Transcriber: Jan Shelfer
Surnames: GARRETT, MITCHELL,
BRADSHAW, HARKRIDER, HARRISON
James Odell Garrett, II, b. May 13, 1921 in Blue Ridge, Falls County, Texas, d.
March 20 1926 at Diboll, Angelina County, Texas-was the third child of Sanford
Quay and Agnes (Mitchell) Garrett. He married Rebecca Ann Bradshaw, on September
9, 1949 in Lubbock, Texas b. June 25, 1926 in Fort Worth, Tarrant County,
Texas-a daughter of Weldon Leroy and June (Harkrider) Bradshaw who moved to
Lubbock, where Rebecca attended the Lubbock Senior High School on which design
her father was the architect.
James Odell Garrett (called Jim and J. O.) was a 1939 graduate of Marlin High
School and was enrolled in Texas A&M University when World War II began. In
March 1943, just before graduation, he entered the U.S. Army, and went to
O.C.S., where he was commissioned a Second Lieutenant, being assigned to the
Engineer Corps. After serving in both the European and Pacific
Theaters-including Australia, Jim returned to Texas A&M, where he obtained a
degree in Agricultural Engineering. For a while, he and his brothers, Sanford Q.
Garrett, Jr., and William Henry Garrett, worked on their father's farm-ranch,
since there were no tenants after the war. Jim taught in a Federal Agriculture
School in Lott, became an Oliver Tractor dealer in Nebraska, and later owned his
own dealership in Levelland, Texas, and managed the Whiteface Farms-a large,
irrigated cotton farm headquartered near Levelland.
Jim worked closely with the Texas A&M Experimental Station-and particularly on
two projects. His work was described in a national Farm and Ranching Magazine as
"being the first to turn burr clover into productive cattle feed, and actively
cultivating this crop for such purposes." The other project was in the
development, in cooperation with A&M, of a new breed of cattle-known as the Red
Brangus, and now widely bred by cattlemen.
Jim and Rebecca had one daughter, Elaine June Garrett, b. February 23, 1953 in
Lubbock, Texas who married William Carl Harrison, III of Dallas. Elaine received
her B.A. and master's degrees in German from Texas Technological University, and
her Law Degree from Southern Methodist University Law School. Bill and Elaine
have a son, Benjamin Bradshaw Harrison, and they reside in Dallas where she
practices law, and her husband is in the communications field of radio and
television.
Jim established a Farm Bureau in Diboll, where he had moved to join his brother,
Bill; and was just getting established at the time of his death. His favorite
occupation was raising cattle, and he had moved his Red Brangus bull and heifers
to a rented farm near Diboll. He was buried in Stranger Cemetery near his
father's grave.
Copyright Permission granted to Theresa Carhart for printing these bio of these
Falls County Families to this Web page.
"Families of Falls County," compiled and edited by the Falls County Historical
Commission, page 174, column 1.
Member of Falls County Historical Commission
This book can still be obtained from the Falls County Historical Commission.
Contact Theresa Carhart for details.
