Part II Estate of An Accomplished Woman's Time Capsule of Family's Rural Old Homestead

WELCOME TO ANOTHER DISTINCTIVE ONLINE ESTATE AUCTION BROUGHT TO YOU BY CAPITOL SALES SERVICES

August 3, 2025 through August 17, 2025

The Online Catalog has not been uploaded (No need to click on the blue tab till it is uploaded) and therefore it is not linked to this site as of yet.   We are still working on the catalog for this online auction.    

We will update this site when we have the catalog Uploaded & Linked to this site.  We will be adding more photos to this posting along with more information so keep checking back.  The photos shown in this posting only shows a sample of what is in this online estate auction.   Since we still have more work to do please hold any questions until August 5th.  

This ONLINE ONLY ESTATE AUCTION is Part II of Mary Sue Thornton estate. We conducted Part I this past October from her home  in Highland Park, Dallas.  

Part II online auction sale focuses on the contents from her old family farmstead home that was located in Freestone County, TX.  We spent several months this past winter carefully packing up items from the old 1800s farmhouse and relocated them to Corsicana. It was necessary for the relocation due to safety and security.

As of June 22, 2025, the site has been cleared and the property has been transferred into new private hands. 

Mary Sue Thornton led a unique and successful life and all on her own terms.  She earned a bachelor’s in mathematics University of Arkansas in 1961.  In the 1960s she began her career as a computer programmer and software engineer at LTV/E-Systems/Raytheon.  It was there that she worked on highly classified programs and met her future husband, Ed Redwine.   She did computer programing for NASA’s Apollo missions.  She and Ed both were a part of the initial team that delivered & installed the first software system at the Joint Defense Space Research Facility in Alice Springs, Australia in 1972.  In 1971, Mary Sue was listed in Who’s Who in Computers and Data Processing.  

This sale contains a wide range of items from many generations of her family going back almost 200 years.  Mary Sue was a descendant the pioneer Bonner and Thornton families of Freestone County, Texas on her mother’s side.    She was also a descendant of a separate Thornton Family tree of Oklahoma and Tennessee on her father’s side.  Yes, her mother was a Thornton who married an Oklahoma Thornton of Cherokee decent so they were not related.   Though raised in Muskogee, Oklahoma, Mary Sue had strong ties to Freestone County, TX.  Her maternal grandparents moved back to the Stewards Mill area of Freestone County in the 1930s to be close to Bonner relatives.  They lived in the old farmhouse which held the contents that are in this sale.   There are some items in this sale that are from Mary Sue’s home that was in Highland Park.     This sale has such a wide sample of items of the 1800s, from pre-civil war through late Victorian, items of the early 1900s leading to the great depression, through post WWII American travel and culture.   The Thornton family was well educated.  They were involved in music, Native American arts and history, public and collegiate education while in Oklahoma.  Mary Sue's father, Murrell Thornton, served 4 years in the Oklahoma House of Representatives and 8 years in the Oklahoma State Senate. Her mother Sarah attended Central State College in Edmond, OK and later attended the University of Oklahoma earning both B. A. & M. A. degrees.  She was a teacher for several years before becoming a full-time mother.   Mary Sue’s aunt Sue earned a Bachelor’s of Art degree from the University of Oklahoma followed by a B.M degree in piano in 1921.   She was awarded a M.A. degree from Columbia University, New York City in 1932. During the 1930s as a single woman, she purchased the old farm house in Freestone County so her parents could move back to Freestone County.  In 1936 she received the B.A. degree in library science from the University of Oklahoma.  Sue supervised music in the Oklahoma public schools for a number of years and headed the music department at Northeastern State College in Tahlequah, Oklahoma from 1925 to 1932. She later became head librarian at Northeastern State College in 1932 until her retirement in 1964.  She was a member of POE which helped raise scholarship funds for young women.   She spent her retirement years living in the old farm house in Freestone County and managing the family land.  She was a supporter of Freestone County and Texas history.