Memories of my Dad, Kermit King Hollingsworth: Part One: From Birth to College

Kermit King Hollingsworth, Sr., suffix added after he and my mom had their only son, Kermit King Hollingsworth, Jr. in 1947, was born June 9, 1911 to James “Jim” William Hollingsworth and Lula Elizabeth Mason Hollingsworth. He was their third child, born in Whitewright, Grayson County, Texas.

Jim and Lula were married in Celeste, Hunt County, Texas on May 6, 1904 by Reverend E. L. Spurlock. Jim was 23 and Lula was 17.

The year before Kermit was born, his parents, Jim and Lula, his older sister Flora “Gae”, who was five, and his older brother, Daniel “Dan” Andrew, who was three, lived at 357 Gardner Street in Whitewright, Texas in 1910. His father, Jim, was age 30, and his mother, Lula, was 24.

Jim and Lula had been married for six years when they had their first child. Jim was born near Albany, Clinton County, Kentucky in 1880 and Lula was born near Fayetteville, Lincoln County, Tennessee in 1886. By 1900, both sets of parents arrived in Texas with their families, Jim with his parents in Savoy Town, Fannin County, Texas and Lula with her parents, four brothers, and two sisters by 1892 when Lula’s youngest sister was born in Hunt County, Texas.

Sometime between 1891 when Jim’s younger brother, John, was born near Albany, Clinton County, Kentucky and 1898 when Jim’s youngest sister, Estelle, was born, Jim’s parents arrived in Fannin County, Texas with Jim, the oldest child, his younger brother John, and three sisters born in 1885, 1886, and 1890 near Albany, Clinton County, Kentucky. The youngest sister, Estelle was born in Fannin County, Texas in 1898.

Kermit’s dad was a rural mail carrier and the family rented their home. Lula was a homemaker. I do not know anything about their life at home in the growing up days of the children and wonder about their school days, what they did for playing, and if they attended church.

I know my dad graduated from Whitewright High School, probably near the end of May, 1929 when he was almost 18 from a newspaper article about him 12 years later in 1941 in Athens, Henderson County, Texas where he was pastor of the Athens First Methodist Church. In the same newspaper article, it mentioned that he was a student at Paris Junior College, probably when he was 18 and 19 years old in 1930 and 1931.

This is where I will stop for Part One of Kermit King Hollingsworth’s early life from birth to college. There are two more significant dates in my dad’s life that I have not mentioned. The date of my dad’s death was June 9, 1966, the same month and day of his birth, sixty-six years later. Today is also June 9, 2011, the same date as my dad’s birthdate. We will be able to celebrate his 100th birthday on June 9, 2012.