Elizabeth Corine Parris Burrus: A Legacy in Education (1911–1994)
Published: October 9, 2024
Updated: October 9, 2024
Elizabeth Corine “Eliza” Parris Burrus, educator, was born on February 25, probably in 1911 (some sources give her year of birth as 1912 or 1913), in Bryson City, Swain County, North Carolina. She was the daughter of James Golman Parris and Abie Margaret Ivelee (DeHart) Parris. By 1920 the family lived in Knox County, Texas, where her father farmed. She was recorded on the U. S. census as not attending school at the time, but she could read and write. By 1930 the family lived in Abilene, where Elizabeth attended Abilene High School. She graduated from Simmons University (now Hardin-Simmons University) in Abilene and in 1932 began a long career of teaching, initially as a primary grade teacher in Gilliland, Texas. She carried on a family legacy in education, as both her maternal grandfather and mother had been educators in Swain County, North Carolina.
On June 24, 1939, Elizabeth Parris married Burton M. Burrus, who had also attended Abilene High School. The couple moved to Baytown, Texas, by the 1940s, where Burton worked at the refinery for Humble Oil and Refining Company (see EXXON COMPANY, U.S.A.). They had two children—Burton Jr. and Bettie.
In Baytown, Eliza Burrus began a twenty-one-year stint as a teacher at De Zavala Elementary School, a school for the city’s Hispanic youth—many of whom could not speak English. In 1957 League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) members Felix Tijerina and Tony Campos enlisted her help to develop an aid to facilitate the teaching of English to Spanish-speaking students. Joining this educational project that became known as the Little School of the 400, Burrus developed a list of approximately 400 basic English vocabulary words that she believed were essential for student success in the first grade. She believed that children learned English best when speaking it in class, and she stressed the importance of a student’s ability to speak and think in English before being able to read it. She authored Beginner’s Speaking Vocabulary: Guide for Teaching Non-English Speaking Children (1958), and LULAC honored her for “outstanding contributions towards the education of Mexican-American children.”
Burrus participated in the “Operation Head-Start” program and was one of five elementary school teachers across the state to be named among the “distinguished teachers of Texas” for 1965. She was selected by a committee appointed by the National Board of Education. After serving De Zavala Elementary School for twenty-one years, she taught at San Jacinto Elementary School in Baytown for seventeen years. Additionally, she helped initiate adult basic education courses at Lee College. She retired by the early 1980s.
Burrus belonged to the Baytown Education Association and Texas State Teachers Association. She was also a member of the John Lewis Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, Dabney-Goodwin Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Delta Kappa Gamma, National Society of Colonial Dames XVII Century, Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs, and the Goose Creek Chapter 798 Order of the Eastern Star. She was a longtime member of First Baptist Church in Baytown.
Elizabeth C. Parris Burrus died in Baytown on May 14, 1994. She was preceded in death by her husband, who passed away in 1963. She was buried in Cedar Crest Cemetery in Baytown.
Bibliography:
Abilene Reporter-News, September 24, 1939; August 26, 1961. Baytown Sun, January 18, 1963; May 24, 26, 1976; December 2, 1976; May 6, 1986; May 16, 1994. Erasmo Vázquez Ríos, The Little School of the 400: A Mexican-American Fight for Equal Access and its Impact on State Policy (M.A. thesis, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2013). San Antonio Express-News, August 22, 1965.
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Laurie E. Jasinski, “Burrus, Elizabeth Corine Parris [Eliza],” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/burrus-elizabeth-corine-parris-eliza.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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- October 9, 2024
- October 9, 2024
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