Andrew Gibson GOODLETT

The following bio was taken from page 212 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

My grandparents, Willis and Elizabeth Goodlett, brought my father, Henry Jameson, to Texas when they came in 1859. (See Goodlett Family.) He married Janie Beatrice Gibson, who was born in Florida in 1858. About the time I finished high school, World War I broke out. My brother, Grady, was in the Army overseas. I was determined to be there, too! I went to San Antonio and tried to enlist but was turned down. It took all the money I had to get there, and I sure didn’t count on being turned down. I hadn’t had anything to eat for twenty-four hours, so I sold my watch for $5.00. First thing I bought was a ticket home and then something to eat. Finally I did get accepted into the Army and was in the Army Training Corps at Sam Houston in Huntsville. That was fine because my girl was going to school at Sam Houston. She was Zelma Needham, the daughter of M. D. and Annie Lowe Needham of Laneville. The war ended while I was in the Training Corps. Zelma and I were married on Christmas Eve 1919 at Laneville. We were sitting in a buggy and the preacher was standing on the ground beside it. Zelma and I started farming but learned that this was a fast way to starve! We also had a daughter, Annie Beth, now Mrs. B. H. Rowe. My brother-in-law, Roy, suggested that rather than starve, Zelma, since she had her teaching certificate, could teach and I could go to school. She taught one year at New Salem and two at Laneville, and I went to school at Stephen F. Austin. One memory of that is a night before finals when my daughter cried all night about some red shoes and kept everyone in the men’s dorm awake all night. I did get the teaching certificate, though, and taught two years at Laneville, one at Roquemore, and two at “Old London.” On October 1, 1926 I went in the post office, where I later became Assistant Post Master. Zelma did alterations at the M. Kangerga Store then and later when it became Packerman’s. She worked at Reed’s Department Store, Smith’s, and Reed’s Jewelry. She was a super saleslady. She also had the first Social Security number issued in Rusk County. She could oil paint, loved to work with concrete, and would do any kind of needlework. I’m sure a lot of people who asked did not believe it, but she sewed with only one pattern or she didn’t use a pattern at all—she just invented changes as she went along. She became well known for designing and making dance costumes and is a perfect example of one born thirty years too soon. If she had been born thirty years later, there would have been no limit to what she could have accomplished. Even today, she could be a “pace setter” in design, color, showmanship, or in any other phase. Written by A. G. Goodlett