The many lives of Wilhelmina Delco- Leader, Legislator, Educator, Wife, Mother, Grandmother Inspiration!

Wilhelmina Ruth Fitzgerald Delco, the oldest of five children, grew up in a Chicago housing project. Her mother, Juanita Fitzgerald Watson, was active in the Democratic Party and one of the first African-American probation officers in the country. It was a political family that had lively discussions at the dinner table. “Mother was my role model,” Delco paused for a moment, to recall her mother’s tone of voice. “She would say, ’I worked hard to put food on the table and a roof over your head. Now you work hard to get good grades.’ She felt that education was the only thing nobody could take away from you.” All five children finished college and went on to successful careers.

Her parents divorced when she was 12, but she credits her father, William Fitzgerald, a court deputy and political organizer, with nurturing her interest in public speaking. “My father had the gift of gab. He could talk about anything. When someone didn’t show up to speak, Daddy could talk for 20 minutes,” said Delco with the mischievous smile that has helped her smoothly navigate her way through countless meetings and absolute confrontations. “Now, I get up and speak without notes. I talk about topics and help people focus on things that interest them.”

A natural leader, Delco served as president of the student body, was a member of the National Honor Society and graduated salutatorian from Wendell Phillips High School in Chicago. She was elected as a delegate to attend the Tri Hi Y (High School YMCA) national convention in New York her first time away from home. Delco was accepted at Fisk University, a predominantly African-American institution with a strong liberal arts and science emphasis in Nashville, TN. She had never been to the South, so her mother and grandfather made the first trip with her in September of 1946 . Her mother had packed three months of personal supplies like toothpaste because she wasn’t sure that these things were sold to blacks in the South.

“I thought I was very special because I had my National Honor Society pin, but when I got to campus, National Honor Society pins were as common as safety pins,” laughs Delco when she thinks back to her arrival on campus. “So I wasn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread.” “I met Exalton Delco in the cafeteria and immediately thought he was cute,” she remembers. “He asked me what I was giving up for Lent. I said ’dessert’ and then he asked if he could have mine. When I asked what he was giving up, he replied ’skydiving, bungee jumping’ and other activities. Of course he’d never done any of those things before. He was a year ahead of me and I had his fraternity pin for five years. We married in 1952, two years after I graduated with a Bachelor of Arts with a major in sociology and a minor in economics and business administration. In August it will be our 57th anniversary.”

In 1957, after Exalton had been accepted as a graduate student at The University of Texas, they moved to Austin from Houston. But the young family found that African-American students were not allowed to live in the Brackenridge apartments and were directed to public housing. “So we lived in the Huston-Tillotson University student apartments. There, we found not only a home but a community.”

After Exalton graduated from UT with his PhD in zoology, he taught biology there for years. Later, I served 10 years on the Board of Trustees.” “When we came to Austin, I didn’t drive,” said Delco. “A friend would baby sit the children while I learned to drive at the old Anderson High School. I didn’t want to tell my husband until I had my license for fear I wouldn’t get it. For the longest time, I turned on the lights when I started the car because all my driving experience had always been at night.”

The family later purchased land off Martin Luther King Boulevard and built a house. “We’ve been in this house 46 years. It was the only place that African-Americans could buy land. Another testimony to racism in Austin.”

The Delco household eventually included four children Deborah, Exalton Alfonso III, Loretta and Cheryl, and later, both mothers lived with the family. The house is filled with mementos and the walls are densely packed with photographs of family, politicians and heads of state. Tributes and awards cover the living room coffee table. Scrapbooks and ring binders meticulously filled with photographs ranging from the couple’s wedding album to cruises taken to exotic destinations fill the den. They began cruising when she left the school board. The couple will set off on another cruise this summer with family.

Setting priorities became very important. The family had the work wheel and everyone had to take a turn. There was a list for each child’s day to cook. One daughter learned to improvise. She would cook anything she could find, cover it in a white sauce, garnished with a sprig of parsley and made up names like ’Upside Down Hamburger Delight.’ Lexie [Exalton Alfonso III] loved basketball and he would lose track of time shooting hoops with friends. He learned to defrost a chicken quickly and made great fried chicken.” Every family member had a turn taking out the trash and cleaning the bathrooms. The Delco daughters recalled that their mother was usually home by the time they got out of school. Both parents helped with homework and attended extracurricular activities.