WILLIAM JEFFERSON MERCER

 The following bio was taken from page 306 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

 Transcribed by Claudia Schuster

 Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Cemeteries of TX

 Jeff Mercer, the youngest of six children, was born in 1891 to Thomas Jefferson and Mary Francis Mercer.  He attended school at Forest Home and Danville.  He always helped out with work around the farm and saw mills, which were owned by his brothers, Jacob and Ras.

 World War I came along and Jeff became a member of the cavalry.  Before going overseas, he returned home and married Annie Mae Black (born 1899), a student at the College of Marshall.  She was a native of Hallsville.  Jeff went on to war, and his wife went back to her studies.

 After returning from the war, Jeff and his brothers built a home on the family farm.  Jeff and Annie Mae had four children: Warden Thomas, Doris, Talmadge, and Jakey Mae.

 At the beginning of the “Oil Boom,” Jeff ran a small country store.  He was robbed and even kidnapped so many times that he lost count.  He closed the store and moved to Gregg County, where he and his family remained for eight years.

 During the years in Gregg County, the family lived in the Sabine River bottom area.  Jeff worked as a royalty guager and a Deputy Texas Ranger under Captain Bill Dial.  Roads were so bad that he rode a big dapple-gray mare everywhere he traveled. 

 In 1936 the eldest son, Warden, died of pneumonia.  It was a great loss for Jeff and Annie Mae.  There was a large crowd for the services at Danville.  The funeral was held outside under the trees.

 In 1940, Jeff moved his family back home to Rusk County.  He resumed farming and worked as a carpenter during the beginning of World War II.

 Jeff passed away in 1944 in the Veterans Hospital of Chicago, Illinois.  Annie Mae and three children were left to farm one more year before she reopened the county store, which she continued to run until her death in 1966.  Jeff and Annie Mae Mercer are buried at the Danville Cemetery.

 Doris married Vernon Nyall, who was from Minnesota.  Talmadge married Laverne Hill, the daughter of an oil “boomer” from Arkansas.  Jakey Mae, who was known as “Teeny,” married Jimmy Still, a native Rusk County boy.

 Submitted by Talmadge Mercer