HOUSTON E. DEAVER, of Memphis, Hall county, is a progressive and successful member of the bar at that place, and for a number of years has been ranked among the leaders in his profession in that locality. Mr. Deaver is a man of high attainments, personally and professionally, is liberally educated and has been an exponent of advance along all lines of modern culture and civilization. He has had a successful business career, and is an influential and highly esteemed lawyer and citizen.
A native son of Texas, born in Grayson county in 1862, he was a son of John A. and Sarah (Hughes) Deaver, the former of whom came from his native state of Missouri to Texas when a boy, and was for a number of years a successful rancher in Grayson county, where he died in 1870. The mother, a native of Tennessee, is now living in Grayson county.
Mr. Deaver was reared on a Grayson county ranch when ranching and cattle-raising were the principal industries of Grayson county, before its black-soil land developed into the rich farming community that it is now. His primary education in Grayson county was supplemented by attendance at the Waco University, and also a course at the Texas State Normal at Huntsville, where he was graduated in 1887. He then accepted a position in the Chickasaw Nation Male Academy at Tishomingo, Indian Territory, where he was engaged in teaching for seven years. During this time he read law to some extent, and on leaving his school position he devoted all his time to his legal studies at Sherman, Texas, with Judge John Finley as his preceptor. He was admitted to the bar at Sherman in 1891, and in the same year came to Memphis, where he has ever since carried on practice, with increasingly large clientage as county attorney of Hall county for five years. He is everywhere recognized as a first-class lawyer, and is thoroughly identified with the best interests of his town and county. He owns a good stock ranch in Donley county and is now president of the Hall county National Bank.
Mr. Deaver was married in Memphis to Miss Maud Montgomery, who was born in Grayson county. They have four children of their own, Mina, John, Temple and Pattie, and an adopted son, Victor Deaver.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, p. 157.