Title #Title# Slides Chapter 1Eugene’s Ancestors and His Early Days Chapter 2Mary Annice’s Ancestors and Early Days Chapter 3Their college years and early married life Chapter 4Kids – Judy Chapter 5Kids – Jeff Chapter 6Kids – Jack Chapter 7Kids – James Chapter 8Grandkids 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 1 st 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 3 rd wife also bore 4 children, the 2 nd of whom was Simeon, Eugene’s grandfather.John Watson WHITT 3. Simeon (Sim) WHITT was born on 2 Dec He died on 10 Nov He was buried in Smith Cemetery, Lincoln Co., TN. Sim and his 1 st wife had 2 children, one of whom was Asa (depicted in this presentation). His 1 st wife died in 1885, and in 1886, he married Minnie Louella Morrell in Giles County, TN. Minnie was born on 13 Sep She died on 1 Oct 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.Simeon (Sim) WHITT 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 Herschel Eugene Whitt married Mary Annice White in Terrell, TX on 2 March, They had 4 kids, Judith Anne, Geoffrey Richmond, Jack Lenoir, and James Dyer Whitt.

John and Polly Whitt had 11 children, one of whom was Simeon “Sim” Whitt, who lived to the age of 40 when he died in 1897 from an accident in the sawmill of which he was a part owner in Elkmont Springs. He left behind Asa and 2 children from his first wife and 2 other children(Ellis Eugene and Walter Lee) from his second wife who predeceased him in The last thing he told his kids was “whatever happens, be good children”. The earliest ancestor we can identify of Eugene’s is David WHITT, born in 1770 in VA. He died after 1850 in TN. He was buried in Smith Cemetery, Lincoln Co., TN. The third of the three children born to David and his first wife was John Watkins Whitt, born on the day his mother died – 1 Jan John and his 2 nd wife Mary (Polly) MERRELL are shown below. She was born on 11 Oct 1830 in SC. She died on 17 Oct 1912 in Lincoln Co., TN. She was buried in Malone Cemetery, Lincoln Co., TN. The Whitt Family This photo was given to Matt Whitt and the couple was identified as “James Watson (probably John) and Mary Polly Whitt”. If so, they were Eugene’s great grandparents. He was told that this was taken about 1850, but that would have meant John was 34 and Polly was 20 at the time of the photo. Polly lived out her last years with her son George Sterling Whitt.

This photo was identified as this couple being (probably mistakenly) Eugene’s great grandparents James Watson and Mary Polly Whitt, taken about 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 ( ), 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 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 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 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.

Carter Whitt 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.

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 (Polly Merrell, John Watson Whitt’s third wife, bore eleven children.) Amos, brother of Carter Whitt, (see the 13 th census slide) son of George Sterling Whitt, nephew of Sim Whitt, 1 st cousin to W.L.

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 ( ) 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

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.