Judge Folks Huxford
1893 - 1981

EULOGIES

EULOGY for the late beloved Folks Huxford of Homerville
by Grover C. Patten
(originally published in HGS Magazine, Vol. 8, No. 2, June 1981)

Long live the memory of a great Christian man, the late Folks Huxford of Homerville, Georgia.

It is my privilege to write a brief eulogy about my longtime friend and kinsman relating to his many years of service as a Baptist minister and as a newspaperman.

I will write first about his Christian experience and service as a Baptist minister.

Folks Huxford knew the Lord through a born again spiritual experience.  It was my privilege to serve with him in the Evangelistic Club circles in the early thirties.  He was already a Baptist minister, serving a number of churches in the Clinch County area.  It is thought that he was ordained by the Baptist Church in Homerville on July 26, 1924.  As a young man he joined the Baptist Church in Homerville and soon became clerk.  In later years he compiled a history of the Homerville Baptist Church, but not in published form.  Later, around 1931-32 he became disenchanted with what he termed modernism in the church, and became active in the Evangelistic Club movement led by the late Rev. S. F. Andrews of Macon.  He led in the organization of the Clinch Evangelistic Club.

Through his leadership and true dedication to the Lord's work, Bethel Baptist Church south of Homerville was re-constituted and a building erected.  He was always generous with his own money to help these small churches start up again.

He also re-constituted the Mt. Zion Baptist Church north of Axson.  (He was born a mile east of Axson at old Huxford).

He also re-constituted and was pastor of a community church at old Mexico in northern Clinch County during the late 1920's.

He was a regular attendant at Indian Springs Campground meetings every summer for many years.

Always eager to serve his Lord, he was called upon to supply many pulpits throughout south Georgia.  At one time he served as interim pastor of the Homerville First Baptist Church.

Now for his newspaper experience.  I can recall vividly how talented Folks Huxford was in writing.  It came easy for him.  He loved people and he served them well through his writing ability.

He edited The Lanier County News during the 1920s for a while.  In 1926, he and H. R. Morgan bought the Clinch County News.  A few years later he bought out the interest held by Mr. Morgan and was editor and publisher of the paper until 1939 when he turned it over to his son, Iverson Huxford.

Folks Huxford was a many of many wonderful talents and he used them all to honor his Lord and serve his fellow man.  How he managed to crowd his many activities and accomplishments into a lifetime will always remain a mystery.

Long live the memory of a great Christian warrior and true friend to his fellowman - Folks Huxford.

Eulogy from Clinch County News  -  Thursday, April 2, 1981
by Lillian Lee Corbett
(also published in HGSM, June 1981)

Judge Huxford said goodnight and went quietly.  Wiregrass Georgia is yet a little numb.

Several years we have watched his steps grow slow, and his eyes dim.  We wondered what Homerville would be like without him, his gentle manner, and his unselfish deeds.

"We are lost," one of the town's people said.  We know.  All of us are.

We have been used to running by to say hello, and to ask a simple question, or tell of some tid-bit of information needed, and coming out an hour later.  He had no conception of time.  Where the need was felt, he lingered.  His days belonged to everybody else, his nights to himself.  He worked better then, he said.  Of course he did.  He had no interruptions then.

The eulogies were so true, so fitting. He bore the honors that came to him with dignity and humility.  He walked among the great and never lost the common touch.  His ideals towered toward the sky, but he could kneel with a fallen brother, and weep and pray with him and lift him to a higher plane through the Master he served; he could take a crumbling little church and lift it again.  He returned its gifts until it caught his spirit and moved out on its own.  He left it then and found another one and began the process all over again.

It was in these churches that his beautiful music was appreciated and loved so much.  It came like symphonies to the soul-starved, and the response was overwhelming.  His hands touched the keys, his listeners were enraptured.  One felt something of him personally touching the heart.

"You can't out-give the Lord, Honey," he said to me once when I wanted to disagree with him about one of his unselfish deeds.

Remembering his goodness, a little Thanksgiving floods my heart; I have loved him all my life; he influenced my thinking when I was a little girl; I have felt his dreams, his ideals, and his Christian influence; I have known his kindness and help; and I have lived and moved in a society that he and his family helped build.  He passed by and life has been happier and richer because of it.  For these things I shall be eternally grateful.

Let others sing of his accomplishments, his greatness, his talents, and I love and appreciate each one fully, but let me remember the gentle man who slaved unselfishly that we might have a better understanding and  a keener appreciation of our beautiful heritage in this area, and who made it possible to find away to preserve it and pass it on to posterity.

One other thing:  somewhere in a crevice in my heart, may I keep the ecstasy that rose within me when his fingers touched the chords of the old piano and his voice led off, "A-MAZ-ING GRA-CE..."

Eulogy
by LaViece Smallwood
(also published in HGSM, June 1981)

Folks Huxford who died at the age of 87 in his beloved hometown of Homerville, Georgia surrounded by family and friends was the most erudite person I have ever known.

Erudite does not mean deeply learned.  It is rooted in a verb which means "to take the roughness out of, to polish, to teach."

Folks Huxford was a teacher.

He taught love, compassion, humbleness and appreciate for so many things.

He was a handsome man whose tall lean frame could be likened to that of a towering majestic oak spreading its stately branches in all directions and reaching upward to the sky.  He could hold his own in any company.  He prayed constantly to be humble.

Time is measured in quantity.  It ought also to be measured in quality.  Sterling, if you could stamp a marker's mark on the bottom of any given day of his life spent plundering for hidden treasure in courthouse basements, talking with people about their life and heritage or by sharing his knowledge of God and life and death and love and friendship and truth and all things people talk about when they are very serious about themselves.

He was amazing to those of us who knew him, possessing an inner spirit of courage and vision that surpassed his own understanding.

"I don't know why I did it, but I just knew I had to do it," he once told me as he explained his quest for knowledge, especially concerning the lives of people he never knew.

Broke and penniless, discouraged by family and friends, he trudged on.  He spent infinite lonely hours, days, months and years abstracting the names, dates and places of obscure people whose memory, except for his persistence would have otherwise vanished into oblivion.  Until his death, the bare mention of a name awoke a sleeping giant and the computed stories of their lives, branded upon his brilliant mind, fell from his lips like falling rain from the sky.

He was awesome.

Others agree.  They don't know why he did it either, but they are glad he did.

It's my belief that the dynamic energy and irrepressible spirit of Folks Huxford, transmitting a power beyond human understanding came from God.  From birth, even his symbolic name seems to have been inspired.

FOLKS:...Described by the dictionary as meaning a people, or nation, probably connected, people as the preservers of culture especially the large proportion of the members of a society which represent customs, traditions, originating among a representative of the common people. 

To me, he fit that description.

His worth to humanity is unmeasured, the length to which his achievements have no end.

The brilliant mind has been laid to rest, but the people and history he was intrigued to write about, will live on.....and the undaunted spirit which he possessed will linger throughout eternity and an image of his likeness will not pass our way again.

He was unique.

Order of Court
by Alapaha Judicial Circuit
25th day of March 1981
(also published in HGSM, June 1981)

The nostalgia of life never seems so bitter as in moments of reflection upon a friend's passing from the earthly scene.  In the quietude of those moments the cold import of finality is upon you for you can never give the lie to death.  It is then that there is full consciousness of the concept of progression and of mortal life's inevitable defeat.  Tears well deep in the soul, not for the future, but for the past and for old days and old times.

We pay tribute to Folks Huxford, a man honored and esteemed by the people of Clinch County, Georgia, and of this entire state.  This man left his mark upon the land and upon the law and upon the pages of our history.

Judge Folks Huxford's life and career was a model of courage and unselfishness.  He was a devoted Christian and a man possessed of love and kindness for his fellow man.

He was born in Coffee, now Atkinson County, Georgia, being the only son of the late Calvitt and Kansas Drawdy Huxford of Homerville, Georgia.  With less than an eight-grade education, this man came to hold more offices than any other person in the history of Clinch County.  In 1920, he was admitted to the practice of law and, before the time of his death, was Clerk to the Ordinary, Deputy Court Clerk, Clerk to the first County Commission, Justice of the Peace, Solicitor of the County Court, Clerk of the Superior Court, State Representative, Postmaster, City Councilman, Judge of County Court and Judge of Superior Court of the Alapaha Judicial Circuit.

Judge Folks Huxford was a product of an age when personal honor counted more than personal fortune; an age when man was greater and convention less.  The high-born ideals prevalent in those years remained with him across the years of life until his death on March 21, 1981, at age 87.

His principles and sense of values were riveted in his character, his habits of life patterned by them.  During his lifetime a new world was born and an old world died.  He did not despair or believe that the bugler of history was blowing taps, but at times one could detect a longing for what had been and could never be again.  He was a kind and courteous man with always a word for friendship and a word for laughter.

Judge Huxford was no ordinary man or lawyer.  Perhaps, this is why he could come to the end of a long earthly pilgrimage, close his eyes gently for the long sleep and breathe his life away with a smile.

We who are left can do no better than follow his example.

Let the above and foregoing tribute to the memory of the late Judge Folks Huxford be spread upon the minutes of the Superior Court of Clinch County, Georgia, by the Clerk thereof.

So ordered, this 25th day of March 1981.

_______________________
W. D. Knight, Chief Judge,
Alapaha Judicial Circuit

_______________________
Brooks E. Blitch, III, Judge,
Alapaha Judicial Circuit