She was an integral member of the Houston family, running the household when Margaret was ill or pregnant.
[1][2] Her parents moved to Perry County, Alabama, one year after their daughter Nancy and son-in-law, and died there in 1829.
[4] They lived on a farm on Goose Creek, east of Cahaba River, and around one to two miles from Sprott, Alabama.
She studied literature, Latin, and music, including guitar, piano, harp, and voice classes.
[2] Temple was a founding member of the Perry County Colonization Society, with the mission to send free black people to a colony in Africa.
[2][6] His daughter Margaret, still a girl, received the slightly younger 12 year-old Joshua in her father's will.
[7] Nancy moved into the house of her son Henry, who was a state legislator and businessman,[4] with Vernal, Margaret, and Antoinette.
After selling her plantation, she wished to discuss potential real estate investments in the West.
[13] Leisure time was spent taking care of their personal chores, fishing, hunting, and tending their own gardens.
[13] Five year old children likely worked a number of chores, including carrying water, gathering firewood, milking cows, and tending to animals.
At ten years of age, children worked in the fields and developed skills like toolmaking, caring for equipment, and grooming horses.
[15] Young Eliza lived in the Tidewater region of Virginia when she was lured from the plantation by a white man who offered her and her friends a buggy ride.
Joshua would have worked in the vegetable, sugar cane, and cotton fields; harvested fruit; repaired equipment; and tended to animals.
Of African descent, they were required by an ordinance of Galveston, a large slave market, to register with the mayor's office.
The earnings supported the family while Temple Lea was away from home preaching the Baptist faith.
[4] Margaret began preparing their home in Cedar Point, one of many residences the Houstons would inhabit.
[4] Margaret disliked mundane duties[29] and she was often ill and pregnant, so Lea helped run her household.
[30] She worked alongside Aunt Eliza to tend to the Houston's children and manage the household duties.
Lea arrived by stagecoach in Washington-on-the-Brazos in December 1842 to take her back to the more civilized Grand Cane to care for Margaret during her pregnancy.
[33] Lea provided food for the family and bought a cow to keep baby Sam Jr. nourished when Margaret had a breast tumor, which embarrassed Houston.
Lee said that although he could starve for his country, Sam Jr. was “not old enough to undergo... Valley Forge" (of the Revolutionary War).
They arrived at a bargain, Lea would buy the food necessary for the family and Houston would reimburse her out of his salary.
[34] Lea, Margaret, and Sam Jr. spent the summer of 1843 with Antoinette and William Bledsoe at Grand Cane.
[35] For a time, Lea raised Virginia Thorn, whose parents had died of yellow fever.