Woody Guthrie was born in Okemah Oklahoma, some distance east of Oklahoma City, on July 14, 1912 (Bastille Day) to Charles and Nora Tanner Guthrie. He was named Woodrow Wilson for the Democratic presidential candidate in that year's election, and was immediately nicknamed Woody, Woodly, or Woodblock (the latter by his older sister, Clara, it's said.)
The family's fortunes were quite favorable the first few years of Woody's life. He was the third in what would be five children, with Roy and Clara being older, and George and Mary Jo being younger.
Problems began for the Guthrie family when Woody was about seven years old. A fire earlier had destroyed their lovely, just-built wood-frame home, and another fire killed his sister Clara. A few years later, Charley Guthrie was severely burned in yet another fire, which the neighbors whispered had been caused by Nora Guthrie. In truth, Mrs. Guthrie had become "unhinged," as one neighbor explained it. Her behavior was so erratic that the two youngest children had been sent to Panhandle Texas to live with the family of their aunt, Charley's sister. When Charley-Mr. Guthrie- needed someone to nurse him back to health, it was off to that same sister in Panhandle Texas. Woody's older brother, Roy, was already working away from home. Nora Guthrie, Woody's mother, was admitted to a state mental institution in Norman, dying there a few years later. Eventually, it was determined her illness was Huntington's Disease, or Huntington's Chorea (www.hdsa.org). With his father recuperating in Texas, Woody, at the age of about 14, was on his own.
Woody rambled about with various families in Okemah until 1929, when he was 17. That's when he wandered into Pampa to live with his father, who now ran a "cot house" across the street from what is now the "Woody Guthrie Folk Music Center." (The "cot house" is now long gone.)
For a time, Woody attended Pampa High School. Then he discovered the Public Library, housed in the basement of the Methodist Church, and then moved to the new City Hall's basement. It was in the Public Library that Woody Guthrie took his education, reading such things as world history, theology, philosophy, world religions....not on your usual high school book lists.
Woody worked with his dad, as well as with Shorty Harris at the Harris Drugs across the street. It was in that drug store that he discovered a guitar, and would sit in the southeast corner of the store, watching traffic go by, and entertaining customers when they stopped in.
Woody's best friend was Matt Jennings, who worked in a butcher shop. And Woody became almost a part of the Jennings family, especially after his father re-married a sort-of "mail-order bride" named Betty Jean McPherson.
Mary Jennings, Matt's younger sister, became Woody's first wife on October 28, 1933. She was only 17; he was 21. They were to have three children, two of whom died of Huntington's Disease, the third in an accident. Mary Jennings Guthrie Boyle still is living in California, and sent a silk-flower bouquet to Pampa's Tribute to Woody Guthrie, in honor of Woody, upon the opening of the Woody Guthrie Center.
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