Milton Yarbrough sent in the following article that was published in the Yarbrough Family Quarterly and written by Janet Yarbrough the grand-niece of Maud LaVergne Yargrough Schwer
Maud LaVergne Yarbrough Schwer (1897 – 1992)
As a child, she watched men drive oxen across the Cache River in Arkansas. As an adult, she witnessed Neil Armstrong “take a giant step for mankind.” Maud LaVergen Yarbrough Schwer lived a long eventful life for a woman of her time. She was born October 13, 1897, in Woodruff County, Arkansas, to William Penn Yarbrough and Annie T. Stephenson Yarbrough. One of 15 children, Maud took the responsibility of raising her younger brothers and sisters at a young age after the death of her mother.
As a young lady, Maud was a teacher in a one-room schoolhouse in Arkansas and later in Oklahoma. She often told stores of picking up her students and giving them a ride to school in a horse and buggy. Education was important to her, so important in fact that she would load her buggy up with students to insure their attendance at school.
Maud later met and married Earl D. McQuiston. The two moved to Shreveport, Louisiana. Not long after the stock market crash of 1929, financial worries and illness plagued the marriage until it ended in divorce.
Eager to start over, Maud took a job working for the United States Treasury in Washington, D.C. In her new position, she issued payroll checks to the White House staff. One evening, with a group of friends, Maud visited a fortune teller. The fortune teller told the other women they would be leaving Washington, D.C. soon. Maud, on the other hand, was told she would remain in Washington and meet and marry a man named Charles. Maud met a man named Charles Schwer and later married him. The couple eventually retired from the government and moved to Hialeah, Florida in 1965.
July 2, 1992, Maud’s family mourned her death. She will long be remembered for her intelligence, kindness, and unconditional love of her family. A very proud woman, Maud would often express her pride in being Yarbrough. She would say, “Don’t forget. – You are a Yarbrough!”
