Della Sivley Mousner

Della Sivley Mousner was born August 9, 1935 to Sula Thomas and Lawrence L. Sivley. She was born in a frame farmhouse built by her grandfather Thomas on Duck Creek in Robertson County. She passed away July 20, 2025.

The Sivley's moved to Houston in 1940 after the death of Lawrence. Della graduated from Spring Branch High School in 1953. While in high school she was active in drama & she was an officer in the drill team. She was also advertising manager of the school newspaper. She was a charter member of the Spring Branch Order of Rainbow for Girls and served as its first Worthy Advisor. After graduation from high school she went to work for Humble Oil & Refining Company (now Exxon) as a messenger and in time worked her way up to private secretary to a department head of the Public Relations Dept. She attended the University of Houston at night and was elected Secretary of the Humble Employees Social Club. She was a member of the Working Girls Club of Houston and through this organization won a trip to Havana, Cuba. Friends in the Public Relations Dept. introduced her to Jim Mousner, a reporter for the Houston Post.

They were married July 29, 1961 and are the parents of Mark Lawrence and James David. Mark's wife is Angela. They have two sons, Austin, wife Abby and great granddaughter Arbor, and Bryan. James' wife was Tamara Levine and they have a daughter, Minka.

Della was a Charter Member of Spring Wood Baptist Church and attended 55 years. She taught Sunday School, worked with the youth, sang in the choir, and for ten years recorded the minutes of the church's business meetings.

Jim and Della served together as P.T.A. Co-presidents of Westwood Elementary School and were awarded life memberships for their service. They both volunteered with the Boy Scouts of America and were active in various clubs that supported the Houston area.

When Spring Branch High School closed in 1985, Della helped organize an alumni group and began collecting memorabilia for a museum that would tell the story of the community and school district.

She learned a lot about the history of the community while attending high school with many of the descendants of the original families of the area. She had a deep love for the people and community of Spring Branch. She was a student when Spring Branch became an I.S.D., and saw first-hand what was required of a new consolidated school district modeled by Spring Branch High School for new programs. The district created a two-story section in the high school to house an alumni museum. The museum was renamed the Della Sivley Museum in honor of her service.

After raising her children, Della managed The Wallpaper Shoppe, Interiors by Phyllis, until the downturn of the economy in the 1980s. At that time she went to work for the school district in the Transportation Dept. as Supervisor of Special Ed. Bus Transportation, seeing that (approximately) 300 special needs students arrived safely at school each day. She joined Jim in retirement 2000.