The YANDLE Family

The following bio was taken from pages 462-463 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

The advent of the Yandle family into Rusk County came when Miles Yandle migrated to Texas from Calloway County, Kentucky. Miles was born in North Carolina about 1815. Later his family moved to Kentucky. Miles left his brothers and sisters and came to Texas while still a young man. He married Elizabeth Margaret Wright, daughter of Hansel and Elizabeth Prichard Wright in Nacogdoches in 1844. Miles and Elizabeth Margaret moved to Rusk County, settling near the New Prospect area. Miles was a very well educated man for his day and time. He was a great trader and businessman whose name appears on many deeds and official records of early Rusk County. Miles sold cotton and slaves on the steps of one of the first Rusk County Courthouses. This was a common custom of the times. He was the advisor and business consultant of his wife’s family, the Wrights, and was considered a political leader and a wealthy man of his day. Miles and Elizabeth Margaret had four sons—William, John, Thomas and Lewis—all of whom spent their entire lives in Rusk County. They also had three daughters: Mary Jane, Sarah, and Elizabeth. Elizabeth Margaret died in 1857, and a year later in July 1858, Miles married Matilda Weatherly. No children survived to adulthood from this union. Miles and Elizabeth Margaret are buried in the Wright Cemetery. By the side of Elizabeth Margaret is the grave of “Aunt Rose,” a slave woman who was given to Elizabeth as a present from her parents on her wedding day. Miles died in July 1863. In 1855 Miles and Elizabeth Margaret sold to the Trustees and Deacons of the New Prospect Baptist Church two and one-half acres of land for $16. This was the first land recorded as belonging to the New Prospect Church and became the site of the present Prospect Cemetery. Miles and Elizabeth Margaret’s third son, Thomas, married Memory Elizabeth (Betty) Lanford in Rusk County on November 5, 1885. Betty was the daughter of Elizabeth Earle Goodlett and Memory Lanford, a Confederate soldier in the Texas Infantry, who died in the Battle of Mansfield in Louisiana in 1864. Thomas Yandle and Betty had three children before his untimely death from pneumonia in March 1889. He left Betty with three small children: two sons, R.P. Yandle and William Alpheus Yandle, and one daughter, Emma Yandle. Thomas’ wife, Memory Elizabeth (Betty), lived in Rusk County until February 5, 1949, never remarrying. William Alpheus Yandle, the youngest of Thomas and Betty’s children, born August 31, 1888, married Mary Ella Vise on April 12, 1911. Mary Ella was the daughter of Williams M. Vise and Sally Bassett, who were both from prominent pioneer settlers of Rusk County. Alpheus and Mary Yandle had two daughters, Ethel Yandle, who married Emerson Wade in January 1933, and Sue Yandle, who married Buddy Rodgers in April 1949. Ethel Yandle Wade had no children. Sue Yandle Rodgers has two children, a son, Stanton Williams Rodgers, employed at Texas Utilities Generating Plant at Martin Lake, and a daughter, Stacey Rodgers, a student at Henderson High School. Ethel Yandle Wade and Sue Yandle Rodgers both became teachers in the Henderson Independent School District. Ethel retired in 1976 after teaching for forty-four years. Sue Rodgers is still teaching in the Henderson Schools. Both daughters earned Master’s Degrees from Stephen F. Austin State University. Stacey Rodgers, daughter of Sue Rodgers, will graduate from Henderson High School in the spring of 1982 in the upper two percent of her class. She is an accomplished musician, having been chosen outstanding band student of her class for two years. She plays the piano and is a voice student. Stacey is a member of the National Honor Society and a twirler in the high school band. She plans to enter college and major in history and music and also become a teacher. All her kinsmen and friends remember Betty Yandle, Alpheus’s mother, as a very remarkable woman. She gave her help and talents freely to all who needed her. During the Oil Boom Days in Henderson, she kept a boarding house and worked very hard. One of her special boarders was a Mr. Brown, whose son is now Mayor of Henderson, Lester (Lefty) Brown. Alpheus Yandle in his early life was a tailor. He had a thriving business in Henderson and owned and operated the “Gent’s Furnishing Store.” He was the first merchant in Henderson and Rusk County to purchase and sell “factory made” men’s clothing. He enjoyed “dressing up the young men” of his day. Alpheus also had a cleaning and pressing department in his store. This was a custom at the time in this type of business. He purchased and installed in Rusk County the first mechanical steam presser for pressing clothes. In later years Alpheus purchased a farm on Highway 322. His two daughters still own this farm which has on it at this time one producing oil well and three Cotton Valley Gas wells. The Yandle name is not big in numbers in Rusk County because more daughters were born than sons, but the Yandles have left their heritage in Rusk County in many special ways, including the name of a street—Yandle Drive. Written by Ethel Yandle Wade.