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From the book entitled: History of Roanoke County (Virginia)
By George S. Jack, Edward Boyle Jacobs
Publisher: STONE, 1912
Page 208.

SAMUEL THOMAS RHODES

The subject of this sketch was born in Pascagoula, Mississippi, February 6th, 1861, and is a son of Judge Rufus R. Rhodes and Martha (Fisher) Rhodes.
Prior to the Civil War Judge Rhodes was on the Supreme Bench in Louisiana and was appointed Commissioner of Patents for the Confederate Government during the war.
  Martha Fisher Rhodes came from a distinguished North Carolina family. Samuel Thomas Rhodes was educated at the Southwestern Presbyterian University, at Clarksville, Tennessee, and for a few years was a cotton planter in his native state.
  He has been engaged in the life insurance business for a great many years, being a graduate of an Actuarial School; he is familiar with every branch of its most intricate details from a scientific as well as agency standpoint. He was Manager for the New York Life Insurance Company for a number of years, and the territory under his control showed the greatest volume of business per capita, with less expense in securing business per thousand, and the highest percentage in active producing agents, in the Western Hemisphere. He resigned his position with the New York Life to take the management of the National Life Insurance Company, whose home office is at Montpelier, Vermont. His office is the only, strictly speakmg, branch office maintained in Roanoke by any company where money is loaned and settlements made on policies for the company.
  Samuel Thomas Rhodes accepted the managership of the National Life Insurance Company in 1904, when the company was but little known in this section, with practically no agency representation, but his agency, to-day, stands fifth in the United States in production, and is continuously increasing.
This wonderful showing has been brought about by untiring energy, honesty, and sound business methods. In May, 1909, the Company appointed Samuel Bertram Rhodes, son of Samuel Thomas Rhodes, as Manager with his father and the firm name was changed to Samuel T. Rhodes & Son. He was only twenty-three years of age at the time of his appointment and was the youngest manager ever appointed by the National Life Insurance Company, and is to-day the youngest manager under contract with the Company.  Like his father, his information about Life Insurance is accurate and comprehensive, and the experience he obtained in the field and Comptroller's Department, fitted him well to fill the responsible position he now holds.