Page:History of Southeast Missouri 1912 Volume 1.djvu/818

 706 HISTORY OF SOUTHEAST MISSOURI county l)y the qualities of business sagacity and initiative, combined with a genius for hard work. He was born in Illinois, in 1869, on the 16th of July. His parents, C. T. and Louise Walker, are still living on a farm in that state. Mr. Walker spent the first twenty-one years of his life in Illinois. He helped his father on the farm and secured his educa- tion in the meantime in the district schools and in the normal at Carbondale. Illinois. In September, 1890, he came to Lutesville and secured employment as clerk for George E. Clark & Son. Mr. Walker learned the business thoroughly in the following six years and rose steadily in it, so that in 1897 he was able to purchase a hardware business in ]larble Hill. In 1910 he sold out his in- terests in ]Iarl)le Hill and went to Colorado, intending to make liis home in that state, but decided to return to Missouri. In January, 1911, Mr. Walker purchased the interests of Clark & Son and is engaged in managing that extensive business. The house carries a line of hardware, agricultural implements, furniture, lumber, sliingjes, cement and lime, and transacts the bulk of the trade in these lines in Lutesville and in Bollinger county. In addition, Mr. Walker is a stockholder in the Bollinger County Bank and in the Bank of Marble Hill. His residence is one of the attractive homes of Lutesville. Mr. Walker's wife was ]Iiss Nellie Clark, daughter of (ieorge Clark, the former em- ployer of Mr. Walker. Mr. George Clark was a pioneer merchant of Lutesville, com- ing to that town in 1872 from ]Iarble Hill, where he had located five years previously. Mr. and ]Irs. Walker have two children : George Earl, born in 1893, and Charles Dean, in 1897. ]Ir. Walker has attained high honor in the ]Ia.sonic order. He was made a Blue Lodge Mason at ^larble Hill, Missouri, and joined the Chapter at Frederiektown. He went into the Commandery at Cape Girardeau, and into the Consistory at St. Louis, taking thirty-two degrees in all. In additfon he is a member of the IIodern Woodmen and of the Odd Fel- lows in Lutesville. He takes an active inter- est in bis lodges and in the Presbyterian chiircli, of which ]Irs. Walker is a member and a valued adherent. J. Oliver Eubanks. A thrifty and well-to- do agriculturist of Hollywood, J. Oliver Eu- banks is the proprietor of a fine farm, which in regard to its appointments compares fa- vorably with any in the locality, the neatness and orderly appearance of the property show- ing conclusively that the owner has a thor- ough understanding of his business and ex- ercises excellent judgment in its management. A Missourian liy birth, he was born on a farm in Douglas county, January 8, 1877, and lived there until three .years of age. In 1880 his father and his half-sister were killed liy lightning, and his mother sulisequently married a second husband and removed to Stoddard county, Missouri, where her deatli occurred in 1892, on the farm which she had there purchased. Until sixteen years of age J. Oliver Eu- banks worked on his mother's farm in Stod- dard county, near Puxico, in the meantime obtaining a practical education in the district school. He subsequently worked for wages on neighboring farms for a number of years. Coming then to Dunklin county, he invested his money, all of which, with the exception of forty-two dollai-s that he received from his mother's estate after attaining bis major- ity, he had earned by the sweat of his brow, in farming land in Hollywood. ^Ir. Eubanks first purchased forty acres on time, and later l)ought forty acres of adjoining land, and of this he has cleared about sixty-three acres himself, and placed it under culture, and when he first came to the place he also cleared land for other people, becoming quite ex- pert in the pioneer task. For a numlier of years after assuming possession of his prop- erty ;li'. Eubanks lived in a rude shack. Imt he has since erected a substantial, eight-room house and good farm buildings, and is now devoting his energies to the growing of com and cotton, crops which he finds most profit- able. Jlr. Eultanks also owns an eighty-acre farm lying one and three-fourths miles north- east ofCardwell, on which he has made valu- al)le improvements, that land being reiited out. He is also now contemplating the pur- chase of one hundred and twenty acres of land adjoining his farm near Cardwell. an investment which will eventually pi-ove of value. ^Ir. Eubanks married first, in 1892, on his present farm. Xellie Horner, the daughter of an early settler of Hollywood. She passed to the higher life a few years later, leaving four children, namely : Nettie, Melvin, El- mer and Herman, all of whom, with the ex- ception of tbe eldest child, are at home. Mr. Eubanks married in 1900 Oi'a Sanders, and