Edited by
Wally Howerton
Contributing Editors
John F. Howerton
Bryan R. Howerton
Volume Nine, Issue 1 Winter 2005
FROM THE EDITOR
Greeting Cousins:
As many of you have noticed, the Howerton Heritage Newsletters are including more and more current events. Some folk may wonder if we are straying from the original mission of writing about our Howerton Heritage. NOT SO! After speaking extensively with Bryan, we decided that writing or submitting recent Howerton articles was/is still in the best interest of our mission of providing accurate, factual historical background information about our kin.
We will continue to provide our readers with "accurate, factual historical background information." Unfortunately, most people must think we have a crystal ball that enables us to receive factual data about Howertons. I assure you, we do not! The database that we share was compiled after 40+ years of hard work by researchers Bryan and John Howerton just to name a few. Many other people have contributed over the years.
We will always enthusiastically encourage anyone to submit "accurate, factual historical background information." We still reserve the right as to what will be published in the Newsletters.
After saying all that, I'm sure that many of our readers have articles that they could submit. Obituaries are very important to us. I'm very appreciative of Lorene Howerton Lawrence who always submits a couple of obituaries every year. (I believe she does have a crystal ball.) There are always stories of our Howerton service women and men. Remember, what we write today is our Howerton Heritage!
You'll find some interesting reading about SSG John T. Howerton. I almost made a mistake and incorporated both articles in to one but luckily I had sense enough to see that they needed to be printed separately. Do read them in order. Coming from a military background myself I know that citations, official reports, and newspapers only tell part of the story. As Paul Harvey would say, "Now you know the rest of the story!" Special thanks to Bryan and his family for getting a bit more information than I could through my sources.
Haven't heard of any reunions lateley. Sure could use some stories and pictures .
See you in the spring!
Wally
Missing Howertons - We Need Your Help
Team Leader's Battle Actions Honored with Bronze Star (Read First)
Staff Sergeant John T Howerton Awarded Bronze Star for Valor
Coy R Howerton May 10, 1913 - December 31, 2004 - Obituary
Donna Howerton Rowatt August 8, 1947 - October 8, 2004 - Obituary
Darrell Glenn Howerton September 7, 1962 - October 8, 2004 - Obituary
A great number of viewers have visited Howerton Heritage website in the past; some have left messages of interest to others and some were probably intended to be preserved by the visitor. Unfortunately, a hacker gained access to the site and all comments and messages recorded on the guest book were lost in the cleanup process. We regret the loss although it was beyond our control. All past visitors to the site who have left messages intended to be preserved are invited to leave the info again. We will systematically review messages left through the guest book and extract those containing information intended to be retained.
THE
GOOD??? OLD DAYS
By Bryan R Howerton
All the articles previously written for the newsletter have focused on individual Howertons or events pertaining to Howertons.I have concentrated on the early Howertons and events they experienced; primarily in the westward expansion of our country. Those early Howertons were a hardy, self-reliant people who generally succeeded in a primitive environment with few personal conveniences. In addition, they were often located on or near the western frontier of civilization in areas where law and order were deficient, if existing at all. I have long admired those ancestors and mentally compared their environment with that in which we live today.
This all again came to mind when I bought a digital camera with several features not available on the older camera. It is more complex and after much study of the manual I finally feel somewhat competent with the most basic features. The main reason I chose the new camera were the lens system which permitted greater definition of photo subjects and the ability to photograph text material that was easily read. This enables the copying of printed material when visiting libraries, archives, etc.
The rapid advancement of technology is amazing when I think of conditions existing when I was a young boy, growing up in the 1920s and 1930s. At that time the most popular camera used by families was the box camera, most commonly made Eastman Kodak and for professional use was a tripod mounted camera that the photographer stood behind, under a black cloth cover when taking a picture. Common non-commercial photos were black and white; some photo shops would paint the original photos if you wished the picture colored. Today you can view your photo immediately after taking it and also preserve it on a computer hard drive or a disk and you can print your own copies of photos in color or black and white.
I was raised in a small town with no water or sewer system, no trash pickup, no gas for home use, unpaved roads and streets and very few people enjoyed electric home lighting available from a recently established local power company. Each home was responsible for its own water supply, which was obtained through a device called a hand pump that was most often located on the back porch of the home. Young boys became familiar with the operation of those pumps, particularly on “laundry” day. That area of the Mississippi delta region had only recently been cleared from an extensive swamp; in fact much of the swamp was still being cleared and drained at that time. The “new ground” cleared from the swamp was very rich and farming was the major industry; primarily cotton. Farmers would leave many of the stumps of large trees standing in the area where cotton was planted, removing them when it was more convenient – often by burning. I remember that the rich soil initially grew cotton plants often taller than a man. The water table was near the surface and a steady supply of water for livestock was readily available with only one or two sections of pipe driven into the ground, topped by a hand pump. A greater number of pipe sections were required to obtain potable water for family use. Cooking was generally done on wood burning kitchen stoves and homes were generally heated in the winter by wood burning heating stoves; although a few homes utilized fireplaces.
I recall the outhouse (or privy) which was an outdoor toilet, normally located as far from the residence as possible with the back facing an alley, which bisected each residential block. Use of that convenience was not exactly pleasant as it was uncomfortably cold in the winter and hot in the summer at which time it was infested with flies, wasps, spiders, yellow jackets and various other insects. Powdered lime was periodically sprinkled over the waste that collected on the ground beneath the “seats”, but did little to control the aroma. About the time I started to school I recall noticing that occasionally the area beneath the toilet seats had been scraped clean. When questioned about that fact, my father explained that the waste was collected from the toilets once each month by the “night soil” man at a cost of 15 cents per month (a fee that was gradually raised to 25 cents by the time I was in high school). I imagined a creature such as the “night soil” man must be some sort of ghoul and never saw him for a few years and then recognized him as a man on my paper route. He would provide that service at night during the hours of about 11:00 p.m. to 4:00 a.m. He had a four wheel wooden wagon which was drawn by a well trained team of mules that pulled the wagon down each alley in town, stopping at each outhouse while the “night soil man” shoveled the waste onto his wagon. I never did learn where he dumped those odious loads.
That area was a good place to grow up. Although the district was unable to provide sports equipment for the schools, we engaged in as many sporting activities for which we had the time. Even before I started school I began playing shinny. I am surprised at the small number of people that have never heard of shinny and even less that engaged in that sport. The game was representative of the time. The country was in the midst of the worst depression in our history but all you needed to play shinny was an empty tin can and a stick with which to hit the can. Any number of boys could play, from two on up to as many as wished to play. Like most boyhood games, boys were chosen to play on one side or the other with the result being that the sides were even in numbers, if not in ability. Small Pet Milk cans were much preferred, but larger cans were used if necessary. Preferred shinny sticks were sections of tree limbs or better yet, the lower portion of a young, straight tree; the shaft trimmed to the desired length including the wooden mass from just above the small roots. The shinny stick with the wooden mass on the striking end was highly prized and could be traded for a pocket knife plus varying numbers of marbles. The game required a large area, usually the school ground but more likely any street or pasture (preferably not used by cows; particularly during the summer when we were barefoot). The object of the game was to drive the can toward the goal line, established at desired distance up to about a half-block in each direction from the beginning point. The game began by two boys facing each other with the can midway between them and upon an agreed count, each would try to drive the can toward the other side’s goal line, with his team members trying to keep the can going in the right direction by constantly hitting it. The opposition continually tried to hit the can in the other direction. The can did not travel well or accurately when new, but after being hit numerous times it became compacted into a solid metal clump about the size of a golf ball or smaller. When reduced in size, the can would travel faster and farther with much more accuracy when hit and hurt much worse if the can hit you. It was a noisy game at any time, but especially in the summer when the players were barefoot and those struck on the toes, feet or shins yelled and grunted. A common sight was boys with perpetually bandaged toes, feet and legs with an occasional bandage on the head or a black eye, which indicated a wild swing by an opponent sometimes without a shinny stick.
Boys prided themselves in accurate use of a slingshot. However, there was not a natural rock in the entire township. At about that time the constant clearing of the swamp area required burning very large piles of trees and brush in order to prepare the ground for planting. As a result firewood required for cooking and heating was becoming scarce and many households began using kerosene stoves for cooking and coal burning stoves for heat in the winter. As a result the junkyard down by the river had a steadily growing number of discarded cast iron cooking and heating stoves. I don’t remember which boy, but one of them suggested that we break up the cast iron stoves into pieces small enough to use in our sling shots. The result was an adequate supply of ammunition; however, because of the surface characteristics of a piece of cast iron the sling shots were no longer very accurate. Even so, the squirrel, rabbit and bird population was reduced considerably. We also had to change the rules for our war games as we could no longer shoot at each other with cast iron slugs as we had done previously when all we had were dirt clods or pieces of corn cobs for ammunition. Somewhere in the mid-1930s science again came to the rescue and it was decided that major roads between towns would be graveled. The original sand/dirt roads were a real mess in wet weather or during snow or sleet storms – cars and trucks were constantly mired so deep on the road that horse or mule teams had to pull them free. In fact, there was one crossroad that had quicksand at one of the corners and was the source of many tales, although I don’t think any of us boys ever witnessed any of those incidents about which the tales were told. As I recall the graveling of the main road began just before school was out for the summer and the old men in town claimed that the boys were removing the gravel from the road faster than the road crews could place in on the road. They just did not seem to appreciate the fact that we thought it was like Christmas in the Spring time, to find so many rocks for our slingshots. Most of the boys carried several cans or buckets of carefully selected gravel to their homes and hid them, to assure a future supply of ammunition for the slingshots.
I was fascinated by the first airplane I remember seeing at about age 4 or 5 years. There was a storm approaching and the wind speed was rapidly increasing. Mother asked me to hold the bag for the clothes pins while she removed the laundry from the drying lines where it had been hung. The storm became a tornado, which broke the clothesline and I recall seeing the clothesline and laundry disappear among the low clouds, much like the tail of a kite. At the same time I saw a bi-wing airplane bouncing around in the rough air. The pilot lost control of the plane and crashed just behind our house, breaking the airframe of the canvas covered fuselage into several pieces. The pilot emerged from the wreckage, dressed in riding pants; shiny knee-high boots; leather jacket, wearing a leather helmet with goggles and carrying a large sack The pilot identified himself as an Army officer engaged in flying the mail and needed to find a telephone in order to report the loss of his aircraft and delay of the mail delivery. We did not have telephone service; in fact, I don’t know whether there was such service in that town at that time. The wreckage from the aircraft lay behind our house for several days and I climbed over it, imagining that I was flying. From that time I began day-dreaming of airplanes and flying.
(NOTE: Above material was extracted from notes I made after several grandchildren repeatedly requested that I write something about my childhood. I encourage other “senior citizens” to recall their childhoods and record notes. Perhaps a section in this newsletter will be reserved for publication of memories of the “good old days” from contributors. BRH)
OLD
LETTERS
Compiled
by Wally Howerton
Just a few letters that I came across in the database that provided some interesting reading:
William Philip Howerton was born in 1849 in Halifax Co, Va; the son of William Matthew Howerton and Adriana E Tucker. William Philip Howerton never married.
To:Capt Philip Howerton
At Home
April 15th, 1861 (3 days after the Civil War began)
Dear Grandpa,
If you are done reading the Inquirer please lend it to me and I will take good care of it. Tell Lizzy she must come to see me. We are all well and send our best love to all of you. I hope you are all well.
Your
Affectionate Grandson
/s/ William Philip Howerton
Harriett Elizabeth Howerton was born 24 Nov 1857 in Raleigh, Wake Co, NC; the daughter of William Matthew Howerton 7-167 and Adriana E Tucker.
6th
Military District Headqtrs
Dept of S.C., Ga and Fla
October 25th, 1863
My Little Harriett Eliza Howerton, (almost 6 years old!)
My dear lady.
I got the two cakes carefully thread tied and labeled to tell from whom the present came. They are very sweet, not the sugar, not the syrup put in to make them taste sweet. No, I feel them to be sweet with something sweeter than sugar, than syrup or even honey from the honey comb. Don't you know what that is that makes everything so sweet in this world? Yes, you do or you would have never thought to send sweet cakes to an old man with a long white beard and I know too what it is and how it was that you, you a young lassie primping herself, I'll be bound for a bear, should have sent sweet things so far to an aged grandpa. Your Pa was far away with that old man waiting in all the wearisomeness of camp for the wary enemy, the wily Yankee to attack our country and shed the blood of her fathers and sons and insult her daughters and grasp her good things and her glories and bear them away. You heard how hard the soldiers live in camp and Momma was making up a bundle of comforts and luxuries to send to Papa and you, you little titania witch (get Momma to tell you who she was) for O, it is the prettiest tale ever told by an old bird who used to live on a stream called Avon and he was called a swan. Though you would make another heart glad, not with sugar nor syrup but with love and kindness. Oh, that is what I feel not taste with my heart, not my palate. For to know you have won a heart and that it the triumph of man, matron, widow or witch.
Sincerely Yours, Dear Child,
/s/ Henry
A Wise
Brigadier General, CSA
Commanding
Wise's Brigade (29)
[NOTE: Henry A Wise was a former governor of Virginia - BRH]
AWARDSDr.
Heather J. Brown presented a paper at the American Concrete
Institute in San Francisco, CA in October. She received an
external TVA grant to study the use of TVA fly ash in concrete
materials. (December 2004 Issue of The Basic Facts, College of
Basic and Applied Sciences, Middle Tennessee State University,
Murfreesboro, TN)Heather is a Professor of Civil Engineering at
Middle Tennessee University. She is married to Chris Brown and is
the daughter of Peggy E Howerton Kifer and William Kifer of
Clarksville, TN.
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