(See Thompson) A minister of the Presbyterian Church does not draw a large salary. Ordinarily he can by careful saving give his children a common school, high school or more rarely a university education, but it requires rare ability for a man to stay in the ministry through a long and useful life, generally stationed in the smaller cities, to give not only one but several of his sons and daughter extra American and European university educations, such as are generally at the behest of families of opulence, but this was one of the distinguished abilities of Reverend and Mrs. Gilbert Taylor Thompson.
Gilbert Taylor Thompson, son of Matthew and Sallie Turner (Denman) Thompson, was born April 15, 1847. Graduated from Sonora Masonic Institute in 1868. Married February 2, 1865 Josephine Amanda King, born April 10, 1847 in Cass County Georgia. He was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian Church in April 1874, at Resaca, Georgia. He died at Tahlequah April 20, 1901.
The sons and daughters of Reverend and Mrs. Thompson are the most highly educated family among the Cherokees, several of them having been educated abroad. They are: Allison Denman, Ernest, Milton King, James Kidd, Cleo, Gilbert Taylor and Matthew Aster.
Cleo Thompson graduated from the Presbyterian College of Upper Missouri in 1893 and Ward Seminary, Nashville in 1896.
Married on Dec. 25, 1899 to James Walker Reid, born May 31, 1870 in Mecklinburg Co., N. Car. Mr. Reid is a graduate of Erskine College, Due West, S. C.
Mr. and Mrs. Reid live at Tahlequah, where he has been in business for several years.
They are the parents of children of whom they will ever have reason to be proud: Thompson Reid, born January 26, 1901; Mary Cleo born April 6, 1904; James Walker, Jr., born Aug 30, 1906 and Marjorie, born July 14, 1910.