E.R. TROTTER

The following bio was taken from page 415 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

Ernest Robertson Trotter, my husband was born to John and Josephine Trotter, November 10, 1900 in Hill County. I, Lurline Webb Trotter, was born to Charly and Della Webb on May 16, 1906 in Groesbeck, Texas.

Ernest Trotter moved to my hometown in 1923. He was the Chevrolet dealer there. He played football at Westminster College in Tehuacana, Texas. That is where we first met.

On October 21, 1924, Ernest and I drove to Dawson, Texas in a Model A Ford coupe and picked up my grandfather, Reverend J.T. McKeown. We took him back to Groesbeck where he performed our wedding ceremony that evening at six p.m. in my parents’ home. After the wedding dinner and reception, we left on a short honeymoon to Waco and Dallas. On our return, we resided in Groesbeck. Here, our daughter, Jo Delle Trotter, was born August 27, 1927.

We moved to Henderson, Texas in 1931 during the oil boom. Ernest was thirty-one years old and I was twenty-seven and Jo Delle was four.

Ernest had seven sisters: Lula, Maude, Bamye, Allie, Ida, Josie, and Gladys: and four brothers; Eli, Will, John, and George.

I, Lurline, had three sisters—Beecher, Mildred and Carol. My father owned a variety store in Groesbeck. Ernest used to say that he got me from a five and ten cent store.

Trotter (everyone called him by his last name), sold cars for Alford Brothers, Mast Kendrick Motor Company, and Circle Oldsmobile and Cadillac. In 1975 after fifteen years with Circle Oldsmobile and fifty years of selling cars, he retired. He died December 25, 1980 at the age of eighty in the Henderson Memorial Hospital and is buried in Lakewood Memorial Park. He was a fifty-year Mason at Springfield Lodge No. 74 A.F. and A.M. in Mexia Texas.

Jo Delle graduated from Henderson High School in 1944 and from Texas Woman’s University in Denton in 1948 with a B.S. Degree in journalism. She was a member of the Delian Club and Kappa Alpha Mu Sorority. She received her teacher’s certification from Our Lady of the Lake in San Antonio and her special education certification from Texas Arts and Industries College in Kingsville, Texas.

Jo Delle lives in San Antonio and is married to Paul Emory Washington. He is a descendant of President George Washington. They were married August 22, 1948 at the Little Chapel in the Woods in Denton. Paul, a Navy veteran, was a former student of North Texas State University in Denton. He later graduated from Baylor University in Waco, Texas and is now manager of Cameron Lumber Company, wholesale, in San Antonio, Texas.

Della and Paul have four children: Judy, Dick, Bill, and Jack; and two grandchildren: Shelley Spencer and David Washington.

Jo Delle has been teaching in Corpus Christi and San Antonio for eighteen years. At the present time she is teaching in the Mary Hull School.

Besides being a housewife I worked at J.C. Penneys for a number of years. I’m still keeping house at the age of seventy-five and live at 2303 South Evenside. I’m a member of the First United Methodist Church in Henderson, as were my husband and daughter. When I first moved to East Texas, I was told that Henderson was in the backwoods and everyone went barefooted. Having lived here for fifty years, I have found out differently. Now I can tell them, the newcomers, a thing or two.

Submitted by Lurline Webb Trotter