The Tom N. Slaton Family

From History by Iva Childress Slaton

The year Jacksonville was founded, 1872, was the year Thomas Jefferson Slaton purchased property that was to be a Slaton home for at least the next 100 years. Today, known as the "Slaton Place," there still stands the little house where he died in 1893.

In 1869, an eleven-year-old boy, driving an oxen-drawn covered wagon, brought the T. J. Slaton family to Cherokee County. Ill since coming home from the Civil War, it was Thomas Jefferson's wife who had guided the trip from Alabama. Martha Ann (Thomason), half Cherokee Indian, followed the Cherokee Trail and its signs and signals all the way. Her friends, the Indians, helped her find a farm to rent, which later was bought, and which had as its chief attraction the bubbling spring of clear water, continuing its flow to this day.

Two daughters, Belle (Roach) and Veturia (Monkress), and two sons, John and Tom N., were born to this union. Tom N. taught at Afton Grove School and the building also was used for Sunday church services. One of his pupils was a young girl named Melvina Heidelberg, daughter of Richard and Hannah Heidelberg. In the Fall of 1881, at 16, Melvina packed her trunk to go to school at Old Larissa, but Tom met her on the way and they eloped. They set up housekeeping in a house at corner of what now is Nacogdoches and Neches streets, and all eight of their children were born here. The house grew as the family grew.

Tom Slaton and John Bolton planned the music for church services and sang in the Methodist choir. Mrs. Slaton, reared a Bapitst, joined the Methodist Church when sbe was 18, and was active for 56 years in its program.

Tom had gone into grocery business with his nephew, Virgil P. Monkress, on North Bolton Street, but in 1903, he built a brick building at Rusk and Main Streets, with a grocery store and meat market downstairs and the Slaton Opera House upstairs. He employed his children. Allen, the oldest, was manager of the Opera House and credited with bringing only good shows to town. Home talent shows were exhibited, and Miss Ella Musgrove, piano teacher, held spring recitals there. The Methodists held services in the building while a new church was being built.

Melvina Slaton's parents moved into town and built a house on the corner of Ragsdale and Larissa streets, and a building at 108 Main in 1878, for the Heidelberg store, later a millinery shop, and eventually Slaton Cleaners. On its site now stands a portion of First National Bank.

When the telephone "came to town" Tom Slaton would turn the crank handle and shout into it, "Hello there, John? This me here." The workmen had said that as long as the wire stayed in the ground one could talk into the box on the wall and it would talk back.

A Methodist lay minister, he always was interested in assisting ministerial students. Scripture reading and prayers started the day in the Slaton household.

The surviving child of Tom N. (1858-1935) and Melvina H. (1865-1939) Slaton is Iva (Mrs. G. L. Childress) of San Antonio. She attended Alexander Collegiate Institute and Cincinnati Conservatory of Music. Her daughters are Kathleen (Guthrie), Betty (Parker) and Dorothy (Bonnie).

Three sons: T. R., (died in infancy); Allen married Mary Bobo; and Elmer, left no heirs.

Ada (Mrs. Lee Lloyd) had a son, Bryan, who owns property here but resides elsewhere.

Vernon and Dess (Reilly) Slaton had a son, Vernon, Jr., a resident of Enid, Oklahoma. Their daughter, Violette (Lahourcade) of San Antonio, was Jacksonville's Tomato Festival Queen in 1935, and reigned as Queen of The Texas Centennial in 1936. She was a radio personality, the Dr. Pepper "Sunshine Girl," in the 1930s.

Eva (Mrs. Charles J. Foscue) had three children: Garland Slaton and Kathleen (Swearingen), both deceased, and Willie Tom (Mrs. Wayne Goodson), who resides in Jacksonville, where her late husband was a prominent business man.

Sam and Nell (Foster) Slaton had seven children: Corinne and Tom Lewis, both deceased; Thelma, Mary Nell (Lewis); Montie South (Morris); Dorothy Faye (Hutson); and Sam, Jr., who with his wife, Kathryn, and son Gary, lives in Jacksonville.

Mrs. Sam Slaton, Sr., as resident of the "Slaton Place," continued occupancy of land settled by the Slaton family three years before Jacksonville was founded.

Hairdos of 1902 are shown by the three daughters of Tom N. Slaton, Ada Slaton Lloyd, Eva Slaton Foscue and Iva Slaton Childress; foreground is Emily Heidelberg Heermans, who was a teacher of organ, piano and voice.

The T. N. Slaton home, corner of Neches and Nacogdoches streets, at is appeared in 1908.