Catherine Cynthia Overton Avery McCutcheon was no ordinary woman.  She had a remarkable spirit of survival.  Her first husband, Vincent Avery, was a seafarer who perished at sea, leaving her to raise their son, Willis.  Moving from North Carolina to Tennessee, she married William McCutcheon.  In 1818, Catherine “removed” herself from the stormy marriage and went to Missouri with Willis and a second son, William McCutcheon.  In Missouri, she met a farmer, Gordon Jennings.  At last, Catherine found stability, and in 1833, they joined the immigration to Texas.  The Jennings family, her two sons, and four Jennings children elected to settle in Austin’s little colony on the upper bend of the Colorado River.  Gordon Jennings, her husband, left the family to join the Texian army, prior to the Siege of Bexar.  He perished at the Alamo.  Her oldest son, Willis Avery, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto.  He and his wife were re-interred at the State Cemetery in Austin by the State of Texas, and William McCutcheon, my great great great grandfather, fought at the Battle of Bushey Creek.  He is buried in the McCutcheon/Shiloh Cemetery in Hutto, Williamson County, Texas.  Catherine helped lead the Runaway Scrape.  She died at her son, William’s, home in Williamson County.  While her husband’s name is now etched in stone and bronzed at the Alamo, she is a part of the Alamo story, by showing the courage to survive and keep the legacy alive for us, the future generations.

Sylvia B. Kennedy, Descendant