Charlotte Wilson says she is not “important people” and doesn’t understand what there is to write about her. Whether Wilson is or isn’t an ‘important’ person, she saw and experienced a lot of interesting history while working for Jones County.
Charlotte Crutchfield, who later married Bobby Wilson, grew up in the area of the Round Oak community.
“Round Oak is a little bit of heaven,” she said last week. “No better place to live.”
Wilson actually started her school career very close to home.
“I was in Round Oak (school) the first and second grade,” she recalled. “The school was then closed. We were the last ones to leave. I went to Gray in the third grade. I was there from the third grade until I graduated in 1957. There were about 42 in class when we graduated.
Among Wilson’s classmates those years was former long-time Gray Mayor Jimmy Roberts, known by his many friends and relatives for his sharp wit.
“He was always aggravating,” she laughed. “He was a pest. He was always after me, just being aggravating.”
Once she graduated from high school, Wilson was not particularly interested in more formal education.
“I didn’t want to go to school,” she acknowledged. “My mama told me ‘you’re going to go to work if you don’t go to school.’ So, I got on at the base (in Warner Robins) as a clerk typist and worked out there for five years.”
Wilson’s transportation to work proved to be pivotal.
“This guy in Monticello had a station wagon, and he had drivers. And when I went to work, he had a space, and I got to ride with him. Bobby rode with him, and that’s how I met him.
“We were on and off for a while,” she said. “Then I married him in ’59.”
Wilson said, when she got pregnant with her oldest son, Kim, she “retired from the base.”
Then, in the early ’70s, she worked part-time, helping Jones County Tax Receiver Marilyn Sauls prepare the tax digest in the summer months.
“We typed the whole digest. There were no computers,” she noted. “It usually took 2-3 months to get it all ready to go to Atlanta.”
Wilson started working in the Board of Commissioners’ office in 1973. Jones County had made the news with its board clerk investigated and charged with misuse of county funds. Commission Chairman Corbin Roberts convinced former longtime clerk Ruby Walker to return.
“When they had the Watergate thing – I call it Watergate – Mr. Corbin asked her to come back because it was a mess,” Wilson recounted. “There were bills to be paid. We had no money. That was a mess.
“Everything was in boxes, the bills, everything. They had investigated; it was just a turmoil. I helped Ms. Ruby. That’s when I started.”
With children in school, it was ‘part-time’ hours at first, and Wilson assisted several new clerks. With two new commissioners taking office, one was hired in 1977. With another change in the County Commission administration in January of 1981, another clerk was hired but stayed only two years, Wilson recalled.
Yet another individual, who was also going to serve as County Manager, was hired. “He only stayed about three months,” Wilson said.
It was about that time, in 1983, that the first of two tragedies for her took place, as Bobby Wilson was killed in a head-on collision.
“Mr. Corbin said, ‘Charlotte, you’ve got no choice. You’ve got to take it now,’” she recalled.
Sixteen months later, tragedy struck again, as Kim Wilson was killed in a boating accident on Lake Sinclair.
“If I hadn’t had that crazy job, I would have gone crazy,” she lamented. “I didn’t have time to think. Everything was in turmoil.”
Wilson never gave any serious consideration to remarrying after her husband’s death.
“I had two more children to raise,” she said, pointing out her daughter, Kelly, was 8 and youngest son, Kirk, 14 at the time.
“I didn’t have time to think about remarrying,” she added. “I was too busy working with all that was going on.”
It was also during that time that two of the three commissioners elected in 1980 were recalled, and, subsequent to that, legislation was passed changing the make-up of the Board of Commissioners to five members.
Wilson recalled that there was a lot of tension among the board members who took office in 1985, particularly between Commission Chairman Ike Liston, who had differences with the water system superintendent, and district commissioners Dale Washburn and Al Andrews, nephew of the superintendent. She remembers one incident vividly.
“We were meeting upstairs when they were renovating the courthouse,” she said. “One of them said he was going to throw the other one out the window.”
Liston resigned in 1987, leading to a special election for commission chairman. The county clerk stayed on through that change and three more elections until she decided to retire at the end of a board term in 2000.
“I worked for eight boards of commissioners,” she shared, then added with a big smile, “Some of them were rough.”
Which board would she consider the most difficult?
She laughed. “I think Liston and that bunch were the worst.”
Wilson reflected on when she retired and what she shared with the powers-that-be.
“I told them they hired nine people to take my place, and they doubled the salary of the clerk! That wasn’t fair at all,” she added with another laugh.
Now, years later, Wilson is out of the county politics but remains active as a member of the Woodmen of the World, an insurance company that is also a fraternal organization. That involvement began with her marriage.
“Bobby was already in the Woodmen of the World,” she said. “I helped him out because he had the youth part. We would take them to camp in the summertime.
“I’m still in it,” she said. “We still meet some here in Round Oak.”
Wilson is also involved in Sunshine Church, formerly a United Methodist Church.
“I don’t know what I am with the church. I’m on the staff,” she laughed. “I take care of the cemetery fund,” she added.
The retired grandmother said the current church was built in 1875, and the first Sunshine Church building, located a few miles down the road, was used as a hospital during the Civil War.
“They burned it when they left,” she said of the Union soldiers.
Wilson, who will be 85 in November but still cooks dinner for her family most Sundays, is ‘old school’ when it comes to telephones. She rarely uses a cell phone.
“I don’t need one. I am at home most all the time and use a land line.”
She said she does have a phone similar to flip phones that she might use when she goes somewhere.
“I can dial the number. That’s about all I do with it.”
Her son, Keith, joined the conversation.
“She keeps it halfcharged. You never know when you’re going to get her on it. You might. You got to hope.”
We were meeting upstairs when they were renovating the courthouse. One of them said he was going to throw the other one out the window.
– Charlotte Wilson
