Marion Minter McFarland

Notes:

His Texas Death Certificate shows that he was a son of Doctor T J McFarland (born Alabama) and Carrie Jayne (born in Austin, Texas). The informant was his wife, Irma. He was shown as a Stationary Salesman.

Obituary, copied from the FindAGrave memorial page created by Jan Wukasch Pelosi, and maintained by Vicki Cooper:

Former State Representative Marion Minter McFarland of Brewster County, Texas, after romping around on the open range for fifty-eight years, has been corralled.

This amazing man was born in war ravaged Brandon, Mississippi, following the Civil War - he was known to quip, "There's nothing civil about war." His loving and adoring parents were Thomas Jefferson McFarland, a surgical physician in the Confederate Army, and well-educated artist and musician, Caroline Pauline Jayne McFarland.

When Marion was three, the McFarlands left Mississippi for Texas and lived in several towns before settling in Indianola. There his father practiced medicine and Marion attended public school, completing his education at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

It's believed he was visiting Indianola during the storm of 1886 at which time the town was washed away. His family was certainly there, left and settled in Port Lavaca, Texas. Later Marion founded the Indianola Association - an organization devoted to the memory of the once prosperous seaport town. He was its first president and later elected president for life.

After college, Marion moved to Groesbeck, Limestone County Texas to be near his grandmother, Juliet Jayne and her son, Amos. While there, much of the progress of the town in the eighties may be attributed to him. He was editor and publisher of the Limestone, "New Era". He organized a national bank, organized a board of trade, started the first good roads movement in the county "and generally revolutionized things." At the time he left in 1889, he was a city alderman, city secretary, secretary of the board of trade, and husband of Katherine "Kate" Risien whom he married Dec. 10, 1889.

In 1890, Marion established the Beeville Picayune newspaper in Beeville, Texas.

From that point, Victoria, Texas, was their home and Marion was again a newspaper man having edited The Victoria Daily Times, and where he was elected to the State House of Representatives from Brewster County.
For forty-five years he was a traveling salesman for several lithograph and stationery companies in which he owned interest.

In 1936, at the age of seventy he died in a San Antonio, Texas, hospital and removed to Austin, where "the funeral home was a veritable bower of beautiful floral arrangements, coming from over the state," a testimonial of respect and esteem to the former representative, business and newspaper man.

(Research):

Census Listings:

1930 Census
Texas, Travis County, Austin City Ward 3-B
Enumerated April 3, 1930
ED 227-25 SD 24 Sheet 3A Stamped 279
13th Street
51-61
McFarland, M M Head m W 64 M 32 No Miss Tx Tx Salesman Staitonary and Bank Supplies
McFarland, Irma Wf F W 51 m 19 Ark Oh Ark
McFarland, Marion Dtr F W 10 S La Miss Ark

Marion married Irma Dell McCullough about 1918. Irma was born on 19 Feb 1879 in Arkansas; died on 16 Jul 1965 in Austin, Travis County, Texas; was buried in Austin Memorial Park Cemetery, Austin, Travis County, Texas. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

1. Marion Moreland "Tad" McFarland was born on 19 Nov 1919 in Louisiana; died on 11 Sep 1997 in Reston, Fairfax County, Virginia; was buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Arlington, Arlington County, Virginia.