
About Mrs. Helen DeVitt Jones
Mrs. Helen DeVitt Jones , a great humanitarian and patroness of education and the
fine arts, was born into one of the early ranching families of West Texas.
Her father, Mr. David M. DeVitt, came to Texas in 1880 from New York; and in 1903
he purchased the Mallet Land and Cattle Company, which covered approximately 52,000
acres in West Texas. This land is located principally in Hockley, Cochran, Yoakum
and Terry counties, which are west of Lubbock, Texas.
In the 1930s, the Mallet Land and Cattle company became a corporation. Raising cattle
was the main industry of the ranch, but oil and gas were discovered on the property
in May of 1938. By the end of 1940, 101 wells had been drilled on the land. At the
present time, there are over 1,000 pumping wells. Mrs. Helen DeVitt Joness mother,
Florence, who was reared in an orphanage near Waco, met Mr. DeVitt after he came to
Texas.
The couple had four children—two girls, Christine and Helen, and two boys, Harold
and David, Jr. Harold died in a gun accident in 1901, and David, Jr. died in a car
accident in 1930. Mr. DeVitt died in 1934, and Mrs. DeVitt died in 1945. Christine
DeVitt lived to be 98 and died in 1983. Mrs. Helen DeVitt Jones was born December
7, 1899, in Fort Worth, Texas. She lived on the ranch with her family until it was
time for her to go to school. The family maintained a home in Fort Worth in order
for her to attend school.
After completing high school, Mrs. Helen DeVitt Jones enrolled at Texas Christian
University for one year. She then continued her education at the University of California
at Berkeley, where she graduated summa cum laude in 1921. In 1925, she returned to
Texas and married Lee S. “Bill” Secrest. The couple had one child, a daughter, Dorothy
Gail, born in 1926. Later in life she married W. Tom Jones, who had been a friend
of her father and who served as the farm manager until he died in 1955.
After the death of Mr. Jones, Mrs. Helen DeVitt Jones traveled to the New York area
for health reasons and in order to visit her daughter who was living in Woodstock,
NY. She returned to Lubbock in 1966 where she remained until her death in 1997.
Mrs. Jones funded the Helen DeVitt Jones Foundation in 1984. She was an avid supporter
of the fine arts and organizations working with both public school and college students.
Mrs. Helen DeVitt Jones devoted her later life to sharing her wealth as a patron of
philanthropic causes. The Foundation continues to follow her philosophy as its guiding
principle.
If you are interested in knowing more about Mrs. Helen DeVitt Jones , the book entitled
Oil, Taxes and Cats by David J. Murrah chronicles the life of the DeVitt family.
For more information about the Helen DeVitt Jones Undergraduate Scholarship and Helen
DeVitt Jones Graduate Fellowship program in the College of Arts & Sciences at Texas
Tech University, please email us at: as.scholarships@ttu.edu.
College of Arts & Sciences
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Address
Texas Tech University, Box 41034, Lubbock, TX 79409-1034 -
Phone
806.742.3831 -
Email
arts-and-sciences@ttu.edu