Eugene and Mary Whitt – 50 plus years together
Title #
Title
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
# Slides
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 also bore 4 children, the 2nd of whom
was Simeon, Eugene’s grandfather.
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.
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).
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 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 – young
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.
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.
Carter Whitt
In any case, the Whitt resemblance
is there, and I can clearly see it
in Bob Whitt’s features.
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.)
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.
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 Whitt
At 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 the bit of Corbett Taffer resemblance 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 Whitt
Ella was Hoosie’s aunt, Pearl’s sister.
W. L. Whitt (with Fibber) , Paul Edward, and Pearl Whitt
(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