Wood County History
By LOU MALLORY - Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission
The John Wesley Rogers Family
John W. Rogers was born in Troup County in Georgia near the town of La Grange on December 23rd, 1845. He was the sixth child of Columbus and Amelia Drucilla Wright Rogers.
Columbus Rogers and his wife came to Texas in the early 1800s with seven children. Three other children died before the family came to Texas.
They settled in the Little Hope Community in the eastern section of Wood County. The country in that area of the county was deeply wooded and very sparsely settled. Corn and cotton were the major crops. Timber was abundant and there were several saw mills.
Settlers cleared the land and cleared out the many creek beds so that the water would not overflow the banks and ruin the crops.
Gardens were planted, generally by the women and good food was raised at home.
John Rogers, the fourth son of Columbus and Drucilla Rogers married Miss Edna LaRue. This union produced eight children. Seven survived and one child died in infancy. John Rogers rented land, farmed and cut logs. He made syrup for his neighbors, cleared new ground and was always ready to help when sickness or adversity hit his community. His parents, brothers and sisters all lived in and around the Little Hope Community.
For several years, John Rogers lived on the farm of the John M. Roberts family. He helped farm the land, helped in gathering hay, corn and sugar cane as well as many other tasks on the farm. The children picked cotton, not only on their land, but also for many neighbors.
Rogers was unusually good at cooking syrup. Because syrup must be cooked at an even temperature, he attended to the firing of the big furnace and took turns at cooking. In May 1918, when World War I was waging, John Roberts died. The dread disease, measles, was raging. In the spring of 1918, Wood County suffered torrential rains.
John Rogers sat with Mr. Roberts every other night at least half the night for many weeks. Mrs. Mary Wood, one of Mr. Roberts' daughters, was at the Roberts home to help with her father. She told her children never to forget the faithfulness of John Rogers in sitting with her father.
Rogers was a deeply religious man and a deacon of the Little Hope church. After the Roberts' daughter Hattie and her husband, Marion Stokes, left the farm, Mr. Rogers and his family to the Murphy farm then later to the Sorge farm in the East Point Community.
While the family was on the Sorge farm, influenza raged through the community. It was said that the only time John Rogers worked on a Sunday was the day he and his sons cut a cord of wood to keep the large Sorge home comfortable for the sick people.
The Rogers men and their sister Mary were all highly respected citizens of the county.
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