JOHN B. LANGSTON

 The following bio was taken from page 280 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 Texas

 John Barham Langston was born in Beaumont, Texas, in 1944, the son of O. M. Jack and Mary Frierson Langston.  Although he lived there until he graduated from high school, trips to East Texas with the family were frequent, and it was during his early years that his love for the Rusk County area began.

 John’s ancestry in this part of Rusk County goes back to Americus Langston’s return here from the Civil War.  (He had a tannery near Tatum before the war.)  He married Dianisha Ann Barham, and they had several children, one of whom was Gordon, John’s grandfather, who settled in Garrison, Texas.

 After high school, John attended Stephen F. Austin State University, where he received a B.S. in business, and then served three years in the army.  In 1970 he entered pharmacy school at the University of Texas in Austin.  In 1971 his father died, leaving his mother about forty acres of Rusk County land located eight miles east of Mt. Enterprise.  At this time John made a decision to settle in this area after finishing school.

 Facing an interim period from school in the summer of 1972, John decided to shave his head and set off for the woods of East Texas to start building a home for his mother, who would be retiring from her job as a librarian in Beaumont.  The hairless head was a means of “keeping his cool” while working in the hot, humid woods for three months.  He camped out the entire time in a pole shelter which he built on the building site, only a quarter of a mile from the Americus Langston homestead.  In the three months, he completed a slab foundation for a geodesic dome.

 While at the University of Texas, John and I met and were married in 1974 in Temple, Texas where I grew up.  My parents are Clinton A. and Mary Matijowsky Witt, of German and Polish descent.  Together we moved to Rusk County to work on building our own house, an A-frame, which John also built himself, along with a barn and a combination green-house-wash house.  We are members of the Concord Methodist Church.  We both practice pharmacy in the area and in 1978 bought our own pharmacy in Mt. Enterprise.

 John’s family has always been a resourceful and self-sufficient clan, and John is proving himself to be a true Langston.  He is building a successful business and (I believe) is a very respected person in the community.  He is a volunteer fireman, also an Emergency Medical Technician with the volunteer ambulance service in Mt. Enterprise, and during 1980, a city judge.

 John’s great uncle, whom he was named after, also had a business in Rusk County, a sawmill, which operated from the early 1900’s until the early 1940’s.

Now there is a John Barham Langston III, born May 28, 1979.  He has “helped” at the pharmacy since he was a few months old, and at present, he and his daddy are working on building a computer for the drugstore records.  “J.B.” most often has for Daddy questions concerning the computer, like “What’s dat?”

 Well, I’ll bet you wondered what happened to that slab built in 1972.  It now has a dome on it that is near completion, which we hope will prove to be an energy-efficient and comfortable home for his mother.  We are looking forward to the big move-in day when we will all be on the forty acres together.

 Then what will we do?  Well, there are always additions to the drugstore and the A-frame and the computer and the family.

 Submitted by Patti Witt Langston