Revision as of 08:34, 22 November 2008

When REA (Rural Electrification Administration) came through Nickleville, PA in 1938, a lineman allowed him to try on the cleated boots and climb a pole. That began his lifelong work with the agencies building power lines in rural area. He began with REA in PA and OH in 1938. Ten years later, after WWII, he began with TVA in 1948. He began as a lineman, but fell 30 ft. onto a concrete base and injured his back. After hospitalization and recovery, rather than being placed on permanent disability, he was promoted to foreman, so that he didn't have to climb. His crews built steel towers and strung high voltage lines, in western Tennessee & Kentucky, and the northern-most tier of Alabama & Mississippi. One of these lines crossed the lower Mississippi River, and he pointed out in later years that a tall tower built on a large concrete base on the eastern bank of the river was by then in mid-river, the river's course having shifted.
See REA:http://newdeal.feri.org/tva/tva10.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rural_Utilities_Service
See TVA: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tennessee_Valley_Authority

 Generation 1               Generation 2             Generation 3
 
                                                 +-- Bert Winiford Wilson
                                                 |   (1891-1971)             
                        +-- John Thomas Wilson --+
                        |   (1917-1985)          |
 Elizabeth Ann Wilson --+                        +-- Clara Mabel Wimer
 (1943- )               |                            (1891-1944)
                        +-- Ella May Beals
                            (1917- )
 Sources: 

Children

(2 daughters with Ella May Beals

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