Jesus Taught Me How to Smile

Author: J. R. Baxter

Jesse Randall (Pap) Baxter, Jr. (1887-1960) Born: December 8, 1887, Lebanon, Alabama. Died: January 21, 1960. Baxter grew up in De­Kalb Coun­ty, Al­a­ba­ma. In 1926, he bought part of Vir­gil Stamps’ Gos­pel mu­sic firm, which be­came the Stamps-Bax­ter Mu­sic and Print­ing Com­pa­ny, one of the most suc­cess­ful Gos­pel mu­sic pub­lish­ers of the ear­ly 20th Century. Bax­ter ran the com­pa­ny’s Chat­ta­noo­ga, Ten­nes­see, of­fice un­til Stamps’ death in 1940, then moved to Dall­as, Tex­as, to run the main of­fice. Af­ter Bax­ter’s death, his wife, Clarice, ran the bus­i­ness un­til she died; it was then sold to Zon­der­van. Bax­ter was in­duct­ed in­to the South­ern Gos­pel Mus… Go to person page >