HENRY N. SCARBOROUGH

The following bio was taken from page 382 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, Rusk County TX Coordinator

Henry and I were both born right here in the heart of Rusk County. As youngsters we grew up in adjoining communities of Grandview and Crims Chapel respectively. Our families were farmers by occupation and lived within three miles of each other. Samuel Newt Scarborough (1885-1964) married Bessie E. Dorsey (1887-1959) in 1906. Their four boys and five girls helped their father with his development of the peanut as a commercial crop for Rusk County and his peanut sheller that was patented in 1925. "Star Brand" peanut butter was made at the farm and sold commercially in this area.

My parents, who married in 1912, were Walter Newton Irwin (1885-1968) and Mattie Bell Walton (1894). I have four brothers and three sisters. We all reside in Rusk County.

After Henry and I were both out of school, we were married Christmas Eve, Sunday, 1939. Henry worked for Spunkey Oil Company, at this date and until 1942 shortly after our first child, Charlotte Ann, was born. He then went to work as bus operator for Airline Motor Coaches out of Henderson to Shreveport, Louisiana. We were moved to Longview and Marshall. Then in 1945, Henry was inducted into the United States Army. After basic training at Camp Fannin, Tyler, Texas, Henry was stationed at Ft. Bliss near El Paso, Texas. Charlotte Ann and I took the train in April 1946 to join her father for the duration of his fourteen months. Seeing the great West Texas area and the White Sands National Park and Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico was extra special for us at that time We returned to Marshall and Henry’s bus driving job after his discharge from the Army, August 17, 1946.

Betty Lynn, our second child, was born in 1947; and after living in Nacogdoches for a short time, we came back to Rusk County to put our children into the Henderson schools.

Charlotte finished with the class of 1960 and married Ken R. Cochran in 1961. After four years in the Air Force at Dover, Delaware, the couple returned to Texas. Their daughter, Kenia Kay, was born in 1965 at Dover Air Base Hospital. Ken is now with Valcraft Corporation as a computer programmer in Grapeland.

Betty Lynn married Ronnie Thornton in 1962, and in Houston he received his license as a funeral director and mortician from Commonwealth Mortuary College a few years later and has been employed in Henderson since that time. Their three girls are: Stephenie Nichole, born in 1970; Kristin Renee, born in 1974; and Candace Lynn, born in 1978.

Henry retired from the Continental Trailways Bus System in 1978 after thirty-five years of service and a citation plaque for over two million miles of accident-free driving. We bought the Irwin family farm in 1954 and have lived here since 1964. Henry has cleared the land for agriculture and has his cows and enjoys working. In a way he always wanted to be a farmer and dreamed of it while driving those long miles for Trailways. Henry is caretaker at the Crims Chapel Cemetery and we have become very interested in those who rest there—both his ancestors and mine. (See S.N. Scarborough Family, George N. Honneycutt, and America Crim family.)

Submitted by Lavelle Scarborough