Country Connections By James and Ellen Perry
1936 was a good year and a bad year. The depression was still raging. The Nazis were being emboldened by the pacifist actions of both Britain and the United States, although the United States had ramped up air and army support against the Japanese military and their savagery in China and Burma. There was peace in the United States and Roosevelt’s programs were improving poverty in most of the U.S. But war clouds swirled.
Samuel “Runt” Kitts and his wife Leita Brewer Kitts had their first child, a girl. They named her Melba Rosetta Kitts.
Melba was the first of 12 children the Kitts had and raised. Melba grew through babyhood and childhood as in most rural families with chores to do to help the family — as they used to say — “make it.”
Today’s children and teens can’t comprehend what “make it” means. That term means that everyone, including the children, had chores and work around the house and farm to do and the family depended on them.
Jobs and money were scarce so the family had to raise gardens, can or preserve the vegetables, milk cows, raise hogs for food and keep chickens for eggs, and meat when the chickens quit laying.
They raised corn and ate it on the cob when fresh, pulled the corn when mature and stored it in a corn crib for feeding the hogs, mules, horses, cows and chickens and going to the mill. They would shell the best for cornmeal and take the other corn to the mill and have it ground up for the farm animals during the cold winter months. Nothing smelled as good as cornbread baking in a wood stove.
Melba and her siblings did all these things. The girls helped with the household work and the older children helped look after the younger ones. Remember there were no pull-ups. There were cloth diapers, some bought, but most were made from old sheets or cotton cloth of various types. The contents of the diapers had to be emptied out and the diapers washed, usually by hand on a washboard with lye soap.
There were no automatic washers and dryers then for the family clothing. The “wash” then had to be hung on a clothesline even when the temperature was below freezing and during snowstorms.
Around 1949 Melba was about 13 years old. She was feeding and watering the hogs and singing to them. A neighbor, Walter Hill, happened to hear Melba singing to the hogs and he came over and recommended she enter a talent contest at Luttrell Elementary School and sing a song that was a hit for Little Jimmy Dickens, “An Old Cold Tater.”
Melba entered the contest and was so scared as this was the first time she sang on stage and before so many people that she did not know if she won or placed. She must have done well as she was asked back for the next contest.
This talent contest started Melba on a lifelong journey of singing at funerals, pie suppers, church services and revivals.
At a young age she saw a teenage Carl Smith perform at Luttrell Elementary School. Melba said Carl was a very good-looking boy and could really sing well.
Melba attended high school at Maynardville, Tennessee. She was dating Billy Ray Greene during her senior year in 1953, who (she says) talked her into marrying him. Melba didn’t graduate high school but became a housewife and a year later became mother to their first child named Sherrell Ray Greene.
Sherrell attended UT Knoxville and acquired a nuclear engineering degree and worked at Oak Ridge until retirement. Their second son Charles “Ted” Greene came three years later, and he worked in life insurance for nine years and the LBC Utilities at Luttrell until retiring. Their last son, Wynn Stewart Greene, was born October 11, 1965. He works today as project manager for Service One. He also serves as a deacon at Cedar Ford Baptist Church in Luttrell, Tennessee.
Melba’s father, “Runt” Kitts, and his family entertained on the Mid-Day-Merry-Go-Round during the early- to mid-1940s. Later they were on John Hitch’s Barn Dance in Knoxville, Tennessee. Their picture is on the front cover of Ed Hooper’s book “Image of Knoxville WNOX.”
Runt and his family did personal appearances in East Tennessee on nights and weekends playing mostly during the 1940s at high schools.
In later years, Melba performed at Gary Beeler’s Crusades which has been in service for 27 years.
A noted entertainer related through marriage was Chet Atkins, who married Ida Sharp, who just happened to be her husband Bill’s aunt. Con Hunley is Melba’s first cousin.
Melba has had a good life entertaining, enjoying her and her husband’s families, raising their own family and now enjoying their third generation and serving the Lord. A fulfilling life.
I asked Melba about current country and gospel music and she told me she prefers the original country singers and southern gospel. Her current country favorite is George Strait. I agree with Melba.
Like Melba says, she’s a child of God.