Willis and Alma THORNTON

The following bio was taken from pages 407-408 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited and used with permission of the Rusk County Historical Commission.

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria Briley Mayfield, Rusk County TX Coordinator

I was eight years old when I came to Rusk County and lived in Ebenezer Community where my father was my teacher. We moved to Henderson, December 1914, and lived across the street from Postmaster George Smith. For two years I attended school in the two-story frame building on North Marshall. My first teacher was Miss Ray Rayford in the fourth grade. Other teachers were Miss Clara Woolworth and Miss Beatrice Bolton. At the outbreak of WW I, Bob Milner, high school instructor, drilled boys of draft age on the school grounds. Girls met and knitted scarves and made hospital items. Seeing the draftees off at the depot was a heartbreaking experience. Then I recall the “flu” epidemic raged in 1918-1921 and hundreds of people in the county died of the disease. In high school I took piano lessons for three years from Mrs. A. D. Holt. The Henderson High School football team went in a Model T Ford to Timpson to play, and broke down as they came home. In 1922 our senior party was hosted by the Dupuy Batemans at the Homer Harris’ home. Another teacher, Professor P. B. Bittle, taught in Henderson for twenty-one years. Judge McDavid presented him with a gold watch as a token of appreciation from the community. Other high school teachers especially remembered are Dr. Lanier, Chalmers Livsey, Jim Still, Miss Alma Mays, and Miss Mary Louise Hightower. I went to high school in the new red brick building on North High Street and graduated in 1922. I attended one summer session at Sam Houston State College and finished at Stephen F. Austin State University. I taught five years at Chalk Hill, a two-teacher school northeast of Henderson and one year at Oak Grove in Smith County. Grandfather Reese, his wife, and four sons came through on a visit, moving in covered wagons from Arkansas to the Rio Grande Valley. My first ride in an automobile was in a “jitney” from the square to the Fair Grounds. We also went by train to Sherman to visit Mother’s relatives. My parents were Abraham Pinkney (A. P.) Reese and Lottie Belle Grigg. They had eight children: Ruby, Troy, Betrick, Jessie, Preston, Travis, Truett, and all except Troy are still living. Of my paternal ancestors, my father, who was of English descent, was born in Rome, Georgia. His mother, Lynia Franklin, was the granddaughter of a Cherokee Indian chief. Great-grandfather, William Madison Reese, was in the Civil War. My maternal ancestors were L. A. (Bert) Grigg of North Carolina and his wife, Eliza Cline, of Shelby County, North Carolina. L. A.’s father was killed in the Civil War. L. A.’s descendants still live on the same farm at Shelby and Lincolnton, North Carolina. Bert and Eliza moved to Grayson County in 1890. They had ten children five of whom are still living in Grayson County. Father taught school in Upshur, Smith and Rusk counties. He had studied at Prichett Institute, Big Sandy, Texas. In 1929 I married W. T. (Willis) Thornton, who owned a country store at Dirgin, near Harmony Hill. He later ran a service station in Denton until his retirement. Our son, Robert Willis, was born December 14, 1933 at Dirgin. Robert is Associate Professor in Industrial Arts at North Texas State University. Linda, born March 2, 1941 at Dirgin, is Assistant District Director of the Regional Center of Internal Revenue in Little Rock, Arkansas. At the age of fourteen at Henderson’s First Baptist Church in a revival led by Dr. George Truett, I was converted as a Southern Baptist. Written by Alma Reese Thornton