The Tol Gover Smith Family

By Billy G. Smith

Tol Gover Smith was born on November 7, 1882, in Jacksonville, and was a lifelong resident, except for a short time spent in Wise County with his parents, the Reverend and Mrs. R. N. Smith. The Reverend Smith was a Presbyterian minister.

While attending Alexander Collegiate Institute, Tol found jobs to help finance his college education. He worked at a local brick factory, and also at a grocery store operated by W. L. Newsome, and located at the corner of Commerce and Rusk streets.

After graduation from A. C. I. and Tyler Commercial College, he began his banking career at the First National Bank, later going to the First State Bank, and becoming its vice-president when A. G. Adams was president. This bank closed in 1933.

The family of Jamina (Gover) Smith, Tol's mother, owned about 1,000 acres of land four miles northwest of town in the direction of Larissa. This farm was inherited by Tol in 1912, and the land which had been in the Gover family since the days of the Republic of Texas still remains in the family.

Tol kept five or six sharecroppers on this farm during the time he was working at the bank. He gave land through the farm to straighten the road, shown on old maps as the Tol Smith Short Line Road.

Tol Smith was working at the bank, and Mattie Muckleroy was working across the street at the L. E. Frank Dry Goods Store at the time of their marriage, July 6, 1913. Three children were born to them.

Ruth Elizabeth (Mrs. Allen P. Goforth) resides in Jacksonville with her husband and son, Allen Preston, Jr.; Billie Ruth, their youngest daughter, teaches in Odessa; and Jane Ella (Mrs. Bert Richards) lives in Fairfield. Ruth Goforth is a teller at First National Bank of Jacksonville.

Martha (Mrs. Morrison W. Listen) lives in McKinney, where she teaches school. She and her husband are parents of a son, James Tol, a Denton banker, and a daughter, Deanna (Mrs. Monte Wallace) of Washington, D. C.

Billy Gover Smith married Edna Ziegler of Pennsylvania, and they are parents of a daughter, Tolene, of Lawrence, Kansas. Billy is manager of BealPs Department Store in Jacksonville.

Tol Gover Smith died May 17, 1949, and is buried in City Cemetery, where his parents, and his grandparents, Samuel and Isabella Gover, also are buried.

Tol Smith home, 1061 Kickapoo Street, built in 1914, as it appeared in 1928.

Miniature log cabin used on a float in 50th Anniversary parade in 1922, appealed to Tol Smith and he bought it as a playhouse for his children.

Employees of First National Bank in 1912 pose for portrait.