Editor’s note: Each year, the Brown County Democrat celebrates some aspect of Brown County history in our Founders Day section, also known as “Yesteryear.” This year — as we’ve done for the past several years — we’re writing about residents who are about 80 or older, who define “Brown County character” in some way.
GNAW BONE — Outside, traffic races to and from Nashville on State Road 46 East. But inside Wilma Pittman’s home, you would have no idea that much hustle and bustle was happening so close.
Wilma, 97, sits facing trees that line her backyard. “I love all of the beautiful trees,” she said about why she loves Brown County.
“I sit here and watch those trees a lot. Sometimes, I look up there and there’s not one leaf moving. It’s so still. Then there’s times where it’s swaying back and forth. I sit here and watch them.”
Wilma has lived in this same home nearly 80 years. The farm where it sits has been in the Pittman family since 1867.
[sc:text-divider text-divider-title=”Story continues below gallery” ]Wilma’s late husband, Bill, grew up next door in one of the original two-story log cabins on the property. The couple built this home early into their 55-year marriage.
The second-oldest of Wilma’s four children, Jerry, lives here with her now, allowing her to stay in the place she loves.
She was born not too far from here, at a home on Old State Road 46 about a mile outside of Nashville, to Grover and Lura Brown in 1922.
Growing up, Wilma did not have electricity, running water or even a telephone. Her childhood home was lit by lamps. She remembers when her home finally had a bathroom added on to the back. “That was nice,” she said.
Grover Brown served as superintendent for Brown County Schools for 32 years. “He taught in all of these little one-room schools back then and those schools, all they had was a stove in the middle of the room, and the teacher was responsible to get there and get the stove going,” she said.
Lura was an outgoing, stay-at-home mother who enjoyed a dirty joke once in a while, liked to cook and kept a clean home.
Wilma’s childhood home still stands on Old 46. A barn on the property had a Mail Pouch Tobacco advertisement painted on it, but the barn is gone now.
She lived in that home until she married Bill, after she graduated from Nashville High School in 1940. They were married on Wilma’s 18th birthday, but she had her eyes on him since the eighth grade.
Bill was one year older than Wilma. The two rode the same school bus. “He would carry my books out for me,” she said.
“I had my eyes on him. I dated a few other boys, but I didn’t like any of them.”
Through the years
Jerry gets up from his chair to grab a black-and-white framed photograph of the couple standing near Bill’s motorcycle from around that time they were married.
“People find it amazing that she used to ride on the back of that motorcycle with Dad,” he said.
After they were married, the couple moved to Columbus and rented a bedroom for $2 a week. They began working at Arvin Industries, earning less than a dollar an hour. Bill then began working for Cummins Engine Company where he stayed until retiring in 1976 after 32 years, according to his obituary.
Wilma also worked at Arvin Industries for five years until she became pregnant with her first child, Leon.
When Leon was 5 weeks old, in 1945, Bill was drafted to serve with the Marines in World War II.
“It broke my heart,” Wilma said.
Bill spent a year in Japan after the war was over, working at a post office there. He served in the United States, too.
“If the war hadn’t ended when it did, he probably would have never made it home, because his battalion was going to be the first one to invade Japan. Not many of them would have survived, so thank goodness the war ended,” Wilma said.
“I owe my existence to the atomic bomb,” Jerry added. “If they hadn’t dropped the bomb, there would have been an invasion, and he might not have come home.”
The couple had four children: Leon, Jerry, and twin girls Brenda and Linda. Linda passed away at age 39 and Leon passed away at 37. Brenda lives in Cicero, but comes up to see her mother and help clean the house every other weekend. Jerry is the handyman of the house.
Wilma worked as a stay-at-home mom, feeding the children and keeping a clean home. After the twins started school, the minister at Nashville Christian Church approached Wilma about working as the church secretary.
She worked writing newsletters and ended up managing the church’s money for 14 years.
“I really didn’t want a job, but the minister kept talking me into it. He said, ‘Your twins will never know you’re gone because you can come in at 9 a.m. and you can be home when they get home from school,’ so that’s what I did,” she said.
Then, Leon and Jerry began working for the Gem Novelty Company on Salt Creek Road, cutting pieces of leather and felt out for basketballs and footballs that were used on school booster pins. “They brought them home and I stamped them (with the names of the schools),” she said.
Wilma also worked for the Brown County Clerk, putting names into the county’s poll books. She also worked as a poll inspector twice in the 1960s.
“We would be at the polls all night long, counting ballots by hand. We’d get home about noon the next day,” she said.
She also baked wedding cakes. She is a piano and organ player, so there would be times she would play the music and supply the cake for a couple’s happy day. Jerry guessed that his mother made well over 100 wedding cakes in the 1960s and 1970s. They were not simple cakes, either; some were three-tier.
In the ‘50s, Wilma also played for the Women’s Home Demonstration Chorus which met in the courtroom at the Brown County Courthouse.
“I’d throw my bike in the back of the truck. I’d get in trouble around Nashville while she was playing the piano up there,” Jerry said.
In the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, Wilma found her life filled with music, as she played piano for a local men’s quartet and for the Richards Sister, a girls trio in Columbus.
“I like music, but I can’t play nothing now,” she said, because of arthritis.
But she still enjoys music.
Lying next to her on a coffee table is a brochure from the new, 2,000-seat Brown County Music Center. Jerry took his mom to one of the venue’s soft openings to hear blues music, and the two plan to go again to see Ronnie Milsap in November.
‘Quintessential homemaker’
Bill and Wilma built their home on what is now State Road 46 East after moving back from Columbus. The house has gone through a few remodels, but the land stays the same.
Jerry grew up in this home with his siblings. He’s the fifth generation of Pittmans to farm the land.
“It just seems like it’s what I should do. I’ve done it all of my life. I’ve always farmed since I was about 18.” he said.
One of original farm structures still stands behind what is now known as Suburban Propane. It was on this property when Pittman family bought it in 1867.
After Bill retired from Cummins, he and Jerry started Pittman Oil and Gas. It was changed to Pittman Hoosier Propane after the two started selling propane. Jerry sold the business in 2001.
It has changed hands a couple of times since then, but it’s now known as Suburban Propane. Wilma worked as the company’s bookkeeper from 1977 to about 1990.
“Then we got a computer, finally,” Jerry said.
Bill and Wilma celebrated their 40th anniversary in 1980. Their children sent them on a trip to Hawaii. Bill had been there when he was in the Marines. It was the first time Wilma had ever been on an airplane.
“I remember as a kid we would hear an airplane, we would all run out to see it. That was just something that didn’t happen too often. That was the only airplane I had seen when I was a kid,” she said.
“I get on that big 747, I just couldn’t believe an airplane like that could get off the ground. It was so big. You walked in it and you looked down that aisle and it went to the end of the plane, it looked like it was a quarter of a mile long. I was a little bit nervous, but I finally enjoyed it.”
Bill passed away in 1996, one year after the couple celebrated their 55th wedding anniversary with a trip to Branson, Missouri, according to newspaper archives.
Now 97, Wilma enjoys spending time with her grandchildren, great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren. Her two great-great granddaughters are eighth-generation Pittmans in Brown County.
Jerry’s great-great-great grandfather, Thomas Pittman, came to Brown County in 1850 and settled on the other side of Gnaw Bone, which is known as Pittman Hollow. One of Thomas’ sons came back from the Civil War and bought the farmland where Wilma and Jerry live now.
“Today, people move so much. Society is so mobile. People take jobs and move all over the country, all over the world. I never got more than 3 miles from where I was born,” Jerry said.
As far as observing changes over the year, Wilma said the biggest one has been electricity. She remembers having a wood stove at her home and learning to cook on it.
Wilma still finds herself cooking in her kitchen, even though her walker makes it sometimes difficult to maneuver around. Jerry said he often tries to talk her out of making meals for visiting family members.
“(She says) ‘I couldn’t not do that,’” he said. “It’s just automatic. If someone is coming she feels like she has to fix a meal for them. That’s all she has done her entire life is feed people.”
Wilma still likes to make pies. Coconut cream and cherry are her favorites. “In fact, I think there isn’t any kind of pie I don’t like,” she said.
As far as what has kept her in Brown County, Wilma said she has never wanted to live anywhere else and that she enjoyed having good neighbors.
She also appreciates her son for coming back to live with her. For Jerry, it was just the right thing to do so she wouldn’t have to go to a nursing home.
“She’s the best mom in the world,” he said placing his hand on her shoulder: “The quintessential homemaker who dedicated her life to her kids, grandkids and her husband.”
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Wilma Pittman
Age: 97. Born June 22, 1922
Place of birth: Old State Road 46 in Nashville
Spouse: William “Bill” Pittman
Children: Leon, Jerry, Brenda and Linda
Parents: Grover and Lura (Browning) Brown
Siblings: One brother, two sisters
Occupations: Arvin Industries, Nashville Christian Church as secretary, stamper for the Gem Novelty Company, poll book writer for the county clerk, poll inspector for two elections, wedding cake baker, bookkeeper for Pittman Oil and Gas.
Hobbies: Reading, cooking and spending time with family.
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