BENNETT MORTON 

The following bio was taken from page 322 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 Texas 

I met Bennett in August 1922 at a party in the Monroe Community.  We were playing snap and it was pitch dark.  Away I ran trying to catch him and toppled over the chicken coop.  He came back to see if I was hurt.  Before the party was over, he made a date for the following Sunday.  We went to box suppers, to dances at the neighbor’s’ houses, to parties, and to church.  We were nineteen at the time, and he wanted to get married, but I kept putting him off.  Then he went to West Texas to pick cotton as a lot of families did back in the 1920’s. 

When I wrote and told Bennett that I was ready to get married, I did not know how he got home so fast.  We were married December 19, 1924, at the Methodist Church in Kilgore.  We lived with his parents, George and Blance Barron Morton, for thirteen months.  Then we moved into a rent house on the farm of my father, James Marshall Walker.  It was so good to get out to ourselves.  Bennett owned a saddle horse and an A Model car.  He bought a milk cow and the neighbors filled the hen house with chickens.  In 1929 we moved to the Cross Roads Community where we farmed, raised cows, and in the summer, cut and hewed cross ties.  That year we bought a gray Whippet car with a rumble seat.  During the Great Depression, when times got hard we did a little bootlegging on the side.

 Bennett was born August 3, 1905 and I was born January 26, 1905.  We had six children.  Wendle, who was born September 30, 1925, died October 8, 1959.  Wesley, born November 28, 1926, married Nevel Mount, and they have five children: Mike, Pamela, Denise, Mark and Janet.  Wayne, who was born March 29, 1929, died September 15, 1931.  Joan, born December 23, 1931, married John Monroe Smith, Jr., and they had three children - Joy, Wayne, and Wendle.  Twins, Lanelle and Adelle, were born November 26, 1934.  Lanelle married Trenton Mount and they have four children: Phillip, Steve, Eric, and Phyllis.  Adelle married Billy Ballow, and they have three sons: Keith, Dave, and Bruce.

Bennett’s favorite sport was quail hunting.  He always had a good pair of bird dogs.  Horses were another great love of his and he raised and sold quarter horses.  We had a country grocery store in the Monroe Community for some thirty years, until Bennett’s death March 22, 1974.

Submitted by Addie Walker Morton