Alice Van Cleve * -Corpus Christi

Mrs. Alice Van Cleve was a charter member of Court Corpus Christi #246 organized August 23, 1914, in Corpus Christi. She became Grand Regent of her local court and was acknowledged for always being on the watch for earnest, purposeful leaders.

Her value was recognized and at the second Texas State Convention held in Fort Worth, May 19-20, 1919 she was elected as the 2nd State Regent. Ambitious for the Order, untiring in her efforts, charitable in thought, word, and deed, she was highly respected in fraternal circles.

At the Convention, State Regent Elect Alice Van Cleve reported; “The great work which has been chosen as the state work of the Order was launched, namely, the creation of a fund to be used for the education of four young men for the priesthood annually. The fund is to be divided each year among the dioceses of the state. Much enthusiasm was evinced by the delegates over the adoption of this work.”

At the time of her death, Texas had instituted eighteen local courts.

Miss Alice Coleman graduated from St. Ann’s Academy, Fort Smith, Arkansas. She was kind, earnest, ambitious of good, thus giving promise of future achievements of suffering humanity.

State Regent Alice Van Cleve drowned in a Corpus Christi Hurricane, September 25, 1919. A total of 287 people died in the 1919 hurricane, including four members of the Daughters of Isabella. A sixteen-foot storm surge inundated the low-lying areas of Corpus Christi, destroying almost all of the wooden buildings there. Port Aransas was nearly totally demolished. This Great Corpus Christi Hurricane of 1919 remains one of the most intense Texas hurricanes in history.

Newspaper and many diocesan photos were destroyed.