Joe drove Model T when he was 10

My brother, Wix, had always been interested in running big machinery.

He had the man who operated the big swing shovel teach him how to run it. Wix got so good at running the machine that the operator would let him take over and he would go to his car and sleep. One night the supervisor came by and saw Wix on the shovel and the operator in his car asleep. He fired the operator and gave the job to Wix. Wix worked at this job until all of the work for the swing shovel was finished.

The supervisor asked Wix if there was any other machinery he could operate. Wix told him that in 1927, he and Wade Lynch were working for the county, cleaning up behind a cable bulldozer that was operated by Red Musteen. Red had taught them to operate the cable dozier. Wix was put on a bulldozer and worked construction for many years.

Operating big machinery, driving a Model T

Dad, Charles and Bob had mowed and racked the oat crop on the place rented by Louis Carter. Dad hired a man to stack the oats. When they finished there were two big stacks of oat hay.

I was still carrying water for the brush cutting crew. Two of the crew were batching it in an old smokehouse on the farm near the well. The house had been torn down. The two brothers had an old Model T automobile. One day when I went to get water, the wind was blowing and someone had failed to tie down the handle that controlled the windmill that pumped the water. The bolt had broken that connected the windmill to the water pump. I tried to pull the handle and stop the windmill but I wasn’t strong enough.

I went and got one of the men who batched it in the smokehouse. While he was trying to get the windmill stopped, he somehow got his finger in the hole and cut the end practically off. He went to the house and got a rag to wrap around his hand. He told me to drive him to Pea Ridge to see Dr. Green. I was only 10 years old and had seldom rode in an automobile, let alone driven one.

I told him that I would go and get his brother, but he said we didn’t have time for that. We got the Model T started and I got behind the steering wheel and we started for Pea Ridge. He would take his good hand and help me steer the car, although I was scared to death, we finally arrived in Pea Ridge in one piece. He had Dr. Green fix and wrap his hand. Then he drove us back to the Miller farm.

While we were gone the other workers came to see why they weren’t getting any water, and they fixed the pump. The biggest problem was that my brothers wouldn’t believe that I had driven the Model T to Pea Ridge. When it was time to go back to school in the fall, the west wing, the study hall and some of the teaching rooms were finished. The east wing wasn’t finished. My fourth grade teacher was Miss Mabel Hardy.

Each morning we would line up and march across the street to the Presbyterian Church and have school. For some reason we were not very good marchers, they said we resembled an old hen and a bunch of chicks. The students in the fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades were having school in the new Baptist Church that was built in 1929.

Sometime after the first of the year we finally got into our new classroom on the southeast room of the new school building. The eighth grade graduations would be held in a different school around the county each year. There would be one in the eastern half of the county and another in the western half. The eighth grade graduation for the eastern part of the SEE PITTS ON PAGE 5A