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SUNDAY
MAY 1, 2005
Community
M1B
Miss Mittie remembers Gainesville
Hancock native recalls the days before the county was re-shaped by NASA
BY BENNIE SHALLBETTER Staff Writer
The coming of Stennis Space Center to Hancock County in the early 1960’s displaced the entire town of Gainesville, including those residents who had already met their maker. The town and the cemetery alike were uprooted and moved to other locations. But the giant Buffer Zone surrounding the rocket testing facility displaced even more families when it was decided that no enclosed structures could remain in the area. But the
Bully was 11 years older and one of Mittie’s first memories of him was an embarrassing one. Mittie and her little brother Monuel, were bathing in a washtub out back of the station and Bully picked up the tub and carried it up front for all to see.
“We were naked in that washtub and he carried us out for everyone to see,” said Miss Mittie. “He didn’t know then that I would be his wife when he came back from the war.”
The two started dating when Mittie was in high school and Bully bought the box supper that Mittie had prepared. Women would