Edmund N. and Mary M. Sparks with their six sons and one daughter and their families in front of the Sparks home in Byfield.
July 20, 2023 - Speaking at the monthly meeting of the Timpson Area Genealogy and Heritage Society last Wednesday, member Drucilla Sparks Dickey traced her Sparks lineage all the way from Maryland in 1689, through Virginia and Tennessee, to Texas. Her ancestors bought several hundred acres north of Caledonia, near the Rusk-Panola County line, where some live and own land to this day. Although she grew up in Texas City, where her father worked until his retirement, they frequently visited their family here, giving Dickey many wonderful memories.
“Paw Sparks had a sawmill behind his house which he could convert into a cotton gin during cotton season. We had a cousin Vera, our daddy's first cousin, and she was a lot older than them and she knew a lot of stuff about the family that they never knew. She said she remember being placed on the cotton as it was being fed into the gin”, Dickey laughed. “As a boy, Paw Sparks went to the Byfield School, which no longer exists. The school was pier and beam construction and chickens went under there during the day. The floor had cracks between the boards big enough for my grandfather to drop a string with a kernel of corn on it trough the crack. When a chicken ate the corn, Paw would jerk the string, pulling the chicken up against the floor boards”! The assumption is that this delighted Mr. Sparks and the other children but not the teacher.
Drucilla Dickey holding photo of her great-grandparents, Edmund Neely Sparks and Mary Martin Sparks
“My grandmother had been Ora Lee Barnes before she married my grandfather. Willie Barnes, who lived in Timpson for many years was her brother. They lived out in the country near the County Line Church in a little two bedroom house with a double fireplace between the living room and the bedroom. I loved going out to visit them in the country.” Dickey shared. “I slept with my grandma when we stayed out there and I always tried to get into the bed first, because when my grandma got into the bed I had to hold on the the edge of the feather mattress to keep from rolling under her”!
“They did their laundry in a wash pot behind the house. They had to carry water from the well to the pot and build a fire under it to heat it. I now have that wash pot sitting on my front porch. They also didn't have an indoor toilet so we used the outhouse. Once while visiting the outhouse with my little brother, a wasp flew in and stung me on my face. I started screaming, which made him start screaming. Hearing the commotion down at the outhouse, our family rushed down to rescue us. I liked using it even less after that!', Dickey remembered. Later her grandparents moved to a home off Highway 59 a little north of Timpson.
Drucilla's father, Thomas Edward Sparks Jr., during WWII
Drucilla's father, Thomas Edward Sparks Jr., or “Junior” as he was called, graduated from Timpson High School just before the beginning of World War II and became a radio operator aboard a B-29 bomber in the Army Air Corp. After the war, he married Elma Brown and they made their home in Texas City, where Mr. Sparks worked as a lead burner at Union Carbide. “We hear a lot about the health risks associated with lead but it doesn't seem to have affected my father because he lived to be 91 years old!”, Dickey revealed. Her parents are buried in the County Line Cemetery along with many other Sparks relatives. The Sparks had three children in addition to Drucilla: Sara, Sandra, and Eddie. Drucillia and her husband Gary now live in Nacogdoches.
Dickey brought a wonderful collection a family photographs, many of which came from her previously mentioned Aunt Vera Marshall, who with her husband was a long-time Nacogdoches resident. “My Aunt Vera gave these photos to me because she knew I would treasure them. Much of what I know of our family history, I heard from Aunt Vera. I would go see her and we would talk for hours. She lived to be 103 years old and, although she was in a nursing home, her mind was as clear as could be. One day my daddy and his friend Margie Massey went over to see her. They left to go get some lunch and when they came back, she had died.”
Thomas E. and Elma B. Sparks and their children, Sara, Sandra, Drucilla, and Eddie in Texas City
The Timpson Area Genealogical Society meets at 2pm on the third Wednesday of each month in the meeting room of the Timpson Public Library on the corner of Austin and Bremond Streets in downtown Timpson. The TAGHS library is located within the Timpson Public Library and is open and staffed from 9am until 5pm weekdays. Telephone 936-254-2966 and ask for the Genealogical Library.
