Published in the Athens Review October 19, 1939

Judge J.R. Blades, 80, who served as County Judge and District Clerk of Henderson county and who spent more than forty years as a public servant, died at his home in Tyler, 328 West Houston street at 12:00 o'clock noon Tuesday.
Funeral services were held at Burks-Walker Funeral Home in Tyler at 2:00 o'clock Wednesday afternoon by Dr. Robert Hill, Presbyterian pastor and Dr. F.S. McKinney, Methodist minister. Following the services the body was brought to Athens for burial in the family plot here.
Survivors include his wife; three daughters, Miss Addie Lee Blades, Tyler public school teacher; Miss Ruby Jo Blades, Dallas and Mrs. Byron Simmons, Orange; three sons, Doty Blades of Corpus Christi; Horace Blades, Justice of the Peace at Beaumont and Hamlet Blades of Houston.
Judge Blades had been an invalid for the past three years but his ever keenly alert mind had kept a constant watch on all current happenings and he had continued to converse with friends almost to the very last. He had been critically ill for three weeks prior to his death.
Judge Blades knew hundreds of prominent men in public office and politics, reminiscenses of whom made his conversation attractive to visitors.
Judge Blades was a school teacher at Athens before he entered politics. After a two year term as District Clerk of Henderson county, he served as County Judge for two terms, then another term as District Clerk. Later he accomplished what is rare in politics, when he came back as County Judge for two more terms.
He then was an un-successful candidate for State Comptroller and while his friends were consoling him about the loss of the post, his defeat was turned into victory by the offer from Congressman Gordon Russell of a position as his private secretary. While in Washington with Congressman Russell, Judge Blades knew many dignitaries, including President Taft, upon whom he called with Russell prior to the time Russell was named a Federal Judge for the Eastern district of Texas.
When Russell secured that appointment, he made Judge Blades his clerk of court in which position the latter served sixteen years, including a time when he was also clerk of the Federal Circuit Court.
It was while serving as Clerk that he out-lived two Federal judges, Russell and W.L. Estes of Texarkana; three United States attorneys, Col. Bill Ownby of Paris, Clarence Merritt of McKinney and Capt. E.J. Smith of Denison; two United States marshals, Ben F. Sherrell of Texarkana and Phil E. Baer of Paris and more than a score of minor offices.
Judge Blades moved to Tyler in 1926 from Sherman after sixteen years of residence there to accept the dual position of Deputy Federal Clerk and Commissioner of the Tyler division of the court. Later for about four years, he was Trustee and Receiver in Bankruptcy in the Federal Court at Tyler.
The most striking comparisons he witnessed in his busy lifetime, he said shortly before his death, were the improved conditions in schools and churches in this section. Judge Blades often shuddered to think how limited were educational facilities in the early days he knew when boys and girls only had a chance to attend school when their parents could afford to pay subscriptions.
Among the history making incidents which he was privileged to observe was Congressman Russell's eloquent and successful plea on the floor of Congress for the passage of the Mann act, and later the trial before Judge Russell of the first case under that statute.
Judge Blades recalled that it was the controversy over the Federal judgeship in East Texas when Russell was Congressman, resulting in the appointment of a Democrat and consequent resentment of Republicans that had a direct effect on national politics. This action caused Republican leaders in Texas to support the "Bull Moose" ticker which defeated President Taft, the aged office-holder told Tyler friends. Because Taft appointed Russell to the judgeship and thus diverted from his previously announced intention of appointing only a Republican, he infuriated Cecil Lyon, Sherman, then the leader of Republicans in Texas. Later Lyon and his followers joined the movement which cut Taft out of a second term.

Contributor:
Wayne Smith


headstone reads " J. R. Blades and Infant daughter"

Children with Ida:
Horace Chilton Blades 1892 – 1973
William Hamlet Blades 1894 – 1980
# 127001597,
Doty Deupree Blades 1897 – 1959
# 32616261,
Lou Ida Blades Simmons 1900 – 1974
# 880080420,
Addie Lee Blades Dean 1903 – 1981
Ruby Joe Blades Roach 1905 – 1994
# 64629233