FAMILY LEGACY & ENTREPRENEURSHIP
What Inheriting a Family Legacy Taught Me About Building a Business
How family stewardship, Texas land, and mineral ownership inform the businesses I am building today.
· By Daisi Pollard Sepulveda
Read the articleLEGACY / IN DAISI’S WORDS
A Texas legacy.
A living responsibility.
My family’s story stretches across generations of Texas land, cattle, oil, invention, and literature. Today, I carry that history forward through my stewardship of the Williams family inheritance, my work with Murrow & Williams, and the business I founded, Daisi Royalty.
The people who came before me shaped what I inherited. Taking responsibility for its next chapter is now part of my daily life.
Daisi Pollard Sepulveda
01 / E. R. TAYLOR & ANN GEORGE
Where our story
takes root.
My great-great-grandparents, Edward Ruthven Taylor and Ann George, established the Texas homestead connected to what became the Taylor-Stevenson Ranch.
Their lives unfolded amid slavery, racial discrimination, and laws that prohibited interracial marriage. Ann’s experience of enslavement belongs within that history, alongside her role in building a home and a future for their children.
The land became a foundation for successive generations. Agriculture and cattle ranching were followed by oil development, connecting our family’s future to both the surface of the land and the resources beneath it.
Explore the ranch’s history (opens in a new tab)
02 / NETTIE TAYLOR & JEROME AREDELL WILLIAMS
Land, enterprise,
and imagination.
Their daughter, Nettie Taylor, was my great-grandmother. She married Jerome Aredell Williams, bringing the Taylor and Williams chapters of our family together.
Jerome’s experience crossed several worlds. Born near Goliad, Texas, he began working on neighboring ranches as a teenager. His working life included cattle ranching, oil-field experience, ranch ownership, and real estate.
He was also an author and inventor.
His novel, The Tin Box: A Story of Texas Cattle and Oil, drew on the world he knew. It remains a connection to his voice and to the landscape that shaped our family.
On December 7, 1926, he received U.S. Patent No. 1,609,635 for a “Switch for Controlling Electric Circuits.” The patent describes a switch with applications including automobile direction-signal lamps—a record of his interest in practical invention.
Together, Nettie and Jerome became the parents of my grandfather, Jerome Edward Williams.
Explore the family’s literary legacy
03 / JEROME EDWARD WILLIAMS
A new generation
of enterprise.
My grandfather carried that interest in innovation into engineering. His work included early developments in electric automobiles and robotics, followed by a later chapter as a stock-market investor.
His life extended the family’s experience beyond ranching and energy into technology and investment. Each generation brought its own abilities and ambitions to what the previous generation had built.
His daughter, Felicia Vivian Williams, was my mother. Through her, this Williams family inheritance passed to me.
04 / THE TAYLOR-STEVENSON FAMILY
Keeping the wider
history alive.
Nettie’s sister, my great-great-aunt Mollie Taylor Stevenson Sr., and her daughter, my cousin Mollie Taylor Stevenson Jr., belong to this same family story.
Their work preserving the ranch and its history has helped bring wider recognition to this heritage. Both were honored by the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame in 2001. Mollie Jr., who worked as a professional model before returning to the ranch, founded the American Cowboy Museum to preserve the multicultural history of the American West.
My own chapter belongs within this larger history, with a particular responsibility to the Williams family inheritance.
05 / MURROW & WILLIAMS
Taking responsibility
for what comes next.
Following my mother Felicia’s death in 2024, I took on responsibility for the Williams side of our family’s inheritance.
Through Murrow & Williams, I manage that inherited land and the interests connected to it. My work brings family history into present-day decisions about land management, mineral ownership, and the future.
Stewardship means understanding what previous generations built, preserving the records that explain it, and considering how today’s decisions will affect those who follow.
The family story continues through that work.
Explore Murrow & Williams
06 / DAISI ROYALTY
An owner’s experience.
A family’s perspective.
Daisi Royalty grows from this same history.
Oil and gas development on our family’s Texas land made mineral ownership part of the family business. Taking responsibility for that inheritance has deepened my understanding of mineral rights, royalty interests, and the decisions families face when assets pass between generations.
I have also learned that families consider selling for many different reasons. Some need funds for education, retirement, or a new business. Others want to simplify an inheritance, reduce the work of managing divided interests, or change how their assets support their lives.
That experience informs the business I founded. Daisi Royalty purchases mineral and royalty interests with an understanding of what those assets can mean to the families who own them.
My approach centers on clear explanations, transparent offers, and respect for an owner’s decision. A family’s priorities may lead it to retain an interest or to sell. The history behind that choice deserves to be understood.
Learn about the decisions families face (opens in a new tab)Through Murrow & Williams, I carry forward my family’s inheritance. Through Daisi Royalty, I bring that experience to conversations with other mineral-owning families.
FROM DAISI
In my own words.