FARMERS VALLEY, TEXAS. Farmers Valley is at the intersection of Farm roads 925 and 392, nine miles west of Vernon and one mile east of the Hardeman county line in west central Wilbarger County. A small community had been established in the area when a school was built in 1887. By the early 1900s it had grown to include a Methodist congregation established in 1881, a cotton gin, and a combination grocery store and service station. The Methodists built their church building about 1922. The school was renamed Wells Chapel in 1924 and served the area until it was consolidated with the Chillicothe school in 1946. The Farmers Valley population was reported at twenty-five during the 1930s and 1940s and fifty in later records. The Methodist church dissolved in the late 1970s, and the gin closed in 1982. The reported population was fifty in 1990.
[BIBLIOGRAPHY: Wilbarger County Historical Commission, Wilbarger County (Lubbock, 1986)].

MILITARY SERVICE:
Enlisted in the US Army in 1940 and was stationed at Schofield Barracks on Dec. 7, 1941 when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. In 1943 Supply Sergeant Rushing contracted Malaria in Guadalcanal, the Soloman Islands, and was transferred to San Francisco for recovery. While there he was assigned as a driver for The United Nations and was awarded "Charter Member Status" in the U.N.. Deforest took leave in 1943 to meet and marry his high school sweetheart Margaret Garcia in Georgia. Margaret was also in the Army Stationed at New Jersey. DeForest Rushing was Honorably discharged as a Staff Sergeant from the US Army in 1945 at San Francisco, California. Copies of Deforest's DD214 and death certificate in personal file of son D. D. Rushing of Albuquerque, NM.

Deforest H. Rushing worked for Sandia National Laboratories after 1952 until he retired. He was an Electronics Inspector during the development of the nuclear fusion power, participated in the development of the printed circuit, semiconductors, microchip and subsequent technologies. He began in electronics by opening his own TV and Radio repair shop in Richmond, California in 1946 while still attending tech school there. DeForest Radio was the name of his shop. As a youngster he used to build crystal radios for his friends, he used Galina Crystals and safety pin "cat whiskers" and made the detectors himself. He was an avid hunter, gun collector, wood worker and sports fan including professional football and wrestling.

Albuquerque Journal Obituaries; 23 Dec. 1999:

DeForest H. Rushing, 81, passed away on Tuesday, December 21, 1999 in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. He is survived by his wife, Margaret; daughters, Donna Lynn Galavez from Coeur D'Alene, Idaho and Pamela Cummins-Krupp from
Mesa, Arizona; sons, Edward Jeffrey Rushing of Phoenix, Arizona, Charles Keith Rushing of Fairbanks, Alaska and DeForest Daniel Rushing of Albuquerque; numerous grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Mr. Rushing was a retired employee of Sandia Labs. Services will be held on Thursday, December 23, 1999 in the afternoon. Sierra Funeral Home in Truth or Consequences in charge of arrangements, 505- 894-4428.