G.L. WILLIAMS

The following bio was taken from page 448 of the book entitled " Rusk County History" compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

Green Leroy Williams was born in Clinton, Hinds County, Mississippi, October 2, 1865, to Green Williams and Mary Lucy Lane Williams. He was one of four born to this union. His father, a Sergeant and First Lieutenant in Company A, 3^rd Battalion, Mississippi Infantry, C.S.A., was killed in the Civil War, and his mother died when he was only three years old. He, a brother and a sister were taken into the home of an aunt, his mother’s sister and her husband, Dr. and Mrs. Dick Austin. They moved to Scott County, Mississippi, where he attended Harpersville School.

Green Leroy and a brother emigrated to Texas, when they were young men and settled in Caldwell, Texas, where his brother became a lawyer and he worked in the lumber business. He met and married Sarah Elizabeth Bell, daughter of James Thomas and Annie Langwell Bell, of Caldwell, on February 26, 1891. To this union were born three boys and five girls, but one of the boys died at the age of one and one-half years and is buried at Caldwell.

In 1900, due to health reasons, Green Leroy moved to Stamford, Texas, where he lived until 1902, when he moved to Troup. In 1910, he moved to Henderson and resided in what is now Highland Park. In 1915, he bought a farm two and one-half miles on the Chickenfeather Road and built a home where he lived until his death, November 5, 1951. Sarah Elizabeth, or Sallie, as he called her, passed away December 30, 1949, and they are both buried in Lakewood Memorial Park. Green Leroy was a bookkeeper for a lumber company, which later became known as the Henderson Lumber Company. He worked there until his retirement. At the time of his death, he was survived by two sons and five daughters.

Green Leroy’s children were: James Oscar Williams, who passed away on June 15, 1959; Nellie Bell Morris, June 6, 1969; Anna Ruth Smith, November 28, 1969; and Hugh Edward Wiliams, September 20, 1974. The three surviving daughters are Mrs. Lucy Hunt of Elizabethton, Tennessee, Mrs. Evelyn Gibson, and Mrs. Elizabeth Smith of Henderson. There are sixteen grandchildren, thirty-three great-grandchildren, and six great-great-grandchildren.

I, Evelyn Williams Gibson, was born at Highland Park, Henderson, April 18, 1912 and at the age of three moved to the Chickenfeather Road Farm, where I grew up. I attended the Henderson schools, walking to and from in all kinds of weather, and graduated in 1930. I married Vernon Gibson, son of C.A. and Lucille Carlisle Gibson, April 25, 1933, at Bossier City, Louisiana.

Vernon and I built our first house out of boxing planks stripped, seven and one-half miles on the Chickenfeather Road. We moved four miles out on the on the same road in 1952, where I presently live. Vernon passed away May 3, 1980.

Our only child, Lavern, was born August 1, 1938 at the Henderson Hospital. He attended and graduated from the Henderson Schools in 1957. He married Willa Ruth Box, who was born June 17, 1960. They have two children, Laura Denise and Allen Robert. Denise graduated from Henderson High School in 1980, fifty years from the time I did, and is now a student at Stephen F. Austin State University. Allen is a sophomore in Henderson High School.

Submitted by Evelyn Williams Gibson