Obituary of R.P. Barber (1879-1961)

Eastland Telegram

Robert Peyton Barber, a long-time resident of Eastland, passed away in the Green Acres Rest Home Saturday afternoon, August 26, 1961. Before entering the rest home several weeks ago, he resided at 310 North Daughtery.

Mr. Barber, 82, was a retired farmer and rancher. He was born near Rutledge, Crenshaw County, Alabama on August 6, 1879, and moved to SE of Eastland in 1889, when age 10.

Funeral services were held for Mr. Barber in the Hamner Funeral Home Chapel Monday morning at 10 with Rev. W.S. Fisher, pastor of the First Methodist Church in Eastland officiating. Assisting were Rev. W.E. Hallenbeck, Jr., pastor of the Church of God in Eastland and J.L. Nesbitt, minister of the Olden Church of Christ. Burial was in the Eastland Cemetery. Both services directed by Hamner Funeral Home.

Survivors include one daughter, Mrs. Sarah May Alford of Olden; two grandsons, Norman Lee and Jerry Lynn, of Olden; one brother, Neil Barber of Italia, Texas; and two sisters, Mrs. Clara Daniel Barber and Miss Emma Barber, of Abilene.

Pallbearers were Allen Crosby, Everett Plowman, Johnson Smith, Guy Parker, Russell Hill and Arthur Murrell.

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Robert Peyton Barber married Miss Mary Effie Greenwaldt on January 18, 1905, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. C.L. Greenwaldt, at 4:30 P.M. on Wednesday evening at the home of the bride's parents, NW of De Leon, Comanche County, Texas. There was a beautifully printed Wedding Invitation sent to family and friends. Their marriage license was applied for on the same day at the County Court, at Comanche. They were married by W.M. Lane, Minister of the Gospel.

Mary Effie was the daughter of Charles Lewis Greenwaldt and Martha Alice Ross Greenwaldt who lived about 2 miles NW of De Leon, on a farm at St. Joe near Ross Chapel. Charles Lewis and Martha Alice Ross Greenwaldt moved from Sharpsburg, Madison County, MS to De Leon in January 1891. Martha's father, Jacob A. Ross, was already at De Leon. Perhaps, Robert and Mary Effie Barber first met through activities of the Methodist Church, as the Barber's and Greenwaldt's were Methodist. About 1925, Charles and Martha Alice Greenwaldt moved to a nice house at 216 South Austin Street in De Leon, down the street from the old location of the Methodist Church.

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BARBER - GREENWALDT

Article published in Eastland County History, 1989.

Robert Peyton Barber was the middle child of the eleven children of Tallulah Agnes Davis Barber and Peyton Phelps Barber, born on August 6, 1879. He was ten years old when the family arrived on the Emigrant Train (from Rutledge, Crenshaw County, Alabama) on October 1, 1889, at Eastland, Texas. They went to Uncle Esquire T. Williamson's two-story rock home on the "Dawson place" about a mile east of Eastland. P.P. Barber, not being there to meet his family, Robert was sent about a half mile to Dr. Downtain's house to bring his father, he had arrived ahead of the rest of the large family.

Robert attended Freedom School. He plowed his father's fields and he learned, along with his brothers, to do carpenter work. They built a room for Grandma Davis (Sarah Olive Packard Davis, 1825-1908); and later when the family sold that place and moved north of the Leon River, they moved her room. Robert carefully numbered the rocks, moved the chimney for her, and put it back up.

Aunt Corinne (Aunt "Teen") bought a place north of Walter Duncan's which Robert later bought from her. It was there on January 18, 1905, that he took his new bride, Mary Effie Greenwaldt Barber. They farmed, raised livestock, and did carpenter work. About 1906 they ran the Staff store (where the post office was) for Mr. Todd White.

They went by covered wagon to Pecos, Texas, for a short time where Robert found work. They moved on to Carlsbad, New Mexico, then back to Eastland. On a second wagon trip west, they went to Cloudcroft, New Mexico, where brother Marcus lived. The altitude was too rare for Effie, so they traveled inside the New Mexico line through Roswell, then north and eastward to Sweetwater Creek, ten miles northeast of Mobeetie, in Wheeler County, Texas. Their daughter Sarah May was born May 23, 1917.

Because of drought and cold, in 1918 they put animals and household things into one rail car and moved back north of De Leon. A year later they went by train to Lockney, Floyd County, Texas, and lived there several years before moving to the 160-acre P.P. Barber farm 3 miles northeast of Plainview, Hale County.

When Sarah May started school, they moved into town for two years; then moved to Kress in Swisher County for 5 years, then back to Plainview for seventh grade. They farmed, kept many good dairy cows and sold milk and butter for a living. Then came the Depression!! The bank took many cows for a debt of only seven hundred dollars; so in 1932, they moved to Roscoe, Nolan County, Texas, for Sarah May's freshman, sophomore, and junior school years, while Robert picked cotton, milked cows, and did farm labor.

In January 1935, the family returned to Eastland County, Staff Community, and Sarah May finished Eastland High School in May 1937. Robert and Effie lived on the old place where Aunt Ann Davis Williamson had died in 1880, known as the Caldwell Brashear place, (Ed. note - where the highway bridge at Lake Leon is now located). It finally became too difficult to remain on the farm, and they moved the house in 1947 to 310 N. Daugherty Street in Eastland. They died there, Effie on July 27, 1953, and Robert on August 26, 1961, after many adventures together. Both are buried in Eastland Cemetery.

--Written by Sarah May Barber Alford, 1989, Eastland, Texas, a volunteer editor of the history book.

*Published in Eastland County History, Volume 1, 1989, page 35.