Floyd M. Spann

Judge of the Twenty-seventh District in Texas

Union County Illinois Genealogy Trails

Transcribed and submitted by Darrel Dexter 

Some weeks ago it was stated in these columns that Floyd M. Spann had been appointed judge of the 27^th judicial district in Texas by Gov. James H. Ferguson of that state, the appointment being for a little over a year to fill a vacancy, and that the appointee would be candidate to succeed himself for the full term.  The primary to make a nomination will be held in June or July.  The nomination means election in November, as the district is strongly democratic.

Floyd Spann was born and reared at Alto Pass in this county.  His father died when he was but a small lad, the eldest of five children.  His boyhood, for a time, was what might be called exuberant, if not turbulent, and all manner of dire fates was prophesied for him by the staid and sober citizens of Alto Pass and the countryside.  However, the influence of a wise and patient mother and the counsel, along with more or less birching of a school teacher who understood boys, restrained the youngster in his headstrong proclivities and at the age of twelve or thereabouts we find him as deeply immersed in books and study as he had heretofore been in mischief.

At the age of 16 he graduated from the common school of Alto Pass, and said to himself, and to his mother, “In ten years from now I’ll be a lawyer.”  But he had a weary road to travel during that ten years.  His mother’s means were only sufficient to provide for and keep the family together, so the school boy had to go to teaching school to get some money, so very essential to his purpose.  He taught school four terms, and during the summer vacations completed his education at Dixon college.  Then he read law in the office of Judge Crawford of this city, and later was a student at Wesleyan University in Bloomington, Ill., from where he graduated in his 25^th years at the head of a class of fifteen.

Of course, Floyd then came to see the folks, and it was surmised that he would locate in his native county to practice his profession.  But the field here did not look good to him.  He was healthy, courageous and ambitious, and so with a high heart and lighter purse he set out for Texas, where he located at Temple.  In that fair city, fortune frowned on him for a year or so, but when things finally started coming his way they never stopped.  His younger brother Ralph also became a lawyer and joined him at Temple, and the firm Spann & Spann was among the most prominent of that section.  In commenting upon Floyd’s appointment on the bench, the Temple papers all said that aside from his legal ability he had become known during his eleven years’ residence there as a citizen of the highest character, and in fact were eulogistic of him as a lawyer and gentleman.

 Judge Spann’s ancestry is entirely southern.  On the maternal side they came to this county from North Carolina a hundred years ago.  His mother’s father was a Kentuckian of education and culture, a student and thinker.  The Spann family came here from Alabama.  The judge can number his relatives in this county by hundred owing to their early arrival.

 Naturally all Union County wants him to win in the coming Texas primary, and news of his success will be hailed with rejoicing.

(Jonesboro Gazette, Jonesboro, Illinois, May 5, 1916)