Richard Craig

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Richard Craig grew up in Miami, a small town in Roberts County on the Texas Panhandle. His parents were William Harry Craig and Vernie Jenkin Craig, and he had a brother, Bill (“Billie”), who served in the Navy. A 1927 school photograph shows Richard in the fifth grade at Miami Public School, and by 1933 he was finishing high school there.

University and Politics

Richard attended the University of Texas in Austin. By his mid-twenties he had entered politics: a September 1940 newspaper clipping records a rally held in his honor in Miami, and by 1941 he was seated at his desk in the Texas House of Representatives. A photograph from that year shows a confident young legislator in a pinstripe suit, smiling on the chamber floor.

The Craig family moved in political circles that overlapped with Governor W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel. In February 1940, Richard and his father attended the Governor’s visit to Miami, and a letter from Mrs. O’Daniel to the Craig family survives in the family papers, dated September 25, 1940.

Richard also appeared in newspaper clippings from 1942–43 identified as a news commentator — likely radio or print work that drew on his political experience.

Marriage to Margaret

On June 19, 1947, Richard married Margaret Alline Morris — the family historian, poet, and daughter of James Walter Morris, the Huntsville barber. Margaret had previously been married to E. S. McDuffie and had a daughter, Barbara Jean, born in 1934. A newspaper clipping with the headline “Dan Cupid Found Ally” reported the courtship, and a telegram dated June 16 — three days before the license — survives among the family papers.

Margaret had been working at the Texas State Capitol in Austin, a connection that likely owed something to Richard’s years in the Legislature.¹

Austin

The Craigs settled in Austin, where they lived on Mt. Laurel Lane. Richard turned to the law, practising as an attorney in Travis County. A 1974 photograph places him at a Travis County Bar Association event, and among the family’s keepsakes is a novelty item captioned “World’s Greatest Lawyer.” A newspaper clipping from around 1965 refers to a “Closing Law” case he was involved in, and a 1952 clipping reports his appearance at a “Bosses Dinner.”

Through Margaret’s daughter Barbara Jean’s marriage to William Burl Ledbetter in 1955, Richard became step-grandfather to a growing family: William Burl Jr., Craig Alan, Kathleen Elaine, and Paul Marney. Craig Alan Ledbetter was given Richard’s surname as a first name. Decades of Christmas photographs — from the early 1970s through the 1980s — show Richard and Margaret at the centre of Ledbetter, Morris, and Craig family gatherings.

His Parents: Harry and “Aunt Vernie”

Richard’s father, William Harry Craig, was from Miami. His mother, Vernie Jenkin Craig — known to everyone in town as “Aunt Vernie” — was born around January 25, 1891. Before her marriage she had been a schoolteacher, teaching at the Bell School in Gray County near White Deer during the 1911–1912 term. She taught five different grades to eleven students, and was remembered as “a teacher first, but was the janitor, mother, sister, doctor, first aid expert and ‘style setter,’ all at the same time.”⁴

Harry and Vernie married around 1910 and raised their two boys — Richard and Billie — in Miami. A 1939 family portrait shows all four together. Harry was active in the town’s civic life; in February 1940, he and Richard attended Governor W. Lee “Pappy” O’Daniel’s visit to Miami.

Vernie became a fixture of the community as she aged. The Miami Chief ran a feature in August 1975 when six of her former students — by then elderly themselves — came to visit her, more than sixty years after she had taught them first and third grade.⁴ In January 1980, the paper celebrated her 89th birthday, noting she was the oldest resident of Roberts County. “I trust the Lord and attempt to do His will each day He allows me to live,” she told the reporter. The article described her wit, warmth, and “the ability to make everyone feel good” after even a short visit with “Aunt Vernie.”⁵

She appeared in Ledbetter family Christmas photographs as late as December 1980, still sharp-eyed and smiling.

View photos of “Aunt Vernie” Craig →

Family Memory

Richard cared about preserving the past. His stepson-in-law Bill Ledbetter Jr. recalled that Richard “expressed his frustration about not having a gravestone or a marker” when Bill Ledbetter Sr.’s ashes were scattered on the lake, feeling that the absence of a permanent memorial was a loss. It was a sentiment that ran in the family — Margaret spent years compiling Stories and Poems, and Bill Jr. would later write Back in Time — but Richard articulated it plainly: a life ought to be marked.¹

A 1981 Dunhill studio portrait shows Richard in his later years — law books beside him, arms crossed, the same round glasses he’d worn since his twenties, smiling the same quiet smile as in the House chamber photograph from forty years before.