THE STANDARD FAMILY

The following bio was taken from page 394 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

Bill Standard was born March 15, 1839 in Butts County, Georgia. His parents were Kimbrough and Mary Matilda (Brown) Standard. In 1856 he came to Texas at the age of seventeen. He fought in the Civil War, serving in the Texas 7^th Cavalry of the Confederacy. After the war, he married Mary Morris Price, a widow with a small son, who had lost her husband in the war.

Mary Morris Price was born December 5, 1839 near Montgomery, Alabama, to Billie and E. Helen (Lawler) Morris. The family came to Panola County, Texas in a wagon train in 1855 when Mary was sixteen. She knew very little about sewing and cooking because slaves had done all such work in Alabama. She married Calvin Price in Rusk County in 1858. They had two children – William Calvin Price, who later died in a hunting accident at the age of twenty-one, and Emma Cornelia Price, who died at the age of two. Calvin Price died of pneumonia in Tyler, Texas while serving in the Civil War. Mary married Bill Standard in Panola County on July 22, 1867 and they went to live in the Crims Chapel Community in Rusk County. They settled on two hundred and twenty-three acres (about forty-five of which formerly belonged to the late Calvin Price).

Mary and Bill Standard had six sons: Leroy (Lee) Thomas, James (Jim) Wallace, Edward (Ed) Lawler, Amos Gaines, Henry Morris, who died at the age of eleven, and Jesse Bell. The family raised horses, cows, sheep, angora goats, hogs and turkeys. They farmed the land and raised sugar cane, cotton, corn, and other crops. They also had a large orchard of peaches, apples, and almond trees.

Mary helped organize the Crims Chapel Baptist Church in 1873 and was one of the thirteen charter members. She was often seen reading her Bible as she churned. Bill died of pneumonia April 10, 1894 at the age of fifty-five and was buried in Millville Cemetery. Mary died December 27, 1924 at the age of eighty-five and was buried beside her husband.

Amos Gaines Standard, the fourth son of Bill and Mary Standard, born on March 28, 1876, was my grandfather. He married Lavada Green Brooks in Rusk County on February 16, 1896. She was born near Holly Springs, Mississippi on June 24, 1879. Her father was John Brooks, a tinsmith, and her mother was Hetty Clifton Williams Brooks, whose family came from Tennessee. John and Hetty Brooks were separated when Lavada was a baby. Hetty’s first husband, Bill Williams, a Baptist preacher, had died and left her with two sons, one of whom died.

When Lavada was fourteen, she, her mother, and her half-brother, Eldred Williams, age twenty, came to Marshall, Texas by train from Mississippi. They thought they might be able to make a better living here in Texas. Eldred farmed on the halves; that is the owner of the land would furnish that team of mules and seeds, and Uncle Eldred would furnish the work. When they sold the crop, each would get half the money. In Panola County Hetty Clifton died of appendicitis three months after arriving in Texas. Lavada and Eldred were left all alone. Eldred found farm work in Rusk County in the Crims Chapel Community. There Lavada met and later married Amos Standard.

Amos built a house on the far north end of his parents’ land. We, the Stephens, live in this old homeplace. We bricked it and fixed it up, but it’s the same house. Amos was a farmer and a blacksmith. He had the talent to be a veterinarian; in fact, many people used him as one. He raised cotton, corn, peanuts, potatoes, sugar cane – but cotton was his money crop. He had a syrup mill where he would make delicious syrup from the sugar cane he raised.

Lavada was the best of mothers. If she had had the chance, she probably would have been a teacher, for she was constantly teaching her children everything she could. Later on in life, when her oldest son, Fred (a deacon in his church), would come to visit, she would stay up late at night discussing Bible scriptures with him. She loved the Lord and His Word. Amos and Lavada Standard had nine children: William Rogal (died as an infant), Hetty Alma, Henry Frederick, Mary Una, Jimmy Lee, Jewel Grace, Willis Carl, Helen Clair, and Gracie Evelyn.

My Aunt Grace Standard, the sixth child of Amos and Lavada, never married and still gardens on some of the same land her father and grandfather once used.

My mother, Helen Standard Stephens, the eighth child of Amos and Lavada, married R.E. Stephens from Nacogdoches, and they later settled in Crims Chapel. They had six children: Vyra Joy, Roy Ernest, Jr., Helen Lucille, Nancy Jane, Lavada June, and Patrick Henry. R.E. Stephens has always provided well for his family by being a super salesman. He always loved gospel music, and when he married Helen, music was a common interest as well as a talent held by both. As a result, our home was always filled with music praising the Lord – a heritage worth more than silver and gold.

Submitted by June Stephens