Funeral services will be held Saturday at 10:30 a.m. in Broussard's Chapel for Robert S. Barber, 100-year-old former Beaumont resident and area lumberman for many years, who died at 5 p.m. Thursday in a Temple, Tex., nursing home. Dr. T.A. Patterson, pastor of the First Baptist Church, will officiate. Burial will be in Magnolia Cemetery. Pallbearers will be Townsend Field, Robert Field, Farley Cates, Harry J. Roberts Jr., Curtis Roberts, Ike Roberts and Ralph Dawson. Mr. Barber was born and reared on a farm new Newton, Mass. He was the last survivor of a family of 14. He observed his 100th birthday anniversary August 13. He was widely-known in both the manufacturing and retail fields of the lumber business. Attracted by the available timber in East Texas, he came to this area from Mississippi at the turn of the century and built a lumber mill at Hartburg, near Deweyville. He operated the mill for many years in what was at first a near-wilderness. He and Mrs. Barber built the first school and also established the first church. Due to the scarcity of labor, Mr. Barber brought Russian immigrants into the area to work at his mill, and at one time Hartburg was largely a Russian community. He sold the mill at Hartburg in 1920 and came to Beaumont, where he built two lumber mills. The first was Southern Land and Lumber Co. which he established with three associates, John L. Lyons, P.E. Hammons and the late H.J. Holleman. He later sold his interest in the company and then established the Barber Lumber Co. which he later sold to E.A. Burrus. He was an active member of the First Baptist Church here until he left Beaumont about six years ago to make his home in Temple with two daughters, Mrs. Hugh T. Field and Mrs. Ira R. Thayer. Other survivors include four grandchildren, Townson and Robert Field of Temple, Mrs. G.H. Gidley of Evanston, Ill, and Mrs. R.G. Sanders of Syracuse, N.Y.; four great-grandchildren, and a niece, Mrs. Harry Roberts of Beaumont who was reared in the Barber home after the death of her parents.
Beaumont Journal, 11/11/1955

retired lumber dealer
Father: John Barber, b. Mississippi
Mother: Alice Satcher, b. Mississippi
informant: Townsend Field