family project of mary and eugene whitt

Title # Title # Slides

Chapter 1 Eugene’s Ancestors and His Early Days

Chapter 2 Mary Annice’s Ancestors and Early Days

Chapter 3 Their college years and early married life

Chapter 4 Kids – Judy

Chapter 5 Kids – Jeff

Chapter 6 Kids – Jack

Chapter 7 Kids – James

Chapter 8 Grandkids and miscellaneous

Eugene and Mary Whitt – 50 plus years together

Chapter 1 Eugene’s Ancestors and early

days

Descendants of David WHITT

1. 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.

2. 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 bore 11 children, the 2nd of whom was Simeon, Eugene’s grandfather. (JWW put a lot of players into the game of life!)

3. Simeon (Sim) WHITT was born on 2 Dec 1857. He died on 10 Nov 1897. He was buried in Smith Cemetery, Lincoln Co., TN. Sim and 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.

4. 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.

5. 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.

Asa Whitt as a child.

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 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.

Asa Whitt

Walter Lee WhittJune 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.

This sheet from the Census of 1900 shows where Bill Whitt took in his mother Polly, two nephews and a neice, and also had a brother Jack living with him and his wife and son.

Carter Whitt

In December of 2008 we gatheredall the photos we could of our family to put this together.

It was written on this picture that it was of W.L. Whitt (Eugene’s father), but I’m sure this is Carter Whitt.

I remember Hoosie talking about this picture when I very young and he said it was a picture of Carter Whitt. Further proof is the resemblance to his brother Amos, on the next slide.

In any case, the Whitt resemblance is there, and can clearly be seen in Bob Whitt’s features.

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 are the three boys thathe referenced in his letter. Curiously, Pappy calls their father ‘Uncle Bill’, but their father’sname was George Sterling Whitt. The only offspring of John Whitt I could find named WilliamWhitt was born in 1838 from his second wife, and he would have been far too old to have 3young boys in 1911. . (Polly Merrell, John Watson Whitt’s third wife, bore eleven children.)

Amos, brotherof Carter Whitt, (see the 13th

census slide)son of GeorgeSterling Whitt,nephew of SimWhitt, 1st cousinto W.L.

Walter Lee Whitt, Pearl Whitt, Hurshall Taffer, Annie Hancock

Walter Lee, Paul, Eugene, and Pearl Whitt

Paul (left) and Eugene Whitt circa 1920

Eugene & Paul WhittAt the house on Brin & San Jacinto, Terrell, TX - “San Jacinto side”

Paul and Eugene Whitt

J. A. Stephens, Eugene Whitt, Paul Whitt, Lola Stephens, Maxine Taffer

(Notice a bit of resemblance to Corbett Taffer in Maxine?)

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

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.

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

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

Jim and Frances Taffer (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.

From the 1939 yearbook of Texas Tech – Hoosie was the business manager of the Toreador, the college newspaper. Both he and Mary were journalism majors.

The next slide shows they were officers in the Press Association.

They first met in a journalism class, where Hoosie sat behind Mary (White and Whitt are alphabetical neighbors). The first time she met him she didn’t like him at all.

I’m sure glad that he persevered.

Eugene (left) somewhere in the European Theatre of Operations in WWII. He was in the 16th Tank Destroyers outfit. Was busted a couple of times for insurbordination. Wrote for the “Stars and Stripes”, the military newspaper, while serving.

Eugene Whitt, Editor of Terrell Tribune 1947

Upon graduation from college, Mary and Eugene moved to Clovis, New Mexico and begantheir careers in journalism.World War II eventually alteredtheir lives in a big way. Hoosiewas initially turned down whenhe tried to join the army (due to flat feet) but was later allowed to join. Mary followedhim and worked in a steno pool and various other stateside capacities for the military while Hoosie served in the ETO.

Thankfully, Hoosie made it back home, and they began raising a family with the birth of JudithAnn Whitt in 1945. GeoffreyRichmond Whitt was born in 1947 followed by Jack Lenoir in1951 and finally, James Dyer in1953.

They both remained in the news-paper business as Hoosie waseditor of the Terrell Daily Index

and later the Terrell Tribune. Eugene never didlike working for someone else, and in the early 1950’she bought into the East EndGrocery, located just outsidethe main gate of the TerrellState Hospital. This was in the days before supermarketchains were so dominant. Mary continued reporting forTribune and part time for the Dallas Morning News. She later went to work as a socialworker for the Terrell State Hospital and loved it. She wasa natural at it, being the type of person who loved helpingpeople.

Both were very politically active, and Hoosie later served as mayor of Terrell. Mary was Kaufman County Republican Chairperson for a number of years.

Eugene and Paul with their mother Annie Pearl Whitt on her 95th birthday celebration.

Eugene “Hoosie” Whitt with Jordan and Jamie Whitt - 1984

Eugene “Hoosie” Whitt with grandaughter Jaclyn at age of 71 (1987).

Annie Pearl Taffer Whitt – W. L. Whitt’s “Cook”

This is a letter we found some years after Walter Lee Whitt’s death. It was written (and evidently never mailed) to an old schoolmaster he had when he was living near Elkmont Springs, Tennessee.

As he mentions in the letter, he and his brother and sister were orphaned at young ages and lived with aunts and uncles.

The letter provides a wonderful glimpse into how different life was back then. In 1850, farm population comprised about 64% of the nation’s workers. In 1910, over 30% of the population was involved in farming. Lee talks about ‘making his last crop’ before heading to Texas.

Lee’s grandad and grandmother (John & Polly Whitt) referenced in the letter.

Here he talks about ‘making a crop every year’ and how they would go to school for two months in the summer and three months in the winter.

Asa had a son who was in the newspaper business (editor of the Nashville Tennessean). Lee’s son Eugene was editor of the Terrell Daily Index and the Terrell Tribune.

See the page from the 1910 census (next slide) which shows Lee and his mother living in this household.

Lee had three cousins in this family – Sherman, Amos, and Carter. Carter later moved to Texas and lived with Lee and his family before establishing his own residence and family. He was fond of Carter who was the closest relative he had. He says in the letter that he hated to leave and that Uncle Bill’s boys ‘were like brothers to me’.

See the slide of a young Amos and older Amos.

There is also a slide of Carter as a young man.

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.

Paul Edward Whitt

Mary Annice White’s 1939

college yearbook photo

This was found in an old picture album

with the inscription “I love you, Momma”

on the back. (From her collegedays.)

Mary AnniceWhite Whitt

Halfrey Dyer White (Mary Whitt’s elder brother)

Garrie (my Grandpa White) and his two sisters.

Any names or embellishments on any of these pictureswould be appreciated.

Lovita White and her daughter Willie Ruth

I’m guessing this is Donald White (of course it’s H.D. White holding him)Anyone have a copy of this picture with some information on it?

Garrie White (Mrannice’s father) with Charles,Donald, and Bob White.

Willie White with Willie Ruth White and(baby) Judy Whitt - 1945

Garrie White and Aunt Osea with Judy Whitt

I haven’t a clue about who’s in this picture. Anyone?

Four Generations of Whites

Martha E. White, GarrieWhite, Halfrey Dyer

White, and Wille Ruth White (on the pillow).

Is Grandpa’s name spelled correctly? Is it Garrie?

Martha Jane (Nunnelly) White (Mrs. James W. White, Mother

of Garrie White, who was father

of Mary Annice (White) Whitt, H.D. White, and Jim White.

80 Years Old in 1936

Willie Pearl Dyer White - 1935

Mary White from the 1939 Texas Tech Yearbook

Mrannice located herself for us from her college annual.

Mother was always avidly involved in politics. Here’s a shot fromher college yearbook. In her later years, the Republican Women ofKaufman County gave her a really moving tribute that included videos and letters from Ronald Reagan and George Bush (41),among other notables. I’ll post some clips from that on youtube.Knowing her and all she did behind the scenes, the tribute was well-deserved. Her resolve for her beliefs was incredible.

Jim and Gerrie White (Mrannice’s brother and sister-in-law)

Dyer Family Reunion, 1959

Willie Pearl White with her sons Jim and Dyer

There is more to come, as this is a work in progress. Other things keep popping up and getting in the way of me finishing this. If you have ideas of what you’d like to see (the next thing I’m going to do is scan pictures of my siblings after I finish with Mother’s section), let me know.

Check on the progress at JackWhitt.com/whittfamilygeneology

I should have a place to leave comments / suggestions / questions soon.