Josephine Fox

Josephine Marsalis Clardy Fox, born August 13, 1881, in Liberty Township, Missouri, was an American businesswoman, musician, and philanthropist who appeared on Broadway in 1938. An only child, she relocated with her parents, Allie and Zeno, to El Paso, Texas, when she was one year old, where her father practiced law. Her early education began at a religious school, which she attended until 1891, followed by public schooling until 1895, when she enrolled at Hosmer Hall in St. Louis for finishing school.

Following the death of her father from a heart attack in 1901, Fox moved to Berkeley, California, to pursue formal training in the fine arts, studying at a fine music school while living with family friends. She subsequently traveled to New York, where she studied voice under Emilio Agramonte. After a brief return to El Paso in 1902, during which she performed as a soloist, Fox embarked on an extended tour of the United States and Europe. Among those who accompanied her on a European journey in 1908 was Eugene Emmett Fox, whom she would later marry on January 20, 1916, in New York. The couple established their home in El Paso.

Fox's Broadway career included a credit in Prologue to Glory, which played in 1938. Her work in the performing arts reflected the musical training she had pursued across multiple cities and countries earlier in her life.

The Great Depression brought financial hardship to Fox, her husband, and her mother, and Fox took an active role managing her mother's El Paso properties during that period. Eugene Fox died on April 2, 1934, following an accident on a train, and Josephine's mother died on March 23, 1940. During World War II, Fox contributed her time to the war effort and donated one thousand dollars toward the construction of the Southwestern Children's Home. Beginning in the mid-1940s, she partnered with William J. Elliott to develop land previously used for cotton farming, an enterprise that substantially increased her wealth. In 1955, she sold land that became the Fox Plaza Shopping Center in El Paso.

Fox's philanthropic contributions to El Paso were considerable. In 1956, she donated land to the El Paso Independent School District for the construction of a public school, and in 1961, she donated additional land to establish a branch within the El Paso Public Library system. In 1959, Fox broke her hip, and a second fracture of the same hip in 1964 led to her permanent residence at Providence Memorial Hospital, where she died on May 11, 1970. She was buried in Evergreen Cemetery. In her will, Fox left the majority of her estate to the University of Texas at El Paso, a bequest that included her extensive hat collection.