From Proud Heritage, Vol. 1 by DCPA, not currently in print
George Washington Huffhines, son of George and Mary C. Wilson Huffhines, was born southwest of Richardson on 14 September His father was killed in the Civil War when he was four years old. George attended the Cottonwood Creek School and the Woodlawn Academy when it was founded in 1877. He remained on the family farm until after the death of his mother, Mary C. Wilson Huffhines Jasper, George and his half-sister Mattie Jasper being her only two unmarried children at the time of her death. In a division of his father’s and mother’s property George received 110 acres of what is now a part of Hamilton Park. On 17 October 1888 he married Mary E. Wright, his third cousin, who came to Dallas County from Barren County, Kentucky with her parents, Marshall and Elizabeth Virginia Beckham Wright, in about 1882. The Dallas News of 23 October 1888 carried this account: “Yesterday morning at 9 o’clock, at the residence of the bride’s parents, Mr. George Huffhines and Miss Mary Wright were united together in the bonds of holy matrimony by the Rev. John Mitchell of Denton. The ceremony being concluded the happy pair with their attendants left to visit the State Fair of Texas.”
Mary was born 11 April 1869. After marriage George and Mary lived in a story and one half house west of what is now Schroeder Road. Their two daughters were born there, Eula Bess on 1 August 1891 and Mary Wright on 14 May 1894. Mary was a talented seamstress. Hundreds of hours she spent on a quilt of museum quality. Made of silk, satin, and velvet, it contains a silk ribbon “State Fair of Texas 1887”. It was almost completed when she died on 7 August 1894. She was buried in Mt. Calvary Cemetery. Mary Wright Huffhines, then less than three months old, was placed in the care of John Porter and Emma Wright. Porter was Mary’s oldest brother, who married his third cousin Emma Florence Saunders.
George next married Minnie Estell Fox on 18 November 1897 in Lewisville, Texas. Minnie was born 28 May 1870 in Denton County and was a sister of Mary Ella Fox, who married George’s oldest brother John S. Huffhines.
They lived on the farm on the east side of Maham Road south of Spring Valley, which he purchased in December 1897 for $25.00 per acre. Their house was just north of the Cottonwood Creek School, which stood in the southwest corner of their farm. Two of their three daughters were born on this farm, LeElla on 10 August 1899 and Geraldine on 20 December 1900.
George and Minnie purchased a two-story home on Phillips Street in Richardson in 1905 for $1200.00. Built of lumber hauled by ox cart from Jefferson, Texas, it was enclosed by a picket fence to keep out the livestock which was allowed free range in those days. This house was razed for an expansion of the First Baptist Church, originally the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church. Lucille Huffhines was born there on 7 February 1907. Minnie died 17 October 1909 and was buried in Mt. Calvary Cemetery. Mary, who was attending the frame school on Greenville Avenue, quit school to take care of her younger sisters.
George, a farmer, invariably wore a stiff-collared white shirt and tie. To distinguish him from the other two George Huffhines of the area, he was known as “Necktie” George, the others as “Sleepy Eyes” George and “Laughing” George. Eula Bess married Oliver Harben, son of Dr. Harben. After their separation, she returned with her only daughter, Margaret, to the home of her father. Mary Wright Huffhines married John Henson Jackson on 22 September 1915. Geraldine married Homer Wallis on 20 November 1919. Lucille married Richard Finis Floyd on 23 December 1929.
George in his later years made frequent visits to the homes of his many relatives in the Richardson Community, Quanah, Godley, and Rockwall. He died on 1 October 1938. After services in the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church of which he was a member for 65 years, he was buried in Mt. Calvary Cemetery between the graves of his two wives. Separated from her husband, Mary Wright Huffhines Jackson and the four youngest of her five children lived for a short time in 1939 with her sisters Eula and LeElla in the Phillips St. house. LeElla married Wesley A. Veach, Jr.; Eula died 16 December 1947 in the home on Phillips St. LeElla, living in Richardson, died in a Dallas hospital on 12 October 1963. Mary lived in the house she purchased on Texas Street in 1940 until she died in a Dallas Hospital on 13 October 1982. Geraldine and Homer Wallis live in Richardson, Lucille and Finis Floyd in Lake Jackson, Texas.
By Everts E. Jackson, Richardson
