R. E. (Bob) Stokes Homestead

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some families arrive in a place and just sort of settle. And then there are families that, well, they build the place.

R. E. Bob Stokes was that second kind.

In 1895, Bob Stokes, born in 1865, packed up his wife Ada and their children and migrated all the way from Mississippi to the Hickory Creek community in Fannin County. That is not a small undertaking. That is a statement of intention.

And Bob Stokes was a man who followed through on his intentions. He spent a few years getting his footing, and then in 1901 he purchased this very farm. The following year, he erected the house that still stands here.

Not far off stood a log barn and a two-room workers' house. He was building something, piece by piece, year by year. Bob and Ada raised ten children on this land.

Ten. And while he was doing that, while the house was full and the farm was running, Bob Stokes was also out in the community doing the work that holds a place together. He served as trustee of the Bralley School, and he helped erect a new schoolhouse.

He helped erect Bethel Baptist Church too. And when the peddlers came rolling through on those dirt roads, well, those roads didn't maintain themselves. Stokes helped keep them passable, dragging them smooth with a drag hitched to four mules.

Four mules. You get the picture. Bob Stokes, who lived from 1865 to 1944, spent his years on this ground doing the quiet, unglamorous, essential work that turns a patch of Fannin County into a community.

The farm, the school, the church, the road. He built all of it. And here it still stands to say so.

What the marker says

In 1895 R. E. (Bob) Stokes (1865-1944), his wife Ada, and their children migrated from Mississippi to Hickory Creek community in Fannin County. Stokes purchased this farm in 1901 and erected this house the following year. Nearby there was a log barn and a two-room workers' house.The family had ten children. Stokes served as trustee of the Bralley School and helped erect a new schoolhouse and Bethel Baptist Church building. Peddlers traveled dirt roads which Stokes helped maintain with a drag hitched to four mules.