JOHN ROBERT WYATT
The following bio was taken from page 458 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
My great-great-grandfather, Elijah Wyatt, came to Texas from Tennessee in 1838. He and his family, widowed daughter Matilda Hoyle, two young daughters, two sons, Robert and Wash and their families, and other relatives came in covered wagons pulled by oxen. They went through forests with almost no roads and bridges. When they came to Grandbluff, Sabine River Crossing, Robert Wyatt’s wife and one of the Hoyle’s girls died and were buried there. They came to the community of Fair Play, ten miles west of Carthage, Panola County, Texas.
Most of the Wyatts settled near Fair Play. Wash Wyatt married a Morgan girl and settled there. Robert Wyatt settled nearby in the Liberty Community, nicknamed Frog Pond. This was in Rusk County, ten miles east of Henderson, Texas. One of Robert Wyatt’s sons, John Robert, was my grandfather. He met and married Martha Lou Conway, December 20, 1882. She was the daughter of Thomas H. Conway and Sarah Francis Hoyle Conway.
When Martha Lou was small, she followed a Negro woman that was looking for a hole in the rail fence where the geese were getting out. The woman looked back and saw a big cat stalking the child. She called the dogs, which came and treed the cat up a tree until one of the men shot it.
John Robert and Martha Lou were blessed with seven children. Homer never married; Jesse died young; Effie Carnelia married Dee Gentry; Essie married Jim Garrison; Stella married Frank Sharp; Ada remained single; and Johnie married Pearl Kern.
Effie Carnelia Wyatt, who married Dee Thomas Gentry of Panola County, was born June 5, 1885 in Liberty Community, Rusk County, ten miles from Henderson, Texas. My father, Dee Thomas Gentry, was born November 8, 1882 in Panola County, seven miles west of Beckville, Texas near the Rusk County line. Part of his father’s place, Marion Gentry’s farm, is under water now—the power plant at Martin Lake.
My parents had six children. Beulah Gentry married Murphy Truelock; Elmer Gentry married Omega Swintz; Robert remained single; Grady died young; Emidee died young; Maurine married John Holder.
Beulah Gentry married Murphy Truelock on February 2, 1924 in Wichita Falls, Texas. He was a pipeline welder for years. I followed him for a while and lived in whatever we could find up and down the pipeline. He retired in 1945 and we came back to our farm, twelve miles east of Henderson, Texas, Rusk County. He put a welding shop on Highway 79 near the community of Chapman, once called Blossom Hill. We have four children. Juanita married John Manning; Ima Gene married Charles (Bussy) Brown; Kenneth married Joy Ruth Strawn, and Donald married Jo Ann Bernshausen.
Murphy and I have grandchildren and great-grandchildren that we love. Sorry, we don’t have room to name them all.
Submitted by Mrs. Beulah Gentry Truelock