The Model Store
The year after Ruth Willson was born, her father, Elisha Wilson, opened a dry goods store called the Model Store with his brother John Wilson.
The Model Store thrived and became one of the most successful businesses in the 1,000-person town of Boonville, Indiana. It was located on the town square at Main and Third, near the Warrick County courthouse. The business sold quality goods, including many from the famous Marshall Field and Company in Chicago.
When John died in 1923, Elisha brought on William L. Roth as a partner.
Family Competition
It may seem odd, but Elisha’s son, Robert Wilson, opened a competing dry goods store with his father-in-law, George Roth [probably related to William Roth, but we’re unsure]. According to Ruth, the competition between the two stores was good-natured, as there appeared to be enough business in town for both establishments.
Coaxing Wealth From The Ground
Both Ruth and her future husband, Thomas Clinton (T.C.) Mullins, came from families whose livelihoods historically depended on coaxing wealth from the ground. Four generations of Mullins men preceding Thomas worked on tobacco farms. Surprisingly, it was Ruth’s family that plucked a different type of means from the earth—coal.
Ruth’s Family Background With Coal
Ruth’s maternal grandfather, Robert Gough, owned several surface coal mines in Warrick County. Robert came from two generations of English “colliers,” as coal miners were known. However, colliers worked the mines—they did not own them.
It’s likely that Robert worked the mines before he left England in 1854, then settling with his family in Kentucky. We know from a letter home in 1856 that he was running his own mine by then. He wrote about how difficult it was, especially because of his dependence on the river to transport his coal. If the river was too low or frozen over, he was unable to sell anything. Still, he wrote, food and drink were much more plentiful in America than in England, and he and his wife were determined to remain there.
With the dawn of the Civil War in 1860, Robert moved north across the Mason-Dixon line to Indiana. We know that he was a pacifist and probably opposed slavery, which may have been a motivation for his move. One of his sons, Edward, served in the Union Army in Indiana and, after the war, became a prominent lawyer and judge. Robert Gough’s youngest daughter was Ruth’s mother, Nannie Gough, born in 1866.
T.C. Mullins Introduction To Coal
T.C. Mullins graduated from the University of Arkansas in 1906 with a degree in civil engineering and moved to Chicago to work for a consulting company. In 1913, his employer sent him to Boonville to manage a failing business, the Sunlight Coal Company. Mullins turned the company around and within a few years was vice-president of several Indiana coal companies.
He and Ruth married on July 20, 1918, the evening before Mullins was deployed to France with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. On his return, the couple remained in Boonville through the 1920s, where Mullins served as Mayor from 1923-1926 and continued as a very successful coal company executive.
© 2013 W. Mullins