Individual Details
Charles Ishmel Highsmith
(19 Jan 1919 - 14 Oct 1948)
As a little girl, I was so in love with my father. Out of a total of eight years that I had him, I bet there was not a total of three years that we actually lived in the same house. However, he made an impression on me with his wonderful, laughing personality.
He was born in Glenmary, Tennessee, Scott County in 1919. His parents were Buren and Mary Rowlance Highsmith. I don't know much about his early life but I do have a couple of pictures. He was a cute blond, curly haired, blue eyed boy. At some point, he and his family moved to Johnson City, Tennessee. I don't even know what year that was but it would have been after 1925 and before 1938.
I don't know where he and my mother met but she was sixteen and madly in love. He was nineteen and apparently smitten himself. She said he liked to play the big daddy, I will take care of you thing. He would lie about his age, his weight, and his height. From some of his records, he must have been about five feet, ten or eleven inches and weighted one forty more or less. He had a twenty nine inch waist line when he died so he was pretty lean. They had two years of marriage before I was born and I think they played house and ran around with their friends. I have pictures of them made at White Rock where they were having a picnic. The ledge he is sitting on is still there. My uncle Clyde, mom's brother, is also in the picture. My uncle T.C. told me him and Aunt Rose shared a duplex house with Mom and Dad on Grand Avenue which was down the street from my grandparents, Gussie and Clark. T. C. and Rose lived on one side and Charles and Helen lived on the other side. There is a golf course there now. This must have been where I was born since that is the address on my birth certificate.
I was born in February 1940 and my grandfather, Buren Highsmith, died in September, 1940. I don't know what kind of relationship my father had with him but it must have been distressing when Buren died because his mother was left with three young children at home and very little money. In the meantime my father was struggling with a new family and Europe was fighting a war that was sure to bring the U.S. into it.
Dad went to school to the ninth grade. I'm not sure if he completed the grade or quit for some reason. Back then, a lot of people went to high school a few years and quit to go to work. He was driving a truck for Pepsi-Cola maybe starting late 1940 until he quit in October 1943. I have included a picture of him in the Pepsi uniform made in 1942. He was twenty three years old. For some reason, he left Pepsi and went to Detroit where he took a Civil Service Test and obtained a chauffeur's license. It appears he then got a job driving a bus for the city of Highland Park just outside Detroit. I'm pretty sure he was staying with his Uncle Harvey. He couldn't have driven long because his rich Uncle Sam sent him a letter saying he wanted to check him out on November 24 1943. He was being drafted. Things were getting pretty bad with the war as they had gotten to drafting men that were married with children. I was close to being four and Charlie was eighteen months old. Mom said that my Dad rushed home and quickly joined the navy before he had to report for the physical. He entered active service March 31, 1944. For whatever reason, he did not want to go into the army. He was such a risk taker that he probably saw the high seas as exciting. He loved the uniform and the thought of riding the high waves on a ship.
He came home on leave after basic training. There are pictures of him in uniform and Mom, Charlie, and me. He was then sent to Hawaii for a short time and then on to Kanton Island in the South Pacific. He arrived in Hawaii after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor so the island must have looked pretty bad. Kanton Island was a small island that saw no fighting during his stay. I'm not sure what his duties were but the island was used as a staging area for war planes flying different places. I think he mostly had a good time. There were pictures of him and his buddies riding motorcycles, climbing palm trees, and swimming in the ocean. He was seeing and doing things that he had never experienced before such as the ocean and seafood. There is a wooden suitcase he made and it was probably made while he was on the island. I think the men were frustrated because they were seeing no action. My uncles were in a raging war in Europe. During World War II, everyone was patriotic and wanted to get into the middle of the fighting. You were really looked down on if you were considered a draft dodger. I have no letters he wrote to Mom. I think there should have been some but they must have been lost along the way.
While he was gone, Mom put us in Temple Baptist Day Care and she went to work at Sears. Our Grandparents, Gussie and Clark were there and helped out when they could. We were at their house when Charlie first got sick in December 1945. After the Red Cross sent for our Dad and the Navy allowed him to go, he had the problem of getting home. It wasn't that easy during a war coming from the South Pacific. The navy gave him papers to leave but he had to find a ride. He caught a ride in the bomber bay of a plane headed back to San Francisco. That must have been scary since those planes weren't sealed and airtight. The wind was horrific and the noise loud. He finally got to San Francisco and then had to find a way across country. He had no money as all his money was being sent home. You didn't need money on Kanton Island. He was a friendly person and he got to talking to an elderly couple and they found out he had not eaten since he left the island, so they either bought him some food or took him home with them. He found a train station and with his orders, he was able to ride a train anywhere without a ticket. He caught a train and started home. It took him at least two days or more to get home. During this time, he had no way to get food. Then, trains were there for the government to move things and people across country and not for the convenience of people. Mom said that when he got off of the train in Johnson City, she did not recognize him, he was so skinny.
He was home for a few weeks and had to go I believe to Knoxville to get his discharge. He got up before day break the morning he was to leave to go to Knoxville. I had slept very little all night waiting for him to get up. I cried and pleaded for him to take me with him. I was afraid that if he left again, he would not come back. He finally had to leave me but I was inconsolable all day. He did come back in about three days and I was happy again. He got a job working for Tennessee Motor Company as a mechanic. He did not know much about mechanics but the men covered for him until he learned his job. He was the type person that everyone wanted to help him.
Sometime after that, my grandparents had moved down below Jonesboro in a house with some land and a garage apartment. Charlie was still in the hospital and Mom stayed there most of the time. My parents moved into the apartment which was very small and I lived with my grandparents in the house. It was not a bad time for me as I loved living in the country and Gussie was like a second mother to me. Charlie was having it worse. He was so sick and not expected to live.
I will not repeat the ordeal Charlie was going through but eventually he began to improve and we moved to the house on Lincoln Avenue that my parents had bought. It was a wonderful time because there was some normalcy to our lives. The house was the usual after the war track house. We had neighbors with children and a school at the bottom of the hill.
Charlie was still unable to walk very well and very thin. That first summer Mom would put him out in the sun on a donut pillow and I played with him. Our Dad would come home for lunch driving different cars from work and once he drove up on a motorcycle. We thought that was the grandest thing and wanted rides which we never got. Once we were acting up and our Dad smacked us very lightly on the bottoms and made us go lay on our beds. I talked Charlie into playing like we were crying. Our Dad came back to the bedroom and was so sorry he had made us cry that he took us out for ice cream. He was such a sucker for his kids.
We had lived in our new house for about eighteen months. One night we were waiting for Dad to come home for dinner when the phone rang. As it happened, Gussie and Clark were there. Mom answered the phone and a man said, "this is so and so funeral home in Kingsport. We have the body of Charles Highsmith and we need someone to come identify him". Mom fainted to the floor and Clark grabbed the phone while Gussie took Charlie and I into our bedroom. I think Clyde and Clark went to the funeral home to sign the papers to get him transferred to Morris-Baker Funeral Home in Johnson City. I don't think Mom was able to go. Dad had been to a military funeral that day and he decided to go fly with a friend, Larry Page, that had a license.
He loved flying and was trying to figure out how to buy a plane of his own. He had called Mom just a couple of hours earlier and told her to hold dinner
as he wanted to go fly a little with his friend. Farmers in the area reported that they were flying very low to the point they were scaring the horses the farmers were plowing with. We have always wondered if Dad was trying to learn to fly at the time of the crash. The plane hit a high-tension electrical wire and crashed into a creek.
Dad was a risk taker for sure. He loved fast cars and motorcycles and dreamed of flying his own plane. He was a friend to everyone and knew just about every body in town. Many years after his death there were people that still remembered him. I sure never got over missing him.
Daughter,
Betty Highsmith Simms 2012
He was born in Glenmary, Tennessee, Scott County in 1919. His parents were Buren and Mary Rowlance Highsmith. I don't know much about his early life but I do have a couple of pictures. He was a cute blond, curly haired, blue eyed boy. At some point, he and his family moved to Johnson City, Tennessee. I don't even know what year that was but it would have been after 1925 and before 1938.
I don't know where he and my mother met but she was sixteen and madly in love. He was nineteen and apparently smitten himself. She said he liked to play the big daddy, I will take care of you thing. He would lie about his age, his weight, and his height. From some of his records, he must have been about five feet, ten or eleven inches and weighted one forty more or less. He had a twenty nine inch waist line when he died so he was pretty lean. They had two years of marriage before I was born and I think they played house and ran around with their friends. I have pictures of them made at White Rock where they were having a picnic. The ledge he is sitting on is still there. My uncle Clyde, mom's brother, is also in the picture. My uncle T.C. told me him and Aunt Rose shared a duplex house with Mom and Dad on Grand Avenue which was down the street from my grandparents, Gussie and Clark. T. C. and Rose lived on one side and Charles and Helen lived on the other side. There is a golf course there now. This must have been where I was born since that is the address on my birth certificate.
I was born in February 1940 and my grandfather, Buren Highsmith, died in September, 1940. I don't know what kind of relationship my father had with him but it must have been distressing when Buren died because his mother was left with three young children at home and very little money. In the meantime my father was struggling with a new family and Europe was fighting a war that was sure to bring the U.S. into it.
Dad went to school to the ninth grade. I'm not sure if he completed the grade or quit for some reason. Back then, a lot of people went to high school a few years and quit to go to work. He was driving a truck for Pepsi-Cola maybe starting late 1940 until he quit in October 1943. I have included a picture of him in the Pepsi uniform made in 1942. He was twenty three years old. For some reason, he left Pepsi and went to Detroit where he took a Civil Service Test and obtained a chauffeur's license. It appears he then got a job driving a bus for the city of Highland Park just outside Detroit. I'm pretty sure he was staying with his Uncle Harvey. He couldn't have driven long because his rich Uncle Sam sent him a letter saying he wanted to check him out on November 24 1943. He was being drafted. Things were getting pretty bad with the war as they had gotten to drafting men that were married with children. I was close to being four and Charlie was eighteen months old. Mom said that my Dad rushed home and quickly joined the navy before he had to report for the physical. He entered active service March 31, 1944. For whatever reason, he did not want to go into the army. He was such a risk taker that he probably saw the high seas as exciting. He loved the uniform and the thought of riding the high waves on a ship.
He came home on leave after basic training. There are pictures of him in uniform and Mom, Charlie, and me. He was then sent to Hawaii for a short time and then on to Kanton Island in the South Pacific. He arrived in Hawaii after the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor so the island must have looked pretty bad. Kanton Island was a small island that saw no fighting during his stay. I'm not sure what his duties were but the island was used as a staging area for war planes flying different places. I think he mostly had a good time. There were pictures of him and his buddies riding motorcycles, climbing palm trees, and swimming in the ocean. He was seeing and doing things that he had never experienced before such as the ocean and seafood. There is a wooden suitcase he made and it was probably made while he was on the island. I think the men were frustrated because they were seeing no action. My uncles were in a raging war in Europe. During World War II, everyone was patriotic and wanted to get into the middle of the fighting. You were really looked down on if you were considered a draft dodger. I have no letters he wrote to Mom. I think there should have been some but they must have been lost along the way.
While he was gone, Mom put us in Temple Baptist Day Care and she went to work at Sears. Our Grandparents, Gussie and Clark were there and helped out when they could. We were at their house when Charlie first got sick in December 1945. After the Red Cross sent for our Dad and the Navy allowed him to go, he had the problem of getting home. It wasn't that easy during a war coming from the South Pacific. The navy gave him papers to leave but he had to find a ride. He caught a ride in the bomber bay of a plane headed back to San Francisco. That must have been scary since those planes weren't sealed and airtight. The wind was horrific and the noise loud. He finally got to San Francisco and then had to find a way across country. He had no money as all his money was being sent home. You didn't need money on Kanton Island. He was a friendly person and he got to talking to an elderly couple and they found out he had not eaten since he left the island, so they either bought him some food or took him home with them. He found a train station and with his orders, he was able to ride a train anywhere without a ticket. He caught a train and started home. It took him at least two days or more to get home. During this time, he had no way to get food. Then, trains were there for the government to move things and people across country and not for the convenience of people. Mom said that when he got off of the train in Johnson City, she did not recognize him, he was so skinny.
He was home for a few weeks and had to go I believe to Knoxville to get his discharge. He got up before day break the morning he was to leave to go to Knoxville. I had slept very little all night waiting for him to get up. I cried and pleaded for him to take me with him. I was afraid that if he left again, he would not come back. He finally had to leave me but I was inconsolable all day. He did come back in about three days and I was happy again. He got a job working for Tennessee Motor Company as a mechanic. He did not know much about mechanics but the men covered for him until he learned his job. He was the type person that everyone wanted to help him.
Sometime after that, my grandparents had moved down below Jonesboro in a house with some land and a garage apartment. Charlie was still in the hospital and Mom stayed there most of the time. My parents moved into the apartment which was very small and I lived with my grandparents in the house. It was not a bad time for me as I loved living in the country and Gussie was like a second mother to me. Charlie was having it worse. He was so sick and not expected to live.
I will not repeat the ordeal Charlie was going through but eventually he began to improve and we moved to the house on Lincoln Avenue that my parents had bought. It was a wonderful time because there was some normalcy to our lives. The house was the usual after the war track house. We had neighbors with children and a school at the bottom of the hill.
Charlie was still unable to walk very well and very thin. That first summer Mom would put him out in the sun on a donut pillow and I played with him. Our Dad would come home for lunch driving different cars from work and once he drove up on a motorcycle. We thought that was the grandest thing and wanted rides which we never got. Once we were acting up and our Dad smacked us very lightly on the bottoms and made us go lay on our beds. I talked Charlie into playing like we were crying. Our Dad came back to the bedroom and was so sorry he had made us cry that he took us out for ice cream. He was such a sucker for his kids.
We had lived in our new house for about eighteen months. One night we were waiting for Dad to come home for dinner when the phone rang. As it happened, Gussie and Clark were there. Mom answered the phone and a man said, "this is so and so funeral home in Kingsport. We have the body of Charles Highsmith and we need someone to come identify him". Mom fainted to the floor and Clark grabbed the phone while Gussie took Charlie and I into our bedroom. I think Clyde and Clark went to the funeral home to sign the papers to get him transferred to Morris-Baker Funeral Home in Johnson City. I don't think Mom was able to go. Dad had been to a military funeral that day and he decided to go fly with a friend, Larry Page, that had a license.
He loved flying and was trying to figure out how to buy a plane of his own. He had called Mom just a couple of hours earlier and told her to hold dinner
as he wanted to go fly a little with his friend. Farmers in the area reported that they were flying very low to the point they were scaring the horses the farmers were plowing with. We have always wondered if Dad was trying to learn to fly at the time of the crash. The plane hit a high-tension electrical wire and crashed into a creek.
Dad was a risk taker for sure. He loved fast cars and motorcycles and dreamed of flying his own plane. He was a friend to everyone and knew just about every body in town. Many years after his death there were people that still remembered him. I sure never got over missing him.
Daughter,
Betty Highsmith Simms 2012
Events
| Birth | 19 Jan 1919 | Glenmary, Scott, Tennessee, United States |  | ||
| Marriage | 26 Nov 1938 | Carter, Tennessee, United States - Helen Sue Huff | | ||
| Census-shared | 1940 | (Living) Johnson City, Washington, Tennessee, United States | | ||
| Death | 14 Oct 1948 | Accident - Hawkins, Tennessee, United States |  | | |
| Burial | Monte Vista Cemetery, Johnson City, Washington, Tennessee, United States | | |||
| Occupation | Automobile Mechanic |
Families
| Spouse | Helen Sue Huff (1922 - 1993) |
| Child | Living |
| Child | Charles Morton Highsmith (1942 - 1993) |
| Father | Buren Cleveland "Pete" Highsmith (1884 - 1940) |
| Mother | Mary Rowlance (1899 - 1993) |
| Sibling | Raymond Michael "Mickey" Highsmith (1921 - 1976) |
| Sibling | Billie Charlene Highsmith (1923 - 1990) |
| Sibling | Phillip Eugene Highsmith (1925 - 2016) |
| Sibling | Mary Margaret Highsmith (1938 - 2022) |
Notes
Death
Small plane crashEndnotes
1. Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville., Tennessee Death Records, 1914-1955 (FHL microfilm, 577 rolls, Family History Library Salt Lake City, Utah.), https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NSNK-S49.
2. Tennessee State Marriages 1780-2002, http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?_phsrc=oaE85&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&gss=angs-g&new=1&rank=1&msT=1&gsfn=Charles%20Ishmel&gsfn_x=0&gsln=Highsmith&gsln_x=0&MSAV=1&msbdy=1919&msbpn__ftp=Glenmary,%20Scott,%20Tennessee,%20United%20States&msgdy=1938&msgpn__ftp=Carter,%20Tennessee,%20United%20States&msddy=1948&msdpn__ftp=Hawkins,%20Tennessee,%20USA&msfng=Buren%20Cleveland&msfns=Highsmith&msmng=Mary&msmns=Rowlance&msbng=Loral&msbns=Highsmith&msbng1=Esther%20Emma&msbns1=Highsmith&msbng2=John&msbns2=Highsmith&msbng3=Ethel%20Viola&msbns3=Highsmith&msbng4=Emil%20Henry&msbns4=Highsmith&msbng5=Margaret%20Regina&msbns5=Highsmith&msbng6=Paul%20Madison&msbns6=Highsmith&msbng7=Raymond%20Michael&msbns7=Highsmith&msbng8=Billie%20Charleen&msbns8=Highsmith&msbng9=Phillip%20Eugene&msbns9=Highsmith&mssng=Helen%20Sue&mssns=Huff&mscng=Betty%20Sue&mscns=Highsmith&mscng1=Charles%20Morton&mscns1=Highsmith&_83004003-n_xcl=f&cp=0&catbucket=rstp&uidh=2a1&ssrc=pt_t101766530_p180012455976&pcat=ROOT_CATEGORY&h=460940&recoff=7%208%209%2027%2028%2029&db=TNstatemarriages&indiv=1&ml_rpos=2.
3. United States Census for 1940, https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/38676227:2442.
4. Tennessee State Library and Archives, Nashville., Tennessee Death Records, 1914-1955 (FHL microfilm, 577 rolls, Family History Library Salt Lake City, Utah.), https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NSNK-S49.
5. Tennesse Death Records, https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NSNK-S4M.
6. , Find A Grave (N.p.: n.p., n.d.), http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=highsmith&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=45&GScnty=2514&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GRid=112913820&df=all&.