BILLY WHITE AND HAZEL (DEASON) CARROLL

The following bio was taken from page 143 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

Coming from Alabama to Texas around the year 1897, Noah J. Carroll and his wife, Carrie Ward Carroll, settled in the Nacogdoches, Texas area. To this family were born five sons: Edward, Oscar, Sam, Therion Demp, and James; and seven daughters: Maggie, Mattie, Mittie, Felice, Mae, Gussie and Elizabeth.

One of the sons, Therion Demp Carroll, born October 27, 1895, met and married Mittie Laurena Morris of San Augustine, Texas in 1917. Mittie Morris was the daughter of John Anson Morris and Laurena Crouch Morris. When John Anson Morris was around thirty-five years old and the father of six children, he decided to become a medical doctor. He took his family home to his wife’s family in San Augustine, and he attended medical school in Little Rock, Arkansas for about three years. He returned to San Augustine, where he was a beloved physician in that area for some forty years.

After T. D. Carroll and Mittie Morris Carroll married, they lived for a while in the Beaumont area where T. D. was employed by the Texas Company. However, in 1921 he enrolled in the music department of Southwestern Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth, Texas. The family remained there until about 1925 when T. D. Carroll went into full time evangelistic work as a gospel singer. As a prominent Southern Baptist, he traveled the states over, teaming with such noted evangelists as L. C. Garrison, W. Y. Pond, and Hyman Appleman.

To T. D. and Mittie Carroll were born John D. Carroll, November 27, 1918; Billy White Carroll, March 20, 1929 and James Edward Carroll, November 24, 1931; Mary Elizabeth Carroll, July 12, 1933; and Sarah Carroll, September 10, 1935. The second son, Billy White, was named for Dr. W. R. White, President of Baylor University, Waco, Texas in the 50’s and 60’s, and a close personal friend of T. D. Carroll. Billy White Carroll was born in Electra, Texas, but moved to Henderson when he was about a year old. He attended the Henderson Public Schools and was awarded a track scholarship to Baylor University.

After leaving Baylor in 1951, Billy White married Hazel West Deason, who was born in Henderson, Texas on January 1, 1930 to Daniel Forrest Deason and Bennie Oneva West Deason. Hazel’s father D. F. Deason (July 19, 1895) was from Minden, Texas, and Bennie Deason (January 4, 1901) came to Texas from Tennessee when she was nineteen years old. Other children born to this family were Don Alwyn Deason, August 11, 1926, and Mary Alleen Deason, November 12, 1927. Hazel Deason Carroll also attended public schools in Henderson and graduated from Southern Methodist University June 4, 1951, just prior to her marriage to Billy White on June 8, 1951.

In July 1951 Billy White joined the Air Force and was sent to Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, where Hazel joined him shortly, and they spent four years in the same house during Billy White’s term of service.

To Billy White and Hazel were born three sons: Daniel Anson Carroll, April 12, 1952; John Deason Carroll, July 14, 1955; and Don Edward Carroll; November 2, 1957. All three were born in the Henderson Memorial Hospital and graduated from the Henderson Public School.

Submitted by Hazel Carroll