JOSEPH WASHINGTON KYLE

 The following bio was taken from page 277 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

 Joe Kyle, son of Andrew Jackson and Martha Green Kyle, came to Rusk County in 1876 at age twenty.  His father had been killed in the Civil War, leaving his wife and children destitute and frightened.  Martha and the children were alone in their home in Georgia when they saw the Union soldiers approaching.  They hid what meat they had, in the attic, but it was found and confiscated anyway.  Though near starvation themselves, they could only be grateful that they had not been physically harmed.

 Joe worked for a time in Wise County, Texas, but soon came to the Shiloh Community where he met and married Althea Vernon Parker, daughter of Wylie Astin and Elizabeth Carson Parker, a Rusk County pioneer family.  Joe and Vernon were married at Minden in 1879, by Reverend John Sparkman, and made their home near  Shiloh.  A large home was built for their growing family, but Vernon died in 1910.  Joe lived for a time in Timpson, then bought a small farm out East Main near Henderson.  The farmhouse was later moved a short distance and stands now on Parnell Drive.

 The ten children of the Kyle family were:  Nan, married Hode Wallace, and they were the parents of Celeste (Webb), Lucille (Davis), and Jarrell; James married Suda Burns and the couple had seven children who were all reared at Sweetwater, Texas; Alfred H. lived only six years; Napoleon B. married Kate Halliburton and the couple lived at Marshall and had six children; Una Belle married Allen Bogard, and they had six children; Patrice G. married James Arthur Threadgill and they lived in the Shiloh Community (see their story).  Jack Lawrence, a twin, married Nettie Eugenia Weir and they live at Ben Wheeler, Texas with their three children; Florence, his twin, married Grady Ramsey and they moved to Ranger, where they still live and have three daughters; Roxie married Marvin Ramsey.  They lived at Carlisle and have eight children:  Kate Vera “Kitty” married Forrest Whittlesey and they have four children.  “Kitty” lived at Jasper, Texas, where she was buried on February 21, 1982.

 Submitted by Doris Threadgill