MILLARD EVERETT WATSON

The following bio was taken from page 433 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

Solomon Watson, born in North Carolina in 1785 of Scotch-Irish-English descent, married Dorcas (surname unknown), who was born in 1795 in North Carolina. He was a planter who moved to Bishopville, South Carolina before 1810. Solomon and Dorcas had eleven children: Mary, Isaac, William, James T., Soloman, Samuel, Elizabeth, John Jesse, Nancy, and Willis. The couple lived many years in Sumter District with many descendants in that area as well as those who moved to other states.

In 1860, James T. was in Maury County, Tennessee, where he married Martha J. Johnson, daughter of Laban and Susan Johnson. By December 7, 1861, he was back in Bishopville enlisting to serve the South as a mechanic in the War Between the States. He wrote a letter from Bishopville, December 11, 1870 to Columbia Herald, Tennessee. He learned that they had left ten years before and because of the war years had lost touch with her brothers, Richard and Wiley Johnson.

Life was now good for the family, and in 1880 they were back in Mt. Pleasant, Tennessee with seven children: John, Millard Everett, Lavonia, James, Lee, Hattie, and Will. Sadness followed soon after as James carried on his trade of wagon maker near his home. On July 27, 1882, he was killed by a blow to the head "by a plow handle in the hands of C.J. Booker."

Millard Everett 91868-1929) married first Una Davis and had three children: Irma Estelle, Basil Everett, and Percy Eugene. Una died while the children were small, and on December 30, 1905 Millard married Nancy Miriam (Nannie), daughter of Robert Anthony and Margaret Tennessee (Pitts) Holt. Of their five children two died young, leaving Malvin Heath, Nona Azalie, and Vesta Lavonia.

Millard became superintendent of Arrow and Howard Phosphate Mines in Mt. Pleasant, but about 1910 he decided to seek a better life in Texas. Being a versatile person, he carved a set of wooden puppets, his wife making their clothes, to use as a ventriloquist act. He packed a covered wagon with household goods, and taking his two older sons, he began a long trip, stopping along the way for shows of ventriloquism to help finance the trip to Temple, Texas. Nannie and other children soon followed by train.

After a short time there, they moved to Mineola, Texas and then to Dirgin, in northeast Rusk County, where, putting aside his puppets, in 1916, he purchased a farm.

Millard died in 1929, and Nannie carried on the farm, milking cows for many years and selling the produce. Her three children married; Nona first, to Jack Martin and the second time to Dennis Ballenger; and Vesta to Clyde Young. Malvin married Edna Mae, daughter of Percy and Josie (Jimerson) Jennings, and in 1950 purchased the family farm after his mother died. He died in 1974 and his wife, his daughter, and son-in-law still live on the farm. Malvin had one child, Barbara Ann. She married Euel Mays Faulkner, son of Morgan and Velma Faulkner, building contractor and rancher. Barbara is an artist with a studio, "Whispering Pines," in their home. They have two sons, Derek and Lowell. Derek graduated from the University of Texas in 1961 as an architect. Lowell also enrolled in The University of Texas. He is married to Jennifer Roberts, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. David Roberts.

Submitted by Edna Mae Watson