(July 5, 2008)--One of the homes of Alamo survivor Susanna Dickinson is coming back to life.

The downtown Austin building is little more than a shell, with dirt floors, crumbling walls and missing windows, but work begins this month on a $500,000 renovation that will fix those problems and add electricity to the 140-year-old stone home.

Dickinson's first husband, Capt. Almeron Dickinson, was killed during the Battle of the Alamo in 1836.

Mexican Gen. Santa Anna, who instructed Susanna Dickinson to carry the tale of the Alamo to Sam Houston, spared Dickinson and her infant daughter, Angelina.

Santa Anna's message was supposed to be a warning that the general would conquer Houston's men, too, but instead, Houston's troops won the Battle of San Jacinto, and Santa Anna surrendered.

Flood washed away the family's first home before they built and lived in the house on Fifth Street.

More than a century later, it was encased in a barbecue restaurant.

It was nearly demolished in 2000 after a developer bought the land for a hotel, but the developer paid to move it across the street at the request of historians and city leaders.

Friends of the O. Henry and Dickinson Museums Inc., a nonprofit group, gathered $146,000 in grants and donations to restore the home's two chimneys, redo roofing, abate lead paint and rebuild a front porch.

The money for the latest renovation comes from a bond issue voters approved two years ago.

The plan is to turn the home into a museum detailing Dickinson's life.

Dickinson later moved to north Austin from the downtown home.

She died in 1883.

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