T.R. RICHARDS

The following bio was taken from page 360 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

I, T.R. (Theodore) Richards, was born at Crystal Falls, Texas, the third of four children: Frank (O.D.), who married Fannie Mae Naylor; George, who married Almira Bosher; and Buford, who died at the age of twenty-seven, without having been married. My brothers and mother, Lula Mae Thompson Richards are buried in the Laneville Cemetery.

My father, Benjamin Franklin Richards, was a descendant of one of nine Richards brothers who came from England before New York existed and settled right where that city is now. They settled land there, leased it out for ninety-nine years, scattered, and never went back.

I came to Rusk County with my family in a covered wagon from Oklahoma in the winter of 1923. It took us five days. My folks settled in the Stewart Community. I settled one and one-half miles north of Barnhart Creek on the Skiles and Wood Ranch where I farmed on thirds and fourths and worked in a nursery.

In 1931, I put in a garage and filling station on the Laneville highway just south of Barnhart Creek on "Richard’s Hill". The first garage building I made was out of logs – cut them, hauled them in, and put them up. Later I built a big building. This is where I lived when I met Mindy. We married in Nacogdoches, December 8, 1938.

I bought gas at Overton, Arp, and places like that, hauled it back, and sold it for 10 cents a gallon. If we made three cents per gallon we were doing good. In 1945, we moved to town and put in a radio repair shop on South Jackson just south of the Randolph Hotel, which stood where the Citizens National Bank is now. Later, we moved to a building on South Main where Mitchell’s Jewelry is. In April, 1948, we moved to our place on Highway 64 and had a furniture store and radio repair shop there.

We have two daughters, Selma Joyce, who married Dale Jones of Laneville, has three children. Donna Kay married Bruce Truelove, and they have two children and live in Plano.

My wife’s folks came from Georgia and settled in Joshua, Texas. Her daddy, Leander Hansford Williams, and her mother, Hester A. Manson, were married December 6, 1904. Besides Mindy, the Williams have four other children. Johnny married Gladys Mae Phillips and lives in Corpus Christi. Zollie Mae, who lives in Fort Worth, is now married to Ben Meyer after the death of her first husband, "Bud" Webster. Wesley, who married Merion Q. Swinney, now lives at Laneville on the Swinney homeplace. Carlton Mack, who married Barbara Borek, lives in Aberdeen, Washington. For eighteen years Mindy’s dad worked in Santa Fe Railroad shops as a welder. When the workers went on strike, he moved to the country around Rio Vista and farmed the rest of his life. He stayed in Sweetgum Community for two years, then moved back to Rio Vista, where he died. Her daddy helped lay one of the first pipe lines through Texas.

I still remember when the courthouse sat on the square in the middle of town. On its south side was a water trough to water stock. East Main Street was paved with brick and South Main was not paved and sometimes got pretty messy in rainy weather. My first car was a 1922 Model T touring car that I bought for $200.00. It would out-run just about any car in Rusk County.

Submitted by Joyce Jones