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Russell Laird

(Counter reset Nov. 22, 1997)

From the
Wolfe City Sun newspaper

Photo and Story Published Friday, Sept. 26, 1941, in Wolfe City, Hunt Co., Texas

Local Barber Named
As Oldest Business
Man In Wolfe City
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Has Been In The Barber Business For Fifty-Three Years; Enjoys An Active Life With Colorful Adventures During Early Life.
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Mr. M. Strong, well known barber, is considered Wolfe City's oldest business man, having been in the barber business here for the past forty-five years. He was born in Missouri on February 29, 1868, and came to Texas when but a lad of thirteen years and went to work on a ranch near Albany. He went up the old Dodge City trail with Jim Blocker and 2,300 head of cattle in the Spring of 1886. He joined the thirteenth infantry of the regular army at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1888. He was at Guthrie, Oklahoma, at the original opening and was also sent to Saint Louis, Missouri, to help make up the funeral procession of General Sherman and was one of the fifteen selected as a guard of honor over his grave for twenty-one days.

Mr. Strong came back to Texas in 1893. During the fall of 1895 he worked here a short while and located in Wolfe City in March, 1896, and has been in the barber business here for forty-five consecutive years. In his fifty-three years of barbering he had as customers such prominent and notorious men as Coke, Reagan, Hogg, Bailey of Texas. Gov. Seay, first governor of Oklahoma, also Bill Dalton and Al Jennings of Oklahoma.

Mack Strong was the third son of Thomas Van Buren Strong, b. Jan. 5, 1833, in Greene Co., TN, and Matilda Ellis. Thomas V.B. Strong's father was Dr. William Dodson Strong, b.1800 in Rockingham Co., NC, son of Thomas Strong, who was son of Thomas and grandson of William Strong, b. 1701, St. Peter's Parish, New Kent Co., VA.

Although having seen seventy-three Februarys, he has had only seventeen birthdays, as during the four year period of the leap years, there was a skip in 1900, making it eight years between birthdays. He was married to Miss Mollie Johnson on August 7, 1899, and to their union were born eight children. He is a Mason and a Knight of Pythias, and is active in civic affairs. He served one term as Alderman from 1900 to 1902 and later served as a member of the school board for two years.

 Mr. Strong's first shop was located at the rear of the Wolfe City National Bank where the Maples Washateria is now located, and the late Sid Braley of Leonard was his first employee.

 He now maintains a modern shop on the south side of Main Street with his son, Jimmie, and Bert Sullivan. Of the other children, three reside in Dallas, Bill and Tom Strong, and Mrs. Fred Laird, the former Sybil Strong; Mrs. Floyd Haywood, who was Mae Strong, resides at Sherman; Mrs. Jewell Turner, the former Norine Strong, lives at Brownwood; Melvin at Albany; and the youngest child, Charles Edward, is a member of the U.S. Naval Air Corps and is in training at Pensacola, Florida.

 Mr. and Mrs. Strong reside on West Dallas Street, where they have made their home for many years.

(Mack died in 1948. He was my great grandfather.)