G. W. BIRD

The following bio was taken from page 111 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

George Wilson Bird was born February 17, 1848, near Danville, Georgia. He was the eleventh of twelve children born to Wilson J. Bird and Martha Montgomery Bird. Seven of his brothers fought for the South in the Civil War. He was too young to fight in the war himself, but he was old enough to remember sitting on a rail fence and seeing Atlanta burn.

George came to Texas in 1866 along with his older brother John Bird and his family. He worked for a while as a clerk in various stores in Henderson. During his seventy-five years as a resident of Rusk County, G. W. Bird was a farmer, a surveyor, and a community leader. He was also associated with Major B. S. Wathen for a number of years. His home was in the Stewart Community.

On January 9, 1895, G. W. Bird married Maud M. Richardson. She was born February 1, 1879 and was the youngest child of Brooks W. Richardson and Eliza Jane Bullard Richardson. They had four children: Sallie, born in 1896; Garrison, born in 1898; Georgia, born in 1902; and Ela, born in 1911.

Garrison Bird died of pneumonia in 1915. Georgia married Fred M. Vincent of Vermont in 1921. They had one daughter, Shirley Maud, born December 16, 1923. Shirley married Arthur E. Anderson from Pender, Nebraska, and they have two children: Karen Lisa, born in 1956, and Erick Vincent, born in 1958. Georgia Bird Vincent and the Anderson family all reside in Lafayette, Louisiana.

Sallie Bird married Calvin Young in 1940. They had no children, and he died in 1951.

Ela married Dozier M. Gibson of Hallsville in December 1945. They have one daughter, June Elaine, born in 1947. June married John B. Oakley of Greenville, North Carolina, and they have no children. Dozier and Ela Gibson and Sallie Young still reside on the old G. W. Bird homestead.

George Wilson Bird died September 22, 1940. His wife Maud died in June 1973. They are buried side by side in Stewart Cemetery.

Submitted by June Gibson Oakley