From Proud Heritage, Volume I by DCPA, currently out of print.
“After leaving the ancient seat of the family in Tennessee and sojourning in Kentucky for a very few years, we left for Texas in 1869,” so said the Hon. T. A. Work, Judge of the Sixty-Eighth District Court of Dallas, as he reminisced years later. When the family came to Dallas, the Judge was 9 years old. He told of two unfortunate farming ventures before the father, Jacob A. Work, moved them to Dallas. There he rented a one room house with a shedroom attached. It was near the site of the old Medical Arts Building (about where the Republic Bank is today). He paid three months’ rent in advance, a total of $15.00. With fifty cents left over, he went to find work.
Here is how the Judge remembered Dallas in those early days:
When we settled in Dallas the business district was confined to the courthouse square with unimproved lots between the stores. The only store off of the square was Clark & Bryant’s general mercantile establish ment on the northwest corner of Main and Austin streets, Commerce ended at Poydras street, Main at Akard, and Elm at Ervay. The thoroughfare now known as Ervay street was a lane terminating in Miller’s Ferry road. Live Oak street, leaving Elm street at Ervay, was a road which turned south at Hawkins street.
Tom saw cattle die in the Trinity River when impatient drovers would not wait for flood waters to subside. Then access to Dallas from the West was by fording the river. Later, Alex Cockrell ran a ferry (owned by his mother) and thus made the matter simpler for Dallas travelers.
Young Tom Work hunted in wooded areas which are now concrete and steel. He shot deer and even startled two black bears near downtown Dallas. The Judge told The Dallas News: “The markets were always stocked with buffalo, bear, and antelope meat, and nothing was cheaper.” When only 12, Tom, climbing 30 feet up in a tree, fell when startled by a leaping squirrel. Several bones in his right arm were broken and it was amputated. Tom learned to eat with an implement serving as knife, fork and spoon, and later learned to draw a gun quickly and shoot with true accuracy. This feat he learned while working as a cowboy on ranches owned by his father and one of the brothers in West Texas. Happy memories of those days persisted in his hobby of reading pulp western magazines, which he did until his death in 1939. Growing up with the town, Tom rode each new form of public trans portation from mule-powered trams to electric trolleys, and even taxi cabs. He also witnessed the arrival of the first train over every new railroad except the MKT.
At 30, Tom married Lulu Johnston over the irate protests of her family. As a grandson heard it years later, Tom and his bride-to-be ran off in a buggy drawn by a fast horse. As he drew near the house he kept his horse at a slow walk so as to draw as little attention as possible from the father working in the field, his gun against the fence some distance away. When the father finally went for his gun, Tom whipped the horse up into the yard, picked up his bride with just what she had on, and took off.
Later, Lulu’s brother, James, took a trunk of her clothing to her new home. Met by the proud husband, James asked if Lulu Johnston lived there. Her presence was not admitted until he asked for her by her married name. (The brother and the Judge later became the closest of friends.)
As time passed, Tom taught in a rural school. He read law and in 1890 was sworn in as an attorney by Judge George N. Aldredge. He later said, jokingly, “I passed the bar with a bottle of whiskey and a box of cigars”. He soon went into public office, first as Assistant City Attorney. He stayed in public service most of his life. He was Justice of the Peace in Precinct 1 six years, Judge of the County Court of Law eight years, and Judge of the Sixty-Eighth District Court for twelve years. Losing an election in 1934, he kept a law office at the old redstone courthouse (still standing). Thomas A. Work died after a stroke in 1939 and was buried in Restland Memorial Park. He had been part of the Dallas scene from 1869 until his death in 1939.
Thomas Albert Work (born 8 December 1860 Tennessee, died 4 November 1939, Dallas) and Lulu Ann Johnston (born 30 August 1864, Tennessee, died 11 February 1901, Dallas) were married in Dallas 5 March 1890. Lulu was a daughter of Joseph S. and Mary Powell Johnston, and she is buried on their plot at Greenwood Cemetery. Tom was a son of Jacob A. and Mary Richards Work. Their three daughters were: 1) Laura Belle born 13 November 1890, Dallas, died 29 October 1973, Dallas, married 24 September 1912 John Nickerson Harris, born 12 June 1885, Alabama, died 13 October 1954, Dallas. Both are buried at Restland. They had two sons, John Noel Harris, born 23 October 1914, and Thomas Allen Harris born 26 February 1919. 2) Allene born 21 April 1893, Dallas, died 26 February 1982 Santa Fe, New Mexico, never married. 3) Ruth born 27 October 1899, Dallas, married 31 December 1920 Howard Carrithers, born 27 January 1899, Kansas, died 6 January 1963, Dallas, buried at Restland. One daughter, Ruth Ann Carrithers, born 9 October 1926.
By Thomas Allen Harris, grandson, Dallas
