A Time for Grandmother Pitts
Phebe (7/11) Buttram, III, Pitts, (1886-1983)
by Mary Katherine (9/3) Pitts
1971
(Too sweet not to include)
Grandmother’s brown hair, with very little gray in it, has never been cut. She wears it twisted and piled on the top of her head, which gives it the appearance of being short. She’s independent, stubborn, and full of stories from her past. I listened to her for hours as she wove tales of her family. Born and raised in Pea Ridge, Arkansas; there are sweet peas all around the place. When I visited her last summer, it was just the two of us. Being old and full of stories she wove tales of her past as I listened for hours as she wove tales of her family.
The boys, there were eight of them and just one girl. She grew herself a big family—one of them was my father, Charles F. Charles F. was a sleepwalker; he’d make off down that road and end up all the way to brother Jim Buttram’s farm. And he wasn’t young then—why he was at least 15. We used to pin his sheets tight to the bed to keep him from wanderin’ off.
I heard all about the aunts and uncles—the whole story from covered wagons to ancient tintypes; it came to life in her quiet recollections. For the first time, Dad was a boy, a country-barefoot boy, working on a small farm that has since been sold. It wasn’t just knowing him as a boy, but seeing what grew him; that road he knew well enough to walk in his sleep, and the independence his mother taught him—so much that he left home at 16!
Yes, Grandma told me all about the local problems and how young people were so rebellious. But mostly she rummaged endlessly in that family past. We visited all the graveyards in Pea Ridge. Like old-west graveyards they told us stories, or more accurately, they filled me with pictures of those whose lives Grandma recounted. Tuck’s Chapel and Buttram’s Chapel showed me more family and friends than I could have thought possible. Old stone markers—the kind that stick up and tell you stories and dates, not flat marble name placards with no story to tell—marked dozens of images that I could now visualize. Here was a place that acted like a book to one who knew how to read the language, and I had received a carefully prepared, personal introduction. The warmth in those stories left me with a picture of more than just a graveyard.
Getting to know Grandma was like visiting the past, and visiting the past was viewing myself in a kind of ongoing history. Grandmother’s hair has never been cut. She wears it twisted and piled on top of her head which gives it the appearance of being short. But I know better.
*Reprinted by the Pea Ridge Graphic, Benton County, AR, 19 Aug 1971, with some editing and the added phrase:
“Words of a Friend from the Thoughts of a Granddaughter”
The above essay was written from recollections of Mary Katheryn Pitts in January 1971, with the following commentary: “Mary K.’s assignment for a composition class at Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA, was to write an essay based on a personal experience. This should not have been difficult for Mary K., as she had been born and spent her pre-school years in Saudi-Arabia. She later lived and attended school in Aspen, Colorado; Los Angeles, Calif., Tripoli, Libia, (sic. Libya, (with) her parents, Charles Farmer (8/3) Pitts and wife Yolanda Jean Potestio. She chose none of these experiences for the essay. Instead she decided to tell about a brief visit to her grandmother Phebe Pitts at Pea Ridge.
What was even more coincidental was that Phebe Buttram Pitts was unknowingly coalescing from a fall she had received on January 7, 1971, and because of some rather severe arm injuries she was unable to comb and care for her own hair. To most women of that time this would be a decision that could be made lightly; but not in the Pitts family. Her only daughter, Helen Marie (9/8) Pitts Arnn, replied that she could not cut her mother’s hair without the consent of “the boys” because Mother had never in her life had her hair cut. A mimeographed report of their Mother’s progress was mailed to “the boys” and to several of the grandchildren. In the report was a request for permission to cut Mother’s hair. In the return mail was several “nays.” The most eloquent reply was a copy of the essay that Mary K. had written. . . Needless to say Mary K. had received an ‘A’ for her paper."
I have seen no report on whether the hair of Phebe Buttram Pitts was cut! The above Phebe (7/11) Buttram, III, was the daughter of Michael Farmer (6/7) Buttram and wife, Sarah Etta (6/12) Miser who were first cousins, children of Rev. John Buttram and Phebe (5/2) Miser and George Washington (5/4) Miser and 2nd wife Jane Potter. Phebe (7/11) Buttram, III, married Charles Calvin Pitts on 21 May 1909 in Pea Ridge, Benton County, AR. – Mary F. Souder