The Jennings A. Beall Family

By Frances Beall Harris

In 1908, Jennings A. Beall came from college life to the town he thought the best in Texas to set up a dry-goods store in partnership with a decade-older brother, John A. Beall. Their first store was known as John A. Beall and Brother, and later, around 1914, as Beall Brothers, and was located historically enough, at the corner of Main and Woodrow. Later the store stock was moved to a new location near the present Heilman firm on Main Street.

Until his death in June, 1918, Mr. Beall boosted the East Texas village of his choice, both in church and civic work. His last contribution to civic work came from a captaincy of a World War I Liberty Bond drive around surrounding communities at which he contacted typhoid fever from unclean drinking water. His constant contribution centered from management of an opera house in the old (now demolished) Slaton Building, by bringing cultural programs before the township.

Mrs. Finis L. Harris, Jr., only daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Jennings A. Beall, comments "a Beall way becomes a way of service" as Jennings learned from his father, Lt. John Alphonsa Beall (1835-1923) of the Confederacy. As the late Mrs. J. H. Bolin said in August, 1922, of the youth of Jacksonville, "The Golden Jubilee is yours; the Centennial will be ours,"-—thus, with that service, Jacksonville grew.