A Letter about Life in the 1800's - Added a letter from Eugene's father (born in 1888). Offers interesting perspective on how life was then versus now.

1. 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

2. Chapter 1
Eugene’s Ancestors and early days

3. 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 to 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 saw that wasn’t disinfected) 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.

4. 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
surely loved his brother Asa.

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 Whitt

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. Carter Whitt
In December of 2008 we gathered
all the photos we could of our
family to put this together.
It was mistakenly written on this
picture that it was of W.L. Whitt
(Eugene’s father), but this is a picture
of Carter Whitt.
I remember Hoosie talking about this
picture when I very young and he
noted what a dapper dresser Carter
Whitt was.
Note the resemblance to his brother
Amos, on the next slide.
The Whitt resemblance is there, and in
our generation it can clearly be seen in
Bob Whitt’s features.

10. 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 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.)
Amos, brother
of Carter Whitt,
(see the 13th
census slide)
son of George
Sterling Whitt,
nephew of Sim
Whitt, 1st cousin
to W.L.

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

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

13. Paul (left) and Eugene Whitt circa 1920

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

15. Paul and Eugene Whitt

16. J. A. Stephens, Eugene Whitt, Paul Whitt, Lola Stephens, Maxine Taffer
(Notice a bit of resemblance to Corbett Taffer in Maxine?)

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

18. 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.

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

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

22. 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.

23. I don’t have a clue who any of these people are, but this picture was mixed
in with a bunch of the Taffers. I’d appreciate receiving any information
about these people if anyone has it. There were literally hundreds of
photos like this (and much older) in the box Jeff had that I sifted through.
All of them taken of people dressed up or gathered together for a special
occasion. But we know nothing about any of them as there was no
information on the back. How sad.

24. 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.
Hoosie was always a
reprobate. He later served
with the 16th Tank
Destroyers Group in WWII
and was twice busted for
insubordination. He wrote
for the Stars and Stripes,
the military newspaper.
I do remember him being a
really, really good editorial
writer. He had a knack for
stating his point and closing
it with an iron-clad
summative statement. If he
had spent one tenth of the
time writing that he spent
reading, he would have
been a prolific writer. He
was an incredibly voracious
reader all his life. I
remember in his very last
days, he sat up and tried to
read, but his body just
wouldn’t allow it anymore.
I felt so sorry for him. He
loved his books.

25. From the 1939 Texas Tech Yearbook. They made a nice couple.

26. 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.

27. Eugene Whitt, Editor of Terrell Tribune 1947
Upon graduation from college,
Mary and Eugene moved to
Clovis, New Mexico and began
their careers in journalism.
World War II eventually altered
their lives in a big way. Hoosie
was initially turned down when
he tried to join the army (due
to flat feet) but was later
allowed to join. Mary followed
him 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 Judith
Ann Whitt in 1945. Geoffrey
Richmond Whitt was born in
1947 followed by Jack Lenoir in
1951 and finally, James Dyer in
1953.
They both remained in the news-
paper business as Hoosie was
editor of the Terrell Daily Index
and later the Terrell
Tribune. Eugene never did
like working for someone
else, and in the early 1950’s
he bought into the East End
Grocery, located just outside
the main gate of the Terrell
State Hospital. This was in
the days before supermarket
chains were so dominant.
Mary continued reporting for
Tribune and part time for the
Dallas Morning News. She
later went to work as a social
worker for the Terrell State
Hospital and loved it. She was
a natural at it, being the type
of person who loved helping
people.
Both were very politically
active, and Hoosie later
served as mayor of Terrell.
Mary was Kaufman County
Republican Chairperson for
a number of years.

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

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

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

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

32. 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.

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

35. 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.

36. 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.

37. 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.

38. 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.

45. Paul Edward Whitt

46. Mary
Annice
White
Whitt

49. Halfrey Dyer White (Mary Whitt’s elder brother)

50. Garrie (my Grandpa White) and his two sisters.
Any names or
embellishments on
any of these pictures
would be appreciated.

51. Lovita White and her daughter Willie Ruth

52. 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?

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

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

55. Garrie White and Aunt Osea with Judy Whitt

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

57. Four Generations
of Whites
Martha E. White, Garrie
White, Halfrey Dyer
White, and Wille Ruth
White (on the pillow).
Is Grandpa’s name
spelled correctly? Is it
Garrie?

58. 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

59. Willie Pearl Dyer White - 1935

60. Mary White from the 1939 Texas Tech Yearbook

61. Mrannice located herself for us from her college annual.

62. Mother was always avidly involved in politics. Here’s a shot from
her college yearbook. In her later years, the Republican Women of
Kaufman 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.

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

65. Dyer Family Reunion, 1959

66. Willie Pearl White with her sons Jim and Dyer

67. 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.