CLYDE AND LOIS GREEN

The following bio was taken from page 215 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 TX

Clyde B. Green spent most of his younger years in Rusk County. He grew up learning to plant, grow, and sell watermelons. He became a master at it, as was his father, Joel Pinkney Green (1871-1952).

As a young child, my mother, Mary Lois Gray Green, recalls the wagonloads of watermelons that passed her home in Oak Hill, near Henderson, Texas. The wagons were driven by Joel Pinkney Green and his sons. They were on the way to markets in the surrounding East Texas towns. Clyde Green, at age twenty-two, courted and married Mary Lois Gray. It was shortly after her seventeenth birthday. The wedding took place at the Methodist Parsonage in Henderson on October 31, 1925. Lois’s parents, Marvin Lewis Gray and Elizabeth Katheryn Howard Gray were from early Rusk County families.

Clyde and Lois settled near Oak Hill. Later they moved into the New Prospect Community, where they still live. Five children were born to them during the depression years of the late 1920’s and 1930’s. They are: Betty Joyce (Mrs. Quinton Hale); Justin Clyde (who married Billie Jo Spiers); June Fay (Mrs. Vernon Faulkner); Gloria (Mrs. Rex White); and Joe Reginal (who married Mary Trotter).

During this time, Clyde made a living farming. He bought land, and his collateral was little more than his good name. He and Lois managed to hold onto the land during the following years by good management and a lot of hard work. They added to the land and never have stopped improving it.

Clyde was a conservation farmer and was a co-operator with his soil conservation district for many years. In the 1950’s he did custom planting of coastal Bermuda grass and pine tree seedlings in Rusk County. One year he planted over 540,000 pine trees. Many of them are large trees today.

In 1970 the Tatum Lions Club awarded Clyde a plaque. For that year he was chosen as the outstanding conservation rancher of Zone 5 by the Rusk County Soil and Conservation District.

For several years Clyde and his brother, L. A. "Dude" Green, farmed on a very large scale in South Texas. They raised hundreds of acres of melons near the King Ranch. In 1951 Clyde visited the famous ranch and became interested in a new breed of cattle produced there. He purchased some of their fine Santa Gertrudus cattle to bring back to his own ranch. It was the first of this breed to come to Rusk County but soon became popular here. Until his retirement, Clyde’s fine herd of cattle carried strains of this stock.

Hundreds of acres of Rusk county melons were also planted each year. One season Clyde planted over a thousand acres in Rusk County alone. In addition, he farmed several hundred acres of truck crops, with which he stocked a large vegetable stand on Highway 43, between Henderson and Tatum. The vegetable stand was known throughout East Texas for its fresh fruits and vegetables. It was operated at the same location for over thirty years.

Although the early homes of Clyde and Lois were simple country homes, these were made warm and attractive by the creative talents of Lois. When the children came home from school, there was always an abundance of good home-cooked food. Lois was also an excellent seamstress. In 1953 Gloria was chosen by the Henderson Home Economics Class as the best-dressed girl in Henderson High School.

In 1958, Lois was instrumental in forming the Prospectors Garden Club for the women of the New Prospect Community. Her creativity and interest in horticulture led her to become a nationally accredited flower show judge. Lois’s own flower arrangements have won many of the highest awards given flower arrangers.

Clyde and Lois are active members of the New Prospect Baptist Church. They are now retired and highly respected in their county.

Submitted by June Green Faulkner