The Paternal Side

My last name is Pearson. I know more about my Mother's side of the family, she was a story teller, but I know a bit about my Father's side of the family from just being there.


My Father, John A Pearson was born on May 5, 1904 on a Cherokee Indian Reservation in Talala, Oklahoma. He was listed on the Tribal Roll. He grew up there and after graduating from public school, he worked in the Oklahoma oil fields. His father was James Wallace Pearson who was born in 1874 in Illinois.



Tired of the Oil Fields, he and his older brother, George, went to New Orleans to catch a steamer and see the world. Once in New Orleans they found that it was not that easy to get on a ship. George talked to people that said the place to be was Houston, Texas. They moved there. From there I do not know a lot about what he did and I do not know the years he made these moved in his life.

I do know that Dad got married in 1930, when he was 26. I am pretty sure he graduated in 1923. In the 1930's census He and Uncle George were rooming together in Houston. Dad was soon to be married.

Happy Aniversary Mom and Dad

Today is the anniversary of my parents wedding. They were married June 3, 1930.

The Wedding Picture.

These Pictures are at my mother's cousin Catherine Kitchel's apartment. That apartment still stands on Montrose across from the Plaza Hotel. It is a shop now. Mother had lived there while she and Dad dated. She worked for Dr. Dixon as a nurse and Radiologist.



Off to their Honeymoon.





It is my understanding that my Aunt Geneva, who married my Dad's Brother George also worked in that office. Apparently, as told top by Uncle George, he had met this woman he wanted to go on a date with and asked her to find a date for my Dad so they could double. After the Date, Uncle George asked my Dad how he liked hos date. Dad said it was OK. Uncle George then asked if my Dad would mind if he asked out my Dad's date because he rather liked her. Dad said that was fine because he rather liked George's date. Mom was George's date and Aunt Geneva was my Dad's date that George preferred. So we see the 27-year-old newly weds as they begin their honeymoon. It is also just after the 1929 stock market crash and the early days of the Great Depression. But on this day they are smiling and looking forward to a happy life together. They remained married until my father's death in 1966for almost 36 years, and in my mother's mind the 37 years she lived after his death. They remained married until my father's death in 1966. My mother never remarried. She had many offers of marriage but she always said that she was still married to John A Pearson.

Alta Loma, Texas

The back of the picture below says, "Sally and John's courting days and Hazel in front of Hurt house." The first three of these pictures are taken at the Hurt house in Alta Loma. Alta Loma has since been incorporated with several other small towns and is called Santa Fe. There is more information on this house in Settlements on the Prairie by Jean Hurt Thomas.



This is my dad, John A Pearson and Hazel Hurt, my mother's neice.



Below is my mother, Jennie Salome Wilson, and her niece Hazel Hurt.



The inscription on the back of this picture reads, "Lara Chesser and Bertha Wilson wearing costumes worn at a masquerade and dance." These folks were Baptists and it is the 1930's so I doubt this is a dance in the sense we would think today.



This last picture is of Nana, my grandmother, Bertha Kitchel Wilson, and her Son Bruce's Kids. They are Bruce Jr. and Betty Gayle. I think this is taken in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

Hurt or Holt

My mother's sister Zilpha married John Henry Hurt. My memory had transformed the Hurts into Holts and I was not sure why. It turns out that Minneford Kitchel the daughter of Charles Kitchel married Richard Lee Holt. Charles Kitchel had moved to Fayetteville, Arkansas and the Holt Branch of the Kitchel Family Tree grew there.

The Hurt Branch of the Kitchel Family tree stayed in Alta Loma.




The picture above is of Minneford Frances Kitchel. Below is her family. She and Lee Holt are almost hidden in the back.

Richard Lee Holt and Minneford Frances Kitchel were married on August the 17th in Fayetteville, Arkansas. They had 10 children, Richard Lee Jr., Wiley Bruce "Joe" , Evelyn Sue , Charles Wesley, Bertha Faye, Edgar Wayne, Mary Edna, Melvin Ernest, Donald Earl, and Anna Lou.

Evelyn Sue was born on September 6, 1935 and died March 29, 1943. She died from "a fall from the porch swing at Grandpa Kitchel's houe on 3rd Street. She was 8-years-old. Bertha Faye was born premature on December 5, 1939 and died two days later.





Seated in the middle of the couch is Minnie Kitchel, Minneford's mother.



The photo above is taken in Fayetteville, Arkansas. After graduating from School in Alta Loma, my mother lived in Fayetteville for a while. In this picture is (from right to left) Jennie Salome Wilson, Martha Manning, Minneford Kitchel (behind), Ethel Mullenix, and Eva Mullenix.



This is in Arkansas. In Back left to right is Bertha Kitchel Wilson, Roderick D. Wilson, Zipha Inez Wilson Hurt, and Edward Wilson. In front is Jennie Salome Wilson, Jean Hurt, and Hazel Hurt.



This last picture is taken in Claremore, Oklahoma. This picture introduces the Pearson Family. My paternal Grandmother is on the left, then Zilpha Hurt, and my mother Sally Pearson (Jennine Salome Wilson Pearson). I believe that the building in back is the Will Rogers Museum. I am not sure about the woman in the middle being Zilpha, but that is what my mother wrote on the back of the picture. So I will leave it like that until I can be sure it is not so.

Jennie Salome Wilson Pearson

These pictures are from 1905 to about 1912.

My Mother was named for her Maternal Aunt Jennie Irene Kitchel Platzer. Aunt Jen as I knew her was my mother's favorite Aunt.






They really wore a lot of clothes. It just may be that all the pictures were taken in the winter, but it really does not get all that cold along the Texas coast.



In this last picture I believe Mom was 8-years-old.

Kitchel Family Photo

Do not know if this was taken in Arkansas or Alta Loma. I am going to make a wild guess at who some of the people are.



After reading "Settlements on the Prairie" by my cousin Jean Hurt Thomas, I think the people in the front row setting on the edge of the porch are, Charles J Kitchel, probably his wife, Bertha Kitchel Wilson (my grandmother), Jennie Irene Kitchel Platzer, Clifton R Platzer, and possibly Willard Barnes Kitchel. I am guessing on Willard B Kitchel, but on page 90 of "Settlements on the Prairie" there is a picture of him and this picture looks pretty close.

My mother Jennie Salome Wilson is the child in front of Bertha Kitchel Wilson and my Grandfather Roderick D Wilson is the man standing in back second from the left. Also a guess, the woman sitting in a chair may be Mary Kitchel, Willard's wife and Mother of Charlie, Bertha, and Jennie. Willard B Kitchel was Postmaster of Alta Loma at the time of the picture.

If anyone know who the other people in the pictures are, please contact me. Email Address in the Sidebar.

Alta Loma Afternoon

I do not know the story behind this picture. From left to right is, Bertha Kitchel Wilson, Ed Wilson, Jean Doran, Phyllis Doran, Zilpha Wilson Hurt, and Jennie Salome Wilson.



From the looks of the flat terrain it seems pretty sure that this is a Alta Loma picture. It also seems from the foliage that it is spring. Maybe a cool spring as they are wearing a lot of clothing for humid Alta Loma.

Roderick and Bertha Wilson

For my purposes, I begin this site with my Mother's Father and Mother.


Roderick D Wilson


Bertha Kitchel Wilson

Title Picture

The picture that is the Header for this Blog is of Jennie Salome Wilson, my mother. She was born in 1903 on December 13. She used to call this picture "Orphans from the Storm" because she and her older brother Bruce looked so shabby. The house behind them was built from driftwood from the 1900 storm in Galveston. It is the house she was born in. This Photo was taken in 1905.

The house still stands today.

A Man of Character

Character - the inherent complex of attributes that determine a persons moral and ethical actions and reactions; good repute.

John Alvis Pearson
May 5, 1904 to January 21, 1965

My Father was a simple man.  He rose early in the morning.  He loved the solitude of the morning, my mother and the three of us kids still asleep.  He would make his breakfast and wake whoever needed to be awakened and head to work at the Feed Store he owned and operated. 

The morning of January 21, 1965, my father woke me up to get ready for work, and left for work.  That was the last time I would ever see him alive.  I was 18 and had no idea how old 61 was.  I had no idea he could just fall over and die, like he did.  I was 18, I had no idea how much I loved and needed him.  Today, forty years later, I still need him and realize how much I miss and love him. 

He was a simple man.  Simple values.  He had a family to support.  It was a family that he got late in life because he and my mother had taken care of both of her parents in their home.  At 45 they adopted me, and then four years later adopted two girls, my older sisters. 






He worked 12 hours a day, six days a week.  I got to know my father as much as I did by working with him.  He had an employee to help him run the store but until the day he died, there in his store, he worked waiting on customers and hauling feed.  He taught me the honor of honest work, with both his words and his actions. 


He told me that any honest work was honorable.  I learned to enjoy work.  He said that a job worth doing was worth doing right.  He said those things and he lived those things.


He taught me how a businessman should be.  He showed me how to weight bulk feed, always in exact measures and always round up fractional charges.  That is what he tried to teach me, but I watched him put a little extra in the sack because the customer was going to loose some in the bottom, and he never rounded up charges.  I learned what he did, not what he said, and am glad of it.  We ate not because he was a good businessman, but because he was a good man. 


When customers couldn’t pay for feed he bartered so they could keep their dignity and continue feeding their animals.  He would take chickens, calves, or produce for feed.  We had fresh eggs from the Chickens, Fresh Beef from the calves he raised to cows, and fresh vegetables.   I learned how when people work together as a community all people fare better.





On Sunday we would take county drives from time to time.  Dad liked to see all the livestock.  When he would see an animal poorly taken care of, he would get so upset.  When I was a teen my Father bought me registered Angus heifer calf for me to raise.  I mostly took care of it and learned to clean out a barn after a cow.   We bred the cow and she had a male calf.  In all this I learned to respect all life and to love the stages of life.  Farm country on a summer morning is one of my favorite things.  I learned to tell the smells of different animals as I drive through that country.

When I wanted to do what “all the other kids were doing” he taught me that right is what is right not what is popular.  He taught me honesty is always the best policy, even when no one knew if you were being dishonest.  He taught me that being honest with ones self is where honesty begins. 

In the 1950’s Alvin was a segregated town.  On Saturdays the black people would walk down the railroad track to do their shopping in town.  They would then walk back.  In the heat of the summer they would come by my fathers feed store and rest on his side feed dock.  It was one of the few places that they could rest.  One of these Saturdays my Dad took me in the office and gave me money to take next door to the local café to buy some cigarettes. 

Now today that might not seem much, but my Father did not smoke, nor did my mother, or any one I knew.  I knew that my parents did not want me smoking, so the look on my face when my Dad asked me to do this must have been of one of question.  My dad told me to just go buy them and he would explain later.  Later he explained that one of his black customers who was resting waiting to go walk home could not go into the café and buy the cigarettes.  He taught me what even benign racism was.  He also taught me that one could respect people of all colors and faiths, by just not giving into racism or bigotry.  The “N” word was never used in our house. 


Also he taught me not to judge others.  Just because a person does something that I do not believe in does not mean that I have to enforce my values on them.  So cigarettes were purchased, I understood our values not to smoke, and learned that others have rights to make their own choice.





My father was the Treasurer of our Church.  We went to Church every Sunday.  He taught Sunday School from time to time.  He slept during the sermon with regularity.  He loved to sing, but could not carry a tune.  The first Sunday after his death people who always sat in the area my dad did remarked how they missed his joyous off key singing.

I do not know how he felt about Jesus and God.  We never talked about it.  I just knew we never ate with out a blessing.  We always prayed before we went on a car trip.  I knew he rarely cursed (he said “Damn it” once when he hit his finger with a hammer, and for some reason said “Piss” once.).  He did not drink Alcohol.  He did not smoke.  He was faithful to my mother in such a physical and emotional way that even when he was not around her you felt it.  He adored her and placed a protective zone around her. 

For years after he died people would come to me when they realized I was his son and tell me a kindness that he had done them that no one but he and they knew about.  I saw some of that but most was done in secret.  Allowing people to keep their dignity was a priority for my father. 

When he died there was standing room only in the Church during the funeral.  Our Church sat 1100.  The procession of cars to the Cemetery stretched at least three miles.  A separate memorial service was held at the Black Church in Alvin. 

My Father was not the only man of Character in his time.  That was how men were measured back then, at least in Alvin.  While he was unusual in his humility and kindness, his values were the norm. 

Forty years later, few people remember my father.  Alvin has grown and two generations have past into twilight. 

We seem to forget what it means to have Character as well.  The truth is negotiable.  Honor can be bought.  Dignity is based on net worth. We talk about values today and they are generally served with a large slice of judgment.

I miss my father, today and everyday.