W.A. Spraberry died Wednesday, February 22, at his home in the Watson Community, after a protracted illness. Funeral services were held Thursday afternoon at two o'clock at the Baptist church, interment following in the Spur Cemetery.Mr. Spraberry was sixty three years of age at the time of his death. He was among the early settlers of the West and had lived at Spur a number of years during his true western type, liberal and broad-gauged, and contributed his prorate in the progress and development of the country. A good man and useful citizen has gone to his reward.
©The Texas Spur, February 24, 1922
from the records of Lillian Grace Nay
SPUR (Special) — One of the South Plains' oldest residents, Dickens County pioneer Mrs. Addie Spraberry, 102, died Tuesday morning in a nursing home here. She was a resident of Spur.
Funeral will be at 3 p.m. today in the First Baptist Church here with the Rev. Norris Taylor, pastor, officiating, assisted by the Rev. Mike Hammons, pastor of Bethel Baptist Church here, and Gary Williams, minister of the Spur Church of Christ.
Burial will be in the Spur Cemetery under direction of Campbell Funeral Home.
Mrs. Spraberry, who had been a Texan 96 years, was born January 15, 1869, in Franklin County, Ala. She was married to W.A. Spraberry at Anson, Jan. 22, 1888, and the couple came to Dickens County in 1902. He died in 1922.
She celebrated her 102nd birthday January 15 this year at Methodist Hospital, Lubbock. She had undergone surgery for a broken hip - only the second time she had been hospitalized in her life. The first time was in January, 1970, when she suffered two broken ribs in a fall at her home and celebrated her 101st birthday in Lubbock's University Hospital.
Mrs. Spraberry had lived alone in her home here the past 34 years. She was a neighbor here of the late Mrs. Zona Luce, 101, who died in August, 1970.
Mrs. Spraberry and her late husband settled on Catfish (White River) in Dickens County before there was a town of Spur. Spraberry was a farmer and carpenter. The area was then ranch country and she once recalled. "There were plenty of deer and antelope and a few buffalo left on the Plains when we got here."
In an interview in 1970, Mrs. Spraberry gave this secret of her longevity: "When you are tempered with wind, sand and sun and blizzards, you get 'staying power'" Her comment at that time about "men on the moon" was "I think there's enough to do right here on earth without taking in new territory."
Survivors are a daughter, Mrs. Una Ward of Spur; seven sons, Ollie of Duncan, OK; Arthur of CA; Henry of Floyd, NM; Hub of Dimmitt; Dee of Artesia, NM; Alton and Oran, both of Lubbock; 22 grandchildren; and several great and great great grandchildren.
©Lubbock Avalanche Journal, 1971
from the records of Lillian Grace Nay
© Dickens County Historical Commission 1997-2022
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