Alamo DRT unit slams the door on senator

A local chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas voted this week to deny state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte membership to the patriotic group, prompting members to resign in protest.

“For the most part, these are ladies who love the state. And they are so dedicated,” said Van de Putte, who initially was told she had been voted in, then informed that wasn't the case.

A member sponsorship, proper Texas lineage and a two-thirds vote is required to join a chapter of the DRT, which has a state contract to provide daily operations at the state-owned Alamo complex through August 2016.

Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, had two sponsors and is a proven sixth-generation Texan. But she failed to win enough votes. She was accepted to the organization seven years ago, but did not complete the application process within the two-year deadline.

She since has sponsored legislation that shifted custodianship of the Alamo from the DRT to the Texas General Land Office.

Van de Putte said she respects the chapter's vote, and doesn't regret the 2011 change in custodianship approved by the Legislature.

“We did it for the love of the Alamo,” said the senator, who was leaning Wednesday against trying again for DRT membership.

“I think I'd better leave the Daughters' politics to themselves, and let me concentrate on the business of the state,” she said. “I think I'll just hold off for a while.”

Van de Putte left a meeting of the DRT's Alamo Heroes Chapter on Tuesday at the Japanese Tea Garden after it was announced she and two other applicants had been accepted.

She learned Wednesday that she actually failed to get a required two-thirds vote at the chapter meeting attended by 24 of its roughly 130 members.

Chapter leaders, including Kathleen Carter, one of two members who sponsored Van de Putte's application, said they did not know why members recorded a tie vote for the senator, but announced she had been accepted.

“I think they really didn't know what to do with a negative vote,” Carter said.

After Van de Putte left, some members huddled with chapter leaders under the outdoor pagoda and said they had voted against letting her in because of her involvement in the change in Alamo custodianship, Carter said.

“I told them, 'This is her job. We violated our covenant with the state to take care of the Alamo, which is in her district,'” Carter said. “It's unfortunate. She would have been so good for our chapter.”

Carter, the chapter's first vice president and two sisters, president Elaine Milam Vetter and Bobbie Milam Morse, Fiesta commissioner, resigned from their chapter positions in protest of the vote.

“Without the support of the chapter, I cannot achieve the goals of building bridges with the state of Texas and helping to rebuild DRT's reputation that I set for my term,” Vetter said in a statement to the chapter.

Three other women similarly resigned from the chapter's 14-member board, said Vetter, who called the vote not to accept an applicant unprecedented for the group.

Other DRT members said they will work to have Van de Putte admitted to the 7,000-member lineage organization, which has more than 100 chapters. According to the DRT website, “any woman” age 16 or older is eligible for membership, provided she is “personally acceptable to the DRT” and is a lineal descendant of someone who “rendered loyal service for Texas” prior to formal transfer of government under U.S. statehood on Feb. 19, 1846.

Armandina Sifuentes, a cousin of the senator and member of the DRT's Alamo Couriers Chapter, said Van de Putte is a sixth-generation Texan and direct descendant of Pablo San Miguel, the head of a ranching family in Eagle Pass area in the 1800s. Sifuentes did research for Van de Putte's application, and was disappointed it was not accepted.

“It just became a political issue,” Sifuentes said.

Sifuentes said she wants to assist Van de Putte in obtaining membership in the DRT.

“She wants to help the Daughters with all that the group does, including care of the Alamo,” Sifuentes said. “I'll push it forward.”

DRT President General Ellen McCaffrey of Houston said Van de Putte is welcome to apply as an at-large member.

“I would be more than happy for her to contact me,” McCaffrey said.

More than a year after Van de Putte's Alamo custodianship bill passed, the Texas attorney general's office issued a report outlining problems it found during a 16-month investigation into the DRT's care of the Alamo, including failure to raise funds for structural preservation and problems with financial management and record-keeping.

Although the Land Office has said its “partnership” with the Daughters at the Alamo “is working very well,” some DRT members have grumbled about rental fees chapters now are charged for use of the grounds, and management of the DRT Library, which has been closed since January for an ownership inventory of materials.

Under a recent three-year contract with the Land Office, the library is to be called the Alamo Research Center.