John Thomas Wilson

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. It would be ten years later, after WWII, that he found steady work with TVA in 1948. Meanwhile he did short jobs if various places for REA and for small private power companies, and whatever other work he could locate. REA had work in Vermont and North Carolina; at one point to avoid going to Vermont in winter John accepted a posting to North Carolina. He and Ella decided to be married before he left to go south. Ella did her shopping in Washington where she was working, and the wedding took place in Venango County, at the parsonage, of 2 February 1940. John's brother Russell was his best man. They took a honeymoon to Niagra Falls, and then both had to return to work, Ella to Washington. On 14 February John stopped by Washington on his way to Laurens, North Carolina. In late spring the job ended, he returned to Venango Co. PA for a bit of work in Polk. Being shuffled back and forth across the country doing jobs for REA set a pattern of his life of being comfortable with mobility, and later in life they would travel throughout the mid-west and the west coast visiting children and sightseeing.
When John was sent south again by REA, Ella's job in Washington had ended and she joined him, for a period of living in boarding houses in one small town and another. They put up with the occasional bedbugs and irksome neighbors. Occasionally she found work waitressing or babysitting, but largely it was a lonely time for her in a strange culture, where they were the "yankees". Then in Monks Corner, SC, the lease became available on a cafe and gas station, the Green Gables, and as his job was ending, they took the lease. It was always a close call whether they would earn enough to be able to refill the gas tanks before they went dry. They could only restock as much beer as they had bottles to return; if customers didn't return the bottle, local children would find and bring the discarded bottles in and sell them to the cafe. Besides the shortage of cash, time was an issue. The cafe was open 24 hrs a day. John and Ella slept in shifts, but if a customer required a hot meal, Ella had to get up and fix it. After ten weeks, they gave up the lease, but found that after the sale of whatever stock and equipment they had, they came out with a thousand dollars. They returned to Venango County with their profit, and soon used a small part of the earnings to buy their first trailer. (It was probably 8 ft wide by maybe 12 ft long. Over the years with TVA they upgraded periodically to longer models, and wider. Their last trailer bought in the late 1950's was ten ft wide and forty ft long. This was a period when trailers were truly mobile, before the day of the stationary double-wide "mobile home".)
They returned south to jobs in Tennessee and Kentucky, whether with REA or private companies is unclear. In 1943 their first daughter was born in Tennessee. She was taken home to see the grandparents on Mothers' Day.
John worked for Holston Defense in Kingsport TN, trying to avoid the army draft by working in critical industry, but in August of 1943 he was drafted. They took the trailer home and parked it at the Wilson farm, as Mrs. Wilson was ill and Ella was needed to keep house. John went into training, then to officer training at Furman University in South Carolina. As the war progressed, apparently a decision was made that officers were not what was needed. His class had been pronounced the best that ever went through the accelerated training, but then the entire class was "washed out" without their commissions. John went to Texas for training as a tail-gunner on a B-17 bomber. Ella visited him occasionally in the different training locations, but gas rationing and crowded trains made travel difficult, especially with an infant. On 23 March 1944 Mrs. Wilson died. John came home for the funeral; his brother Ray had already been deployed to Europe and couldn't come home. They moved the trailer to the Beals farm. Ella and the baby moved into the "apartment" side of the farmhouse. (The apartment was added for Ella's grandmother Anna Elizabeth Frederick when her husband died and her daughter & son-iin-law, Ella's parents, bought the house and farm.
By January 1945 John was shipped out from Camp Patrick Henry in Virginia, and by mid-February was in Foggia, Italy with his crew. On their first bombing assignment they missed their target on the first pass, so came around again. By then the anti-aircraft fire was ready for them and they were hit so that a fire broke out in the bomb bay. They tried to put it out, and failing that, tried to get the bombs to release over rural areas. The bombs were jammed and wouldn't release. In the excitement of the emergency, the navigator lost track of where they were, or in trying to reach Russia perhaps they overflew the extent of their maps. They were lost, and the bomb bay fire worsened until the decision was made by the pilot to parachute the crew and ditch the plane. Parachuting was not something they had rehearsed. John tried to slide out feet-first instead of the recommended head first dive, and wrenched his back in the process. He also apparently pulled his parachute cord too soon, and found himself floating slowly downward in freezing cold atmosphere, with snow. He'd lost one glove, and kept shifting the other one from hand to hand. When he reached the ground, it was a clear sunny day. They had landed in Hungary and were one-by-one rounded up by farmers with pitchforks. Someone in the group could translate as it was discussed whether to kill them or not. They ended up in German prison camp, and for the duration of the war, they were marched from one location to another trying to evade the advancing allied armies. Ella was notified by telegram that her husband was missing in action. The pilot, Harvey Mitchell, had been injured and sent to a hospital, so he could communicate with his parents. Mrs. Mitchell then wrote the other POW families that the crew were all alive and well when Harvey last saw them. John lost thirty pounds, and later recalled how good a bowl of barley soup could taste, when they could get it. His primary memory was of hunger, and of walking and walking. He was liberated at Mooseburg, 20 April 1945. At his first good sufficient meal, his stomach couldn't handle it and he vomited. Together, prisoners and liberators made their way back across Germany to France, on their own for food and lodging. One of John's crewmates pulled a handmade red & black cross stitched white tablecloth from a German farm clothesline for carrying eggs taken from the barn. John brought the cloth home with him, with a yolk-stained corner, to give to Ella. In France there weren't enough transport ships for all to return at once, so the offer of some spending money was made to those who would wait. John figured it was his only chance for sight-seeing, and stayed. He bought a small hand-painted Quimper dish to bring home. (Also among his souvenirs of the war were various European coins, a map of part of Germany, his prison camp armband with swastika, and a wooden shoe on which he wrote the dates and places of his war experience, and names and addresses of his crew members. He arrived back in Pennsylvania that spring. They continued to live in the farmhouse apartment. There was no work. Ella's brother, Loy Beals, who had a garage in Emlenton, let John work with him. In August John and Ella's second daughter was born.
Finally in 1948 John secured a position as lineman with TVA. The agency was organized into crews that built the dams on the Tennessee River, maintenance crews that maintained the dams, and construction crews that built the steel towers and power lines to carry electricity to the rural southern communities. John hired on as a construction lineman in the Western Division, headquartered in Jackson Tennessee, but building lines throughout western Tennessee, Kentucky, and northern Alabama and Mississippi. He began as a lineman, but fell 30 ft. from wone of the towers onto a concrete base and injured his back. After hospitalization, 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, changing location often as jobs were finished. 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
In 1948 John and Ella moved from place to place every few weeks. In the fall of 1949 the older daughter started first grade in a two-room schoolhouse in Jackson, TN. After that, during the school year, they moved less often. John would commute home longer distances from work sites. Still, a typical school year included at least 4 and as many as 6 schools. In 1956 the job was in Scottsboro, Alabama. The oldest child was entering 8th grade, and the decision was made to stay there permanently, so that both children could complete the requirements of high school graduation. Over the years John and Ella had saved enough to send both children to college.
After retirement from TVA, they purchased a piece of hillside property and with the help of a good neighbor who owned a home construction company, they built a house. John returned to Pennsylvania and cut the cherry trees from the woods on the Beals farm, and had it cut into paneling and flooring. He bought and disassembled a two-story log house in Tennessee and transported it to the building site for reassembly. On both floors, a door opened at middle of house into what had been an open breezeway, but became an entryway and hall downstairs, and stair landing and hall upstairs. The doors opened onto porch and balcony that ran the length of the house. A stone fireplace anchored the living room. Cherry-wood floors and paneling warmed the dining room, which looked out over the valley. John added a laundry room beyond the kitchen, and a large garage. Upstairs three bedrooms provided for family visits and grandchildren. A "mountain" rose behind the house, and at the base of this ran a creek. In the creek's bottom land John planted a large garden, which he plowed with a tractor. Enough produce was frozen each summer to deliver freezer chests of vegetables to both the children's families. John removed the rear seat from an old Volkswagon, and would load it up with styrofoam chests full of frozen food, and drive to Wisconsin or North Carolina or wherever the children were living. His other hobby was refinishing old furniture, some of which he purchased over the years from locations where he worked. Other pieces were old family items from Pennsylvania. When his first grandchild was born, he delivered a handmade cherry cradle to California. The next year he refinished a chest of drawers with mirror for her, strapped it onto the roof of his VW, and drove it to Arizona. In the back seat area, he carried a handmade bookcase, ends the shape of a teddybear, made to fit a set of children's books.

	Date	Location	Notes	Sources
Birth	10 Nov 1917	Worth Twp., Butler Co. PA
Marriage	2 Feb 1940	Richland Twp., Venango Co. PA	To Ella May Beals
Military	19 Jan -17 May 1945 Europe	WWII Army Airforce, Cpl. B17 tail gunner, 483 Bombardment Group, 815 Squadron, based in Foggia, Italy	caputred near Lenti, Hungary; POW, Austria & Germany
Death	18 May 1985	VA Hospital, Birmingham AL
Burial	22 May 1985	Nickleville Presby. Cemetery, Richland Twp., Venango Co. PA

 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

Name	Gender	Date of Birth	Birthplace	Spouse	Notes	Sources
Elizabeth Ann Wilson	F
living Wilson	F

Places of Residence

Location	Dates	Notes	Sources
Birth & Childhood
Worth Twp., Butler Co. PA	1917-~1930	with parents
High School, work with REA during Great Depression
Nickleville, Richland Twp., Venango Co. PA	~1930 - 1938
OH, NC	1938-1940	line work for REA or private power companies
Early Marriage
Laurens, SC	14 Feb 1940 - late spring	line construction, REA/ Miller Baxter
Polk, Sandy Creek Twp., Venango Co. PA	1940	REA or private power companies
Cornelius, SC; Lexington & Madison, NC	Oct 1940-1941	REA or private power companies
Ellwood City,Lawrence Co. PA	late summer 1941	helped a cousin build a house
Monks Corner, SC	1941-42	REA or private power companies; leased Green Gables Cafe & gas station for 10 wks, $1000 profit
Smyrna, NashvilleTN Gallatin TN ("Green River Line"), Scottsville TN; Glasgow, Newport KY; Kingsport TN (Nov 42- Mar 43)	1942	Bought 1st trailer worked for REA or private power companies, Holston Defense in Kingsport; laid off in March
Pittsburgh, PA	Spring 1943	private employer, not recorded
Military Training	14 Aug 1943, drafted
Greensboro NC	Aug 1943-?
Greenville SC	by Christmas 1943- 1944	Furman Univ.; accelerated officers training; entire class "washed out"
Midland TX	1944, after Mar	training as tail-gunner
Alexandria LA	1944, including Dec	training
Lincoln, NB	1944, including Dec	for shipment overseas
Military Service, WWII	14 Aug 1943, drafted
Camp Patrick Henry, VA	19 Jan 1945	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Patrick_Henry
Gibraltar	5 Feb 1945
Algiers, N. Africa	8 Feb 1945
Naples, Italy	12 Feb 1945
Foggia, Italy	17 Feb 1945	base of operation, 483 Bombardment Group, 815 Squadron Pilot, Harvey A. Mitchell
Lenti, Hungary	14 Mar 1945	taken POW
Bratislava	19 Mar 1945	POW
Vienna, Austria	20 Mar 1945	POW
Nurenberg, Ger.	22 Mar 1945	POW
marching, location unrecorded	23 Mar 1945	POW
Nurenberg, Ger.	25 Mar 1945	POW
Moosburg, Ger.	20 Apr 1945	POW (camp history website) (Wikipedia's Stalag VII-A site), Liberated on 29 Apr 1945 (description of the events surround the liberation itself)
Landshut, Ger.	4 May 1945
Reims, France	6 May 1945
St. Vallery, France	17 May 1945
Richland Twp., Venango Co. PA	1945-1948	Depression Era persisted; worked in brother-in-law's garage in Emlenton; lived with in-laws, then rented Joe Rose house, Mariasville

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.

Location	Dates	Notes	Sources
TVA Career		Landlords
Russelville, AL	4-28 Feb, 1948	Edward Pace
Wilson Dam, AL	28 Feb-8 Apr 1948	Dempsey Terry
West Point, MS	8 Apr-12 Apr 1948	Goat's Texaco Sta.
Mayfield KY	12 Apr - 9 May 1948	Richard Bagwell
Paris TN	17 May-13 June 1948	Dave Oliver
Mayfield KY	12 June-2 July 1948	Mrs. Cleve Sanderson
Mountain City TN	3 July-20 Aug 1948	Alf McQueen
Mt. Pleasant TN	21 Aug - 20 Sept 1948	Mrs. Ethel Simmons
Murfreesboro TN	20 Sept - 23 Oct 1948	Otto Green
Woodbury TN	23 Oct -11 Dec 1948	Joe Stephens
McMinville TN	11 Dec - 17 Jan 1948/49	Roy Newby
Nashville TN	17-21 Jan 1949	Pure Oil Sta.
Chattanooga TN	21-24 Jan 1949	Farniers Trailer Pk , Cherokee Blvd.
Knoxville TN	24 Jan - 2 Mar 1949	King's Grocery, Southerland Ave
Lenoir City TN	2 Mar - 16 Ma6 1949	C. E. Brachett
Elizabethton TN	16 May - 4 June 1949	Mrs. Bowen
Nashville TN	4 June - 25 July 1949	E. G. Davenport
Jackson TN	30 July - 19 Nov 1949	Mrs. W. B. Ranson
Cadiz KY	19 Nov - 29 Jan 1949/50	White Eagle Cafe
Memphis TN	29 Jan - 9 Feb 1950	Harbin's Cabins, Hwy 51
Tupelo MS	9 Feb - 11 Mar 1950	Rockway Inn, Hwy 45
West Point MS	11 Mar - 1 Apr 1950	Goat's Texaco St.
Tupelo MS	1 Apr - 27 May 1950	Rockway Inn, Cecil Cafe
Corinth MS	27 May - 3 July 1950	Randolph Yancy, 1411 Wick St.
Jackson TN	3 July - 15 July 1950	Mrs. W. B. Ranson
New Johnsonville/Camden TN	15 July - 18 July 1950	J'ville Trailer Pk
Jackson TN	19 July - 24 July 1950	Mrs. W. B. Ranson
Macon MS	24 July - 16 Dec 1950	Mrs. M. B. McLemore
West Point MS	16 Dec - 15 Jan 1950/51	Goat's Texaco Sta.
Somerville TN	15 Jan - 19 May 1951	H. G. Myers tourist home
Memphis TN	19 May - 15 June 1951	J. C. Harbin's, Rt. 51
Jackson TN	15 June - 24 July 1951	Mrs. W. B. Ranson
Lexington	24 July - 16 Aug 1951
Jackson TN	16 Aug-7 Sept 1951	Mrs. W. B. Ranson
Benton KY	23 Sept - 23 Feb 1951/52	Herman Kanatzer
Fulton KY (McKenzie, Martin,)	23 Feb - 31 May 1952	Star Cafe, Hwy on state line
Benton KY	31 May - 16 Oct 1952	Ben Hunt, Rt.3 (till 16 Sept) Will Eggner, Mrs. Farmer
Jackson TN (Lexington, Union City)	16 Oct- 6 June 1952/53	Mrs. W. B. Ranson
Tupelo MS	6 June - 8 July 1953	Rockway Inn
West Point MS	8 July - 1 Sept 1953	T.J. Earnest, Prairie Jct.
Louisville MS	1 Sept - 14 Nov 1953	Millers Trailer Pk, Mrs. Elva Roberts
Pontatoc MS	14 Nov - 2 Jan 1953/54	(Houston & Jack)?, across from Jerry's Drive In
Corinth MS (& Tiptonville)	2 Jan - 30 May 1954	Horton Groc.
Waverly TN	30 May - 21 Aug 1954	Wm. "Plunk" Gould
Dickson TN	21 Aug - 27 Oct 1954	Ludy & Lorraine ___
Bolivar TN	27 Oct - 2 Jan 1954/55	foster Motel, Elgie & Inez
Russellville AL	2 Jan - 23 Feb 1955	Bendix Standard Sta.
Holly Springs MS	23 Feb - 18 Mar 1955	LaFever Holly Courts
Covington TN	18 Mar - 7/8 Apr 1955	Mrs Adams (with Ruth & Dan Price)
Sheffield AL	9 Apr - 21 June 1955	Tri-Cities Trailer Ct.
Huntsville AL	21 June - 2 July 1955	Whispering Pines
2 July - 20 July| 1955	Mrs. Eggner
Huntsville AL	24 July - 7 Aug 1955	Mrs. Williams, 401 McKinley
Russellville AL	7 aug - 3 Dec 1955	M. H. McMurray Cafe
Athens AL	3 Dec - 10 Mar 1955/56	Old Spinning Wheel Motel,<br.Mitchell Wallace
Sheffield AL	10 Mar - 21 July 1956	Walter Kelly, 1701 High St.
Scottsboro, AL	22 July 1956 - retirement after ~ 1965/70; died 1985	built house on Hwy 72

Sources

Ref. Num.	Description	Image of original
1	1870 United States Federal Census,