ANDREW MONROE NEECE. Union county, Georgia, was the birthplace of Andrew M. Neece, of this review, and his birth occurred January 30, 1856. His father, Joseph Casvill Neece, was born in Cooke county, Tennessee, March 20, 1812, and while he was reared to a rural and farm life, he chose mechanics on nearing his majority, and learned the cabinet-maker’s trade. Of education he has little, yet his bent for current reading and the information gained by association with his fellows enabled him to pass through life an intelligent and useful man. He served District 8 of his county as notary public for twelve years, and he was an active leader in the spiritual and business affairs of the Methodist church. He married Nancy Ann, a daughter of John Lance, of Buncombe county, North Carolina, and died at Union county, Georgia, March 17th, 1882, while his wife passed away in 1887 at seventy-one years of age.
Adam Neece, grandfather of our subject, was born in 1785, and died in Laclede county, Missouri, in 1860. He married Miss Cook, and their children were: George, Samuel, James, Joseph, Adam, Arraneous, Ann, who married William Price , and Margaret, who married a Mr. Cherry and passed her life in Macoupin county, Illinois.
Joseph Casville Neece was the father of Martha E., of Chillicothe, Texas, wife of John A. Lance; Etta, deceased wife of J. D. Chastain, passed away in Union county, Georgia; Sophrona, of Christian county Missouri, is the wife of J. R. Dean; William Marion Lafayette, of Montague county, is well known as a farmer near Fruitland; Margaret, wife of Benjamin Chastain, of Union county, Georgia; John W., of Foss, Oklahoma; Elizabeth C., married to Harrison T. Cobb, of Union county, Georgia; Cornelius T., of Chillicothe, Texas; Amanda, of the Cherokee Nation, is the wife of L. C. Chapman; Albert Y., of Sunset, Texas; Allen T., of Chillicothe, Texas; Andrew M., our subject, and Alfred M., of Sunset, Texas.
A fair education was acquired by Andrew M. Neece as a result of his studious habits and industrious application in the common schools where he grew up. He left his father’s employ when nearing manhood and learned shoemaking and house-carpentering and for some twenty-five years he was occupied in the field of mechanics. When he came to Texas, in 1891, he took up farming and for a time rented a place near Sunset. In 1895, he purchased his first tract of land in the county, one hundred and sixty acres, which he yet owns but which he abandoned to take possession of his new farm in the fruit belt of the county and one of the choicest selections for a model home anywhere to be found.
January 11, 1877, Mr. Neece married, in Paulding county, Georgia, Miss Louanna Rogers, a daughter of John L. and Sarah A. (Lee) Rogers, whose children were eleven in number, the survivors of whom are: Mrs. Neece, born July 15, 1856; Mary Massie; Sarah A.; Elizabeth Artie; William Calhoun; John Wesley; Arvallenie Josephine; James Monroe; Levy Franklin, and Robert Greenberry.
Mr. and Mrs. Neece’s children are: Virginia, wife of W. L. Culp, of Ural, Oklahoma, with children, Cyril, Velma, Lloyd and Veria; Emma, wife of H. C. Rice, of Bowie, whose children are: Inez, James, Velma, Lawton and Vivian; Joseph, of Sunset, married Alice Reynolds and has a daughter, Gladys; Odessa, wife of P. H. Lee, of Bowie, Texas, has a son, William Andrew; Ida, who is now Mrs. James Lee; Homer, Walter, Luther and Ova Sophrona.
Mr. Neece is the embodiment of industry and his Texas achievements are the result of persistent family effort directed by an intelligent brain. Aside from the labor of the farm, the labor of the church has claimed much of his time. Feeling called to do gospel work in the pulpit he was licensed to preach in 1898 and since then has filled many pulpits of the Protestant Methodist church.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, pp. 157-158.