James Taylor Barker

Submitted by: Wanda Purcell

James Taylor Barker was born March 8, 1846 in Logansport, Indiana and died September 10, 1929, at Rankin, Oklahoma at the advanced age of 82 years, 6 months and 2 days.

At the time Mr. Barker moved to Iowa he was two and a half years old and when he was only seventeen he enlisted in Company G. 7th Iowa Cavalry and served throughout the civil war in the Union army.

"The little brown button" that he constantly wore in the lapel of his coat was mute testimony of his membership in the G.A.R. at Colfax, Iowa and of which he was justly proud.

Following the close of the war he was married to Clemintina Miller, of the children born to this union Silvia and Johnnie died in infancy and Mrs. Nannie Baldwin in later life. Seven children living are Mrs. Rose Hay of Grinall, Iowa; Obadiah of Tra Iowa; and Richard, William, Charley James and Alva, all living at Rankin, Oklahoma. There are 48 grandchildren and 11 great grandchildren.

Following the death of his wife, Mr. Barker married her sister Van Lue Miller who died after they moved to Oklahoma.

The family moved from Iowa to Rankin, Oklahoma in 1908 settling on the home place they have ever since occupied which now consists of 480 acres of valuable land three miles from the new town of Reydon and adjoining the Santa Fe R.R. that has just been completed from Pampa, Texas to Clinton, Oklahoma.

Thus in a few words we sum up a long useful life but it does not tell us of many things that those who have known Grandpa Barker, as he was familiarly called, knew of his life. A man whose integrity was above reproach and whose "word was as good as his bond". He was one of those citizens in whom our community had perfect confidence always ready to do his part in the advancement of the country he bore the financial as well as the labor burdens that naturally fall to a public spirited citizen.

His kindness to those in need, sympathy in sorrow and apprecition of the falling of others, made Grandpa Barker a man who will be missed far beyond his home ties.

Rev. French Lancaster of the Methodist Episcopal church conducted the funeral services and the interment was made in the Rankin White Rose Cemetery, Reydon, Roger Mills County, Oklahoma.

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