Gordon Brown

The following bio was taken from page 127 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

Sam Gordon Brown and I, Margaret Elizabeth Wright, were married Sunday, December 7, 1930, by the Reverend Earnest G. Cook in the First United Methodist Church in Henderson, and we are still members of this church.

We celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary on Sunday, December 7, 1980, at the Howard-Dickinson House, where we received a host of friends and relatives. Four members of our wedding party were present for the occasion.

Gordon is the son of the late Truitt Brown and Lottie Todd Brown and was born in the old Fountain Head community near his grandfather James Henry Brown’s home. He also lived in New London, but spent most of his youth in the Jacobs community where he attended the rural school there.

I was born at Oak Hill but moved to Henderson very early. My parents were Joe Wright and Georgia Pollard Wright, and my grandparents were Cole and Margaret Lanford Wright. I was named for my grandmother and her sister, Memory Elizabeth.

I graduated form Henderson High School and attended college at Texas Women’s University, which was then called C.I.A. (College of Industrial Arts).

For several years I taught in the old country schools in both Smith and Rusk counties. I greatly enjoyed teaching but I decided to change my profession and worked in some of Henderson’s dry-goods stores even after our marriage.

In 1932 Gordon decided he wanted to have a store of his own, so we bought a lot from A. P. Reese at 825 N. Marshall and built a small building where he sold gasoline, oil, groceries, and other items. We both enjoyed this enterprise very much and kept it going for forty-six years, closing it and retiring in 1978.

Three children were born to us: Angela Margaret Brown, a son who died at birth, and Elizabeth Earle Brown, who was named for her great-great-grandmother, Elizabeth Earle Goodlett, but has always been called Betty by her family.

Gordon and I still live at 901 N. Marshall here in Henderson where we enjoy our hobbies and activities. He keeps busy fishing and hunting, gardening, and keeping his rent property repaired. He also enjoys riding all over Rusk and nearby counties on the beautiful country roads, but most of all he likes to talk politics with his friends and neighbors.

I am interested in genealogy, history, photography, and my membership in D. A. R., U. D.C. and D. R. T. (all patriotic groups). I like to write and in connection with the Rusk County Historical Commission have published histories of Reverend William Craig, History of New Prospect Baptist Church and Cemetery, and some other publications.

We enjoy visiting our children, and we are very proud of our two grandchildren, Paige and Courtney Christian, children of our daughter, Elizabeth.

Submitted by Margaret Elizabeth Wright