RALPH L. BRIGHTWELL

The following bio was taken from page 122 of the book entitled "Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Shirley Koym

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

My wife, Peggy Ann McElroy, and I are native Texas. I was born May 7, 1932, at 306 E. Ragley Street, Henderson, Texas. Peggy’s birth was in Cleburne, Texas, November 8, 1937. Our children, Anthony (Tony) L. and Ramona Lynn, were born, respectively, at St. David’s Community Hospital, Austin, Texas, December 16, 1958, and at Methodist Hospital, Houston, Texas, March 29, 1962.

Peggy’s parents are Gaither W. and Leona Rogers McElroy of Tyler, Texas. Gaither chose not to follow his father’s farming vocation outside of Cleburne, opting instead to be a railroad man until his retirement in 1973. Leona was a school teacher until she started raising her three children. Leona, Peggy, and Ramona are Daughters of the American Revolution, their predecessors having been confirmed to colonial times.

My parents are Clara E. Billingsley Brightwell and the late Ollie Thomas Brightwell. I understand that my maternal grandfather, Robert M. Billingsley, came to Rusk County from around Paris, Texas. My mother was the second of five children born to him and Emma Eunice Vaughn. They lived in the Oak Flat area near Laneville before coming to Henderson in 1924. Ollie Thomas was one of eleven children born to William Peter and Arah Adnar Drummonds Brightwell on their farm near Leverett’s Chapel in northwest Rusk County. William P. was a son of Elder Charles Brightwell, a Baptist minister, and Margaret Carolyn Ball, who came to Texas from around Macon, Georgia. William P. went back to Georgia to marry and bring his bride west. Since the oldest of my uncles, the late Walter J. Brightwell, was born in December 1891, that marriage probably took place around 1890 or 1891.

My father told me many times that he understood that his great-great-grandmother was a Cherokee Indian. If this is true and no other Amerind Bloodline was ever introduced into the family tree, that would place that generation in the United States of 1795 or in the period of the Revolution so shortly before. My aunt, Leona Brightwell Gramling, has traced the family back to England, but I am unsure of the generation. She says they came first to Virginia, with later generations settling in Georgia. Apparently, Charles Brightwell came to Rusk County sometime after the Civil War.

I graduated from Henderson High School in 1950, served in the army from 1953-1955, met Peggy in Tyler in 1956, and wedded her at West Erwin Church of Christ June 7, 1957. I received my B.B.A. degree from The University of Texas at Austin in June 1960. After working for two C.P.A. firms in Houston during the next three and one-half years, receiving my own Certified Public Accountant license in January 1962, we moved here. We preferred to raise our children in Henderson and Rusk County, not just "a great place to be from," but a great place to be.

Submitted by Ralph L. Brightwell