Eugene and Mary Whitt – 50 plus years together

1. Eugene and Mary Whitt – 50 plus years together

2. Chapter 1 Eugene’s Ancestors and early days

3. Descendants of David WHITT • David WHITT was born in 1770 in VA. He died after 1850 in TN. He was buried in Smith Cemetery, Lincoln Co., TN. David’s 1st wife, born in Virginia, died 1 Jan 1816 on trail to TN. John Watson Whitt was the third of 3 kids of this union, and he was born the day his mother died, somewhere in the Cumberland mountains on the way to Tennessee. • John Watson WHITT was born on 1 Jan 1816 in Cumberland Mountains, VA. He died on 4 Aug 1899 in Lincoln Co., TN. He was buried in Malone Cemetery, Lincoln Co., TN. John and his 2nd wife had 4 children. His 3rd wife also bore 4 children, the 2nd of whom was Simeon, Eugene’s grandfather. • Simeon (Sim) WHITT was born on 2 Dec 1857. He died on 10 Nov 1897. He was buried in Smith Cemetery, Lincoln Co., TN. Simand his 1st wife had 2 children, one of whom was Asa (depicted in this presentation). His 1st wife died in 1885, and in 1886, he married Minnie Louella Morrell in Giles County, TN. Minnie was born on 13 Sep 1863. She died on 1 Oct 1890. She was buried in Smith Cemetery, Lincoln Co., TN. The second of the three children born to Sim and Minnie was Walter Lee Whitt, Euguene’s father. Sim owned a sawmill and died after a band broke and seriously cut his leg. Infection set in, and after amputating his leg (probably with a disinfected saw) he died the next day, 10 Nov 1897, when Lee was 9 years old. • Walter Lee WHITT 1 was born 1 on 17 Aug 1888 in Giles Co., TN. He died 1 on 8 Feb 1962 in Terrell, Kaufman Co., TX. He was buried 1 in Rose Hill Cemetery, Kaufman Co., TX. Walter married Annie Pearl TAFFER on 3 Jun 1915 in Limestone Co., AL. To this union was born Herschel Eugene in 1916 and Paul Edward Whitt in 1918. • Herschel Eugene Whitt married Mary Annice White in Terrell, TX on 2 March, 1940. They had 4 kids, Judith Anne, Geoffrey Richmond, Jack Lenoir, and James Dyer Whitt.

4. This photo was identified as this couple being (probably mistakenly) Eugene’s great grandparents James Watson and Mary Polly Whitt, taken about 1850. Assuming that, Polly would have been about 20 years old when this picture was taken. That’s the trouble with genealogy – we often have old photos and rely on old memories rather than records. So if you know of the origin of this photo, I’d appreciate you getting back to me with the information. John died in 1899 and Polly died in 1912 (see the 1900 census slide a few slides down).

5. Asa Alfred Whitt (1882-1942), Walter Lee Whitt’s (half) older brother by six years, was Hoosie’s (Eugene’s family nickname) uncle. Buried in Gatlin Cemetery, Limestone County, AL. By the time Asa was 15, he had undergone the death of his mother, his step mother, an older sister, an infant sister, and finally his father. If a child of today faced half of those losses, who knows what medications a psychologist would have him taking? Asa was a survivor. He married and raised a family. Asa's son Wayne was editor of the Tennessean Newspaper. That he was able to successfully live through all those losses speaks to a wonderful example of solid family values.

6. Asa had an older sister, Lillie Mae, who was 5 years old (Asa was 2) when their mother died in Jan. 1885. Their father Sim married Minnie Louella Morrell on 6 Jan. 1886, and they had 3 children, one of whom died six months after Minnie died on 1 Oct 1890. Walter Lee (Eugene’s dad) was 2 and his sister Ellis Eugene was 4 years of age when their mother died. Their older sister Lillie Mae did the cooking and housework until her death in 1895 (aged 16), and at the age of 13, Asa took over as the cook. Two years later, their father Sim died in a sawmill accident. In a letter from Lee to an old schoolmaster many years later, he said that “Asa made a poor cook….Asa also did the milking.” After their father’s death, the kids stayed with grandparents, aunts and uncles. Asa went to a “prep school “, became a teacher, ran a store for a while, and married and moved to Athens, AL, where he was on the police force when he died at the age of 59 in 1942. Lee said in his letter “…He raised a fine family.” He sure loved his brother Asa. Asa Whitt as a child.

7. Asa – young

8. Walter Lee Whitt • June 27, 1912 “My Last Time” – on back of this photo. • This may have been the Beddingfield woman to whom he was • engaged before she died of pneumonia prior to him coming to Texas.

10. In December of 2008 we gathered all the photos we could of our family to put this together. My brother Jeff wrote on the picture that it was W.L. Whitt (Eugene’s father), but I’m sure this is Carter Whitt. I remember this picture and my father saying this was Carter when I was very young. Further proof is the resemblance to his brother Amos, on the next slide. In any case, the Whitt resemblance is there, and I can clearly see it in Bob Whitt’s features. • Carter Whitt

11. Amos, brother of Carter Whitt, (see the 13th census slide) son of George Sterling Whitt, nephew of Sim Whitt, 1st cousin to W.L. After Sim died, Lee and his siblings lived with their grandparents and aunts and uncles. In a letter Lee wrote late in his life detailing his early days, he says he “made his last crop” with Uncle Bill in 1911 when it began to dawn on him he might be in the way as they had a family of 3 boys, though he was much older than them. Pappy always had a fond place in his heart for Carter, who lived with them in Terrell for a while. Carter had 2 brothers, Sherman, who died in 1924 at the age of 24, and Amos, pictured above. These must be the three boys that he referenced in his letter. Curiously, Pappy calls their father ‘Uncle Bill’, but their father’s name was George Sterling Whitt. The only offspring of John Whitt I could find named William Whitt was born in 1838 from his second wife, and he would have been far too old to have 3 young boys in 1911. . (Polly Merrell, John Watson Whitt’s third wife, bore eleven children.)

12. A page from the 1910 census shows that George S. and Ada Whitt had three sons – Amos, Sherman, and Carter. Also living with them were George’s mother Polly and a nephew, Walter L Whitt, who would leave for Texas the next year. Use your ‘zoom’ feature to zoom in on the data on the chart. W.L. Whitt became known as Lee around Terrell, and through a connection he obtained a job at the Terrell State Hospital, where he began working and saving his money and investing it in real estate. He was a successful businessman by the time his sons Eugene and Paul were born.

13. Walter Lee Whitt, Pearl Whitt, HurshallTaffer, Annie Hancock

14. Walter Lee, Paul, Eugene, and Pearl Whitt

15. Paul (left) and Eugene Whitt circa 1920

16. Eugene & Paul Whitt • At the house on Brin & San Jacinto, Terrell, TX - “San Jacinto side”

17. Paul and Eugene Whitt

18. J. A. Stephens, Eugene Whitt, Paul Whitt, Lola Stephens, Maxine Taffer • (Notice the bit of Corbett Taffer resemblance in Maxine?)

19. May, Cytnthia, and Sarah Taffer – Hoosie’s cousins – his mother was a Tafferand these are his first cousins.

20. Walter Lee Whitt Eugene’s father (1888-1962) at the East End Grocery, a business he bought in 1927, and later sold to H.E. Smith. Eugene later bought the store after a career in the newspaper industry and ran it until his retirement in 1975.

21. Arthur P. Stephens, Ella Stephens, Walter Whitt, and Annie Pearl Whitt • Ella was Hoosie’s aunt, Pearl’s sister.

22. W. L. Whitt (with Fibber) , Paul Edward, and Pearl Whitt

23. (Front) Jim Taffer, Aunt Mina, Aunt Bill, (Back) Uncle Bud, Clara, Minnie, Corb These were Pappy’s brothers and sisters-in-law. He had a saying about them. Jim and Frances Taffer