Hildebrand Family History

I've been interested in the school classes at the turn of the century and enjoy looking at the old school pictures. My grandparents lived in a rural area of the county, and when they went to school, most schools were one room with one teacher. Lack of transportation and few improved roads made it difficult to go to the larger towns for more schooling. Back then, rural areas didn't have access to high schools, so it was common for siblings to attend the same one-room school but be in different grades. This newspaper clipping shows the 1918 students and their teacher. My Grandmother, Ola Hutson, is pictured with one brother and three sisters.

  A few months before my father, Charles B. Hildebrand, passed away, he agreed to make some notes about our ancestors. Below are the notes that he made. The notes were written in June 1998; he passed away in February 1999.

  When I was growing up, we were never allowed to watch any movies or talk about WWII. After my Dad (Charles B Hildebrand) passed away, I found this letter and its translation. He had sent it to someone in England to be translated. I have included both the original letter and the translation. I knew he served in the South Pacific during WWII, but I didn’t know he was also in Japan until I found this letter. Below is the letter in Japanese, followed by the translated version. The Translation

This picture shows the Bulcher one-room school that my grandfather, Charles Clarence Hildebrand, attended in 1904. It was one of Grandma Ola's favorite pictures. When I was a kid, my grandfather took me to the school's location, but all that remained were a few pieces of the wooden post foundation. I can’t remember which one he is, but he is one of the younger students.

This photo captures when my dad, Charles Billy Hildebrand, came home from work and discovered this very large rattlesnake in the yard where I was playing. As a child, the last thing I heard before heading out to play was, "Watch out for snakes." These words and memories of my grandfather and his friends going on rattlesnake hunts to see who could catch the biggest and most rattlesnakes left a lasting impression on me.  I don’t know where my Dad learned to catch rattlesnakes. He most likely learned growing up in an area where there were a lot of them, or maybe he went on rattlesnake hunts himself. I'm glad he saw the snake that day. Even now, some seventy years later, I still watch for snakes when I step into the yard despite living in an urban area.

This picture is of my Grandmother Violet Gill's older brother Raymond's school class from 1910. He is the third one from the right on the front row, and my Grandmother Violet is the second one from the right in the second row. She was only five then but wanted to go to school, so she and the girl beside her dressed up and went for picture day. My Grandmother loved to read and wanted to go to high school. However, back then, girls usually didn't attend school much after age 12 or 13 unless they were from an affluent family. Instead, they would work at home to help the family, especially if they lived on a farm.  This picture survived a tornado in about 1914, which blew their house away. Although I have touched it up, the back of the image below has not been edited.  

Someone took this picture of my grandparents during World War II for their children. From left to right, the people in the picture are Herbert Vivian Ice, Violet Vada (Gill) Ice, Ola Mae (Hutson) Hildebrand, and Charles Clarence Hildebrand. They are the parents of Charles Billy Hildebrand, who was in the South Pacific, and Lura Dean (Ice) Hildebrand, who was waiting for him at an Army Base in South Carolina.