Revision as of 14:16, 22 November 2008

John T. Wilson, born in 1917, was the third of seven children of Bert Winiford Wilson and Clara Mabel Wimer. He was born while his parents still lived with his Wilson grandparents, James Luther Wilson and Elizabeth Annabel Stoughton, near West Liberty in rural Worth Twp., Butler Co. PA. Eventually his parents moved to property across the road from his grandparents. Both his father and grandfather worked at forestry and had a sawmill. Being around this activity resulted in John's having a life-long love of woodworking and carpentry. They also worked at oil drilling. Later his grandparents moved to Slippery Rock, and for a time, his grandfather was a partner in a car dealership until the Great Depression ruined the business. John Wilson's maternal grandparents, Isaac C. Wimer and Margaret Jane Robinson, lived on a farm down the hill from the Bert Wilson place in Worth Twp. John and his brothers and sisters would follow the creek down to the Wimer farm his Grandpa Wimer raised field crops and a barn full of cows. The Wilson children attended the McClymonds school. In West Liberty and Slippery Rock, several aunts and uncles and cousins lived. The men enjoyed hunting, and one year they brought home a young bear cub. Grandpa Wilson chained it to the barn and they raised it. When John was a small boy, he wandered too near the bear and it grabbed him and wouldn't let go. John's sister Ruth managed to pull him out of his coat and get him free from the bear. Soon after, the bear was sold to Ringling Brothers Circus.
In about 1930, when John was 12 or 13 years old, the family moved north to a farm at Nickleville, Richland Twp., Venango Co. PA. His father wanted to be nearer the oil fields. John went to high school at the new Crawford High School in Emlenton, sometimes driving or carpooling with other kids from the area. He met his future wife, Ella Mae Beals, at the high school, and they started spending time together at school events in 11th grade. There was no money for dating or going anywhere. John actually decided not to return to high school after 11th grade and dropped out for a year. His sister Ruth convinced him to return by offering him a pocket watch if he would graduate. Thus Ella graduated a year ahead of him, she in 1935, he in 1936.
John worked with his father for a couple years, dressing bits for oil drilling. Ella did housekeeping for a variety of families in the area, as well as in Washington D.C. In 1937, he gave Ella a diamond ring, and a cedar chest he made, with the carved letters of her name fitted into a diamond shape on the front.
On 15 Aug 1937, they took their first train ride, to the Cleveland Exposition. Other weekends they went on picnics and rides; John bought his first car in July that year.
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. John hired on with the crew,and that began his lifelong work with the agencies building power lines in rural areas. 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

Places of Residence

The following chart serves as a record of the work career of John T. Wilson with TVA; an indication of school locations for his daughters; and a guide to dates/locations for some of the photographs. Locations in parentheses indicate additional work locations while in one residence location.

Photo Gallery

Sources