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Winning Answer: "I have two names I want to try The first is Effie Fritts. The second is Mrs. J. H. Burke. Everyone called her Mother Birke." Mary Ann Campbell, Hazard, KY What gave it away? "The connection to the Lothair Methodist Church. I called Ms. Lorraine Bush because I knew she knew everything about her church!"
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Congratulations to Mary Ann Campbell of Hazard, the first to identify
Mystery Person #57 as Effie Fitts. Effie came to Eastern Kentucky in 1919 to do church work
during her summer vacation from teaching school in
Nelson County. "A group of
young people were coming up here to do missionary work. There were
no churches here at all then except for two in Hazard," she
recalled. " We came and held revival meetings. The first one
was at Hardburly." For two summers she traveled back and
forth from her home in Nelson County to the mountains. But after the third summer
the mountains claimed her as their own. "A man down at Combs
who was the head of the school system said they'd give me a school if
I'd stay and teach. Well, I just went home and got my
things," she said." Dressed in a high necked ruffled
blouse, long full skirt and wide brimmed hat, she got on a passenger
train in Lexington and traveled to Hazard where she spent the rest of
her life. Perry County was getting a teacher with experience when
they got her, too, for she had taught nine years before she came
here. "The first school I taught at was at a little coal
company called Hiner. The second year I was at Yerkes with Solar
Coal Company in a two-room school. And a
third year I taught at Combs." Those early summer visits helped
lay the foundations of the Lothair United Methodist Church..
"We wanted to have a revival at Lothair. There wasn't any place
large enough to have it though, so we had it in a tent. That little
church is the result of the first tent meeting we held in Lothair."
Effie married Ernest Fritts in 1924 and they had one son, her only child,
in 1925. Teaching wasn't her only career. Mrs. Fritts spent
ten years working at Dawahare's Department Store on Main Street in
Hazard. She took care of the children's department. (The clues
- "Willie" for Willie Dawahare and "Children." for
Children's Department) She ended up living alone. She outlived
her husband and only child. She enjoyed watching TV and listening to
the radio and she had a large print Bible that the Lothair Church ladies
gave her. "I don't take a dose of any kind of medicine. I
haven't taken a drop for three years," she said when she was 87 years
old in 1980. "I don't drink coffee, I don't drink soft
drinks. I have never smoked a cigarette in my life." One
thing that kept her busy was writing the "Christopher News" for
the Hazard Herald which she did for over 15 years. She got started
when a neighbor stopped in one day and asked her if she would.
"I said that it would be a pretty bad job and that I'd make mistakes
but they insisted that I do it and I've been at it ever since." Fritz
was blessed with grandchildren and great grandchildren who named her
"Teddy." Her daughter in law is Mosetta Fitts.
How could I have missed this? Effie
Fritts was my Sunday school teacher for many years at the Lothair
Methodist Church. She also played the piano for the church. Mrs.
Fritts was a great lady. Lois Reynolds Farler
