Adele Françoise Baron Lubbock: First Lady of Texas (1818–1882)
By: Ashley Garcia
Published: December 16, 2024
Updated: December 16, 2024
Adele Françoise Baron Lubbock, First Lady of Texas, was born on October 19, 1818, in New Orleans, Louisiana, to Noel Auguste Baron, Jr., and Françoise Laure (Bringier) Baron. Her Parisienne father was a prominent cotton and sugar dealer, and her mother, the daughter of Emmanuel Pons “Marius” Bringier, was a member of the prominent French family that owned one of the earliest cotton plantations in Louisiana as well as large sugar plantations. Adele, like the rest of her French family, were devoted Roman Catholics. Although, her future husband, Francis R. Lubbock was a Protestant, she remained a committed Catholic throughout her life.
At the age of sixteen, Adele Baron married Francis Richard Lubbock on February 5, 1835, after months of courting. In his memoirs, Lubbock described her as “affable, a fine musician, having a beautiful voice….” He taught her English, as the family spoke primarily French. The couple lived in New Orleans in a house on Carondelet Street near Francis’s business. In May 1835 Adele and Francis Lubbock traveled to Charleston, South Carolina, to visit his dying mother. On their trip back to New Orleans their stage coach overturned, and Adele suffered injuries that affected her for the rest of her life.
In late 1836 the Lubbocks left New Orleans for Houston, Texas. They lived in one of Houston’s first clapboard shanties and slept on a gray moss mattress until their furniture arrived from New Orleans. Francis opened a general store and “sold the first flour sold by the barrel, and first entire sack of coffee sold in Houston” at this time. By 1837 the couple became part of Houston’s high society, and Adele was a belle at the first San Jacinto ball in Houston.
In 1846 the couple moved to the 1,300-acre Lubbock Ranch near Houston at Sim’s Bayou, where they attempted poultry raising and camel raising. While they had no children of their own, they adopted Theodore Uglow, whose parents died of yellow fever in Houston. The boy, age eight, was recorded as Theo U. Lubbock in the Lubbock household on the 1850 census. He was also listed, as a student, in the household on the 1860 census. Francis was recorded as a stock raiser, but his love for politics and Adele’s abilities as a hostess threw them into Texas party politics. The Lubbocks resided on the ranch until 1861, when Francis was elected governor of Texas by a margin of 124 votes.
Following his victory, Adele and her husband moved to Austin into the Governor’s Mansion on Colorado Street. They brought four enslaved people with them, including two enslaved women that Adele trained as housewives and cooks.
Adele Lubbock had a quick wit and a love of entertaining which she indulged in during her time as First Lady of Texas. She kept the Governor’s Mansion open to visitors and commonly hosted dinners for members of the Texas legislature. She managed all of the household affairs of the mansion. When foodstuffs and other provisions were hard to come by during the Civil War, she ventured to the countryside to purchase vegetables and meat for the household. Throughout the Civil War, Adele managed to keep the Governor’s Mansion a political and social hub of Texas.
After her husband’s term of office had ended and he entered military service in the Confederate Army, Adele Lubbock apparently returned to the Houston area. The couple moved to Galveston in 1867, and Francis operated an auction business, as recorded on the 1870 census. In 1872 Adele traveled with her husband for an extended tour of Europe, including London, Paris, Brussels, and cities in Germany. Upon his election as state treasurer, the couple moved to Austin in late 1878. Their adopted son Theodore named a daughter after Adele, as did close friend Mary Jane Briscoe, who named her daughter (see LOOSCAN, ADELE LUBBOCK BRISCOE) after the first lady.
Adele Françoise Baron Lubbock died in Austin on December 1, 1882, and was buried in Houston. However, before his death, Francis R. Lubbock wrote a letter asking that her remains be reinterred next to his at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, where they remain to this day.
Bibliography:
Pearl Cashell Jackson, Texas Governors’ Wives (Austin: E.L. Steck, 1915). Francis Richard Lubbock, (C. W. Raines, ed.) Six Decades in Texas or Memoirs of Francis Richard Lubbock, Governor of Texas in War-time, 1861–1863: A Personal Experience in Business, War, and Politics (Austin: Ben C. Jones & Co. Printers, 1900). Carl McQueary, Dining at the Governor's Mansion (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2003).
Time Periods:
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Ashley Garcia, “Lubbock, Adele Francoise Baron,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/lubbock-adele-francoise-baron.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
FLU31
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- December 16, 2024
- December 16, 2024
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