02/08/12

Eighty Year Mystery Solved!

As we go through life, we never know how the insignificant things we do will effect history!
Such was the case when, in 1938 James Wesley Pitts applied for a Social Security Card. But, I digress, let me start at the beginning.

James Wesley Pitts was born May 24, 1887 in Talladega, Al. He married Arrie Lee Jones in 1913. By 1916 they had two boys. In 1920 census he was listed as "Electric Engineer Shovel" at graphite mines.

The following is a story told to me by my Father, Bonnie L Pitts. James Wesley was Bonnie's Uncle.

Quoting now: Uncle Jim ran a little dingy engine in the mines but he wanted to be a engineer on the railroad. He heard about a job opening in Florida so he went down and applied. He was turned down because he did not weigh enough. Returning home, he ate bananas and drank sweet milk to gain weight. When he had gained sufficient weight he re-applied and got the job. In September of 1928 there came a great hurricane in Florida and Uncle Jim was never heard from again. End of quote.

Thinking her husband was dead, Arrie Lee remarried and moved to Louisiana. There she raised her boys and lived out the rest of her life.

Now I get into the story. I started researching the Pitts family genealogy back in the early seventies. We didn't have computers so we had to travel to the Birmingham Library to look up things on micro film. I found some information over the years and then computers came along. I bought one of the first models available from Radio Shack only to learn that there was not any software available for them. I asked the salesman where could I get programs and his reply was "well, most people are trying to write their own programs". To make the story a little shorter, let me say that I went from being a truck driver to being a computer programmer/network engineer. I worked with some of the nicest people in the world until I retired at age 76. Enough about me, back to James Wesley.

Over the next several years I was able to find some information. I found where in 1929 James Wesley Pitts was divorced from Arrie Lee in Suwannee county Florida. I don't know if he was able to obtain the divorce without her knowledge or if she knew and was too embarrassed to let anyone know it. 

With my work and other people to research, it was several years before I got back to "Uncle Jim". Finally I came across a copy of James Wesley's application for a Social Security Card. It was dated September 27th 1938. This application ask for name of Father and Mother. Lucky for us, he listed the correct names for both parents. This left no doubt that it was the same James Wesley Pitts. The person processing the application noted the social security number on the margin of the card. Doing a search of the Social Security Death records turned up the same number and a death date of 1965 in Georgia. The search sat there for several more years with no additional information. The thought was always in the back of my mind that since he got a divorce in 1929 there was a chance he remarried and had another family.

In 2011 I started updating some of the people. I found a website that I had never used in the past. It's called Find A Grave. I did not expect much from it because I had seen so many sites that promise to search millions of records for only .... per month. Boy, was I surprised! I found that I could look up cemeteries ( even the small one near my house is in there), I could search for people and actually find some. So, it dawned on me that if James Wesley died in 1965, I might find his grave. All I knew was he died in Georgia in 1965. I entered a search into Find A Grave with just the name of Pitts in Georgia. It came back with quite a few Pitts. I looked through the list and, BINGO! there it was:
 Pitts, James Wesley 33772433
b. May 24, 1887 d. Feb. 19, 1965
He was buried in:
Attapulgus Methodist Church Cemetery
Attapulgus
Decatur County
Georgia, USA

It shows an Irene Pitts buried in the same cemetery so I thought just maybe she was his wife. I thought about this discovery all the rest of that day. The next morning I was trying to figure out how to proceed. Attapulgus is not a big city or this would never have worked. The thought came to me that when you need help you can call the police. Back to the computer to find a phone number for the Attapulgus Police Dept. The lady that answered the phone was the nicest person you would ever expect to meet. She not only knew the Pitts Family, but had a relative standing in her office.  I must have been on the phone with her for half an hour while we talked about this story. It turned out that James Wesley was married and had a daughter. She was able to give me a phone number for the daughter. I will change her name to protect her privacy. Let's just call her "Essy". I called her and we had a very enjoyable chat.  Essy was born in 1935, married at age 14, is still living. She has Children, Grandchildren, Great grandchildren and one Great Great Grandchild.

You remember that James Wesley had two boys in Alabama? They went to Louisiana with their Mother sometime after the 1930 census was taken. At least one of the boys married and raised a family in Louisiana. I have put this branch of the family in touch with the family in Georgia.

I love stories with a happy ending.

Thanks to the people that are responsible for starting the Find A Grave project. A special thanks to the many volunteers that spend their time and money to travel to cemeteries and record information into Find A Grave and the volunteers that make pictures for free. Without all these people this project would not work.