Stricklin
Family
William
Harrison Stricklin (1841-1918) and
Pherabe Elizabeth Medlin (1851-1931)
moved to Grayson County, Texas from
Hunt County, Texas at the same time
as their sons did. Both are
buried in Georgetown Cemetery,
Pottsboro, Grayson County, Texas.
The
1908 Sanborn Fire Map shows 1306 W.
Woodard street to be a vacant lot.
The western end of town was
still developing then. The
only
two houses on the south side of the
street in the 1300 block were 1300
and 1310. Walter Stricklin and
his family at 1310 W. Woodward
Street. Walter's older
brother, William Albert Stricklin
(1873-1963) and his his family lived
at 1300 W. Woodward street.
Frances
Cordelia Cobb had always said she
wouldn't marry until she was 20
years
of age. But at the age of 19,
her hand was sought in marriage by
two suitors. While busily
working on her trousseau in
preparation
for marriage to one of the suitors
and completing her beautiful white
wedding dress, she realized that
William Albert Stricklin - the other
suitor -
was the man she loved.
After hiding all her clothes
in the
orchard, William Albert picked them
up while Delia left the house and
met him.
William and Delia Cobb slipped
off and married on Sunday morning,
July 8, 1893 in Kingston,
Texas, because her father objected
to
the marriage due to the fact that
William had rheumatism.
After
their marriage, the couple moved to
Whitesboro in Grayson County,
Texas, where William operated a book
store. He later entered the
railway postal service for 14 years
and they lived in Greenville and
Denison.
The 1909 Denison
City Directory doesn't list a house
at 1306 W. Woodward street;
according to the Sunday
Gazetteer,
canvassing for the 1909 City
Directory was still underway at the
end of
January 1909. The copyright on
the 1909 City Directory is June
14, 1909.
The 1910 U.S.
Census for the 1300 block of
West Woodward street was conducted
on April 18, 1910, which lists a
family living at 1306 W. Woodward
street. The house built at
1306
was probably built in 1909 but no
earlier than February of that year
and no later than April 18, 1910.
The next Sanborn Map, drawn in
1914, also shows a house at 1306,
between 1300 and 1310.
After
the house at 1306 W. Woodard Street
was built, Walter moved his family
into the new house next door to his
residence 1310 West Woodard street.
They were likely the first
occupants of the house. The
head
of the household in 1910 census was
Walter James Stricklin (1883-1921),
a 27-year-old Railway Mail Service
clerk from Tennessee. His
wife, Nancy Jane "Nannie" Smallwood
Stricklin (1888-1976), was born in
Mississippi. They married in
Grayson County in 1905.

By
1910 they had two sons - Darwin Bennett
(1907-1990) and Walter Delore
(1908-1952). A daughter, Louise, was
born in 1912 and youngest
son, Tobe Eugene, was born in 1916.

Back
row: Darwin, Walter
Front row: Louise, Tobe
ca1918
When
he began working for the
Railway Mail Service in 1906 as a substitute
clerk, he lived in
Whitesboro, Grayson County, Texas. The
following year he was appointed
a regular clerk on the Denison to Houston
run. He moved to Denison
that same year. Mr. Stricklin
sorted on the fly as trains hauled him and
the mail between Denison and Houston.
The 1910
census shows that both William and Walter
Stricklin owned their homes.
The
Miller family that succeeded Walter
Stricklin's family at 1310 West
Woodward were renters; it may be
that Walter owned both 1906 and 1910
West Woodward street. Mr.
Miller, like his neighbor Walter,
was a
Railway Mail Service clerk.
City
directories show that J. Maurice
Daniels and his wife, Roberta, lived
at 1306 W. Woodard Street in 1959.
Maurice was a civilian
employee at
Perrin Air Force Base; they were
still living at the same address in
1962.
William
Albert Stricklin left Denison before
the 1913 City Directory was
compiled. His World War II
draft registration shows him living
in
Hunt County, Texas, where the
Stricklins had lived before moving
to
Grayson County. He left the
railway work and returned to
Greenville, Hunt County, where he
was associated with his brother in
the Stricklin Motor Company, agency
for Oakland cars. In 1919 he
had settled in Durant, Oklahoma,
where he joined Delia's brother
operating the Cobb Stricklin Motor
Company. He died in 1963 and
is buried in Highland Cemetery.
Walter Stricklin
was
still living at 1306 W. Woodard
Street when he registered for the
draft
in September 1918. Two years
later, the census listed him and his
family living in Dallas, Texas.
He died there November 23,
1921
at the age of 38; cause of death was
"septicemia", a condition
commonly known as "sepsis".
He
left a 33-year-old widow with four
children, all under the age
of 15. Nancy shipped her
husband's body back to Denison to be
buried in Fairview
Cemetery, possibly because
they had a baby boy
buried there; the child had been
born on Christmas Eve 1915 and died
the same day at their home.
Their youngest son, Tobe, was
also
buried in Fairview Cemetery in 1997.
His gravestone
is a double stone with his wife,
Barbara Bobbie Stricklin, who may
not be buried there.
After
Walter's death, Nancy and the
children remained in Dallas, where
she
eventually remarried. Her
second husband, Warren Taylor
McLain, died in 1945 and was
buried in Dallas. After Nancy
died in Los Angeles, California in
1976, her body was shipped back to
Dallas to be buried
beside her second husband.
The
1921 Denison City Directory shows
that Dr. John A.
Roberson and wife,
Jessie B., lived in the house at
1306 W. Woodard Street.

Biography
Index
Susan Hawkins
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