Anderson County, TX Biographies

ANDERSON COUNTY, TX
Biographies

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Bruce C. Wallace, M. D., who has been practicing medicine at LaRue, Texas, since 1892, is the senior physician of the southern end of'Henderson county. He was reared in the Bethel community of Anderson county, where his parents made their permanent settlement on coming to Texas in 1870. His father, Col. George P. Wallace, died as tax collector of Anderson county in 1887, and is buried in the Bethel Cemetery. He was born in Perry county, Alabama, in 1829, and was ten years of age when he went to Mississippi while his father, Jones Wallace, who was a slaver and planter along the line of the Yokahockany river, at Kosciusko, Attala county, and died there in 1851, when aged about fifty years. Jones Wallace was an Alabaman of Scotch ancestry, and married a Miss Pierson, who passed away about the time that he died, their children being: William J., who was a Confederate soldier of General Lee's army, came to Texas with Colonel Wallace, spent his life as a farmer, and died at LaRue, leaving no family; Martha, who died in Mississippi as the wife of Willis Wingo; Mary, who married William McMillen, and died in Texas; Col. George P., Virgil H., who was a Confederate soldier and spent his life in Attala county, Mississippi; Samuel, who was killed in battle as a Confederate soldier during the Civil War; John, who died in the same service; and Emily, who married O. T. Stephens, and died in Mississippi. William J. Wallace was lieutenant in his company, and belonged to Gen. A. P. Hill's Corps.

Col. George P. Wallace was educated in the country school and was using slave labor as a planter when the Civil War broke across the country in all its fury. In 1862 he enlisted for service in the Confederate army, and was commissioned Lieut. Col. of the Fortieth Mississippi Infantry, his regiment being added to the army nnder General Pemberton, about Vicksburg. He took part in the engagements preliminary to the siege and was paroled at the surrender of that city to General Grant. Immediately after the surrender he was promoted to the rank of Colonel and took his regiment to Johnston's army and participated in the defense of Atlanta and in the 100 days of fighting of the Atlanta campaign. At the battle of Peach Tree Creek he lost his left arm, and after spending some weeks in the hospital was taken by the wife Of Capt. Henry Lamar to. her home and cared for until sufficiently recovered to return to his home. Colonel Wallace was practically a bankrupt when peace was declared in 1865. He felt the financial ruin of the family keenly and decided upon taking up his residence in a new country to begin life over. Accordingly, he made the trip to Texas by rail and water and purchased what land his finances would permit, combining the industry of his body and mind and the virtue of his citizenship to the Bethel neighborhood. His farm of several hundred acres was worked with free black labor, to which condition he seemed to adapt himself readily. He proved his sympathy for the ex-slave by providing him with the necessities of life from his plantation commissary, and requiring the negro to repay him in labor whenever he should need the work. At such a time he would ride about the neighborhood after supper, summoning help, and the next morning his yard would be filled with "free negroes" waiting for breakfast to start the day's business. He was wont to carry a hoe while overseeing the "hoe hands" and cut an occasional weed as a sort of accompaniment to the darky hoe. It was but natural that Col. Wallace should become active in politics. Having commanded men in time of strife, he could be trusted to do so in times of peace. He was a Democrat, and was his party's candidate for tax collector of Anderson county in 1880, and was elected to that office, following which he moved to Palestine with his family, just having gotten nicely started with his duties when he was stricken by death. Colonel Wallace was a Royal Arch Mason, and ever took an active interest in the work of that fraternal order, while his religious connection was with the Methodist church. In 1849, Colonel Wallace was married to Miss Mary A. Hodge, a daughter of Rev. Robert H. Hodge, whose career is mentioned fully on another page of this work. Mrs. Wallace died March 21, 1906, having been the mother of the following children: Eugene, who died in Mississippi at the age of nineteen years; Robert J., a resident of Palestine, Texas; Ella, who died when a young girl; Laura B., who married H. E. Nash, and died in LaRue, Texas; Isa M., who died unmarried; Roena, who also died single; Georgia, who married S. L. Love, and died in Oklahoma; Lela B., who died in Anderson county, Texas, as Mrs. F. S. Jackson; Betty V., who died at the age of sixteen years; and Bruce C., of this review.

Bruce C. Wallace was born October 17, 1868, and secured his early educational advantages in the public schools. He assisted his mother in the work of the home farm at Bethel, Anderson county, until the age of twenty-one years, when he entered the I. & G. N. Railway Hospital, at Palestine, Texas, to receive his first lessons in his student work for the medical profession. He acted as a prescriptionist and student there for one year, following which he entered Tulane University, New Orleans, in October, 1890, and one year later passed the examination for the certificate of practice. Locating at Emhouse, Navarro county, Texas, he continued there until 1892, and then came to LaRue and completed his course in medicine, at the Kentucky School of Medicine, graduating in 1893. In 1900 Doctor Wallace took a post-graduate course in the New Orleans Polyclinic, and has never ceased to be a close and careful student of his calling. He affiliates with the Henderson County Medical Society and the Texas State Medical Society, is widely and favorably known among his professional brethren, and through his success in a number of complicated cases has won the full confidence of the people of his adopted place. In the domain of agriculture, he has been responsible for bringing under cultivation some of the producing lands adjacent to LaRue. His home is of his own building and is a splendid example of the architect's art of rural home, a roomy, one-story frame structure, with ample galleries, standing upon high ground almost at the doors of the'corporation. Its white exterior can be seen for miles. Doctor Wallace is vicepresident of the state bank of LaRue, is a Methodist in his religious belief, and affiliates with that church. He, like his father, is a Royal Arch Mason.

In February, 1896, Doctor Wallace was married to Miss Linna Campbell, daughter of Dr. S. E. Campbell, who settled at Fincastle, Henderson county, and practiced medicine for forty years. Two children have been born to Dr. and Mrs. Wallace, Bruce C., Jr., and Linna Laura.
[Source: "A History of Texas and Texans" Vol. 4 by Francis White Johnson, Ernest William Winkler, 1914 - Submitted by Brenda Wiesner]