Blaze destroys judge’s home near Carthage

An elderly woman from Beckville died in a car wreck Thursday afternoon after watching her sister’s house burn down the night before, a relative said. Ruby Harris Smith, 76, had sat with her sister, Beth Harris Parker, while they watched the house burn Wednesday night near Carthage.

The next day, Smith was killed when she pulled in front of a tractor-trailer onto Texas 149 in Beckville, said Trooper Kris Edgmon, who investigated the wreck. Smith’s niece, Elaine McPherson, said her family was trying to cope with the back-to-back tragedies.

“We’re getting through it,” McPherson said. “It’s just a house. But the accident is harder to get through.”

The Wednesday evening fire destroyed the Panola County home owned by Parker and her 80-year-old husband, retired Judge Crawford Parker, Jr. The judge was treated and released from a Carthage hospital with a second-degree burn to his left leg, and his wife was treated for smoke inhalation, according to McPherson, their daughter.

Beth Parker was released from the hospital when it was learned that her sister had died, McPherson said. Smith was pronounced dead at around 4 p.m. Thursday. Her services are pending with Hawthorn Funeral Home of Carthage.

On Wednesday night, a passer-by called for help after seeing the Parkers’ home in the 3400 block of U.S. 79 South on fire, said Panola County Sheriff’s Office dispatcher Melissa Poindexter.

Firefighters from six departments responded to the blaze, about three miles southwest of Carthage. Firefighters were at the residence for about four hours, and the home was lost, Poindexter said. No other property was damaged.

Poindexter said the Clayton Volunteer Fire Department is investigating the cause of the fire. Messages left for the volunteer fire department were not returned Thursday.

“I think almost every fire department in the county showed up,” McPherson said. “There just wasn’t enough water.”

She said her parents built the home in 1965, and her father, a bricklayer before he became a lawyer, did the brickwork.

Crawford Parker was Panola County Court at Law judge for 12 years and was in private practice for 44 years. His family was able to salvage a few keepsakes from the fire, McPherson said.

“My parents and our family are really big Democrats,” she said. “Mother and Daddy have a really large donkey collection, and I was able to dig out of the fire about 20 of (around 80) donkeys.”
By Wes Ferguson and Randy Ross, The Longview News-Journal