See, also, Speer Goodnight v. Sykes, 102 Tex. 451, 119 S.W. 86, 132 Am.St.Rep. 896; Zapp v. Strohmeyer, 75 Tex. 638, 13 S.W. 9. But it has also been held that the husband, as the head of the family, has the right to choose the homestead and the further right to abandon it, if done in good faith and not to defraud the wife (see White v. Cowles [Tex. Civ. App.] 155 S.W. 982); that the abandonment of a homestead after it is once established is always a question of intention (Gates v. Steele, 48 Ark. 539, 4 S.W. 53); and that, after divorce, the homestead loses its character as such, where there are no remaining dependents (see Bahn v. Starcke, 89 Tex. 203, 34 S.W. 103, 59 Am.St.Rep. 40). In the case before us, the burden of proof was undoubtedly upon appellee to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the lot in controversy constitutes the homestead of Vick and wife, within the meaning of our Constitution, laws, and decisions relating to the subject.
The rule that appellate courts in this state will not disturb a finding of the trial court on a question of fact, unless it can be said by the appellate court that there is no evidence in the record, upon which to base such findings on questions of fact, is so well established that the citation of authorities is entirely unnecessary. On the issue of abandonment of property in controversy as a homestead by plaintiffs in error, the following authorities, among many others in this state unnecessary to mention, are referred to: Parker v. Schrimsher, 172 S.W. 165; Morris v. Simmons, 138 S.W. 802; Derry v. Harty, 187 S.W. 343; White v. Cowles, 155 S.W. 982. Plaintiffs in error have cited quite a number of cases in support of their assignments that the trial court was in error in holding the deed of trust in question a valid lien on the premises in question, with the opinions in most of which we are familiar, and it will be found that many of these cases deal with the question of estoppel on the part of the claimant of the homestead to deny the validity of the lien attempted to be executed, and as to that line of cases we might say that they have no application here, because the issue of estoppel is not in this case, and, further, we might say that some of these cited cases refer to controversies where the claimants of the homestead rights were occupying or using the premises in controversy as a homestead at the very time of the attempted execution of the lien, and, of course, under such circumstances, any such attempted lien was absolutely void, and others of these cited cases have reference to instances where the jury or trial judge f