Sarah Beona Meng Lanham: First Lady of Texas (1903-1907) (1845–1908)
By: Paula O'Donnell
Published: November 12, 2024
Updated: November 12, 2024
Sarah Beona Meng Lanham, First Lady of Texas from 1903 until 1907, was born on October 8, 1845, to Garland Thompson Meng and Susannah Ann (Thomas) Meng in Pacolet, Union County, South Carolina. She was one of five siblings. The 1850 and 1860 U. S. censuses recorded the family in Union County, South Carolina, where her father was a planter.
On September 4, 1866, she married Samuel Willis Tucker Lanham, who had just returned from surrendering at Greensboro, North Carolina, as a sergeant in the Third South Carolina Infantry. A wedding present of two mules and a covered wagon facilitated the couple’s planned migration to East Texas shortly after they married. The newlyweds first arrived in Red River County, but in 1868 they settled in Weatherford, where the couple kept a home for the rest of their lives. They had eight children, five of whom survived to adulthood.
By several accounts, Sarah Lanham was well-educated and even contributed to her husband’s education. According to a family history published in 1975, she had been trained as an English teacher at the Rev. Colon Murchison’s school in Unionville, South Carolina. The text recounts that she tutored Samuel Lanham on his grammar during their migration to Texas. With her help, he got work as a schoolteacher in Texas before studying law and being admitted to the bar in 1869. Genealogy histories indicate that Sarah Lanham may have also taught school in Weatherford or at least assisted her husband in his teaching.
Sarah Lanham’s intellect and labor as homemaker contributed in many ways to her husband’s successful career as a teacher, lawyer, and politician. With her support, he was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1882 and as Texas governor in 1902. According to her obituary, she was his “close adviser,” providing sound judgment “even upon political matters.”
A few of Lanham’s social affiliations and activities appear in the record. Described as a woman of “deep Christian character,” she was a member of the Methodist Church. She also spoke German fluently and took up painting as an adult. In November 1905 she hosted a reception for the Texas Federation of Women’s Clubs when it met in Austin.
Shortly after Governor Lanham finished his second term in 1907, the couple retired to their home in Weatherford. They had both suffered from poor health for some time. On July 2, 1908, Sarah Meng Lanham passed away from a sudden illness, and her husband died less than a month later. Both are buried in the Old City Greenwood Cemetery in Weatherford. Their son Frederick Garland Lanham served in the U.S. House of Representatives, like his father. Novelist Edwin M. Lanham, Jr., was their grandson.
Bibliography:
Bryan Morning Eagle, July 5, 1908. Pearl Cashell Jackson, Texas Governors’ Wives (Austin: E. L. Steck, 1915). Virgil Madison Rogers, Family History: Rogers-McGravy-Lanham with Allied and Descendant Families (Strasburg, Virginia: Shenandoah Publishing House, Inc., 1975). Sulphur Springs Gazette, July 10, 1908.
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Paula O'Donnell, “Lanham, Sarah Beona Meng,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/lanham-sarah-beona-meng.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
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FLANH
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- November 12, 2024
- November 12, 2024
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