Memories of my Dad, Kermit King Hollingsworth: Part Two: From College to Marriage

Memories of my Dad, Kermit King Hollingsworth: Part Two: From College to Marriage

In 1929, Kermit Hollingsworth resided at 3410 Haynie Avenue, Dallas, Texas. In Google Maps, the address is on the north side of the street and is now a parking lot shaded by trees on the south side of the perimeter. His address was published in the Dallas, Texas, City Directory, 1929, page 554, John F. Worley Directory, Publishers, 905 Main Street, Dallas, Texas, at www.ancestry.com.

Kermit's residence was one block west of SMU's northwest corner of the campus. As a freshman, he would have possibly attended classes nearby in the main north quadrangle of the campus. Fondren Library was approximately three blocks to the east and three blocks south of where he lived. 

In 1929, at age 18, Kermit Hollingsworth appears as a freshman at Southern Methodist University, SMU, Dallas, Dallas County, Texas on page 90 of the Rotunda Yearbook. I wish I knew how he was able to afford to go to college, especially at SMU, a private Methodist connected university. He talked about being an evangelistic singer for a tent revivalist in Texas at the time and I have located newspaper articles in Lubbock, Texas and east Texas newspapers about his leading the singing, leading youth groups in singing, and leading children in singing in tent revivals. His attendance in college was not steady during every semester, but sporadic, I imagine, as he could afford it, for many years.

In 1930, at age 19, Kermit did not live with the rest of his family as listed in the US Federal Census. A later newspaper article that appeared in one of his later pastorates in Athens, Texas states that he was a student at Paris Junior College during the year in 1930. As of yet, I have not discovered the yearbook for that year at Paris Junior College, Paris, Texas, but believe the newspaper article to be true about him. 

In the 1930 US Federal Census, Kermit's older brother Dan also did not live at home. The family resided in the home at Denison, Grayson County, Texas including the father, James William Hollingsworth, the mother, Lula Elizabeth Mason Hollingsworth, Kermit's and Dan's brother Frank, and sisters Gae and Litha Sue.

By 1932, at age 21, Kermit was accepted as a student at North Texas Teacher's College in Denton, Texas and graduated from there in 1936. Again, he appears to have perhaps skipped a few semesters according to the yearbooks where he was not listed including 1933.

In 1934, Kermit appears several times in the Yucca Yearbook. He was shown as Secretary Treasurer of the Debate Club with his picture. Also in the 1934 Yucca Yearbook he was shown as a sophomore member of the Music Club. During this year he served as the Kappa Delta Pi Secretary Treasurer for the local chapter of the International Honor Society in Education. The Alpha Iota Chapter was installed on January 23, 1926, at the North Texas State Teachers College, now the University of North Texas in Denton, Texas.

In 1935, Kermit is listed as a senior in the NTSTC Yucca Yearbook with his picture. His hometown was listed as Whiteright, Grayson County, Texas. During this year, he was President of the Debate Club with his picture. He was listed as a member of Kappa Delta Pi, the Spanish Club, and as an Evangelistic Singer. The 1940 US Federal Census lists the address of the respondent for the residence in 1935 and lists Kermit Hollingsworth as living in Denton, Texas during this year.

Kermit graduated in 1936 with a Bachelor of Arts Degree that included Debate and Spanish. 

On May 7, 1936, Kermit Hollingsworth was admitted into the North Texas Methodist Church Conference after fulfilling requirements to become an ordained Methodist minister.

In 1936-1938, Kermit was a student at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University.  Here again, it may be that some semesters were skipped as Kermit was an evangelistic singer to help pay for his college expenses. I recall also that he was employed in one of SMU's dorm's dining rooms, but do not know more details.

Kermit was the Secretary-Treasurer of the Theology School Association as listed on page 51 at the Perkins School of Theology, SMU, in Dallas, Texas as listed in the 1937 Rotunda Yearbook.

In the 1938 SMU Rotunda Yearbook, Kermit Hollingsworth, was listed as a member of the Student. Council of Religion at SMU along with his Secretary Treasurer position in the Theology School Association. Kermit's address for that year was listed as 3533 Asbury Place, Dallas, Texas in the Dallas, Texas City Directory, 1938. 

As an aside, twenty-six years later, I also lived on Asbury Place in 1964 when I attended Perkins School of Theology, SMU, as a church music graduate student. By 2007, as shown in Google Maps, the residence where Kermit lived and I lived have changed dramatically, as the homes now are larger, and no apartment houses are there. The street has been renamed Asbury Avenue. 

In 1938, Kermit Hollingsworth received the Master of Arts and Bachelor of Divinity degrees from SMU Perkins School of Theology.

By November 1938-1939, Kermit Hollingsworth lived in east Texas at Lovelady, Houston County, Texas, and served as pastor of a five-point Methodist Church circuit for Lovelady, Riverside, Pleasant Hill, White Rock, Center Hill in the Huntsville District. Sometimes churches were assigned to other circuits.

On November 15, 1939, Kermit was transferred Texas Annual Methodist Conference to the Tomball, Harris County, Texas Methodist Church and remained its pastor for two years during which time he married my mother, Opal Murriel Hollingsworth. 

The 1940 US Federal Census shows that Kermit Hollingsworth resided in the Texas, Harris County, Houston Enumeration District 101-47, completed pages 1-9 of the 1940 US Census 101-193, Village of Tom Ball. 

I remember my mom telling that when she married my dad on Monday, June 23, 1941 at 5:00 p.m. that they, Opal Murriel & Kermit King Hollingsworth were married by Dr. W. F. Bryan at The First Methodist Church in Cleveland, Liberty County, Texas. Cleveland was the town of my maternal grandparents. Kermit and Murriel spent their honeymoon at the Rice Hotel in Houston, Harris County, Texas.

Mom would tell us about the Tomball Methodist Church. The church was connected to the parsonage where the pastor and his wife lived. Any time there was a function at the church where a kitchen was needed, the women came into the parsonage and used the minister's wife's kitchen to prepare and serve the food. I image it was a "close encounter" of some kind to have church members in your home's kitchen. 

This will conclude Part 2 of my dad's life between high school and when he got married to my mom. There are many pictures, maps, sources, and other documents I will add to this post in the near future. 

I wish that I had grown up in a family that had talked even more than they did about growing up in their families. I was not wise enough to ask questions about stories or detailed information about their prior lives. We lived our lives in the present, as most families do. 

I am very fortunate to be able to piece most of this together due to the preponderance of information on the  Internet and the occupation my father chose to be in, a minister who was written about often in newspaper articles, yearbooks, and other publications. He was very visible in the communities he was asked to served, and I am grateful for all the information I have found that gives me the basis for writing about my father's life, Kermit King Hollingsworth. 

 

 

 

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.

67 Year Old Memory Comes Alive for Babysitter

Sisters Linda Sue and Llewellyn Hollingsworth Hear from Thirteen-Year Old Babysitter 67 Years Later

I received a phone call today that I thought was from a stranger, but as it turns out, was someone who knew me when I, Linda Sue Hollingsworth, and my sister, Llewellyn Hollingsworth, were born in Linden, Cass County, Texas in 1942 and 1943. It was our then 13-year old babysitter, Martha Ann Whittenberg, whose parents were David and Jane Whittenberg. They also lived in Linden at the same time until 1957. Today Martha Ann Whittenberg Wynn, 80 years old, lives in Tyler, Texas. It was such a surprise and blessing to hear from her.



Martha knew Dr. O. R. Taylor who delivered my sister and me. His name is recorded on both my sister’s and my birth certificates. Dr. Taylor asked someone to go with him to assist in home births. He often asked Martha’s mother, Jane Whittenberg, to go with him. Martha believes that her mother helped Dr. Taylor deliver my sister in 1943 and me in 1942.



Martha was a member of the Linden United Methodist Church where my father, Kermit King Hollingsworth, was assigned as minister in June, 1941. Martha’s father was a Methodist minister also, and served outlying circuit churches in the Linden area including Godner’s Chapel Methodist Church (no longer exists) and Lodi Methodist Church. During the week he was employed at the Linden Post Office.



My dad, Kermit King Hollingsworth, was 30 years old at the time. Linden was his second station church. He had been the minister of the Tomball, Texas Methodist Church north of Houston, Texas in 1939-1940 and previously was minister at a five-point circuit in east Texas that included the Lovelady, Texas Methodist Church. My mom, Opal Murriel Hollingsworth, age 25 and a beautician as Martha recalled, and my dad were married in 1941 at the Methodist Church at Cleveland, Texas, the home of my mom’s parents, Richard Lusky and Alice Lucinda Willis.

The 1942 Methodist Church building is still located in Linden although the parsonage was sold and moved to another location in town. Martha recalled that my dad, Rev. Hollingsworth, was an evangelistic singer and would sing, on occasion, at the Sunday morning service. She also recalled that my dad began youth meetings after school during the week and would award the young people with points for correct answers to Bible questions. She said that my mom, Murriel Hollingsworth, would always be ready to serve refreshments after the youth meetings.



This is the present sign for First United Methodist Church in Linden, Texas where I contacted the present minister Rev. Mark McClanahan that led Martha Ann Whittenberg Wynn to call me.

Martha Whittenberg Wynn remembered that there was a very generous retailer in Linden, Texas. Monroe Allen, a Methodist, whose name I recall hearing about from my mom and dad. He owned Allen Brothers, a local clothing store, and would give each Methodist minister a complete suit of clothes, including shoes, each year.

There is a family story that my sister and I heard from our mom about sharing a cow between the Methodist minister and the Baptist minister whose homes backed up to each other on opposite blocks. Martha Ann confirmed the fact that the Methodist and Baptist parsonages were located behind each other, and my sister recalls that my mom said that milking the cow might have been a quite a challenge. Finally, the cow was butchered, and canned—something I do not think we would not see happen today.