Thomas Vance Parker (1895-1992) was the son of Samuel Parker (1868-1958) and Judith Florence Knight (1869-1968). He was drafted into the military July 10, 1917, shipped to France in July 1918, returned home to the United States in May 1919, and was honorably discharged June 1919. Tom lived in San Augustine County, Texas and moved to Hemphill, Texas in 1927. He married Nannie Williams in 1928 and they had three children. Their oldest child was Nancy Kate Parker. Before Tom joined the military he was a drug clerk. Upon his return from World War I he continued his interest in being a druggist and eventually opened up his own drugstore, “Parker’s Drug Store,” in Hemphill, Texas. In the 1930s and 1940s Tom became interested in tree farming and purchased 100 acres and started planting seedlings. By the mid 1950s he had accumulated 2,000 acres of timber to manage.