Growing Up Fast

John F. Baxter was born the second son of George W. and Margeret Harbison Baxter on March 17, 1890, in the Ozark hill country near Thayer, Missouri. He inherited a love for the smell of fresh cut lumber. While John was still small his father and mother moved their family to the booming lumber town of Success just across the Arkansas line. There the mother of the eight children died and the father remarried, but the family never liked their new stepmother.

At the age of nine the slim lad went to work at his father's sawmill located on the bank on the Little Black River on the edge of Success. Young John never had the opportunity to obtain an education. In later years he would jokingly tell of the one day he attended school in his older brother's place. But being around the sawmill he quickly learned how to figure in his mind the amount of lumber in a board although he was never able to put it on paper and could barely sign his first and last names.

One day at the sawmill his father was adjusting the saw while it was running and slipped and seriously cut his head. He died a few days later on June 6, 1907, leaving John to care for his two younger brothers. John married the young Ruth Harris (who had to obtain her mother's written permission to get their marriage license - which can still be seen in the courthouse record book) there in Success, Arkansas. In the late spring of 1911 they had a baby boy who they named Arlie. The both died soon afterward; the mother died on June 8, 1911.

2011-03-26 16:37:41 RBaxter

See additional information on the Individual Data Info Page for John Faunzie Baxter.