Emily outlived three husbands, giving Augustine two non-Tejano step fathers, German immigrant Henry M. Fock[7] and sawmill owner E.D.

De Zavala related for a 1935 Holland's Magazine[8] interview that history and mythology were favorite themes in her childhood books, and that she and her sister produced historical plays.

In 1887, she joined family members who had moved to San Antonio, where she taught at elementary schools until 1907, emphasizing education about Texas heritage.

De Zavala's 1916 Legend of the First Christmas at the Alamo (The Margil Vine)[14] relates the lore of the Franciscan friars and local Indians celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ in the year 1718.

De Zavala worked in coordination with Anna Ellis, Elizabeth O. Graham and others in the society to help save the Spanish Governor's Palace[21] [22] and several other structures, including the cluster of houses once lived in by Texas Declaration of Independence signer[23]José Antonio Navarro.

On March 2, 1951, the San Antonio Conservation Society presented De Zavala with an award for "marking historic homes and sites."

Shortly after Adina came to San Antonio in 1887, she formed the "De Zavala Daughters"[24] organization dedicated to preserving and marking Texas history.

In 1910, the auxiliary legally severed itself from the DRT and became an independent organization,[1] with chapters in Crockett, Refugio, New Braunfels, San Patricio and Goliad.

The public entrance known as the Alamo's mission chapel was already owned by the State of Texas, which had purchased the building from the Roman Catholic Church in 1883 and had given custody to the City of San Antonio.

The city had made no improvements to the chapel structure, and ownership did not include the long barracks, which was owned by wholesale grocer Gustav Schmeltzer.

The De Zavala chapter of the DRT in 1902 organized the Congress of Patriotism,[30] with the aim of creating a "Texas Hall of Fame" museum in the Alamo long barracks (or convento).

The state reimbursed Clara Driscoll and, on October 4, 1905, the governor formally conveyed the Alamo property, including the convento and the mission church, to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.

[34] In 1906 she obtained an affidavit from Juan E. Barrera,[35] a San Antonio resident born in 1839, stating that the long barracks "are still standing just as they were when I was a boy."

On the evening of February 10, 1908, Sheriff John W. Tobin arrived with deputies in tow, an injunction barring De Zavala from interference, and assorted stakeholders of the outcome.

During the 1912 restoration,[41] workers uncovered foundational work that verified De Zavala's instincts that the structure had indeed been an original part of the Alamo.

She never married and willed her estate to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word to establish a girl's vocational school and a boys town.

51[46] paying tribute to her for playing "a major role in preserving the Alamo and the Spanish Governor's Palace" and for placing "permanent markers on some 40 historic sites in Texas, many of which might otherwise be forgotten."