Obituaries From The Past

Obituaries From The Past
Dr. Robert Lee Burks, one of the early doctors in Livingston and Overton County.		I continue to be amazed by the amount of information contained in some old newspaper articles that are written as obituaries, but are written so well, the person's life is pretty much summarized. One I ran across recently tells about the passing on one of Livingston's highly respected doctors by the name of Dr. R.L. Burks. On the front page of the Livingston Enterprise dated December 9, 1925, it says this: "The Reaper is cutting them down one by one. On December 3, 1925, Livingston lost one of its noblest and greatest citizens. Dr. Burks was born in Bedford County, Tennessee, in 1848. His father died when he was a youth and his rise in life to the forefront has been through his own energy and ambition. He was a soldier in the Confederacy and no one in the Grey was ever more courageous and loyal to the "Lost Cause.
"After the war he married Miss Eliza Jakes and moved the State of Texas where he practiced medicine but soon returned to Tennessee and to Overton County, where he has lived for more than forty years. No more progressive spirit ever come to this section of the state. "He was always at the front in every public move, the building of the railroad, educational advancement, Temperance cause in the earlier days, good roads, civil and municipal progress. His contributions to public enterprise were always more than his financial ability would justify and a personal sacrifice. A man of decided convictions, espousing that which he believed to be right and for the public good. An orator of no mean distinction. No man has made a greater impress upon the community in this time. Always active until service and age said stop and rest awhile, until his star should rise again! The entire community suffers in the passing of such a citizen. "He was survived by a wife, Eliza Burks, a daughter, Mrs. Ida Breeding, wife of Dr. W.M. Breeding of this city, county physician, tow sons, Ray Burks in business in Knoxville, and Willis Burks, of Nashville, Tenn. His body was laid to rest amid friends and flowers in the Daugherty cemetery on the Daugherty farm, one of the properties he had greatly improved in Livingston. This scythe of time is ever mowing. In nature there is one inexorable law, "Back to dust," is written on every life. Under it no one has the advantage of another. It is a just law. Under it, high or low, rich or poor, judge and criminal, have the same verdict. Not so under human law. But no one who is fit to live should fear to die. The loss is not to the dead, but to the living. One writer has said: "It is impossible that anything so natural, so necessary, and so universal as death should ever have been designed by providence as an evil to mankind." Swift At the passing of Mrs. Eliza Burks, her obituary read, in part, as follows: "Mrs. Eliza Burks, age 94, widow of the late Dr. R.L. Burks, died in the Lady Ann Hospital in Livingston on Saturday morning, November 14, at 12:15 o'clock. She was a native of Bedford County, Tennessee, and came to Livingston many years ago. Her husband died about twenty-five years ago. She was member of the Church of Christ. Mrs. Burks was very active, enjoyed going to church and visiting with friends until two weeks prior to her death when she received a fall, suffering a broken hip. Funeral services were conducted at the Livingston Church of Christ on Sunday afternoon at 2 o'clock by the minister, Frank Timmerman, and the Rev. Ewing S. Weakley, pastor of the Livingston Methodist Church. Burial was in the family cemetery in Livingston. On May 23, 1958, the obituary for the son of Dr. and Mrs. Burks, Colonel James Willis Burks appeared in a Livingston newspaper. It reads: "News has been received here of the death of Colonel James Willis Burks, a retired colonel in the U.S. Army who died on May 10, 1958, in a hospital in New Orleans, Louisiana. Col. Burks was a native of Livingston, a son of the late Dr. and Mrs. R.L. Burks, and a brother to the late Mrs. Ida Burks Breeding. He was a Spanish-American war veteran and organized a national guard unit in Livingston just before World War I. During World War I, he organized Company M in Livingston and left with the soldiers in this company for service. He formerly operated Burks Drug Company in Livingston. He had lived in New Orleans for the past few years. "Surviving are his wife, Mrs. Linnie Adkins Burks; one daughter, Miss Mary Frances Burks; one son, Dr. James Willis Burks, Jr., of New Orleans, one brother, Ray Burks of Knoxville, two grandchildren and several nieces and nephews. Interment was in the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Between the years 1925 and 1958, the method of reporting deaths changed. The many details about the person who passed were no longer included. I much prefer the 1920's method. Even today, we can get an idea how the life the deceased person lived than many years ago. I just hope that maybe at some point in my searching out these old obituaries I will run across one that gives all the details of someone who was considered a scoundrel or, for a better description, my friend and former classmate Linda Roberts Whitfield liked to say, "a ner-do-well." I think learning about all the flaws someone had would probably be just as interesting as knowing all the fine outstanding qualities some of the more respected citizens were known to have. With that goal in mind, I will continue my search.


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