The C. L. Newburn Family

Facts by Billybob Newburn Dublin

Columbus Lonzo (Lum) Newburn was born February 4, 1879, in Beach Springs, Miss., a son of Rev. Jack Newburn and his wife, Betty, the tenth of a family of eleven children.

Rev. Newburn remained in Beach Springs until Lum was nine, when they moved to Neches, Texas, coming by train". Tilling the soil was a necessity for Lum and his brothers, but he had an ambition to become a doctor. He completed school at Neches and secured a teaching certificate, alternately teaching and attending Fort Worth School of Medicine, and completing three years offered there. He financed his schooling with such part-time jobs a delivering mail, selling scissors door-to-door and doing construction work on a power line from Palestine to Jacksonville.

He then went to St. Louis to attend Barnes Medical College, working in the dining hall and carrying trays to patients in the hospital to finance his training. Near to completing medical college work, he set up practice at Barry, Navarro County, where he met and married Maggie Brumbelow. She went with him back to Barnes Medical School in St. Louis for his final year, and he was graduated May 10, 1910.

Returning to Barry to continue practice, Dr. C. L. Newburn was becoming established when Maggie became ill and died within a few months. Five years later, he met and married Bertha Phillips, the town schoolteacher. They remained in Barry until 1917, when they moved to Jacksonville. He purchased the Dr. Longmire home on South Bonner Street, which was remodeled with living quarters on the first floor and hospital on the second. Dr. Lum found office space in the Bolton Building over Jacksonville Drug.

After the birth of the Newburns' daughter, Billybob, in 1919, Dr. Newburn went to New Orleans for his surgical residency at Tulane University. Completing this training, he returned to his thirteen-bed hospital and shortly afterward, January 5, 1921, C. L. Newburn, Jr., was born.

Tragedy hit the hospital in 1928, when it burned. No lives were lost, but furnishings, equipment and building were gone, which meant a new start. This was made possible by his brother, the Rev. John Newburn, First Baptist Church pastor, who, with his wife, Lula, opened his home to Dr-Newburn as temporary living and hospital quarters. New construction was begun and a fifteen-bed hospital, modern in every respect for that day, completed in 1929.

During all of these early days, Dr. Newburn often found himself paid for his services in potatoes, a quilt or a chicken. Transportation which he used progressed from horse and buggy to his first car, a Mitchell.

Dr. Newburn's last marriage in 1937 was to Jewell Massey, who had worked at the hospital for nine years. She aided him in his dream of building an even larger and more modern hospital, which culminated in the present New-burn Memorial Hospital.

While Dr. Newburn had little time for hobbies, he did own farms at Mixon and Mt. Selman through which he maintained his love for the land. He was a member of the Cherokee County Medical Society, the Texas and American medical associations, Shrine and First Baptist Church. Illness hampered his activities during his latter years, and he died on August 3, 1962.

Daughter, Billybob, married Richmond Eugene Dublin, youngest son of W. L. Dublin, on June 19, 1943. They moved to Odessa in 1950. Their children are Richmond E. Dublin, Jr., Vicki Lynn and David Newburn Dublin.

Mrs. Dublin owns and directs a day-school in Odessa with 90 pupils and Mr. Dublin is in sales. Their son, Richie, who married Mary Pavletich of Jacksonville on October 4, 1970, is manager of a handicraft firm in Shreveport. Vicki teaches in Columbia College, Columbia, S.C., and David still is in school.

C. L. Newburn, Jr., graduated Jacksonville High School and was attending Baylor University, when he dropped out to join the Navy during World War II. He received his wings August 18, 1943, at Corpus Christi and on the same day, married Gwendolyn Davis, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. R. Davis.

A fighter pilot, he flew off the Carrier Haggett Bay in the Pacific, was shot down in Luzon and was missing for some time before being picked up by a U.S. destroyer. A broken hip which he sustained necessitated nine operations. During the time he was missing, a daughter, Jan, was born on November 22, 1944. A son, C. L., Ill, was born October 10, 1946.

Following the war, they lived on one of the Newburn farms, but later moved into town and C. L. Newburn became administrator of Newburn Hospital in 1959.

Both C. L., Ill, and Jan attended Jacksonville High and Jacksonville College and Jan graduated from Sam Houston State University. In 1965, Jan married Tony Brazier, son of Mr. and Mrs. J. H. Brazier of Jacksonville and they have a son, Tony Scott, born December 17, 1967. They live in Lafayette, La.

C. L., Ill, (Lum) left Jacksonville College to join the armed forces and he left for Vietnam with the 101st Airborne in November, 1967, where he served with distinction and was a Green Beret. Returning home, he attended The University of Texas at Austin and then returned to join his father in management of Newburn Memorial Hospital.

Dr. Columbus L. Newburn

Mrs. Bertha Newburn, mother of C. L., Jr., and Billybob.

Billybob and C. L., Jr., children of Dr. C. L. Newburn in a photo made about 1924.

Mr. and Mrs. C. L. Newburn, Jr., foreground, back row, l. to r., Tony Brazier, Mrs. Jan Newburn Brazier and C. L. Newburn, III.