HOMER AND BESS FARLEY

 The following bio was taken from page 195 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

 Homer and Bess Farley began their life together at Pine Hill where Bessie Hillin Farley had lived all her life.  Homer was the son of Jim Matthew and Sally Berry Farley of Henderson.  Homer was proud to be an Irishman and of his distant cousin, James A. Farley, Postmaster General in FDR’s cabinet.

 Bessie was descended from a pioneer Pine Hill family.  Her mother was Mae (May) Bush Buckner (See Buckner Family), and her father was Thomas Jefferson Hillin.  “Grandma” Hillin, as Bessie’s mother was called, was the “Carrie Nations” of Rusk County.  She hated liquor so much that she attacked the local saloon in Pine Hill with an axe and tore it up! 

 Homer and Bessie had seven children.  Sentis, who married William Young, is a retired surgical nurse who in her early years of nursing delivered hundreds of Rusk County children.  Sentis has her mother’s knack for preparing delicious old-fashioned meals.  Buford married Gaynelle Allen, and they had two children, Travis Farley and Bessie Lou Williams.  T. J. married Edith Smith of Pine Hill.  T. J. worked many years for the city of Henderson and is now retired.  Vivian, who married Woodrow Pickron, has one daughter, Jerry Lou Moore.  Vivian in later years went back to school and became an LVN and now works at Henderson Memorial Hospital.  Helen (“Pi”) married Jessie Howeth, and they have one son, Jerry, whose daughter Candy now lives with Pi and Jessie.  Candy is a young lady who looks very much like her great-grandmother Bessie and has her grandmother’s love of laughter and fun.  Ralph Farley, who married Louise Moss, has two children, Ralph Jr., and Mahala Kay Burk.  The youngest Farley is Sambo, who married Eva Berry.  Sambo has one daughter by a previous marriage, Dinah Farley Biddlespach. 

Homer and Bessie moved to Henderson from Pine Hill during the oil boom, and Homer became a cotton buyer.

 Bessie loved children and she understood their love of fun.  Many stories of her pranks are still told by her family and other Pine Hill natives.  One story told on Bess by her children is that one Halloween, Bess decided to have fun with the neighborhood kids who were attending a Halloween party at the church nearby.  These children included her own.  She placed a banana crate on the front porch of the home, rigged a broom and sheet in and over the box.  Then Bessie hid behind the contraption.  As her children and others were coming from the party, Bessie raised the broom under the sheet, slowly waved her arms under the sheet and sang out “wooo-oo-o!”  The children ran as hard as their legs could carry them back down the road toward the church.  They stopped and turned to hear peals of laughter from the Farley’s front porch.  Buford turned and yelled, “Mama, is that you?”  Bess was laughing so hard she couldn’t answer, but she came out to reveal herself.  The children joined in her laughter too.

Homer had died at fifty-seven and before WWII, but Bessie lived on for thirty more years to see her children educated and settled.  All of her children and friends remember Bessie as a fun-loving, friendly person.  Her children adored her, and she returned their love with sage advice mixed with her humorous outlook on life.  Like her mother, “Grandma” Hillin who lived to be ninety-six, Bessie lived a long life full of joy to the end.

Submitted by Virginia Knapp