USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume IV > Part 24
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Mr. and Mrs. Kennerly have had three daughters, all of whom were graduates of the Gainesville High School. Leta is the wife of G. D. Houston, of Altadena, California, and has two children, Helen and Leta; Elizabeth, now deceased, was the wife of John Culp, of Gainesville, and she is survived by three chil- dren, Samuel, John Douglas and Bettie; Miss Mary Douglass Kennerly is now a teacher in the public schools of Ardmore, Oklahoma.
JOHN N. SPARKS has been continuously in the service of the Stockyards National Bank of Fort Worth from the date of its founding. and his abilities as a financier have won him 'successive promotions until he is now presi- .dent of that institution, one of the strongest in the Fort Worth district.
Mr. Sparks was born at Alvarado in John- :son County, Texas, March 20, 1880, a son of Nathan F. and Mary (Weaver) Sparks. His
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grandfather, Nathan F. Sparks, Sr., brought the family from Alabama to Texas about 1840, and they were among the pioneer citizens of Johnson County. Nathan F. Sparks, Jr., for many years was in the hardware business at Alvarado, and died at the age of fifty-five, while the mother is still living. John is the youngest of four children, and has one brother still living.
Mr. Sparks grew up at Alvarado, attended the public schools of that town, and finished his education in Add-Ran College. With some general business experience to his credit he came to Fort Worth in 1903, and at that time became associated with the Stockyards Na- tional Bank, at the time of its organization. He has filled the successive posts of assistant cashier, cashier and vice president, and in 1912 was elected president. The Stockyards National Bank has capital stock of $200,000, surplus of similar amount, and is a bank of highly specialized service to the livestock and packing interests of the city.
In 1904 Mr. Sparks married Mary Jones, daughter of H. R. Jones, of Alvarado. They have one daughter, Helen Gertrude. Mr. Sparks is a member of the Fort Worth Club, River Crest Country Club, and is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner.
ROBERT LEE RAY, president of the Ameri- can National Bank of Cisco, and one of the honored residents of Fort Worth, is a man whose activities have led him into the oil fields as well as that of finance, and he has been extremely successful in everything he has undertaken, his being that kind of far-sighted astuteness which can predicate results almost from the beginning. His associations with both Cisco and Fort Worth are of magnitude, and he is claimed by both cities as a repre- sentative citizen.
Mr. Ray was born in Johnson County, Texas, in 1876, a son of J. J. and Sallie ( Mor- gan) Ray. J. J. Ray was born in Mississippi, from whence he moved to Johnson County, Texas, and in 1883 to Eastland County. He settled on a farm in the extreme western part of that county, where he has since continued to reside, and where he was one of the pio- neers. During the many years he has lived in that county he has been recognized as one of the solid and representative citizens, and he enjoys the high esteem of his neighbors.
Growing up on this farm in Eastland County, Robert Lee Ray was early taught habits of industry and thrift, and until he was
thirty-two years old he devoted himself to farming. From that occupation he branched out into the mercantile business, and was con- ducting a store at Scranton, near his old home in Eastland County, when oil was discovered in that and Stephens counties, in 1917. He was quick to recognize the great opportunity offered him, and immediately began his oil operations, which have netted him a fortune. He is one of the oil operators who has acquired great wealth, and he is wise enough to invest his means in a safe and conservative manner. His office, from which he directs his business affairs, is in room 911 Dan Waggoner Build- ing, Fort Worth, Texas. In November, 1918, Mr. Ray moved to Fort Worth, where he has a handsome residence, surrounded by spacious grounds, at 2221 Lipscomb Street, where he dispenses a lavish hospitality. In addition to his banking interests at Cisco, he owns val- uable property in that city, and is deeply in . earnest with reference to securing its further growth and development.
Mr. Ray was married to Miss Mary Cozart, a member of a pioneer family of Eastland County. They have the following children : Hubert, Velma, Chester, Ina, Leta "Buster," and Ila Ruth. Perhaps no other man in the oil fields is a better example of the native Texan than Mr. Ray. His present promi- nence has come about through his own ability and good judgment, and the people of this part of the state are proud of him and of what he has accomplished, and point to him as an example for younger men to follow.
CARL SMITH. When Carl Smith was elected sheriff of Tarrant County in 1920 he brought to that office abilities and qualifications ac- quired while a deputy official, and has made a record fully in keeping with the anticipations entertained by his many supporters over the county.
Mr. Smith was born in Fort Worth March 23, 1888, and has always lived in that com- munity. His parents are C. L. and Lelia F. (Riggle) Smith, still living in Fort Worth. His father was born in Virginia and the mother in Texas.
Carl Smith, who is the second of five living children, was reared and educated in his native city, attended the public schools there and also the Fort Worth Business College. On leaving school he took up a commercial career and for five years was with the hardware house of H. B. Francis. Since then his work has been largely of a public nature. He was
leard Smith.
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deputy constable two years, 1913-14, and then became a deputy in the sheriff's office, and had many of the duties of the office for four years, 1915-16-17-18. In 1920 he was elected sheriff, and began his official term December 1st of that year. He is the youngest sheriff ever elected in Tarrant County. Mr. Smith is a member of the Order of Elks, and has always been deeply interested in public and civic affairs.
DUFF H. PURVIS has been a Fort Worth business man for over thirty years. Among the new as well as the older men who have been on the streets and in the offices in the business district carrying on the effective work of the city, Duff H. Purvis is undoubtedly one of the best known and one of the most pop- ular.
He was born in Tarrant County May 4, 1864, son of John L. and Sarah (Sublette) Purvis, the former a native of North Carolina and the latter of Tennessee. John L. Purvis had many worthy distinctions as a Texas pio- neer. He was a soldier in three wars, the war for Texas independence, the Mexican war and finally wore the uniform of a Confederate soldier. He came to Texas in 1832, when about nineteen years of age, lived in the east- ern part of the state in Shelby County, and was a soldier in Houston's army at the battle of San Jacinto. He again enlisted and served while the country was at war with Mexico, and was past fifty years of age when he joined the Confederate army. He moved to Tar- rant County before the establishment of Fort Worth as a military post, in 1847, and as the first settler, he erected the first house at Mans- field. About the close of the Civil war he moved to a farm eight miles southeast of Fort Worth, and lived there until his death, Decem- ber 3, 1900, at the age of eighty-seven. He was survived a number of years by his widow, who came to Fort Worth.
Duff H. Purvis has boyhood recollections of Tarrant County when it was still the do- main of cattle men and with hardly a fenced field. Accustomed to a life of action, he be- came as a matter of course a cowboy, and did expert work as a range rider for several ranch outfits and helped take cattle north over some of the famous trails for several years. He also served as deputy sheriff of. Tarrant County, and in 1893 engaged in the livery business at Fort Worth. Mr. Purvis is the second of four children. He finished his edu- cation in a college at Mansfield. He has had
several business activities at Fort Worth, and for the past twelve years has maintained a large force of men and extensive equipment for handling contracts for railroad construc- tion and highway building.
He has been influential in county politics and served for six years as a county commis- sioner. He has also been a school trustee. Mr. Purvis is a member of the Elks Club of Fort Worth. In 1890 he married Miss Frances Benning, a native of Missouri. Her uncle, General Benning, was an officer in the Confederate forces at the battle of Gettysburg. Mr. and Mrs. Purvis have one son, Frank H., now of Fort Worth.
STERLING PRICE RUMPH, M. D. One of the men who is showing in all of his various activities the beneficial results of a careful and broad educational training is Dr. Sterling Price Rumph, president of the Bank of Car- bon and one of the most progressive men of Eastland County.
Doctor Rumph was born at Alexander. Erath County, Texas, in 1880, a son of D. M. and Eliza (Butts) Rumph, both of whom were born in Georgia. During the war between the North and the South D. M. Rumph was one of the men who fought bravely for the "Lost Cause," but after it had been vanquished he and his young wife sought different environ- ment and came to Texas and became pioneer settlers of Erath County.
Growing up on his father's farm, amid somewhat primitive rural surroundings, even as a lad Sterling P. Rumph resolved to de- velop his mental faculties, and took his aca- demic training as a student of John Tarleton College, Stephenville, Texas, and his medical education was received in the Memphis, Ten- nessee, Medical College, and the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, from which latter institution he was graduated in 1905. That same year he estab- lished himself in a general practice at Carbon, Eastland County, and continued it until 1912, when he retired from that calling and for some years was occupied as an oil operator in East- land County and the surrounding district.
On January 1, 1921, Doctor Rumph re- turned to Carbon to assume the presidency of the Bank of Carbon, of which he is the active factor in charge of its affairs. This is one of the strong banks of Eastland County. Its capital stock, with surplus and undivided profits, is $45,000. It is unincorporated, and its officials are among the wealthiest and most
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substantial citizens in this section, and they own the greater part of its stock. This fact gives the bank a strength and resources that are more than ample to meet every demand made upon it. The bank was established in April, 1904. and has been the leading factor in developing the rich agricultural resources of that section of southern Eastland County of which Carbon is the center. Doctor Rumph is typical of the element interested in the bank, and is an active, resourceful and public spir- ited citizen, who is devoting his best efforts to the further expansion of this region.
Doctor Rumph was married to Miss Maud Geartner. As a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church he gives countenance to the moral uplift of the community, and he finds social relaxation in the several fraternities to which he belongs.
Influenced in all that he does by the high standards of citizenship and a conception of good government which he has always pos- sessed, Doctor Rumph has been able to oper- ate without the bias of prejudice or the nar- rowness that is the penalty of restricted hori- zons, and is constantly occupied in bringing into dark places the light of the gospel of progress and the force of improvement. In every relation of life he is proving himself a responsible citizen, and one who is always co-operating with the best elements for defi- nite, well-ordered purposes, the continued ad- vancement of Carbon and Eastland County.
J. R. DILL, M. D. The professional career of Doctor Dill covers a period of sixteen years, and all of it has been passed in the com- munity of Rising Star, where he grew up from early childhood. He represents one of the older families of Eastland County, and his personal work has brought him the reputa: tion of being one of the leading citizens of that locality.
Dr. Dill was born at Eldorado, Arkansas, in 1875, son of John M. and Georgia (Bailey) Dill. Three years later, in 1878, the family moved to Texas, first locating at Brownwood and in 1884 moving to Eastland County. John M. Dill located on a farm in the extreme southwestern part of the county. and from there moved to a farm five miles northwest of Rising Star. He has been one of the lead- ing representatives of agricultural and live- stock interests in the county for upwards of forty years, and still lives on his farm.
Doctor Dill grew up as a country boy, at- tended the public schools at Rising Star, and
finished his literary education in the Daniel Baker College at Brownwood. For nine years he taught school, an occupation that furnished him the means for his medical education. He pursued his medical studies in the Memphis Hospital Medical College, now the medical de- partment of the University of Tennessee. graduating in 1906. Since graduation he has practiced at Rising Star. and has earned to a high degree the confidence and esteem of all, both as a professional man and as one of the public spirited citizens who have done much to make this one of the best towns of its size in the state. Doctor Dill is the pres- ent city health officer and member of the County, State and American Medical asso -. ciations.
He married Miss Gertrude Scarborough. She is a sister of Dallas Scarborough, a prom- inent citizen and the mayor of Abilene, Texas. Doctor and Mrs. Dill have three children, Rus- sell. Ike and Dallas.
WILEY D. CLAY. The marvelous growth of Ranger within three years has naturally been accompanied by a proportionate industrial evolution so as to make the city practically independent of outside forces of many manu- factured materials. One of the most import- ant of these industries is the Clay Boiler Works, established and built up by Wiley D. Clay, a past master of machinery and mechanical invention. Mr. Clay has been building and installing machinery and appli- ances in oil districts for many years, and he has made the Clay Boiler Works a great plant that now supplies much of the apparatus used in the Ranger oil fields.
Mr. Clay was born in Robertson County. Texas, in 1876. His grandfather was one of the very earliest settlers in that county when it was on the frontier. His parents were H. F. and Lou (Squires) Clay, his father also a native of Robertson County. Wiley D. Clay grew up on a farm, but his mechan- ical turn of mind soon led him from a rural district and as a young man he bought a machine shop at Kosse in Limestone County. There he learned the machinist's trade from his own employes. Soon after the start of the great oil boom at Beaumont in 1902 he went to that city and established a boiler shop. He made a reputation as a boiler maker and as an expert on boiler construction, and Cuit- tinued in the business for seven years at Beau- mont. Leaving there, he went to West Texas,
Pro Clay
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and for several years followed the machin- ist's trade at Spur in Dickens County.
Ranger was just coming into fame as an oil center when in 1917 Mr. Clay moved to the town, and with a very limited capital established a small boiler and machine shop on the Blackwell Road in the south part of the city. His equipment and organization were tested to the utmost from the very be- ginning, and he was soon proprietor of a profitable boiler and tool business. In April, 1920, he completed his present new plant, im- mediately adjoining the old shop. This is a high-class factory building equipped with the most modern machinery. The growth of the business has been coincident with the growth and development of the Ranger oil fields. His output has been almost exclusively machinery and appliances required in the oil well drill- ing industry. The Clay Boiler Works and Machine Shop is one of the important indus- tries of Ranger.
Mr. Clay's name is also becoming widely known as an inventor. His own new fac- tory in its construction carries out the basic principles involved in his invention of a sys- tem of hollow steel structural material, so welded and ingrated as to increase to a remark- able degree the strength of structural spans in sustaining additional weight and stress. His invention will prove a great boon to bridge building, making it possible to increase the length of spans without supports between the ends. Mr. Clay is also inventor of a new type of boiler fire box, providing super-heat- ing of steam with consequent increased effi- ciency and economy of fuel. He is the inven- tor and manufacturer of the Clay Auxiliary Spring, which adds life to an automobile by eliminating frame breaks and lessening jerks and jolts common to quick clutches and rough roads, and which affords greater riding com- fort by its wonderful flexibility and resiliency. He will also probably announce in the near future a new type of road building machine' which with one unit and operation will build a road completely.
Mr. Clay is an active member of the Ranger Chamber of Commerce. He married Miss Georgia Webb, a native of Robinson County and member of one of the oldest families in that section of the state. Her parents are Pink and Fannie (Gray) Webb. Her grandfather, Tom R. Webb, was one of the first settlers of Robertson County. Mrs. Clay is actively associated with her husband in business, hav- ing charge of the office. Their family con-
sists of six sons and one daughter, Henry, Ivan, Cecil, Elgin, Darrell, George and Lida Bess.
JAMES H. GOODE is sheriff of Denton County, serving his second term in that office. Most of his life has been spent in that county, he is the son of an honored pioneer, and his experience and character present the soundest qualifications for any position of trust within the gift of his neighbors in that county.
His father was the late John Hawkins Goode, who was born in Christian County, Kentucky, in 1829, son of John Hawkins Goode. The latter was probably born in Vir- ginia, but at an early date went to Kentucky, and was living there during the War of 1812. He enlisted and saw service in that war under General William H. Harrison. Otherwise he spent his active life as a farmer in Christian County. He married Miss Clark, daughter of Jonathan Clark, and they reared a large fam- ily of children. This family well illustrated the division of sentiment and the familiar ex- perience of Civil war, since two of the sons became Union soldiers and followed General Sherman through Georgia, while two others fought on the side of the South.
John Hawkins Goode acquired his early education largely from experience, and his private life was devoted to farming and stock raising. He came to Texas in 1851, and two years later located on land along the line of Collin and Denton counties, where he lived to rear his family and contribute something to- ward the substantial development of the sec- tion. It was a pioneer community when he went there, and he and other early settlers endured the privations of the frontier and saw the region well settled and developed. He finally moved to the northern part of the county, and finished his farming east of San- ger. Eventually, with the encroachment of years, he moved to Denton, and died at his home at the county seat July 2, 1913.
Ten years after he came to Texas he joined the Confederate army in Colonel Martin's regi- ment and General Gano's brigade, and was in some of the battles of the Banks Red River expedition, also took part in the battles of Cabin Creek, Elk Creek and Hayfield with his command in the vicinity of Galveston. He was with the last troops disbanded at the end of the struggle between the North and South. He was never wounded or captured, and he accepted the results of the war without bitter- ness, since he had been opposed to the prin-
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ciple of secession and only, like many others, joined his state when it seceded. He was a democrat and a member of the Methodist Church.
John Hawkins Goode married Mary Bates, who was born in Barren County, Kentucky, in 1839. Her father, Hubbard Bates, some years later brought his family to Texas, and he was also one of the early settlers of Den- ton County. Mrs. Goode, who died in Sep- tember, 1912, was the mother of the follow- ing children: George M., of Canyon, Texas; Agnes, who married S. B. Peters and died at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1920; Henry H., of Wilson, Oklahoma; Della, Mrs. Richard Peters, of Durant, Oklahoma; Mrs. Nannie Epperson, of Ford, Kentucky; James H .; D. F., of Denton ; and Mrs. H. A. Miller, of San Antonio, Texas. John Hawkins Goode by a first marriage had a son, John Benjamin, who died at Norman, Oklahoma.
James H. Goode was born July 14, 1870, in Collin County, just over the line from Denton. He acquired his early education in country district schools and lived at home until he was about nineteen. At the original opening of Oklahoma Territory in 1889 he was working in the Washita country, and participated in the first run. He located a claim, but being a minor was unable to hold it. In following years he participated in several other runs that made history in Oklahoma, going to the Pottawato- mie country and later to the rush into the Co- manche and Kiowa and the Apache, Cheyenne and Arapahoe reservations. He staked a claim in that run but declined to occupy it. For about three years he was engaged in farming near Oklahoma City, and he is an authority on some of the phases of early Oklahoma his- tory. He left there and returned to Denton County, and during the construction of the Court House was a teamster. For several years he engaged in farming near Denton, and then resumed his residence at the county seat.
In 1909 Mr. Goode was elected city marshal of Denton, and filled that office until the estab- lishment of the commission form of govern- ment. In the meantime he was interested in the livery and transfer business, and continued in that line until elected sheriff of the county in 1918 as successor to Pat Gallagher. He was re-elected in 1920. Mr. Goode cast his first presidential vote for Mr. Bryan in 1896, and has always been a stanch democrat.
At Sanger in Denton County January 11, 1890, Mr. Goode married Miss Elizabeth Dav- enport. She was born in Jackson County.
Missouri, near Kansas City, and her parents died there when she was a young woman, after which she came to Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Goode have reared an interesting family. Their oldest child, George, is a farmer of Den- ton County and married Vera Purviant and has sons, James and Robert. The second of the children is Robert Goode, who was one of the first two young men to volunteer from Denton County for service in the war with Germany. He was trained at San Antonio as a member of the 9th Infantry, later was sent to Syracuse and assigned to the 48th Infantry, and his ability as a drill master for drafted men made him too valuable in the training of the army and he never had the opportunity to go overseas. He is now a student in the North Texas Normal at Denton. The third child is Phebe, wife of Charles Mizell, and both are teachers in the Normal School at Denton. The next daughter is Myra Louise, a teacher in the Odd Fellows Orphans Home at Corsicana. The youngest is Pauline, a stu- dent in the Denton High School.
JOSEPH INGE EVANS, present tax assessor of Denton County, represents a family that has been identified with this county over fifty years, and with the development of North Texas in general for over seventy years.
The pioneer and founder of the family was William G. Evans, Sr., who in 1846 left Georgia and, accompanied by his family, sought a new home in Texas, which had just been admitted to the Union. The family trav- eled overland and for a brief time sojourned in Denton County, then an utter wilderness. From Denton they removed to Palo Pinto County, an even more remote and unsettled district. After some years there William G. Evans returned to Denton County, but spent his last years in Parker County, where he died at the age of seventy-two. He had a large family of eleven sons and three daugh- ters, all of whom grew to mature years. Their mother was a Miss Roundtree, who survived her husband about ten years and died in Parker County. The record of the children of this pioneer couple is briefly stated as follows: Green, who subsequently went to the northwest country and died there; Jack, who served as a Confederate soldier and died in Parker County ; Bettie, whose two hus- bands were Mr. Hayes and Mr. Smith, and she is now a resident of Smith County, Texas ; Joseph, who died in Clay County, Texas ; Francis, who also died in Clay County ; J. O.
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