Mark E. Tucker

Baylor County Artist

Mark E. Tucker was born to W.E. (Ed) Tucker and Minnie Holman Tucker November 11, 1902 in the Ogden Community of Baylor County. When he was 10 years old, Mark's family moved to Seymour so he could attend school. Mark graduated from Seymour High School in 1922. After graduating, Mark became a salesman at the Lively and Kellum Dry Goods Store in Seymour. In 1929 Mark married Lois Jones. During WWII, Mrs. Tucker taught at the Lively School, in Baylor County and later substituted at Seymour Elementary School. Mark continued to work in the dry goods business. In the early 1930s he worked for Perkins-Timberlake in Vernon and Electra, Texas. In 1938 he and Lois moved back to Seymour where he was associated with Kellum and Co. until 1945 when it sold to Perkins-Timberlake. After six months as manager at Perkins-Timberlake, in Seymour, Mark began years of travel for dry goods and ready-to-wear firms. After their children were grown, Lois began to travel with Mark selling with him until their retirement in 1970. After retirement Mark became chairman of The Baylor County Red Cross and was also a very acitve member of the Baylor County Historical Society (now known as the Baylor County Historical Commission). Mark was on the Historical Society's Survey Committee. Mark, an aritst, chose the name of Baylor County's history book, "Salt Pork to Sirloin". The name was so well liked that when a second volume was printed it carried the name on. Now, forty years after the first volume was published, the Baylor County Historical Commission is collecting family histories and other information in hopes that, someday, a third volume will be published under the same name. Many of Mark's drawings appear throughout both "Salt Pork To Sirloin" Volumes I and II.

Mark working on drawings for "Salt Pork To Sirloin"

In October of 1977, Mark E. Tucker passed away in the county of his birth.

Several of Mark's drawings can be seen on the Baylor County Courthouse page.