Joe W. Sparks
Funeral services for Joe W. Sparks, 82, will be held in the First Baptist Church in Celeste at 2:30 PM, August 23, 1953, with the Rev. Earl Allen and the Rev. V. H. Arnold officiating. Interment will be in Leonard Cemetery.
Mr. Sparks, who had lived in the vicinity of Celeste for the past fifty years, died at his home Friday afternoon, August 21, 1953.
Pallbearers will be Bird Glasscoe, Guy Glasscoe, Jack Ruff, Mack Pierson, Harbert Byers, Jacque Bickham, Dee Rowell, and Ernest Brazil.
Survivors include his wife; three children, Felton Sparks of Lubbock, Mrs. Oscar C. Christopherson of Shreveport, Louisiana, and Mrs. Dave Bickham of Amarillo; one grandchild, Mrs. M. H. Herbert of Shreveport, and a stepdaughter, Jean Blackwell of Celeste.
(August 23, 1953, The Greenville Morning Herald)
Additional information from submitter:
Pallbearers were Byird Glasscoe, Guy Glasscoe, Jack Ruff, Mack Pierson, Harbert Byers, Jacque Bickham, Dee Rowell, and Ernest Brazil.
Joseph Weldon Sparks was born on December 8, 1870 in Arkansas County, Arkansas to Jonas Harris Sparks of Shelby County, Tennessee, and Olivia Anne Hudson of Mississippi. His siblings were Daniel W., Jonas David, Emma Lillie, Moman Remus, and Thomas Ben Sparks.
Joseph Weldon Sparks was married to Ida Pearle McDonald, daughter of Joseph Augustus McDonald of Birmingham, Jefferson County, Alabama, and Mary Narcissus Byers, also of Birmingham, Alabama, on July 12, 1896, in Hunt County, Texas. Ida Pearle was born on February 4, 1878, in Celeste and died in Celeste on August 5, 1942. Their children were Felton Olmis Sparks, born on April 13, 1897; Willie Olivia Sparks, March 13, 1903; and Alma Jean Sparks, April 11, 1908.
Joe Sparks had been a farmer and a grocery salesman. I think he was also a barber in the Prosperity community. He served on the Celeste ISD Board of Trustees in 1944.
Submitted by Sarah Swindell
