Ina Brundrett

In 1992, Ina Brundrett established the Ina Brundrett Presidential Honors Scholarship in memory of her loving husband Jesse Brundrett. The scholarship is just one of the many ways that Ina Brundrett has touched TJC over the years. Her love of horticulture and gardening is evidenced through her support of TJC’s botanical gardens, including the Ina Brundrett Azalea Garden Preservation Endowment she established in 2015.

Mrs. Brundrett was an educator, gardener and philanthropist who served with numerous clubs and organizations devoted to landscape beautification. She graduated from A.C. Jones High School in Beeville, TX, and received her bachelor’s degree from Texas College of Arts and Industries, Kingsville (now Texas A&M University-Kingsville) and completed 12 hours of graduate work at The University of Texas at Austin.

She married Jesse Lee Brundrett in 1944, before he left for combat service in World War II. Ina taught public school one year at Senior High in Beeville when Jesse was in Panama with the National Guard. The family moved to Tyler in 1954 when the population was about 50,000 and the oil industry was booming. Her husband worked as a geologist and was advanced quickly through the ranks with the Exxon Company.

Ina once described Tyler as the “Garden of Eden” upon arriving, marveling at its rolling hills, tall trees and lush gardens – a much different landscape from the prickly pears, mesquites, jack rabbits and rattlesnakes of South Texas. It was the lush botanical offerings of East Texas that led her to a love for gardening and landscape architecture, to which she devoted much of her time over the remainder of her life.