Robert and Mary Yeager

Eloise Lane

Robert Walter Yeager, born May 28, 1856 in Kentucky, came to Texas when he was two years old. On November 14, 1877, he married Mary Elizabeth Reasor at Lebanon, Texas. Born August 24, 1860 in Spencer County, Kentucky, she came to Texas when she was 16 years old. Robert and Mary had three daughters: Myrtle, who died in 1902, Lula and Lena. The three daughters were educated at Baylor University at Waco. About 1912 Robert and Mary moved from Frisco in Collin County, Texas, to Pampa so that they could be closer to their daughters, Lula Greene and Lena McKamy. Robert and Mary built a house at the corner of East Browning and North Starkweather (present parking lot of the Central Baptist Church).(Later an alley had to go around the brick garage which is still standing. The house is now at 727 Magnolia). The Yeagers bought 60 acres in town and also pur- chased land east and northeast of Pampa. The property in town extended from East Browning northward to present East Harvester (the southern edge of Fairview Cemetery). On school days the Yeager grandchildren, Bob, Guss and Bill Greene and Mary McKamy, with their neighbors, John, Henry and Jim Ayres, rode their horses from their farm homes north of town into Pampa. They left their horses with the Yeagers while they walked to the red brick school building at 309 North Cuyler. Mary, the only girl among six boys, had to learn to defend herself. When the season was right, the group often had sword fights, using sunflower stalks as weapons. Robert, known familiarly as "Uncle Bob," died May 10, 1918 after a fall from a horse. A resolution by the Pampa Baptist Church and Sunday School described as "a cheerful heroic character whose work in the church and community was a mighty factor for good." Mary, affectionately known as "Aunt Betty," died June 16, 1924. Yeager Street in Pampa was named for Robert and Mary Yeager.

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