RICHARD AND RUBY STONE

The following bio was taken from page 398 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 

  I am Ruby Stone.  I was born February 13, 1913 in the Blossom Hill Community, nine miles east of Henderson on the Carthage road.  My parents were John Buckner Snelgrove and Georgia Waldroup Snelgrove.

 The Snelgrove family came from Georgia to Texas before the Civil War and settled in Panola County.  They had lived in Alabama and Tennessee before moving to Georgia.

 Eli Benjamin Snelgrove, who was a farmer by trade, was the pioneer of the family.  He built a log cabin located on the Carthage highway (Blossom Hill).  We sold the cabin in 1942 to a man in Waco, Texas, who moved the cabin to that city.   When I went to a floral convention in Waco last year, I called the man, and he took me to see the cabin.  It is located in a museum, with a historical marker giving my grandfather’s family history.  I was so pleased to see the cabin as it made me think of the times when I was a child and visited with my grandparents.

 Grandfather Snelgrove married Julia Kilgore, an orphan who was reared by her aunt and uncle, Myrt and Arthur Buckner of Pine Hill (See Buckner account).  Eli Benjamin Snelgrove served in the Civil War, and he and Julia Snelgrove are buried in the Pine Grove Cemetery.

 John Buckner Snelgrove, my father, married Georgia Waldroup in Natchitoches, Louisiana and brought her to Texas in 1910.  My father was a farmer and also a schoolteacher, having attended Huntsville State Normal, now Sam Houston State University.  He taught school many years in Rusk and Panola counties.  He was elected State Representative for two consecutive terms and served in the State Legislature in Austin from 1928-1932.

 My parents made their home in Blossom Hill Community during their married life.  There were three of us children: Ruby Snelgrove Stone, and my two sisters, Juanita Snelgrove Prior and Ethel Snelgrove Patterson.  My parents were members of the Pine Hill Baptist Church until their deaths – my father, in 1941 and my mother, in 1960.  Both are buried in Bridges Cemetery.

 I married Richard Stone, son of Julian Stone and Ola Ballenger Stone, in 1935 and moved to the Oakland Community.  We are members of the Oakland Methodist Church.  Our only daughter, Ann Stone Harris, has three children, two girls and a boy.  The oldest is Deborah Carol, twenty-two, who married DeWayne Miley.  Deborah Carol works at the Republic Bank of Henderson.  Our only grandson, Ricky was a victim of leukemia at the age of sixteen.  He died in 1977 and is buried in Lakewood Memorial Cemetery.  The third child of Anne Stone Harris is Theresa, who attends the Henderson Public Schools.

 I attended Henderson Schools and Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College and later taught school in the county for fourteen years.  In 1950 my husband and I went into the florist business.  My husband, my daughter, and I are still owners of Hiway Flower Shop.

 Submitted by Ruby Snelgrove Stone.