Page 10 - Amarillo Senior Link Magazine Fall 2019- Online Magazine

Lynwood Pirtle Lynwood Pirtle – A Sailor
y dad, Lynwood Pirtle,
was born in 1921 in
MHail, a small town
in East Texas near Bonham.
His father, Farris Pirtle, was
an educator, teacher, principal
and superintendent. Dad’s
mom, Luna Clark, had been a
student of Farris’, and when she
graduated from high school,
they married. Sadly, when my
Dad was seven years old, his
mother died from complications
with another pregnancy, and
young Lynwood was sent to
live with an uncle and aunt in
a nearby community. My dad
recollects that his father paid
them $20 per month for his room
and board.
10 Amarillo Senior Link
and a Gentleman
By Kenneth Pirtle
Without brothers no romance at first; they were
or sisters, my dad simply barefoot “buddies”. Dad
had uncles, Brian returned to Hail every fall to
and Wilson Pirtle, to attend school.
play with during his
childhood. He has The tough years of the
fond memories of Depression were easier on his
catching crawdads family because they lived on
in the Red River and a 45-acre farm with a large
nearby creeks. He said vegetable garden, a milk-cow,
they did not eat the a hog or two and a horse. The
crawdads, but some horse was harnessed to a two-
of the children of the wheel cart to transport my dad
poor tenant farmers and his dad, the teacher, to
happily ate all they school, about three miles away.
could catch. Dad recalls, “The roads were
rough and often muddy, which
My grandfather Farris made it difficult to cross the
remarried in 1933. He brushy creek bottoms.”
and his new bride,
Addie Lou, had four Lynwood was a bright student
children. My dad and did very well in school.
lived with the new Upon graduation, he enrolled
young family on and off over in East Texas State University
the next decade and served as a and majored in English. The
big brother to his younger half international news of Hitler’s
siblings. aggression was heating up,
and my Dad lived with the
Lynwood would visit his likelihood of being drafted into
maternal grandparents’ farm the service. In 1941, after two
near Lubbock during the years at ETSU, he decided to
summer months. Here, too, he suspend his college pursuits and
had uncles who were only a move to California to work for
few years older, and they found Lockheed Aircraft Company.
farm tanks to swim in when The ramp up to WWII had
they were not hoeing cotton. begun. It was at this time that
It was at a neighboring farm the long-distance relationship
near the community of Acuff between my future mom and
that my dad, age 14, met a Dad began to accelerate as well.
pretty 12-year-old girl, Juanita She followed him to California
Collett. She began to occupy his and got a job with Douglas
attentions during those summer Aircraft. They married on
visits. He claims that there was January 27, 1942.