Searching For Sidney

 So many quotes can be used to begin a good search.

“A journey of a thousand miles…”

“A picture is worth…”

But how do you write about a search that started before you were even born?

How do you start to write the story of a search for a name? A grave?

How do you tell the story of the Alamo without starting with Davy Goddamn Crockett and Fess Fucking Parker?

My search is for more than the Alamo defender. It’s more than a grave or a name.

It’s more than a newspaper clipping or a photograph or even a headstone.

It’s the search for yet another strong Texas woman who married, divorced, married again, had babies, lost babies, and was then swallowed up by the Republic of Texas before she had a chance to make her mark.

I’m looking for a woman whose courage, strength, and sorrow has lead directly to myself and my own children.

I’m looking for a woman whose mother left a moneyed family in Kentucky, sailed down the mighty Mississippi, briefly paused in New Orleans before moving on to the still-small village of Gonzales.

I’m searching for a woman who lost both of her husbands as well as her brother at the Alamo.

I’m looking for a women who gave birth two weeks after the Battle of the Alamo, during the Runaway Scrape, in the back of a covered wagon, in the freezing pouring rain.

I am searching for my fourth great-grandmother. 

I am searching…for Sidney.

I have heard the name of Sidney Gaston ever since I was a little girl. I grew up in San Antonio, home of the Alamo. “Did you know one of our ancestors died at the Alamo, Laura? His name was Johnnie Kellogg and he was one of the Immortal 32 from Gonazles.” I have known this for as long as I have known my own name. I am Laura, Alamo descendant. And growing up in San Antonio, home of the Alamo, that always felt pretty special.

But what of his wife?

What of Sidney?

What of the woman he left behind? The woman who raised his baby, the baby who carried his name into battle 30 years later in the Civil War (and believe me, I have been wrestling with this).

Where is Sidney buried? What is her story? How did they meet? What happened to her?

Sidney’s story is heartbreakingly short. From all I can find, she died in 1836, shortly after the birth of their son John Benjamin Kellogg III (Oh yes, Johnnie Kellogg of “Immortal 32” fame was John Benjamin Kellogg II, so please come prepared for nicknames).

What happened to her? Well, this was all during the Runaway Scrape, so it’s all very convoluted and difficult to know.

But this is where the spring of 2026 finds me. Actively ignoring current events and hyper-focusing on finding the grave of a far too young woman who died 190 years ago.

I know I started this blog with the intent of working my way through the Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings. But I got distracted by Texas History and genealogy. 

It happens.

So if you are wiling, follow along with me.

I sit at my grandmother’s card table and acknowledge that this search may, indeed, be fruitless. I acknowledge at the beginning that Sidney’s grave may be impossible to find. And a very small part of me is okay with this.

But that’s not going to stop me from reading, from learning, from guessing, from asking, from imagining, from thinking, and most of all, from searching for Sidney.