1906 :: Awarded $500 Damages

In the district court at Cameron this week the jury in the case of G.B. Vandeventer vs. the I. & G. N. Ry. rendered a verdict giving Mr. Vandeventer $500 damages for injuring the stallion "Col. Kahla" when he was shipped to Rockdale. Rockdale Reporter, October 25, 1906

1922 :: Death of A.P. Perry, Jr.

The death Tuesday morning and burial Wednesday afternoon of Andrew P. Perry Jr., 49, threw the whole town into mourning, as Mr. Perry was one of the most beloved and useful citizens. He died following a lingering illness which had lasted more than a year. Mr. Perry was a native of this place and had been in the drug business here since 1899. He was connected with every important activity of the town, was an active Mason, a Knight of Pythias and a Woodman. He was married to Miss Laura Vandevetter in 1907 and his widow and son, George, survive him. Services were conducted at the family residence by the Rev. G.B. Tumlin, pastor of the First Baptist Church, of which the dead man had been a member since early manhood. The pastor was assisted at the graveside by the Rev. Joseph Carden, rector of the Episcopal Church. Flowers were sent for the burial from all over Texas, and Rockdale business hours were closed from 3 to 5 p.m. out of respect. Dallas Morning News, December 1, 1922 

1925 :: Death of Laura Crump

Texas Woman Commits Suicide by Poisoning. 

Mrs. Laura Crump of Rockdale, Tex., was found dead in bed from carbolic acid poisoning early yesterday in her room at the Statler. A friend, with whom she was traveling, Mrs. O.D. Reed of Lafayette, Ind., told authorities the dead woman had been ill and probably had become despondent. Buffalo (NY) Morning Express, Wednesday, September 9, 1925

1930 :: Rockdale War Veteran Dies from Shell Shock

Rockdale War Veteran Dies From Shell Shock. Special to The News. Rockdale, Texas, March 13. -- A telegraphic message was received by Mrs. J.A. Phillips of this city that her eldest son, James Kolb Phillips, had died in a hospital at Chattahooche, Fla. The immediate cause of his death was a recurrence of shell shock, resulting from his service with the American Expeditionary Force in France.


Young Phillips was brought home from France in 1919, and remained in Government hospitals at Newport News, Va., and California, for some months before being discharged as cured. After two years in New Mexico, he returned to Texas and resumed his studies at Texas A.&M. College, where he graduated in the class of 1924 with his younger brother, Charles. For the last few years he had been engaged in the citrus fruit and nursery business at St. Petersburg, Fla., with his uncle, C.L. Kolb.


He was the son of the late Dr. J.A. Phillips, and is survived by his mother, Mrs. J.A. Phillips of Rockdale; a sister, Mrs. Clyde Franklin, Rockdale; a brother, Charles C. Phillips of Vicksburg, Miss.; an aunt, Mrs. Maie Vanderventer, and an uncle, O.K. Phillips of Rockdale. The body will be brought to Rockdale for burial. Dallas Morning News, March 14, 1930

1910 :: Birth of G.S. Perry

One hundred and one years ago today . . . on the 5th day of May . . . in the year 1910 . . . a baby boy is born in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas . . . he would later write of his own birth as follows . . .

Then, in the third year of this tripartite union of Andrew Perry and Laura Van de Venter and Maie Van de Venter, an event occurred which the local press, with its usual carelessness, probably described as "blessed." At eleven o'clock on the morning of May 5, 1910, a son was born, red and squalling. The parents, wishing to commemorate Granny's late husband and also to honor an old friend, Dr. Sessions, named this strident, wriggling little creature, who would henceforth participate in the already adequate pandemonium of the household, George Sessions Perry.

As in the case of all other family offices that appeared to Granny either important or interesting, she immediately took over the management of this new member. She washed it, fed it lukewarm malted milk, and talked to it so constantly that the tiny brain, unable to effect other means of escape, simply succumbed to merciful sleep. At other times, fed and wanting diversion, the baby clutched its empty nursing bottle and sent it sailing at its Granny's head.

By 1912, after interminable sieges of colic and a few spasms induced by eating banana skins, the baby began to have a little smudge of personality of its own. And as this personality took shape, so did the struggle between it and its Granny Van for the control and direction of its existence.

From My Granny Van, The Running Battle of Rockdale, Texas by George Sessions Perry . . .