Surname at birth: Allen

Surname from young manhood onward: Hutchison

Full name throughout adulthood: Fred Henry Hutchison

Fred Allen and Lillie Mae Allen were raised in Wadesboro, NC, by their maternal grandparents, Ella and John Hutchinson, after the death of Fred and Lillie Mae's teenage mother Annie. When he grew up, Fred took his grandparents' last name -- the version of the name without the middle N. The various names in the records, and the various spellings thereof, lived on to confound future genealogists. Fred would have been amused.

As children, Fred and his younger sister worked in a cotton mill. In 1910, Fred was working as a doffer, and his sister as a spooler. (That same year, three siblings of Fred's future wife Ida were working in a cotton mill a few counties away, as spooler, spinner, and doffer.)

Fred Hutchison enlisted in the Navy in October of 1913. For convenience' sake, his late maternal grandfather was listed as his "father" John W. Hutchison in Fred's service papers. After a little less than a year, Fred was discharged with a diagnosis of painful fallen arches. He did not claim exemption from the draft in 1917, and family accounts differ as to whether Fred went on to serve in the Army.

In 1918, Fred married Ida Gallion of McDowell County, NC, whom he met by mail when both were ghostwriting letters on behalf of illiterate friends. Their first child was born in 1920 in Newport News, VA. Throughout his adult life, Fred's primary occupation was house painter.

Fred and Ida Hutchison's new family soon found themselves back in North Carolina -- in the Charlotte area. Later, during the Depression, Ida and the children were living in a small house in McDowell County, to be near Ida's parents. Meanwhile, Fred stayed mostly in a boarding house in Charlotte where he could find work. Eventually Fred told Ida that he had dreamed some numbers the other night, and had been inspired to bet those numbers with a fellow tenant who was in the game. The small bet had paid off big time, said Fred. Wherever the money came from, it was enough for Fred to move his wife and kids back to Charlotte.

Raising five children, Fred and Ida were never wealthy, but they enjoyed the comforts of family. Their numerous grandchildren and great grandchildren formed happy memories of rocking in the Hutchisons' big porch swing. These descendants also would recall the pungent taste of the well water served alongside Ida's delicious banana pudding. Easter egg hunts were staged among the trees and shrubs in the sprawling yard next to the landlords' pasture. A familiar but always mystical sight was Fred's service-days tattoo, on display as the children's taciturn grandfather relaxed by the wood stove.