale 1995
*Journal of the Early Republic, Vol. 15, No. 1 (Spring, 1995), p. 153
*Mrs. Alsbury's Recollections of the Alamo, John Salmon Ford Papers, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.
*Women in Early Texas, Evelyn M. Carrington, 1975

ee also

*Alijo Perez Jr.
*Battle of the Alamo
*Horace Arlington Alsbury
*Young Perry Alsbury
*Siege of Bexar
*Battle of San Jacinto
*Republic of Texas

External links

*Handbook of Texas|id=AA/fal49|name=Juana Alsbury
*Handbook of Texas|id=AA/qsa1|name=Alamo Noncombatants
* [http://hotx.com/alamo/esparza.html Alamo Survivor Accounts]