WILLS FAMILY HOME PAGE

Ted & Estelle (Charlton) Wills with Son William Edgar Wills

Theodore "Ted" Roosevelt Wills, son of Henry Luis Wills is my next direct ancestor and my grandfather. Like his father, he was born and raised on the home place at Suck Creek, Summers Co., W. Va. His father was a faithful Republican named him in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt.

My grandfather’s notes say he lacked interest in school and preferred to roam the hills instead. He left home to attend High School in Beckley, W.Va. and look for work. While in High School, he discovered a talent for playing football and loved sports. He put himself through school and worked odd jobs for money because his parents had none to send him. As he matured, his interest in school changed. Eventually, he became a teacher himself. He was a teacher at various schools in Summers County, W. Va. for forty-one years.

The following text was typed from my grandfather's hand written notes. They were given to me by my father. I have added these notes because they give a sense of what life was like for him as a young man. The date of his notes is unknown.

Theodore Roosevelt Wills 

The sixth child of a family of nine children of Henry Lewis Wills and Charlotte Frances Shrewsbury Wills.  Born 1905 on Suck Creek, Summers County West Virginia in a three-roomed log house daubed with mud and had a large stone chimney. 

My mother was waited upon by a Mrs. Eril Johnston. I visited her when I was grown in Beckley where they retired to after selling their farm. In her quavering voice she said, “I’m the first person that laid hands on you.” She was very old lady, white or gray hair, kind, gentle eyes, slow speaking and had the appearance of a refined lady of her time.

 My father being a faithful and strong Republican named me in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt who was elected in 1904. I was called “Teddy”. When I got older I thought Teddy sounded too childish so I signed my name Ted, short and more grown up, so now I’m Theodore, Teddy and Ted or Ted R. Wills. 

Our schools were poor in comparison to today’s schools, teachers poorly trained and many were old and I was ignorant and lazy. I thought more about playing than learning and learned very little the first few years of school.

 I wandered about like Moses in the wilderness until I went to stay with Clifton’s wife and feed his cattle and go to school while he worked away from home.

 I was a big ugly duckling in this school. Large, ignorant and ugly but I saw my need to learn top be accepted in the group, going into a school not knowing a single person, I was a fish out of water and had to do some floundering. We were sent to the board to do a problem and explain it. I was largest and last to leave the board and that usually after the teacher worked the problem for me. I began to really study math and in two or three months, with Clayton as teacher at nights, I was not the last to leave the board, and was nudged by an elbow by the one next to me, “How do you work this one”.

 I think I went to school there two terms, will leave out the puppy love affairs, but learned the principle of basketball from one teacher. I wandered over into Raleigh County to find work around the coal mines and became interested in high school. When I started in high school, I went out for basketball and being large and tall, also older than most I got a position as center on the team. I was a poop player but in football I must have been a little better than the average as the coach from Woodrow Wilson High came to me a sweet talked me into going to his school and playing. As I didn’t have a residence there, I explained I had no money, no parents sending me, no one I could depend on for help and support. He would find me work and take of help and etc. 

I found a place to board and went out to the football camp for the week or two and was given a position on the team and went to school about two weeks and found myself money, job and no help. I paid the landlord the last of my money, packed my books, skimpy clothing into a bag and thumbed my way back into the family that I stayed with practically as a member of the family and next Monday I enrolled in my old school. 

Mr. Farley lived on a small farm like home and grew their own pigs. The prodigal son story was in reverse here, I was feeding the pigs when the Beckley coach with two or three other players came wanting to know why I wasn’t in school and out for practice.

 Then I reminded of his sweet talk and let him know I had gone my limit and my problems. He do so and so and the Charleston game was this weekend and I would have a chance to prove myself, etc, etc. No! You had your chance, I tried, I had been humiliated and with the heft of the Farley’s I would cast my lot with them.

 I was strong and applied for work ate the mines in the summer vacation and made a little money for school. One summer I got a job on a sawmill carrying slabs and stacking lumber at 50 cents per hour, ten hours per day. Worked until school time, then told the boss I was quitting for school. I was greatly criticized by one of the workers saying” you have a good job making $100 a month and your are quitting and going to school where you don’t make nothin?”. 

I had been born on a poor hillside farm in a family if nine children. We had to work long and hard to dig out a living from the soil. My parents had no money so I got not money from them to help with my schooling. I got discouraged and decided to leave school and become a coal miner, so went to Cabin Creek and got a job loading coal but got discouraged there as the market was poor and the mines were operating two days per week. No good for me. 

I hadn’t gotten a pay day yet so I went to the man I was boarding with and explained that I couldn’t do any good under these conditions, that I would write an order to the company to pay him and I would go back to school by thumbing and walking as I had no money. He made me a counter offer. He would take the order, buy a ticket back home. I had to accept with thanks.

 I had lost about a month of school and the kind and understanding principal allowed me to reenter school and not loose the year. One month lost, one lesson learned, “The grass is not always greener on the other side of the fence”.

 As our school was a small school I was accepted back in class as well as on the team. We got a few trips to other schools and to the tournaments, which were exciting and educational. I loved sports and without them, I don’t think I would have finished high school. I had a hard time going. No money, no clothes like the others, that I was asked if my parents were dead. I had to explain things.

 One of the most hurtful things about my schooling came to me as grape vine news. I was told that my mother said, “I educated one of my boys and he didn’t amount to a hill of beans”. I doubted the one that told me, and then thought my mother couldn’t know what educating a child was because she had never done it, and perhaps I wasn’t really very much. I couldn’t feel ill toward her, only hurt. I love and still love my mother greatly. 

-         End  - 

Footnote: My father tells me that when Ted left home, all he had was a pair of overalls and a calf. We assume that since there was no money at home, he traded or sold the calf to get the money he needed.

Ted married Estelle Ney Charlton, who was also a schoolteacher. They built a home at Madams Creek, near Hinton, W. Va., where they spent most of their adult lives. Ted retired from teaching in 1968 to farm, whittle wooden curiosities, he collected arrowheads and coins until he died on March 12, 1988. He and Estelle are buried in the Meador cemetery on Madams Creek in West Virginia. 

Descendants of Theodore Roosevelt Wills

  1  Theodore Roosevelt Wills  Born: March 09, 1905 in Suck Creek, W. Va.  Died:
     March 11, 1988 in Hinton, W. Va.  Age at death: 83
  .  +Estelle Ney Charlton  Born: February 28, 1905 in Cleveland, Oh.  Father:
     Mr. Thomas Edgar Charlton  Mother: Ms. Edna Grey Meador  Died: September 09,
     1994 in Hinton, W. Va.  Age at death: 89
  .  2  William "Edgar" Edgar Wills  Born: November 17, 1928 in Suck Creek, W.
        Va.  
  ....  +Ellen Joyce Keaton  Born: March 30, 1929 in Hinton, W. Va.  Married:
        August 12, 1949 in Hinton, W. Va.  Father: Mr. Admiral "Dewey" Keaton
        Mother: Ms. Ina Grace Honaker  
  .  2  [1] Edna "Marilyn" Marilyn Wills  Born: February 04, 1937 in Madams
        Creek, W. Va.  
  ....  +Howard Foster  Born: September 26, 1927 in Hinton, W. Va.  Married:
        January 14, 1954  Father: Mr. John L. Foster  Mother: Ms. Shirley
        Bradberry  Died: October 02, 1975 in Hinton, W. Va.  Age at death: 48
  .  *2nd Husband of [1] Edna "Marilyn" Marilyn Wills:  
  ....  +Tom Biggs  Born: March 17, 1937 in Hinton, W. Va.  Married: April 06,
        1984  Father: Mr. Basil Earl Biggs  Mother: Ms. Ledra Dick  
  .  2  John Charlton Wills  Born: December 31, 1938 in Madams Creek, W. Va.  
  ....  +Dana Watkins  Born: in W. Va.  Father:  Mother: