Springfield-Greene
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JAMES GARFIELD CHILDRESS. It is a great privilege to be able to spend our lives on the old home place. "The roof that heard our earliest cry" has a charm and fascination for us which we cannot find elsewhere, and no matter where on earth our restless footsteps may wander we ever long to be back under the old roof-tree of our parents. However, this is by no means practicable to many people. For various reasons, often through necessity, we leave our child-hood home and seek our fortunes in other countries, and seldom revisit the hearth-stone around which we played as a child. James Garfield Childress has been favored by fate in this respect and has always lived on the home-stead in Wilson township, Greene county, with the exception of a short period spent in the city.
Here Mr. Childress was born May 1, 1880. He is a son of William and Ellen (Tensley) Childress, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Illinois. The father of our subject came to Greene county, Missouri, in 1863, and settled on two hundred acres in Wilson township, a part of which excellent farm our subject now owns, and the elder Childress continued to reside here until his death, which occurred in 1883, his widow surviving until 1912, outliving him twenty-nine years. To these parents twelve children were born, six of whom survive at this writing, namely: Mrs. Mary Jones, Wife of John Jones, a farmer of this township, and who is represented in this work by a separate sketch; Will lived in Clever, Missouri, until his death, which occurred about one year ago by accident; Charles lives south of Marionville; Dave lives in Clever, Missouri; Mrs. Minnie Campbell lives in Springfield, Missouri; Mrs. Fannie Brayfield lives in Carthage, Missouri; and James G., of this sketch, who is the youngest of the family.
James G. Childress was reared on the home farm and here he has always lived, with the exception of two years spent in Springfield. He received a limited education in the district schools of Wilson township. While his mother lived he was to be found at home, being very attentive to her every want, and since her death he has remained on the home farm, and is doing his own housework, since he has never entered the marriage state. He possesses seventy acres of the estate, and on this he carries on general farming, renting twenty acres from his sister, which he also operates and thus has a good acreage out each year in various crops. He has kept the old farm well cultivated and well improved, so that its value has increased in every respect, rather than deteriorated as some negligent farmers allow their land to do.
Mr. Childress has never affiliated himself with either church or fraternal organization, but in politics his views are pronounced, and he adheres to the Republican party in both victory and defeat, and he is desirous of seeing his locality improve in material and civic ways.
[1806-1807]
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