"A BRIEF HISTORY OF MY LIFE by W. J. Robinette"

"I was born near Taits Gap in Blount County, Alabama, October 5, 1875. My father was James Allen Robinette. He was a son of Jesse Spradly Robinette who was born September 30, 1814 and died September 5, 1907.  My father was born in Cherokee County, Georgia, January 21,1849. He died April 21, 1926. My mother was Miss Drusilla Walker. She to was born in Cherokee County, Georgia. She was born February 21, 1849 and died May 21, 19?9. She was the only daughter of Wesley Walker."

"When I was four months old, my parents moved to Cornelius beat. Where their old house sat is now covered by the waters of Inland Lake.  My parents taught me to spell and read from an Old Blue spelling book. When I started to school when I was seven years old, I carried a McGuffey third reader. My first teacher was a Mr. Burtram. Some of my early teachers were: Mr. Richard Partain, R. V. Allgood, and Miss Ida Mize. All the teachers taught in a log school house with only one door which had no shutters and open windows with open shutters. Some of the cracks between the logs were wide enough for me to crawl through. We had no desk. Our benches were slabs with pegs driven into a auger hole for legs.. A wide plank fastened to the wall was used for a writing table."

"School would begin the first Monday in July, and run for twelve weeks. In January 1888, we moved to the R. P. Doyle farm on the Brooksville road four miles Northeast of Cleveland.
The School house was just one-fourth mile from our house. The schools were taught three months beginning in November.. My first teacher there was Mr. William Blackwood. The next one was Mr. Forney Stephens. My next school was at Five Points I went there on term to Mr. R. L. Green.. About this time, Mr. B. C. Bynum opened up a school at Royal. It was a high school known as the The Royal Collegiate Institute. I attended this school one winter. It was four and one fourth miles from my home. I walked this distance morning and evening and paddle paddled a canoe across the Locust Fork of the Warrior River at the old Taylor Ferry.  My sister Alice went with me. One afternoon when we got to our boat the river was almost over-flowing its banks and the current was very swift. When I pushed the boat off the bank, the rear end reached into the swift current which turned the boat along the current and was floating down the stream. My sister became frightened and started to jump out of the boat. I caught her and by the time I got her to sit quietly the boat was a half-mile below the landing. I had to row the boat close to the bank where the water was still back up to the landing place.   When I reached home I told my father that I was not going to school anymore if I had to row her across the river."
"On the first Saturday in February 1893, I took the examination for a teacher's license. On the 2^nd day of July 1894, I opened my first school in the Poplar Springs schoolhouse. The house was built of logs and was just high enough for an adult to walk under the joists. It had no loft or ceiling and that hot summer sun almost cooked us. The boys and I built a brush arbor on the northside of the little building and when it was not raining, we moved benches out under the arbor for our comfort."

"My first schools were as follows:
Winter of 1894 - 5 at Manns School in Cullman Co.
1895 - 6 at Jordans School in Blount Co.
Summer of 1897 Lee's Chapel Blount & St. Clair.
November & Dec. 1897 at Five points."
"I had married Miss Nancy Blackwood October 31, 1897. The 4^th January, 1898 I took a fool notion to go to Texas. I prevailed on Austin Brown to finish my school at Five Points. I returned from Texas in September 1898.
Winter of 1898 - I taught at Rock Springs.
Winter of 1899 - 1900 taught at Rock Springs again.
In summer of 1900, I taught 3 months at Sugar Creek.
1900 - 1901 Pine Bluff also 2 months summer of 1901
1901 - 1902 Pine Bluff"

"My wife died May 18, 1902 and September 28, 1902 I married Miss Ernest Jeanette (Nettie) McCay."

"1902 - 03 I taught at Rockland (near Hayden)
1903 - 04 I taught at Reid School House
1904 - 05 I taught at Pine Bluff again.
1905 - 06 I taught again at Pine Bluff."

"In September of 1906, I was elected Manager of the Farmers Union Warehouse & Storage Company in Oneonta. I weighed, bought and sold cotton, during the years of 1907, 1908, 1909, and 1910 and until November, 1911."

"I went to Ovisburg, Mississippi (Pearl River County) in November, 1911. There I made cross ties and worked at sawmills until the spring of 1913. I then went to Stein, La., (Washington Parish) where an Uncle of mine was a foreman of a saw mill crew. I soon learned to be an expert lumber grader and was promoted to bookkeeper. I stayed there until the Company cut all their timber. Then I went to Sun, Louisiana (Saint Tammany Parish) where I graded lumber for the planing mill of The Sun Lumber Company.  When the World War I broke out and lumber could not be exported to Europe the mills were forced to shut down. The planing mill, because of a burn out was sixty days behind with the planing of the lumber. I had a job for sixty more days."

"On September 13, 1914,  I put my wife and three children - two boys and a girl five years old - on a Southern north bound train bound for Birmingham, Alabama to stay with my people and my wife's people until I could find another job. About 3:00 a.m. September 14, 1914 the train wrecked about two miles south west of Livingston, Ala (Sumter County). My wife and little daughter were so badly broken up that they remained in a Meridian, Mississippi hospital for fifty-two days."

"Early in February 1915, we were able to agree with the Railroad Company on a compromise settlement. I bought the Houston McCullough farm near Concord, Alabama. After making three crops on this farm, we sold it to Manly McCay and I bought the Oliver Hendricks farm near Locust Fork. This was also the first farm I ever owned. All this trading was in 1918. The first crop on this farm in 1919 was a very favorable crop, but in 1920, the Boll Weevils almost totally destroyed the cotton crop. I couldn't make the payment due in the fall of 1920."

"There was such a shortage of teachers that the State Educational Department was issuing emergency certificates to all who had ever held a teachers certificate. I accepted a position as teacher in a one teacher's school at Selfville. Because the year 1921 was also a bad crop year, I taught as principal of a two teacher school known as Chigger Hill School. My assistant teacher was Miss Jessie Burroughs. My name was also Jesse."

"The school year of 1921 - 22 I went back to Poplar Spring where twenty-nine years before I taught my first school. In this school I had some of the best and most advanced pupils I had ever taught. The next year I went to Oak Grove in St. Clair Co. The year 1922 - 23 I enrolled twenty-six pupils. In 1923 - 24 my enrollment reached sixty-five and for the year 1924 - 25 the enrollment reached ninety-four. I had no assistant."

"The year 1924 - 25 my county Superintendent sent me to Ferguson Cross Roads as principal of a two teacher school. I remained there for the years 1925-26, 1926-27, 1927-28. Miss Annie Clyde Dunnaway was my able assistant. In 1928-29, I was principal of Center - a two teacher school. Miss Filer was my assistant.  Because of some questions which might result in dividing the school into rival factions, I accepted the one teacher school at County Line. I remained there for two years. Then for the next four years, I went back to Poplar Spring School as principal of a two teacher school. Miss Pearl Champion was my able assistant."

"In this school, we had some fifteen boys and girls from twelve to fifteen years old who started to school when they were six years old. They were still in the primer. At the beginning of the second year, I decided they had lost self-confidence and had their minds made up that they couldn't learn and that they did not try. I moved them into my room and put them to adding three figure numbers. The first day every one of them had added a column. I told them that they could work problems that did not state any facts or require any solutions without being able to read, but they would have to learn to read to work all written problems. They regained self-confidence and learned so fast that at the end of the term, I promoted them to 3^rd grade. Nearly all of them finished high school and some of them secured positions in banks and law offices and sales ladies in stores."

"The fourth year at Holly Springs I had for an assistant a young woman who had been in a girl's reform school. She and I had both been recommended for teachers for another year and asked by the County Board of Education, but on Wednesday of the last week as umpire for a baseball game I called a ball a fowl ball, she called me a liar. I promptly informed my trustees that I would not teach with her. They wanted me to stay and they would have her replaced, but I told them it was too late for her to find a location and that I had a place wanting me."

"The school years of 1936-37 and 1937-38 I taught in a one teacher school at County Line, near Trafford, Alabama. The year 1937-38 I was principal of Selfville School. Miss Annie Lewis was my assistant. She was a good teacher and used her energies for the improvement of the school. During this term at Selfville the County Board ordered the consolidation of County Line, Selfville and Center Schools and built a new school near Selfville which was named Sterling School.  I was named as teacher of the 5^th grade, but the Principal wanted the position for his brother's sweet heart. He persuaded the trustees of the schools joined in the consolidation to ask the county Superintendent to replace me with the young lady. The County Superintendent told me that hey had waited too long to make their request and that they could not make their request and that they could not move me if I was unwilling to go."

"I again accepted Hoods School; a one teacher school for the year 1939-40, but during this term the school increased enough that the year 1940-41 Mrs. Charles Moses, another good faithful teacher was my assistant."

"The school year 1941-42 I was sent as principal of Sulphur Springs School near Blount Springs, Ala. This was a three teacher school in a building built for a Junior High School. My able assistant was Mrs. Sadie Belle Cox and Mrs. Marvin Cox.  Not long after school opened the United States declared war against Japan. We let all the pupils into the auditorium to hear President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress' declaration of war against Japan."

"The school year of 1942-43 I taught in the Junior High School at Locust Fork. For four years, I taught 7^th, 8^th and 9^th grade arithmetic and spelling. The spelling textbook was Webster's Old Blue Back Speller. The 1945-46 school term beginning in July 1945, I did not have to return upon reaching age seventy-one on Oct. 5^th, 1945. I continued until the term ended in May, retiring July 1, 1946."

"When the 1946-47 term began, I was employed as part-time Librarian and manager of the school supply store. I am now, April 1963, finishing my seventeenth year as manager of the supply store."

"Some of my early years in the teaching profession I received only ten and fifteen dollars per month for my teachers salary. After I quit farming in 1922 during the spring and summers vacations, I would hire to my neighbor farmers to hoe cotton and corn. It was a great pleasure to me to make the statement that I was considered among the best users of a hoe."

"SOME NOTED INCIDENTS IN MY LIFE
In 1902, I was elected Justice of the Peace for Whites Precinct.
In April 1910, I took the Federal Census in Thompson's and Ray's beat.
In 1916, I was elected Justice of the Peace in Concord Beat.
In October 1919 I took the Civil Service examination for Census enumerator, the test was so hard that so few of the applicants passed that Lee Self and I were assigned to work sixteen beats in the 1920 C3ensus. I was assigned to Concord, Chepultepec, Oneonta, Cleveland, Royal, Blountsville, Gum Springs, Joy and Nectar Beats. I wrote the Supervisor that I could not possibly work all that territory. He wrote me to recommend some one who was qualified to work Blountsville, Gum Springs, Joy and Nectar beats and I recommended M. B. Gipson who was O.K.'d for the job."

"In 1922, the Locust Fork School building was located in the woods nearly one-fourth mile from the public road. Several of the citizens of Locust Fork were sending their children, who had completed the grammar school courses, to Blountsville, Boaz and other places.  I told Mr. Bud Headley that if we had a Junior High School we could keep our children at home for three years longer. I told him I had a place picked out for the school building and told him where and how to get roads to it. He exclaimed 'Wouldn't a school house shine on that little hill!' I told him that he was the proper person to take hold of the proposition, which he did. This has grown into one of the largest High Schools in Blount County with a new building which cost over three hundred thousand dollars."

"NOTE: I bought a notebook and asked Grandpa Robinette to write the story of his life for me. I knew he had valuable information that after he was gone, no one would ever know. I game him the book the summer of 1964, possibly May or June of that year. He wrote in his spare time, as he was still holding a job as manager of the supply store at Locust Fork School. He wrote until he got sick and was put in the hospital in November of 1964 and died a few days after he had surgery.) Joyce Tolbert"