JOHN H. REDICK, deceased, who was numbered among the enterprising and successful farmers of Grayson county, was a native of Illinois, born in 1840 and a son of Cleon and Lucy (Harris) Redick, the former a native of Pennsylvania and the latter of New York. In their family were seven children, of whom John H. Redick was the eldest. James Porter married Estelle Ross and has one child. Bernice, who was born in Grayson county, now resides two and a half miles southwest of Denison and has been one of the most successful strawberry and blackberry growers in Grayson county during the past year. He also has a very fine orchard and has placed upon the market some of the best fruit produced in the south. He also raises Irish and sweet potatoes, which he finds very profitable and he believes that no man living in Grayson county, in sandy land at least, need devote his attention to cotton, corn, or even small grain, but can make a much better living in the production of berries, fruit and vegetables. Mr. Redick is constantly improving his fruit in size, quality and flavor and has already produced strawberries that are as fine in flavor as those brought from the Ozarks in Missouri. Lucy Redick is the wife of John W. Ford and has three children, Olney, Glenar and Ada. The younger members of the Redick family are: J. Madison, Jonas R., Millard F. and Nelora G.
John H. Redick spent his first fourteen years of his life in the state of his nativity and then became a resident of northern Missouri, where he earned his living as a farm hand by the day. He was thus engaged until the outbreak of the Civil war, when he joined the Confederate army with the Missouri forces under Captain Cowper. He served for four years and saw very active field service. Following the close of hostilities he returned to Illinois, for his father’s family had in the meantime gone back to that state. His father was also a Confederate soldier. Mr. Redick, however, did not remain long in Illinois but returned to the south, settling first at Memphis, Tennessee, and afterward going to Mississippi, whence he and his father subsequently came to Texas in 1867 or ’68. Here they rented a farm a mile and a half south of Sherman and later John H. Redick purchased this place and continued to make it his home up to the time of his death. It is now the property or [sic] his widow and comprises two hundred and fifty-seven acres located three miles southwest of Denison. He cleared and improved this property and devoted his fields to the raising of cotton and corn. In all of his work he was practical and systematic and his labors resulted in bringing to him well merited success.
In 1875, in Grayson county, Mr. Redick was united in marriage to Miss Mary M. Vestal, a native of Arkansas and a daughter of James Madison and Martha (English) Vestal. Her father, who was born in Tennessee, December 14, 1829, is still living, making his home in Sherman. His wife, who was born in 1835, in Tennessee, died in Sherman at the age of fifty years. Mr. Vestal was a soldier of the Confederate army, enlisting from Arkansas.
In his political views Mr. Redick was an earnest Democrat and gave unfaltering support to the principles of the party up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1893 when he was fifty-three years of age. During the period of his residence in Texas he had become widely and favorably known in Grayson county both by reason of the extent and importance of his business affairs and his devotion to local interests. He was regarded as a public spirited citizen and one whose co-operation could always be counted upon to further plans or measures for the general good.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. I, p. 579.