Mr. Loyd Awalt: A Boy’s Friend and a Man’s Friend

by the late Ed Pittman

A few miles west of Steward’s Mill Community lies a land grant styled HENRY AWALT LEAGUE, which was issued to Henry Awalt for service during the Republic of Texas days.

The Awalt people have served Freestone County, The State of Texas, and The United States of America during war and peace for well over 165 years and have made substantial contributions to local and national society. The writer has known a few of them well, and to me, that’s good.

I didn’t get off to a good start with Mr. Loyd Awalt, a fellow about my dad’s age. First off, he shot my dog, which is not the best way to start a relationship with a five year old boy. My mother smoothed it over by explaining to me that the dog was sick beyond repair and that my dad had asked Loyd to put the dog out of his misery. Even so, there remained lingering feelings of mistrust for part of my childhood, until better things developed.

Mr. Loyd Awalt married Delia Belle Cannon when they both were young. After an appropriate time, they had a son, who lost his mother shortly after his birth. He grew up with his grandmother, Miss Roxie, in the community of Stewards Mill, attended Fairfield school and became a prominent citizen of Fairfield, and his country. Loyd married again, years later, to Nora Ivy. Through it all, Loyd was always there for his son.

During his “single” days, Loyd became sort of a ‘man about town.’ He had a marvelous singing voice which he used at will. My mother said he could sing on Sunday night in a packed honkey-tonk, as some chose to call clubs in those days, and lead the choir on Sunday morning, and do a great job at both places. Some folks tend to lean on a person for carrying on in places of iniquity, even if he is straight arrow. I generally respond to such criticism by pointing out that the greatest Prophet and healer visited such places and even associated with tax collectors in delivering His message. I tend to think Mr. Loyd had some of that quality. He made people feel better, just by his presence, and by the things he had to say.

For years, he drove the Steward Mill school bus and kept law and order over a bunch of green broke kids, and he did it in such a way that he was successful and also gained the love and respect of 99.9 percent of the kids. They even forgave him for consistently getting that bus up Claypool Hill at Cottonwood Creek during the rainy season. The previous driver often would surrender to that hill and the kids got a day off from school. One kid said years later that Loyd would have gotten that bus to the top of the hill even if he had to disassemble it and carry it to the top of the hill a piece at a time. When busses assembled in front of the school as classes were letting out, most of the drivers sat in their bus, as alone as the Maytag repair man. Loyd always had a gang of boys around, from everywhere, eager to listen to his tales and to absorb some of his humor. Some men retain enough boyish spirit to communicate with the younger set. He had that quality.

Year later, I was home on a weekend and learned that Mr. Loyd was very ill in the Fairfield hospital. I went by his room to say hello. He looked so thin and frail with his oxygen bottle beside him. “Do you smoke?” he asked me. I said I had quit a few years earlier. “Don’t smoke,” he said. “They will kill you.” I wish every young person could see and hear him say that. Even in his last days he had a positive message for younger people. He always did. Long ago I forgave him for killing my dog.

And about the son. He was a handsome fellow, popular as a movie star. When he was a freshman in high school, he suited up for Fairfield’s first football team, fall of ’37, weighing in at about 114 pounds. By the time he was a junior, he was a main spring on the team. He could throw a softball – we didn’t have baseball – at rocket speed, and most batters fanned out when he was on the mound. He was best at track, beating out everyone in the 100 Yard Dash. I really believe that but for the war and lack of scholarships at the time, he could have been a college track star of major proportions. Maybe there really was a Jack Armstrong, All-American Boy. His name was Marcus Cannon Awalt. He was my friend, and my hero.