Fannin County TXGenWeb
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William M. Sudderth was born May 18, 1853, in Georgia.
He was of Scottish-Irish descent, William was only a few
weeks old when his father, Abraham (18241908), his mother, Temperance Harris Sudderth (1822-1853), and sisters Sarah (1844-1869) and Clairrisu (1848-1915), with brother, David (1850-1929), started the long hard journey by ox wagon to Texas.
William's mother developed cholera in the Mississippi
Swamp when the illness struck the wagon train. She died
there and was buried in a county cemetery nearby.The family, torn by death, continued on with the rest of the group to
reach Wood County, Texas, where Abraham settled for awhile. Young William stayed with the Baxter family until his father remarried. Abraham moved to Fannin County where William and his brothers and sisters grew up. The Sudderth men
loved the soil and became known for their large land holdings.
Abraham married Miss Nancy Brown, October 10, 1853,
and to this union were born a daughter, Charlotte (1855-1953), and two sons, John (1858-1947) and Joseph (1860-1901),
Sara married Charles Dement. Clairrisu married Jess London and, after his death, she married Lon Tefteller. David married Martha Hancock. Miss Charlotte married James Shields. John married Miss Lacy, and Joseph married Sarah McMahan.
William, like his father before him, grew up in an era of little formal education. However, he grew to be a strong honest man of exemplary habits. He earned the respect of his neighbors andfriends as he quietly went about helping those in need.
As a young man he lived with a widowed aunt, Mm. Betty London, in order to help her with her young family, She later married Lon Tefteller. William often took food from his own store of supplies when he heard of a family that was hungry. Many times he provided money and a helping hand.
Bill, as some people called William, inherited land from his father, and he bought land at Grove Hill. Some of the land he purchased for $4.50 an acre. He built a two room house on the Grove Hill land and when he met and married Miss Willie Lee Linton, she helped him clear more land for cultivation, and
they added two more rooms to the house. They were young
and strong and could work hard all week, go to a neighbor s barn raising on Saturday, work that day and think nothing of dancing the night away to the fiddler's country music.
William and Willie Lee had nine children. Lee (1880-1956) married Maude Christian. After her death he martied Blanche Hartzng. David L, Sudderth was born in 1882 and died in 1914. Clara (1884-1962) married George L, Waddle. Cora (1886-1959) married Norman Marney. Son William Abraham (1888-1925) married Fannie Leslie. Henry Scott (1891-1971) married Beatrice Hancock. Troy Sudderth {1893-1975) married Minnie Threet. Twins, Jimmie (1896-1896) and ]ohnnie (1896-1900), died very early.
After Willie Lee, first wife of William, died in December of 1897 he met and later married Miss Mary Kate Akard. They were married in September of 1901. They also had nine children, including a set of twins. Joseph Tucker (1902) married Lovie Mae Turner. Fennie Lee (1903-1904) lived a
short life. Mattie Rebecca (1905-1909) died at the age of
three. Lonnie William (1907-1955) never married. There was
a still-born child born March 3, 1909. The twins, Ola Lee and Lola Dee, arrived in November of 1910. Ola married Barney Roberts. Dee married Ellis Parks. Son Robert (1913) married Lou Ella Fuller, and daughter Willa Mae (1917-1975) married Lewis Chennault. After his death she married Berna Middlebrooks.
Kate, as Mrs. Sudderth was known, died during the terrible flu epidemic of 1918. William suffered a stroke that left him
a paralytic for several years before his death in November, 1929.
There are many Sudderths -- brothers, sisters, cousins --
all mingling into the fabric that makes up this section of Texas. In a part of the country where it has been said of the black
soil "you take your tracks with you," the Sudderth families
are still continuing to make a lot of foot prints through their love of the land and their many services to their fellowman.
by Joy Beatrice Sudderth.
