The Back Rhodes of Our Genealogy
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Rev. Robert E. Rhodes is a native of the State and county in which he now resides, and was born April 28, 1850, being a son of Nicholas Rhodes, who was born and reared in East Tennessee. The latter came to Missouri about 1848, and located in Webster County, where he was united in marriage to Margaret Caldwell, who was also born in East Tennessee. They cleared and put under cultivation a large farm, and here reared their family. The father served in the Federal army during the late war, being in the Home Guards and Enrolled Militia. Robert E. Rhodes remained with his father until twenty-three years of age, and was married on the 8th of August, 1872, to Dollie H. Grier, a sister of N. F. Grier, whose sketch appears in this work. After his marriage he located on a farm in Grant Township, and in 1877 came to his present location. He owns a part of the Grier homestead, and his acreage amounts to 210 acres, with about 135 acres under cultivation, on which are a good residence, barn and other out-buildings. He and wife are members of the Missionary Baptist Church, and he has been a licensed preacher of that denomination since September, 1888. He is a missionary for the Greene County Sunday-school Association, and, while he has charge of no church, preaches nearly every Sunday. Mr. Rhodes devoted his attention to farming and stock trading exclusively from 1870 to 1887. Until this latter year he was an infidel in belief, but, in his efforts to obtain proof to substantiate his claims, a critical study of the Bible led him to see his condemnation as a sinner, and the doom awaiting him. As he himself says: "Then I called upon God for mercy, and to save me. He did, and I have been telling others the story ever since."