 Dallas Morning News 29 October 1939 4-H Club Girl Achieves Much During Year (Special to The News) Van Alstyne, Texas, Oct. 28 - Among Grayson County 4-H Club girls with a full program of work accomplished is Burles Hall of the Tom Bean community. In demonstration work in the last year she made five dresses, one pair of pajamas, a slip, a scarf, two bonnets and a curtain; papered and painted the inside of her clothes closet, made two shoe racks and two hat stands; painted the outside of an old model bathtub white and put curtains in the bathroom. As a co-operator she has planted 100 peach seed, budded twenty peach trees, helped select eighty-two trees for an orchard, and beautified the yard by keeping the lawn mowed, setting out fifteen shade trees and planting many flowers. She has canned twenty quarts of string beans, four quarts of cucumber pickles, ten quarts of peach preserves, eight quarts of peach pickles, eight large cans of pumpkins, fifty-two quarts of peaches and fifteen quarts of pears. In cooking she has tried six new recipes.  Dallas Morning News 28 November 1939 TOM BEAN PIONEER, NEARLY 83, WAS BLACKSMITH OF NOTE (Special to The News) Tom Bean, Grayson Co., Texas, Nov. 27 - William B. Parker, who will celebrate his eighty-third birthday next June 29, is one of the oldest settlers in the Tom Bean community. Mr. Parker built the second business house in Tom Bean after the town was surveyed and laid off in 1888. He also did work for the Cotton Belt Railroad crew as the first railroad track was laid here, and working at the old rock quarry east of the town. Mr. Parker was born June 29, 1857, at Bolivar, Mo., and two years later came with his parents to Parker County, Texas, where he resided until he was 30 years old. He was married to Miss Hattie Gray. After her death a few years later he and his two daughters moved to Sherman where he was employed by a blacksmith and woodwork shop. Mr. Parker also helped to construct the old Grayson jail, two blocks west of the present courthouse square. In 1887 Mr. Parker moved to the Whitemound community west of Tom Bean. He was married to Mrs. Sallie Lackey, mother of Mrs. Walter Baxter, now of New London, about forty-five years ago. Mrs. Parker died thirty-five years ago and he has since lived in the Whitemound vicinity where he maintained a blacksmith shop until a few years ago. People came for miles around to have him shoe their horses. He still keeps tools and a work bench at his home and is often seen doing odd jobs. A grandson, Lloyd Kelly, makes his home with Mr. Parker. His two daughters are Mrs. R.T. Grissom of Sherman and Mrs. Fielder Simmons of Brownfield. He has one brother, John Parker of Marlow, Okla. Dallas Morning News 28 January 1940 WOMAN LEAVES TOM BEAN POSTMASTERSHIP AFTER SERVICE OF 28 YEARS (Special to The News) Tom Bean, Texas, Jan. 27 - Mrs. Cora Fenelon, who will retire Jan. 31 after serving as postmaster at Tom Bean for twenty-eight years, was born and reared in this community. A daughter of the late Will H. and Arsenia Lackey, she was born at Whitemound, a short distance west, and attended school there. On Nov. 4, 1890, she was married to Maurice Fenelon in Sherman by a Catholic priest. Her husband was railroad station agent here and at Whitewright for the Cotton Belt. Later they moved to Mexico and lived there eight years. On returning from Mexico, Mrs. Fenelon became postmaster twenty-eight years ago and has continued in the same position since, residing with her sister, Mrs. Byrd Nash. Mrs. Fenelon is a member of the Rebekah Lodge and the Church of Christ. Her father was born in Joplin, Mo., coming to Texas as a young man and later marrying Miss Arsenia Gumm, daughter of the late Jacob and Elsie Gumm, who came her from Franklin, Ky. Both families had settled at Kentuckytown. After their marriage, Mr. and Mrs. Lackey bought land near Whitemound. Mr. Lackey later owned a general merchandise store at Whitemound and finally moved it to Tom Bean. Mrs. Fenelon has two sisters: Mrs. Nash and Mrs. Ed Baldwin, also of Tom Bean. Mrs. Cora Odle will take Mrs. Fenelon's place as acting postmaster until the place is filled permanently. Dallas Morning News 5 May 1943 Fifty Years Ago Today (From the Saturday (May 6, 1893) issue of The Dallas News) Tom Bean - W.W. Arnold was elected Mayor of this (Grayson County) community, along with H.A. Sroufe as city marshal and J.H. Gibson as city attorney. Dallas Morning News 22 June 1956 Tom Bean Gets Sewers Washington (AP) - The Community Facilities Administration Thursday announced a loan of $50,000 had been made to Tom Bean, Texas, for the purpose of building a sanitary sewer system. Tom Bean, in North Texas, has a population of 350. Dallas Morning News 17 January 1970 $33,000 Robbery Banker Can't Wave Back Staff Special to The News Tom Bean, Texas - Darrel Holcomb drove past the bank president's home Friday morning on the way to school and waved. The 75-year-old banker, Claude Lackey, couldn't wave back. His hands were tied behind his back and Holcomb saw this and turned around to investigate. And that's how this Grayson County community of 700 located east of Sherman learned that the First National Bank had been robbed of $33,000 - the first robbery in the bank's 64-year-history. It took three men less than half an hour to steal into town while most of the residents were concerned with preparing breakfast, abduct the banker from his home and force him to unlock the bank two blocks away. The men pulled up to the house about 7:30 a.m. in a dark green Dodge Coronet. Two went into the house at gunpoint. Lackey's 72-year-old wife, Frankie, was busy preparing breakfast. She was brought into the living room and bound with a piece cut from a 50-foot extension cord. The men sought to past a piece of tape over her mouth. Lackey said the tape wasn't applied when he explained his wife suffers from asthma. One man stayed with Mrs. Lackey while the other two drove Lackey to the bank. The street was deserted when the three walked up to the front door. A newly installed alarm for the 6-ton safe holding the currency almost scuttled the robbers' scheme when Lacke told them he didn't know the procedure for switching it off. "What do you mean you don't know?" one robber asked in a jerky voice. Lackey told the men they were welcome to try shutting off the alarm. One tried and succeeded on the first attempt, Lackey said. The men transferred money from the safe into a briefcase. They ignored the vault when Lackey said it held only bank records. Back on the street, Lackey locked the front door and the robbers drove him back to his home. He sat on the piano stool while his arms were taped behind his back. The suspects then bounded out of the house, and Lackey followed them as far as the porch. It was just minutes later that the schoolboy spotted Lackey and waved. --- James Ewell Dallas Morning News 24 January 1970 Suspect Arrested in Bank Robbery Staff Special to The News Sherman, Texas - One man has been arrested and charged with the estimated $33,000 holdup last week of the First National Bank in Tom Bean, a small community east of here, the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Dallas confirmed Friday. Two other men believed connected with the robbery remain at large. J. Gordon Shanklin, agent-in-charge, said agents arrested Cal W. Dennie Jr. in Oklahoma City on a warrant charging him under federal bank robbery statutes. Dennie was ordered held in lieu of $35,000 bond. Details of the arrest were not available immediately. Dennie will be returned to Sherman once arrangements for his removal from Oklahoma are met, the agent said. Three men, who made no effort to conceal their faces, went to the home of the bank president, 75-year-old Claude Lackey, before the bank opened. Lackey was driven to the bank and forced to open the safe by two men while the third stayed in the house with Mrs. Lackey, who was tied up with an extension cord. Tom Bean History Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson CountyTXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |