MAIDA MILAM JAGGERS

The following bio was taken from page 258 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, Cemeteries of Texas

I, Maida Milam Jaggers, was born on April 17, 1910, in the Rangers Station on Fodderstack Mountain in Montgomery County, Arkansas, the second child of John Milam and Obie Robbins Milam. At that time, my father was a Forest Ranger stationed in the Ouachita Range of the Ozark Mountains. My mother had been a schoolteacher at DeQueen, Arkansas, and later was Postmaster at Redbird, Arkansas.

My father, John Milam, was born in Meriwether County, Georgia, in 1887, and came with his family to Montgomery County, Arkansas in the late 1800’s. He was the son of James Lafayette Milam (1853-1893) and Dora Elizabeth Johnson (1854-1932). In 1913 he became the owner-publisher of a newspaper, THE MONTGOMERY COUNTY REVIEW, in Womble, Arkansas (now called Norman, Arkansas), Montgomery County. He remained a newspaperman for the rest of his life. He died at Harrison, Arkansas in 1963 and is buried at Jasper, Arkansas in Newton County.

My other was Obie Robbins, a daughter of McAfee Alexander Robbins and his wife, Caroline Petty Robbins, of the Manfred Community, Montgomery County, Arkansas, about three miles across the Caddo River from Caddo Gap, Arkansas. She was born March 24, 1887 and died in Henderson, Texas, where she had resided since 1938 on December 6, 1974, and is buried in the Robbins Family Cemetery in the Manfred Community near Caddo Gap, Arkansas.

I came to Henderson, Texas, on February 14, 1931, from Smackover, Arkansas, as secretary to Major O. L. Bodenhamer, of El Dorado, Arkansas. The Bodenhamer Company offices were on the ground floor of the Randolph Hotel, constructed on the site of and incorporated into the new structure, the old Whitson Hotel. Major Bodenhamer formed the Southern Interstate Oil Company, and I was made its secretary. The company was sold the year following the Major’s death in 1933 in an oil field explosion near Joinerville. I remained with the Bodenhamer Company until the late 1930’s. Being situated in the Randolph Hotel, I had a golden opportunity to do public stenographic work and did so with Major Bodenhamer’s encouragement.

In 1937 I was married to Carl Herbert Jaggers, who had come to Henderson in 1931 from Oklahoma. We made our home at 207 Fairpark in Henderson, Texas, where I still reside. Carl died in 1977. (See memorial pages for more on Carl.)

After the closing of the Bodenhamer Company offices, I had a gift shop on the public square in Henderson and continued to do public stenographic work until I went to work in the County Clerk’s office for the late Hubert Hudson, then County Clerk. This was in the early 1940’s, after the outbreak of World War II. I remained there some twenty years or more as a Probate Clerk. I then became secretary to Charles M. Langford, County Judge, during his tenure in office. For several years following this, I worked for Pearson Abstract and Title Company, then as legal secretary in the law offices of Bob M. Lloyd and then as secretary for Phenix and Wilder, attorneys. The last six years of my working life were in my husband’s insurance agency, the State Insurance Agency. We both retired in 1975.

Both Carl and I were active members of the First Baptist Church, Henderson, Texas. I am a charter member of the Henderson Woman’s Forum and was awarded a gold locket by that organization in 1977. I belong to and at one time was Chairman of the Rusk County Historical Commission and was instrumental in forming the Rusk County Heritage Association, which owns and operates the restored Howard-Dickinson House in Henderson. I also belong to the East Texas Historical Association, the Rusk County Genealogical Association, the Thomas J. Rusk Chapter of Daughters of the American Revolution, having transferred my membership to this chapter from the Mine Creek Chapter in Nashville, Arkansas, and the Centennial Chapter United Daughters of the Confederacy.

In 1977 I was elected WOMAN OF THE YEAR by Beta Sigma Phi Henderson chapter. In the same year I was named by the Women in Communication Chapter, Longview, Texas, as one of the four Headliners of the year in East Texas. I am also Chairman of the Historical Committee of the First Baptist Church in Henderson.

It is obvious that I enjoy being involved in the various projects and activities of the East Texas that I love dearly.

Submitted by Maida Jaggers