Offa Shivers Lattimore

LATTIMORE, OFFA SHIVERS (1865-1937). Offa Shivers Lattimore, judge, son of John Lee and Sarah Catherine (Shivers) Lattimore, was born on January 10, 1865, at Marion, Alabama. The family moved to Falls County, Texas, when he was twelve years old. Lattimore worked for the Texas Central Railway Company in 1883-84. He graduated from Baylor University in 1887 and for two years taught school at Durango while studying law. He was admitted to the bar at Marlin in 1889 and on August 22 moved to Fort Worth to practice. He was appointed assistant county attorney of Tarrant County in 1890 and served until 1894. From 1900 to 1904 he was county attorney. From 1911 to 1919 he represented the Thirtieth District in the Texas Senate. He was elected judge of the Court of Criminal Appeals in 1918 and was returned to that office in 1924, 1930, and 1936.

Lattimore married Ermine Field Buck on June 23, 1890; they were the parents of seven children. He served as president of the boards of trustees of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and San Marcos Academy and was a trustee of Baylor University, Baylor Female College, and the Mexican Baptist Institute of Bastrop. Judge Lattimore died on October 27, 1937, and was buried in the State Cemetery, Austin. In addition to his published opinions in the Southwestern Reporter and the Texas Criminal Reports, he was a contributor to the Guardian and to the Baptist Standard. Lattimore was a member of the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World, the Baptist Church, and the Democratic party.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sam Hanna Acheson, Herbert P. Gambrell, Mary Carter Toomey, and Alex M. Acheson, Jr., Texian Who's Who, Vol. 1 (Dallas: Texian, 1937). Nathalie Nabers, The Life and Judicial Decisions of Offa Shivers Lattimore (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1939). Ocie Speer, Texas Jurists (Austin, 1936). Who Was Who in America.

Ernest R. May and H. S. Lattimore

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "LATTIMORE, OFFA SHIVERS," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/LL/fla49.html (accessed May 5, 2005).