My father, L.G. CRABTREE, came to Dickens Territory, in August of 1890 and my mother, MARTHA JANE CRABTREE, came in 1891 as a bride. My father first filed on land on Wichita, 10 miles east of Dickens, but later relinquished his interest in said land, to file on land and buy some land three miles east of Dickens, in order to be close to town, school and church. All five children grew up this farm.In the early ninety´s, Father and Mother lived in a half dugout, located in the west half of the land, where the State Highway headquarters now stands. In the meantime, they gradually improved the farm and ranch east of Dickens.
During the early and middle eighteen and nineties my father worked as a deputy sheriff, under J.D. HARKEY. He later served 21 years as a county commissioner. He was a trustee at the same time of the Dickens County and (Noview) or Croton Schools. Five children were born to them: AMY, 1893, MABLE, 1895, VICTOR, 1900, MILDRED, 1905 and FRED, in 1909.
Mother died July 4, 1909. My father L.G. CRABTREE died March 20, 1961 at the age of 96 years, 6 months and 4 days.
In June 1926, LOIS VERNON and I were married at Meadow, Texas. Seven years later, in July 1933, our daughter, PATSY LOIS was born in Abilene, Texas. In 1942 a son was born and died in infancy. My wife, LOIS died July 16, 1952.
PATSY LOIS, our daughter is married to GENE ALFORD and lives in Beaumont, Texas. For years they were in the newspaper publishing business and at present are in the insurance business. There are four children in their family, three girls and a boy: CHERRY KAY, VICKIE, NEVALIN and BYRON DOUGLAS.
On April 27, 1955, CLARICE HUGHES WYATT and I were married at Jayton, Texas by Reverend FONZIE WALTERS, pastor of the Baptist Church. We since have lived on a farm five miles southwest of Dickens on Duck Creek.
This August 1985 makes 65 years since I surrendered to preach in August 1920. Fifty years of that time I was a full time pastor to Baptist Churches. The last 15 years my wife, Clarice and I have had a hobby of restoring antique furniture.
I feel that the most important and lasting contribution that my family has made is to be found in the cultural and spiritual sectors.
My mother, father, sister MILDRED SPEER, first wife LOIS and myself all taught school. My sister, MILDRED SPEER, is a writer and author of both prose and poetry, especially poetry. My father and sisters, AMY FERGUSON and MABLE JACKSON have a combined record of 90 years teaching Bible in Sunday school. My brother FRED had just entered the ministry when he died at the age of 27.
To this I add my 65 years in the ministry and at the present, the youngest son of my sister AMY, JOHNIE FERGUSON is the pastor of a growing Baptist Church on the edge of Miami, Florida. Our foreparents and our parents came to this land years ago with their hearts and minds filled with dreams, plans and great hopes. To these virtues, they added hard work, sacrifices and suffering and they prevailed. Many of their dreams, plans, and hopes came crashing down in disarray about their feet; yet, on the other hand, many of their dreams, plans and hopes came to successful fulfillment. They indeed have left to us a rich heritage of which a tiny part will be recorded in this book for further posterity.
By Victor F. CrabtreeSource: Dickens County History...its Land and People 1986 by Dickens Historical Commission
Funeral services will be held today, Thursday, July 17, at 3 p.m. in the Dickens Baptist Church for Mrs. Lois Alene Crabtree.The Rev. C. G. Tiner of Roaring Springs will officiate.
Mrs. Crabtree was born in Haskell on June 30, 1899, and came to Dickens county in 1909. On June 1, 1926 she married Victor F. Crabtree in Meadow and the couple made their first home in Dickens. She joined the Baptist church in 1911.
She succumbed Wednesday, July 16, at 2:25 a.m. of cancer.
Survivors include her husband, one daughter, Mrs. Patsy Lois Alford, her mother, Mrs. Hulda Vernon; sister, Bertie Graham of El Paso; two brothers, Foy Vernon of Spur and Morris Vernon of Abilene; four half-brothers; Fred Harvey of Ellis, CA; Sam Harvey, OK; Vernon Harvey, OK; and Hollis Harvey, CA; and two grandchildren.
Serving as pallbearers will be Robert Reynolds, John Scott, Dillard Jackson, Clarence Butler, Frnak Murphy and Earl Murchison.
Flower bearers: Mrs. Frank Adams; Mrs. Floyd Foster; Mrs. Lottela Murchison; Mrs. Lona Koonsman; Mrs. Nettie Winkler; and Mrs. Cecil Thomason.
Interment will be in the Dickens cemetery under the direction of Chandler Funeral Home.
©The Texas Spur, July 17, 1952
Services for longtime Baptist preacher, Rev. Victor Ferguson Crabtree, 88, were Sunday, March 5, 1989 in the First Baptist Church. Church pastor, Dr. Genoa Goad officiated.
Retired at the time of his death, Rev. Crabtree had been in the pulpit of churches in Duncan Flat, Pansey, Girard, Mount Blanco, Dougherty, Afton, Frienship, Espuela and many other area churches.
"I Went from the saddle horse to the buggy, then to the ´jitney´ (early automobiles) and the modern autos, then finally to jet travel in my ministry," he was quoted in an interview with he Lubbock paper prior to being honored by the First Baptist Church of Spur on "Victor Crabtree Day" on December 1, 1974.
At the age of seven, he recalled, he got his first taste of scalding hot range coffee and his first horseback ride. Cowboys on the Matador Ranch near his boyhood home came &whooping and hollering" up to eat noon chow and invited him to join them.
"I had never been allowed to even taste that black, bitter coffee, but the cowboys let me and I´ve liked it ever since," he said.
Crabtree graduated from Dickens High School in 1919 and had intentions of becoming a lawyer, even to the point a county attorney hired him to study in his office until he got a license. The young minister-to-be, however, was sidetracked to Oklahoma where he worked in the oil fields. Later, he was called to the ministry in his grandfather´s country Baptist Church in Valley View, Oklahoma in August of 1920.
He married Lois Vernon in 1926. She died in 1952. He later married Clarice Hughes on April 27, 1955 in Jayton.
Rev. Crabtree died Friday, March 3, 1989, at St Mary of the Plains Hospital, Lubbock, following a lengthy illness. He had resided in Dickens County most of his life and was a member of the Baptist Church.
He is survived by his wife, Clarice Crabtree, Spur; one daughter, Patsy Alford, Beaumont; a sister, Mildred Spear, Amarillo and three grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.
Pallbearers included Curt Parsons, Kermit Woolley, Phil Driggers, Trent Driggers, Woodie McArthur and Jimbo Humphreys.
Burial was in Dickens Cemetery under direction of Campbell Funeral Home.
©The Texas Spur, March 9, 1989
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