I am J.W. (Joe) Bitner's Granddaughter. I am helping Joe's adopted aunt Minnie's, granddaughter, with a large Bitner family tree. [I found G.W. (George) Bitner's, adopted sister Minnie's, granddaughter online.] I am searching for any descendants of G.W. (George) and Lenora Bell Bitner.  They last lived in Littlefield, Texas.  They had six children.  I would like to find descendants of all the children. 

If you would like to participate in this family tree please fill out this form. You will have to print out the form on this page and postal mail it to me.  I would prefer that, since we wouldn't be sending private information via E-mail.  You will have to E-mail me and tell me who you are so that I can send you my postal address.  I am trying to be careful.  You never know who you will run across online.

If you want to contact me via an E-mail form, please go to the following page: This is an easier way for you to let me know that you want to participate in the family tree. (You can click on the following picture.)

George Bitner was a cotton farmer who preferred to farm with mules.  He lived in and near Littlefield, Texas with his wife Lenora Bell Bitner. 

http://www.rootsweb.com/~txwilbar/photoalbum/ Wilbarger County Texas Photo Album.  This album has two pictures of Joel W. and Martha Bitner, G.W. George Bitner's parents.

We make it a policy NEVER to share information about living people without their permission. Anything we post to the web regarding a living person is simply shown as "Living" with no details about name or address.

Help Please! If anyone has an old computer (Windows 98 or 95) that has a program on it called, "Drive Space" can you let me know!!  I have a lot of Bitner information on a disk.  I cannot access it because we formatted the disk with old technology called, "Drive Space".  This allowed the disk to hold more stuff on it.  I would like to access the disk.  Also, I cannot find my hand written copies of this information.  It is possibly in a box somewhere.  But then again, once I stuck it onto the disk, I could have gotten rid of my hand written notes.  Any help will be appreciated!!!!

Please Print Out And Fill In This Form: (You will probably need lined paper in order to fill out this form.  You will probably have more to write on here than I gave space.  Some of this form is a sample anyway.  You can also photocopy this form before you fill it out.  That way you do not have to use up so much printer ink.)  Hopefully this form will retain its formatting when I stick it on the Internet.  I hope this all makes sense!

Please type or print out this information. The easier we can read your handwriting, the better it will be for us.   We will probably only need one representative for each family. 

I am looking for any spouses, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren etc. of the following people...                    

Please circle the person you are related to in the following list:           Albert Dudley Bitner; Jess Fay (Fae) Bitner; Virgil Lee Bitner; Jewel Bitner Dillard; J.W. (Joe) Bitner; and Bessie Bitner

What is your name?  _________________________ (Write the name of the person filling out this form.)

What relationship are you to the person on the list?_____________ (Example: I am J.W. Joe Bitner's granddaughter.)

We need a contact address, phone number or E-mail for you. _________________________________________________
__________________________________________________

Please write or type all the children, grandchildren and so on of the family you are reporting for.  Give their birth dates, death dates, spouses, marriage dates etc.  (You can use separate sheets of paper if you need to.  MAKE SURE you put your name at the top of the separate sheets of paper so we know who they came from!!)  If the person is still living please make sure you write that next to their name.

If I have any spelling mistakes or date mistakes, please help me correct any mistakes on this page!

This is the list of names I keep referring to as being "above":   Albert Dudley Bitner; Jess Fay (Fae) Bitner; Virgil Lee Bitner; Jewel Bitner Dillard; J.W. (Joe) Bitner; and Bessie Bitner

Birth date/death date etc. of person on the list above____________________ (Personal information of the person you are related to in the list above. For example I would list the information for J.W. Joe Bitner.)

Spouse #1 of the person on the list above______________________ (List the first spouse of the person you are related to in the list above. Please list their personal information and their whole name including their maiden name.)

Spouse #2 of the person on the list above_______________________ (If the person on the list above had a second spouse please list that information here.)

Family of______________________ (name of the person you are reporting the family of.  For example, I would put, Teddye Jo Bitner Davis.)

How is this person related__________________________ (Example, daughter of J.W. Joe Bitner.)

Spouse_______________________ (Wife or Husband of person)  Please put the full name including maiden name. 

Spouse 2______________________(second spouse of the main named person)

The rest of this form can be filled out on separate sheets of paper. (I have it laid out as a sample of the information we are looking for.)

Children with spouse #1: (List the Children of the person from the list and their first spouse.  Make sure you list their birth/death and marriage information.  Also list the spouses full names with the maiden name.)

Children with spouse #2:

Grandchildren: (Parents are:)_______________________

1._________________________married____________________ Grandchildren of person on the list above. Please list the grandchildren and the parents of the grandchild.  Also put the birth/death and marriage dates.  Plus the full name of the spouse.

2.________________________married______________

Grandchildren: (Parents are:)_____________________

1. ____________________married_________________

etc.

Great-grandchildren: (Parents are:)__________________

1.__________________married_________________   (Great-grandchildren of the person on the list above)

Great-grandchildren: (Parents are:)___________________

1.

etc.

Great-great-grandchildren: (Parents are:)______________

1.

etc.

Great-great-great-grandchildren: (Parents are:)______________

etc.

Family History:

If there is any family history that you want to write about... Any stories, travels, where the family moved through its history etc. Please include that information too. 

For Example...  Joel Wilson Bitner was born in Tennessee.  He moved to Illinois and got married. Then they moved to Kansas.  He went bankrupt there. He eventually moved to Texas.  He lived in Vernon, Texas at the end of his life. 

Letter From Fern Bitner that came with the following story: (Typed in as she wrote it. This was a long letter from her!) (August 6, 1990)

Monday,  It is cloudy this a.m.  Looks like rain but it probably wont rain.  The showers are spotted. 

We went out to Estae's Mae's & Gene yesterday eve.  Gene ran the Bitner letter off his computer. 

J.W. Raynell & Jaylia along with some other 4 H. s lift this a.m. for Six Flags.

Have put some peas & corn in the deep freeze.

Am doing laundry this morn. Have been piecing quilts.  My eyes are getting so bad.  Still try to walk every morning, I know it will soon be too cold. Jesie still helps me Friday morn's. 

Charla & them are on vacation this week. Don't think they are going any where

I helped with the Elms history for the book they are trying to make.  I gave it to a woman on the telephone.  I got all the kids birthdays & marriages from Mammas Bible. 

Better run

Love u

Granny

When the George W. Bitner Family Moved Westward:  (Originally typed by Gene Rooze, as dictated by J.W. (Joe) Bitner.  Probably on August 5, 1990.  They wrote this for a book about the history of Lamb County, Texas.)

George W. Bitner, the son of Joel and Martha Johnson Bitner was born March 10, 1882 in Rock Wall County, Texas.  His wife Lenora Bell the daughter of William and Mary Pendergrass Bell, was born August 22, 1887 in Boone County Arkansas.  Grandmother Bell always wanted to come to Texas, but Grandpa didn't like the state, so after his death in 1900, grandmother had a farm sale, loaded two covered wagons with Lenora and another daughter and son-in-law and headed for Texas, crossing Oklahoma Indian Territory. 

The Bells arrived in Cook County Texas where my mother Lenora met my dad George.  They were married in December of 1901, she was fourteen and he was 19.  A son Albert was born September 27, 1902.  They started west with George's parents, 4 brothers and one sister.  They planned to settle in Wilbarger County Texas, near the town of Vernon.  But when the wagons and cattle got to the county line, daddy found that the Texas cattleman had placed a quarantine on all cattle.  Cows needed to be vaccinated for a period of 6 months before they could be moved in.  Daddy's cows were milking cattle so they were very valuable.  The selling price offered was much too low for such a herd.  Dad went back to Iowa Park some 15 miles away and kept the cattle until the quarantine period was up.  They then moved the cattle onto a farm south of Vernon.  The family had continued on without him.  Dad rented a farm for one year and stayed at Iowa Park. 

Daddy was a cotton farmer, but all of his neighbors said it was too far west to plant cotton.  In spite of conventional wisdom; Daddy planted anyway.  He made a good crop but the cotton had to be hauled 25 miles in a one bale wagon for ginning at Henrietta, east of Wichita Falls.  So as far as I know, that was the first cotton grown this far west. 

In 1903 Dad move his family south of Vernon on the old Seymour Highway.  On September 23, 1904 another son Jessie Fae was born.  My dad and his brother farmed near Vernon and that is when they found out about dry weather in West Texas.  They planted wheat in the fall of 1904 and at harvest time they were still waiting for the wheat to sprout.  It was dry all fall and spring.  The family farmed there until 1907 when they moved into Davidson, Oklahoma in Tilman County where another son Virgil Lee was born March 14, 1907.  They lived in both the western and eastern parts of the county.  During this time a daughter Jewell Marie was born on April 7, 1909.  They then moved to the center of Tilman where I was born on November 25, 1914.  Another daughter Bessie was born August 28, 1917. 

Farming smiled on the family for several years. My brothers, were grown and the neighbors began to move to West Texas in 1923.  Most moved east of Lubbock and into Hockley County.  My brothers A.D. and V.L. came to Acuff for a visit and then on to Littlefield to look for land. 

They bought a farm west of Bull Lake near the Beck Community in August of 1924.  They moved onto the land in the winter and put it into cultivation.  my Dad also got the West Texas fever and came here in the winter of 1924.  He purchased the old Hoover Ranch Headquarters from Ira Hoover of Plattsburg, Missouri.  He rented out the land in 1925.  In 1926 the family loaded themselves into immigrant box cars, along with their household goods, their farming equipment, the mules and the livestock and they arrived in Littlefield the last day of February.

The Bitners thought this was the finest farming country in the world.  Despite the fact that the land had to be grubbed by hand because mesquite covered the old pastures.  The years of 1927, 28 and, 29 were bountiful crops, although there were many sand storms.  Then the rains stopped. 

1990 makes my 65th crop on the farm which my dad bought in 1924 which is 2 miles East and 2 miles North of Littlefield.  At his death in 1971, I purchased the land from my mother, brothers and sister. 

Bessie died in 1927;  Dad died in March, 1971;  Mama died in April, 1985; Jessie died in April, 1988; Albert died in April 1990; Most of the family still live in the Littlefield area.  A.D. married Myrtle Wooten in 1925; Jessie married Cleo Willingham 1926; V.L. married Ellen Moore in 1927; Jewell married Fred Dillard in 1927; Joe married Fern Elms in 1935.

From Jewel Bitner Dillard (1990's)                                                               About Lenora Bell Bitner's Family:

Her mother's name was Mary Jane McAlister.  Her grandmother was Nancy Hancock.  W. H. Bell was her father from Tennessee.  Lenora came from Arkansas to Gainesville, Texas.  Mary Jane always wanted to move to Texas and W. H. said, "I haven't lost anything in Texas!" and wouldn't move.  Lenora was about 11 years old when he died, and her mother, Mary Jane moved the family to Texas.  They sold an 80 acre farm in Arkansas, for a team of mules, a covered wagon, and $350.00.  (ed.  Lenora told me in the 1980's of the move from Arkansas, and said that when they went through Oklahoma all they saw on either side of the "road" were tepees.  Which was impressive sounding to me.  Since she was married at 13 on December 12, 1901, this trip would have taken place in about 1899.  Oklahoma was not a state yet.)

As you can see, there are some inconsistencies between this story and the one above it.  If anyone has any corrections please let me know them.  If you know any stories you would like to tell, please do!  Or you can click on the mailbox picture below.