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He was born to James Thaddeus Rutherford and the former Nancy Lillian Johnson in Hot Springs, Arkansas.[1] In 1934, his family relocated to Odessa, Texas, where he attended public schools.
In 1948, Rutherford married the former Sara Jane Armstrong, and the couple had three children, Cleo Ann, Charles Lane Rutherford, and Jane Ellen.[1] Rutherford was a partner in an industrial electrical construction firm and also owned an advertising business.
Rutherford's district was the old jumbo 16th district, Midland being its eastmost point and El Paso at its westmost. It also stretched hundreds of miles along the border with Mexico. The 19 counties it embraced covered 42,067 square miles—making it geographically larger than Ohio or Tennessee, among other states.
Later career and death
After leaving Congress, he formed J. T. Rutherford and Associates, a government relations consulting firm. He was a director of the Gonzales Warm Springs Foundation for Crippled Children, which was established in 1943 in Gonzales County, Texas. He was also a Shriner, another group which promotes the welfare of crippled children.[1]