DONALD R. ROSS

The following bio was taken from page 374 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

Diane and I, Donald R., met in 1967 in Harris Chapel, Panola County, Texas while we were both attending the 99^th annual session of the East Texas Sacred Harp Singing Convention. Diane is the daughter of Curtis K., and Edith Owen, and her Owen forebears were pioneer settlers of Caldwell County, Texas. We married on August 3, 1968 while I was a student at Southern Methodist University School of Law, and we made our home in Dallas, Texas until I finished law school in 1970. Then we moved to Rusk County, Texas where I was born and reared and where we continue to live at Henderson with our two sons, John Ryan, born September 14, 1971, and Owen K., born February 28, 1973.

My parents are Mr. and Mrs. M.M. Ross, Sr., who live in the Church Hill Community of Rusk County in the same house where my father has lived since he was five years old. They have reared eight children - four boys and four girls - and on February 7, 1981, they celebrated their 66^th wedding anniversary.

My mother, Maud Gertrude, was the daughter of William (Will) Findley and Mary Frances Allen. My grandmother was a descendant of Drewry Allen, who was born in 1749 in Orange County, North Carolina, and who was a soldier in the American Revolutionary War. Sometime between 1890 and 1895, my mother’s parents moved to Rusk County to the Indian Territory in search of cheap land and settled in or around a small town then known as Berwin but which has since been renamed Gene Autry, Oklahoma. I remember my grandmother’s telling me about this trip to Indian Territory. She said that they started out in a covered wagon drawn by four oxen. During the trip someone traded my grandfather two mules for his four oxen, and my grandmother said that when my grandfather hitched those two mules to the wagon, they went so fast that it took her breath. My mother was born in Oklahoma in 1895, and shortly after her birth, her father was killed in an accident with a horse. My grandmother then returned to Rusk County, Texas, where she later married J.W. McRae.

My father, Monnie Manning Ross, Sr., was born in Rusk County in 1896, the son of James Manning Ross and Nettie E. Brooks. His paternal grandparents, Manning Luther Ross and Mary A. (Polly) Wingo, were from Spartanburg County, South Carolina. Polly Wingo was the daughter of John T. (Crust) Wingo and Cynthia Wood. Crust Wingo’s father William (Billy) Wingo was born in Amelia County, Virginia and fought in the American Revolutionary War. Cynthia Wood’s father, John Wood, was born in Leicestershire, England and came to America in 1755 on the "Hopewell."

Around 1855, Manning Luther Ross moved his family from Wellford, Spartanburg County, Texas. Legend has it that he traded a team of oxen and a wagon for the land that he settled in the Church Hill-Liberty area. In 1862 he enlisted in the Confederate Army for the Civil War and never returned home from this war. However, many of his descendants continue to live and make their homes in Rusk County, including the Church Hill-Liberty area where he settled.

Submitted by Donald R. Ross