MABEL R. GILBERT. In the subject of this personal notice the reader is brought into contact with a representative of one of the pioneer Texas families, its founder, Mabel Gilbert, having settled in the Lone Star state from Tennessee. The latter was the grandfather of our subject and his identity with the business interests of east Texas was as a miller, he having a saw-mill and a grist-mill. He had farming interests also, and was a cowman on a modest scale, but in his later lief, and prior to the Confederate war, he sought northwest Texas and engaged extensively in the cattle industry. His ranch lay on Red river, northeast of Wichita Falls, and by the settlers of that day the Gilbert ranch in Clay county was well known. He made a success of his venture and died possessed of much real and personal property.
Mabel Gilbert was first married in Tennessee to Miss Morris, who died in Fannin county, Texas, having issue: William and Nicie, who died in Fannin county, the latter as Mrs. Hampton; Newton, who died in Cooke county; Jasper, who died in the same county; Robert, a resident of New Mexico; and two other daughters. Mabel Gilbert married, second, Mrs. Rachel Freeman, who bore him Lewis Cass, of Swisher county, Texas; Hettie, now Mrs. Leonard Jones, of Cooke county, Texas; David B., of Cooke county, as also is Jackson; Emily married Jack Reinhart; and Lizzie.
Morris Gilbert was a child of Mabel Gilbert and was born in Tennessee. His bringing up took place in Texas, with which state he was identified until he located in Oklahoma and is now a resident of Roger Mills county, Washington, Oklahoma. During the rebellion he was in the frontier service against the Indians and was severely injured by a comrade during that trouble. He was engaged in farming in Texas subsequent to the war and now runs his cotton gins in his new location. He was married in Fannin county, Texas, to Hannah Thomas, an Indiana lady, and a daughter of Richard and Martha Thomas. The issue of their union are: Mabel R., James E., of Oklahoma; William T., of Colorado, and Mary, widow of H. T. Nelson.
Mabel R. Gilbert passed his youth in Cooke county, Texas, and in the year 1881, became a resident of Clay county. His parents located at Buffalo Springs, where farming was carried on, with our subject as an adjunct, until the attainment of the latter’s majority. The common schools sufficed for educating the children and when twenty-one years of age Mabel R. possessed a splendid physique, an unquenchable appetite for work and a full knowledge of the customs of his people. His first year’s work away from home was on the Ikard ranch and at the conclusion of this service he bought an eighty acre tract of raw land on time, near Joy, and began its cultivation and improvement. The common products of the locality, together with stock raising, have employed his time and as his circumstances warranted he made additions to his farm and herd, and now his farm embraces two hundred and fifty acres of land, fenced, well tilled and substantially and conveniently improved.
Mr. Gilbert was married in Clay county, Teas, September 27, 1893, his wife being Pearl, a daughter of E. B. and M. H. Hicks, who settled in Fannin county before the Civil war. April 19, 1899, Mrs. Gilbert passed away, leaving Edith and Clifford as her children and heirs. August 13, 1903, Mr. Gilbert married Miss Jewell Kilgore, a daughter of J. W. and Tollie Kilgore, settlers in Hunt county. John Morris Gilbert is Mr. Gilbert’s youngest child, the result of his second marriage.
The Gilberts in politics have all along been Democrats and is was as such that Mabel R. was chosen as county commissioner by the Third district of Clay county in November, 1904, to succeed J. P. Norman. He has but recently entered upon his public duties and it is safe to predict a service of such efficiency as to commend him to his constituency for his own successor.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas, (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, pp. 531-532.