Extracted from The Dallas Morning News (Dallas, TX)
Tuesday, November 1, 1955

Funeral Services Set for R. M. Brantley, 67

Staff Special to The News

MESQUITE, Texas -- Funeral services for R. M. Brantley, 67, retired Mesquite hardware merchant and civic leader, will be held here Tuesday at 1:30 p.m. at the McCullough Funeral Home. Brantley, who had been in ill health since 1949, died Monday at a Dallas hospital.

The retired merchant was born at Jefferson, Marion County. He moved to Dallas in 1915 when he became a freight traffic representative.

He later joined the R. L. Dixon Cotton Company and was associated with the Dallas cotton industry till 1928 when he joined the late R. F. McClung in the operation of the McClung Hardware Store at Seagoville.

In 1931 he became a hardware merchant at Crandall, Kaufman County, and in 1935 he became owner of the Brantley-McClung Hardware Store in Mesquite.

Brantley helped organize and was president of the first chamber of commerce in Mesquite in the late 1930's. He was a member of the First Baptist Church of Mesquite and an active layman.

He is survived by his wife; a daughter, Mrs. Marshall Alford of Mesquite; a brother, L. A. Brantley of Waskom, Harrison County; four sisters, Mrs. George C. Eschwig of Selma, Calif.; Mrs. J. B. Coker of Tyler; Mrs. Charles T. Elder of Marshall, and Mrs. Una Mae Holliday of Dallas, and a granddaughter.

The services will be conducted by the Rev. L. M. Huff, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Mesquite, and Dr. Herbert R. Howard, pastor of the Park Cities Baptist Church in Dallas.

Pallbearers will be Will Rogers of Dallas and five nephews, Cecil Coker, Bill Coker and Marion Coker, all of Dallas, and Eugene Coker of Tyler and J. B. Coker of Denver.

Honorary pallbearers will be deacons of the First Baptist Church of Mesquite.

Burial will be in Lee Cemetery at Seagoville.

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