mother, according to Dave's oft told story, gave $50 in cash and for several years contributed to the education of a daughter of her former mistress as the price of her release from bondage. Dave had almost no formal education, but he was one of the best educated men of his race in his day. He had been a boy cook on a Mississippi steamer, and had traveled up and down that river in the days of Mark Twain's journeys. His culinary excellence found him a job in the army as a civilian cook with Company G, 17th Illinois Infantry, commanded by Captains O. A. Burgess and J. H. Rowell.

Strother came to El Paso at the urging of Troop "G", forty-four local area men having served at one time or another in the company where Dave was a cook, and in January of 1864 Jonathan D. Parks let him set up a chair in a corner of his insurance and J. P. office, located on the alley in rear of Janssen's grocery at 11 East Front Street. When Parks had a trial, the barber had to move his chair over to W. R. Willis' office next door, to return after the trial was over.

Soon Dave's mother and brother Charles followed him to El Paso, and Charles added his chair in Dave's new barber shop in the basement of the Eagle Block building. Business was good for the two genial and polite colored gentlemen, and all El Pasoans knew of their "Scalp-Food" tonic and "Genuine Rainwater Baths."

Charles Strother died of tuberculosis in April of 1897, and on July 12, 1901, Elizabeth Gaines Strother, Dave's wife, succumbed to the same malady. David continued alone after that, and his kindliness seemed a thing of beauty matched only by his apparent loneliness. On March 12, 1905, he was stricken with a heart attack and quickly died. He then lived at 197 West Fourth St.

The Methodist Church was packed by his friends, nearly all of another race, when he was eulogized by the Reverend Shoop, assisted by Reverend Stephan. Dave now sleeps in his own lot in Evergreen Cemetery with his mother, brother, and his wife. He left something far more valuable than the things which were divided among his friends and one rather distant relative – books of travel in the United States and the Arctic, a gold watch and chain, two violins which he had played rather well, a set of Dickens, and a few pieces of furniture. This year, the 1954 Centennial year, El Paso Post No. 59 of the American Legion is belatedly marking his grave with a suitable stone, believing that his vote the morning of April 4, 1870 marked a milestone on the road to human freedom.

In 1930 this well-known physician and surgeon accepted the position of superintendent of the famous Illinois Research and Educational Hospital in Chicago, and he held this position until his death in March of 1944.

Dr. Major Henry Worthington was born here in 1880, the son of Mr. and Mrs. S. H. Worthington. The name Major was not a rank, as he was

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