Thanks for sharing this photo of Union Hill School. My father, Sidney
Albert Pitts, was born in 1901 in
Cooper, Delta County Texas. He
lived in Jack County
Texas from 1901 to 1905, then lived in Butcher Knife (Old
Atlee, Jefferson Co.)
Indian Territory Oklahoma from 1905 to 1914, and then moved
to Park Springs Texas and then to Oklahoma City. He attended Union Hill School from about
1906 to about 1911 and then attended school in Park Springs Texas.
I thought you might be interested in some of the
recollections of my
father during his time in and near
Wise County. This is an excerpt
from his story which was recorded
in July 1997 and transcribed after
his death in Nov 1997.
Dave Pitts
Houston TX
The following is the life story of Sidney Albert Pitts as
verbally told
to his son David Eugene Pitts in
July 1997.
I was named by Grandpa Wright who told my
mother (Lizzie Pitts) that if
he could name me, he would buy me a
suit of clothes when I was 10 years
old). So I was named for General Albert Sidney
Johnston in the
confederate army. But Grandpa Wright died on January 22,
1910 before I
was 10, so I never received my new
suit of clothes. Albert Sidney
Johnston was a great confederate general, but was killed on
the first
day of the battle of Shiloh when he
was shot in the leg and bled to
death. The wound could easily have been treated
with a tourniquet, but
he had sent his surgeon off to
treat Union soldiers.
My earliest memory was when my brother Roy was crawling
around with
some food on his hands (this was in
Jack County Texas) and a pig came
up and started eating his hands
off. Roy was two years younger than
me.
On the fourth of July 1905 in Chico Texas a picnic was held
involving
the Pitts, Robertsons
and Wrights and my grandfather Robert Henry Pitts
and Thomas Samuel (Tom) Pitts (son
of John Pittman Pitts) got into an
argument. My father (Than) stepped between them
and cut Tom Pitts
belly open with his pocket knife
(but Tom recovered and they were good
friends later). My father ended up in jail over this
incident and was
wearing a white shirt with red
stripes when he got out of jail.
Uncle
John Wright was the sheriff of Jefferson county and Atlee
(Oklahoma),
and Uncle John, Uncle Bill (William
Hartwell Pitts), and Uncle Sam
Robinson went to Chico and bailed my father out of jail and
took him to
Oklahoma territory. This was in 1905 and Oklahoma wasn't a
state yet
so the Texas authorities couldn't
get him in Oklahoma (Oklahoma became
a state in 1907). Tom Pitts had a boy named Kimsey who was mean as
hell and a little older than
me. Alma and I visited Kimsey and his
wife in about 1970.
I played baseball, basketball, and hide and seek as a
boy. I was
pretty good at basketball at Union
Hill School (a little north and west
of Park Springs Texas). I played guard on the Park Springs high
school
boys basketball team while still in
grade school (fourth or fifth
grade). The Roach boy was the center since he
was almost 7 feet tall.
The team never lost a game.
Uncle Monk (Sidney's brother) had typhoid fever when we
lived at Park
Springs Texas and everybody thought he was going to
die. Because he
was sick, Monk got fresh
oranges. Sam said he really wanted
one of
those oranges. I had whooping cough in the spring of
one year, when we
were living at Park Springs. Everybody in the family had the whooping
cough, but it almost killed
me. Monk had typhoid fever. We also had
mumps and chicken pox. I don't remember going to a doctor until
after
I moved to Oklahoma City. A lot of people died from the flu in
this
time period.
Uncle Bill Pitts (Uncle Bill and Aunt Fannie) moved to Indiahoma in
1916 from Texas. They lived between Alvoid
and Chico on a farm in
Texas near old man Lewis (Doug) Anderson, Dooley Anderson's (John
Louis Anderson's) father. Dooley's brothers were Doug and Jack.
Union Hill was the school I attended until I was about 10 or
11 years
old, then I went to Park Springs to
school. They had a well at Union
Hill, but no electricity. School would start about 8 in the
morning
and last until about 3 pm. Everybody brought their lunch, and
sometimes we would trade
lunches. I remember some of the
names of the
people I went to school with at
Union Hill: McKinney, Raney,
Huckabee,
Ashford, and Wine.
Ralph Wine was a buddy of mine.
There were about a
dozen kids in my class. The wife of a son of Aunt Sook Pitts Robinson
was our teacher at Union Hill
(Lillian Killough Robinson, the wife of
Dick (Richard) Robinson was the last teacher at this school
near the
Red Bud Church according to page 61 of "A History of
Wise County - A
Link with the Past"). I went to singing school at Union Hill
with my
brother Roy. I sang tenor and Roy sang alto. There were 4 or 5 total
singers and a pianist. I finished the fourth or fifth grade of
school.
All the Pitts brothers and sisters were good in school. I won a
spelling bee at Union Hill
School. One girl cried when I beat
her in
the spelling bee. I was embarrassed in school once when
the teacher
made me stand on one foot as
punishment for laughing in class.
Ralph Wines and I left home in Park Springs and went to Waxahatchie TX
for our first job (off the farm) in
1916 or 1917 where a crew was
dredging the Trinity river and
building dams. We stayed in the
Trinity
river campsite and the foreman each
morning would wake the crew by
yelling Waxahatchie
Texas just like we were arriving on the train.
My mother and father (Than and Lizzie Pitts) went to bed
early and got
up early each day. When I first started running around at
night
(dating in Park Springs), and I
would come home about 11 pm, my mother
(Lizzie) would have an old blue half gallon pitcher full of
buttermilk
sitting on the kitchen table for me
to drink. When I dated, we usually
went for a walk, but occasionally
we would go in Ralph Wine's car.
My dad loved to go squirrel hunting, but didn't care much
for fishing.
When I was growing up I didn't have the opportunity to hunt
and fish
very much.
When my family lived on the Lightner
Place outside of old Park Springs
Texas and we were farming, we cut
wood and sold it by the cord. One
time Newman Porter (brother of Doc
Porter) and Clyde and Joe Scantlin
came by and they had a
shotgun. I was sawing wood with Roy
and
Granddad Pitts was splitting the wood and Clyde Scantlin came up an
grabbed the saw and started sawing
and Newman Porter snuck up behind
Clyde and hit him in the back of the head with the double
bed ax and
knocked him out just as cold as
kraut. This was about 1915 when I
was
about 14 years old.
When I was about 17 years old Hayden Huckabee and Less Ashforge wanted
to go to Oklahoma on their bicycles
and get work in a broomcorn field.
They asked me to buy a bicycle and ride from Park Spring
Texas to
Lindsey Oklahoma.
We finally ended up at Uncle Lloyd Wright's house at
old Butcher Knife and then we went
to Waurika, but never worked a day.
We slept in a big old watermelon patch just north of the Red
River
bridge close to Ryan and Ringland, and Waurika and we had watermelon
for breakfast. I blew out my tire and didn't have
enough money to fix
it, so Less and Hayden pooled their
money and put me on the train to go
home. I had worn out the soles of my shoes
peddling the bicycle, so
when I got off the train I took off
my shoes and walked the rest of the
way home barefooted.
In those days when the children lost their baby teeth they
just spit
them out.
My father was pretty strict, he would just tell us children
one time
then he would use the razor strop
on us. I helped mom wash the
clothes, and make biscuits, and
cook since I was the oldest and Gladys
(my sister) was too little to help.
The family cut our own hair most of the time, but
occasionally we went
to a barber shop. I first visited a barbershop for a
haircut in Park
Springs. We
walked 4 miles into town to go to the barbershop or to go
to school. My first haircut and shave cost 15 cents
total.
When I was growing up, a 48 pound sack of flour would only
last my
family one week. My mother made hot biscuits and gravy
every day.
Uncle Lloyd Wright and Aunt Addie Pitts Wright came from old
Butcher
Knife to Park Springs and visited us, and we lived in a 3
room house,
but no one thought anything was
unusual (no fusses). Even though
there
were a lot of people in the house,
there weren't any problems. Rufe
Pitts (F. B. Pitts brother) gave Uncle Monk his name because
he was
always monkeying around with
something. Rufe
Pitts and dad (N. T.
Pitts) used to squirrel hunt on Mud Creek. At this point Uncle F. B.
Pitts wasn't married as yet and was wilder than a march hare. He
would
visit us in Park Springs from time
to time. One time we went to old
Cumbie swimming hole (southeast of
Park Springs near Cumbie cemetery
and Cumbie
church) on Pringle Stream. Uncle
Monk was always tagging
along with the older boys. They picked him up and threw him out in
the
water and he swam out. That is how Monk learned how to
swim. Uncle
Roy always played with the girls. I always got along best with Monk
even though Roy and I were closest
in age 2 years. Sam and Bill were
smaller. Roy and I worked on the crops in the
family's farm and when I
was 16 and Roy was 14 we each got
our first share of the crop (1917).
Ralph Wines went to Ft. Worth and bought a new Ford Model T
for about
$500.00 and I learned to drive it when I was in school at
Union Hill.
I had to walk 2 miles to school. I first started dating girls when I
was going to Union Hill
School. Ralph Wines,
myself, and two girls got
in that Model T and drove to
Sunset. When we got to Sunset,
Ralph said
to me "you can drive
home". I had never driven
before. Ralph put his
coat on the side of the car and a
limb caught the coat and we had to
stop and go back and get it. Our mail box
was out of Sunset, so a lot
of people thought my family lived
at Sunset Texas. The mail was
delivered to a box in front of the
house by a postman driving a buggy.
There was a well in the middle of Park Springs. You could either drink
water there or water your
horse. Our house was about 4 miles
outside
Park Springs.
The Rock Island Railroad came through Park Springs and
there was a depot there. There were two stores in Park Springs
and
they had a cemetery there which
still exists. Park Springs Texas is
about 15 miles from Bridgeport
Texas.
I made a slingshot and went squirrel hunting with Dad. One time I hit
Dad with the slingshot. He wasn't happy. These slingshots were ones
that you twirled around your
head. Only later did we make
slingshots
with rubber from inner tubes and a
forked stick. Monk and I killed
rabbits with this type.
My first date was with May Huckabee when I was at the Union
Hill School
at Park Springs. I was about 15 or 16 years old.
I remembered that President Wilson tried to keep us out of
World War
One. I remember
when the first world war was over (Nov. 11, 1918) and
people were hollering and
singing. This was in Park Springs
Texas.
West of Bridgeport, 1918 - 1919
Uncle Roy and I went work when we moved to Bridgeport Texas
in 1918.
Glady's, Sam and Monk went to
school at Bridgeport at a schoolhouse
near Mr. Ross' place (Alma's
father). The Ross family lived
about 6
miles west of Bridgeport Texas
right next to a spur of the Rock Island
Railroad which went to Jacksboro
Texas. They had old crank
telephones
at the time we moved to Bridgeport
TX. I hauled cattle an old truck to
the Ft. Worth Stock Yards.
There was a croquet court in Bridgeport Texas. My grandfather Robert
Henry Pitts lived near the court and used to play croquet
all the time.
He would always
cheat by moving the location where the ball went out
of bounds to a location more to his
advantage. He was quite old at
this time, so everybody let him do
this. He always hit the ball
between his legs. Everybody used to tie their
horses in front of
Mack's Mercantile store right on main
street in Bridgeport TX.
There
was a motion picture show (15 cents)
and a skating rink in Bridgeport
at that time. I remember seeing Charlie Chaplin in the
silent movies
there. They had a piano or organ which they
would play when the movie
was being shown. They sold popcorn at the theater. Later they paved
the streets.
I was 18 years old when my family lived to the Old Brown
place which
was one of the nicest places we
ever lived. It was west of
Bridgeport
along the Rock Island spur that
went to Jacksboro, near the Ross farm
and a little schoolhouse. When we lived on the Brown place,
Granddad
(Robert Henry) Pitts went down to the Trinity River to fish
and he came
back he had 6 to 8 pound channelcat.
"He was so nervous he couldn't
hardly do anything. Poor old fellow."
Gladys Pitts (my sister) and Lloyd Ross (Alma's brother) dated some,
but the Pitts family moved to
Snyder OK and Aunt Gladys met Dooley
Anderson and she was only 14 when
they got married (Feb. 12, 1922).
Aunt Addie Pitts Wright married when she was very young too,
so this
was not that uncommon in those
days.
I remember one of my dogs, Ole Shep
in Bridgeport before we moved to
Tipton. I
accidentally put Ole Shep's eye out with a shotgun
when I
was rabbit hunting. He felt really bad about that, but Shep recovered.
I had my appendix removed in 1919 in Bridgeport Texas by Dr.
Buckner.
I remember while I was in Bridgeport at a makeshift
hospital (upstairs
next to the BB Jewelry store, east
of Poor Drug store) that they kept a
light burning all the time. After the first night I got up out of
bed
and turned the light off so I could
sleep. Bill (Skinny) Pitts'
appendix ruptured and he almost
died (about 1917). After it was removed
he had a knot on his stomach the
rest of his life.
My first horse's name was Doc and he was a pacer. This was when I was
at Bridgeport. Then I got Dime. They were both plow horses. I would
go out in the field where they were
grazing and get on Doc and Dime
would follow. Uncle Bill (Will Hartwell Pitts) knew
the owner of Doc
and Dime and that is how I came to
buy them. We went to Pleasant
Valley to singing school and to plays. I bought a horse (old Dan,
another pacer) and buggy in
1919. I would sometime fall asleep
and old
Dan would take the buggy and me home.
There was a party at the school near the Ross place and I
saw Alma and
thought she was pretty and I told
someone "I want to meet that young
lady" and it wasn't long
before I did. Alma was living in
Oklahoma
City with Ita Ross (her sister) in
a house (used to be the old MacNab
house) owned by Ita
and her father in 1920. Alma was
going to Central
High School at this time. I was 19 and she was 18.
After the broomcorn job didn't pan out, I went back to farming,
until I
went to Ft. Worth to join the Navy
in 1919 or 1920. I was sent to
Dallas to take a medical test and they found that I had the
"crabs" and
I used brightwork polish to kill
them. I returned to Dallas to board
the train to Great Lakes Naval Training
Station (in Illinois near the
Wisconsin border). I was wearing a large black velour
cowboy hat and
everybody called me Tex. This was in the summer and I enjoyed the
pleasant weather in Illinois and
spent 3 months there. I then got
leave and came home and Alma and I
got married (Aug. 3, 1921), and I
then went back to the Great Lakes
Naval Training Station. We got
married at the preacher's house in
Bridgeport while sitting in a buggy
when I was 20 years old and Alma
was 19 years old. Alma and I first
lived with my parents at the Brown
place. I then went back into the
service and Alma stayed with her
parents until I got out of the Navy.
When my training was complete at the Great Lakes Naval
Training Station
I caught a troop train to the west coast (Oakland
California). We
played poker with match sticks the
entire trip because no one had any
money. I was a fireman and was afraid I would
get one of the two coal
burning Battleships that were left
in the fleet: U. S. S. Texas and U.
S. S. New York.
But I was assigned the U. S. S. Idaho (a flagship)
which was an oil burner (15 burners
on each boiler). It was much
easier work as a fireman on an oil
burner. We maneuvered in the
Pacific and one time I saw a big whale spraying water and
doing tail
slaps. We took shore leave in San Diego and
Long Beach California and
another time we got close enough to
the Panama Canal that I could see
it, but we didn't sail through
it. I wasn't in the Navy very long
because World War One was over, so
I put in for a discharge and it was
granted on Dec. 6, 1921. I went into the Navy at 19 years old and
got
out of the navy at 20 and 1/2 years
old. I was on the Idaho about 1
year when I was discharged in San
Diego California I caught the train
to Bridgeport Texas where I picked
up Alma and caught another train to
our new home north of Tipton
Oklahoma.
The wheat farmers around Chattanooga were the only ones with
money. My
family would sell them watermelons
and beef that we slaughtered in the
field. Uncle Bill and Aunt Fanny (William Hartwell
Pitts and Sarah
Francis Robinson Pitts) lived nearby in Park Springs and Gus
was their
son. Gus would come over and go swimming with
us to Pringle Stream
every Sunday morning. Dad told us we had to stop that and go
to Church
on Sunday morning. My mother cooked big meals every day,
and we had
our own orchard, chickens, pigs,
and milk cows. Uncle Robert Pitts
(Dad's brother) came to our house one time and we had some big
ole
wagon sheets on the roof. A wind storm came up and blew one of the
rocks off the roof and it hit Uncle
Robert in the head. Uncle Robert's
wife died in 1913 and he became a
wanderer. Fred Arnold went with
him.
My family
raised cotton and peanuts on the farm as cash crops. Corn,
wheat, and other crops were grown
for use on the farm. In the spring
one year, I caught the whooping
cough and almost died.
After Alma and I were married, Mr. Ross would trade sacks of
wheat at
Decatur for flour. I had to milk the cows and feed the
horses every
morning. One year we raised a big bunch of cow
peas and filled a
complete building with the
peas. Everybody ate cow peas, the animals
and the family members.
Back when I was a boy I wore Bib overalls and regular
shoes. When I
would ride a horse I wore chaps to
protect my legs. I never wore boots
until I moved to Oklahoma
City. Alma had a riding habit which we would
call slacks now. The women then would ride a horse just
like a man.
When the women would dress up some would wear high topped shoes.
I
didn't have a swim suit, so I would
swim in my overalls or my birthday
suit.
When Alma and I lived in Bridgeport TX we had a telephone
which was a
party line and they answered to
three long rings. Other people on
the
party line were the Ramsey's,
Ross', Hadley's, Johnson's (not Aunt
Sadie's husband: Jim Johnson) and several more families.
Sidney A. Pitts, 1997