Sometime around July 1898 Lomax began an intense relationship with Miss Shirley Green of Palestine, Texas, to whom he had been introduced in 1897 by the President of the University of Texas. For four years, their friendship had its ups and downs, until June 1902, when Lomax met one of Green's acquaintances, Bess Baumann Brown from Dallas. It ultimately emerged that the reason for Miss Green's reluctance to commit herself to an engagement to John Lomax had been her awareness that she was mortally ill with tuberculosis. However, Lomax continued to exchange letters with Miss Green until a month before her death, which occurred in February 1903. That year, Lomax accepted an offer to teach English at Texas A&M University beginning in September To bolster his credentials, in the meantime, he decided to enroll at the University of Chicago for a summer course. Upon his return to Texas he became engaged to Miss Bess Brown and they married on June 9, 1904, in Austin. The couple settled down at College Station near the A&M campus. Their first child, Shirley, was born on August 7, 1905.