2007 Meeting Programs

March 1st Program Details
Featured Speaker: Curtis Tillotson

In the study of genealogy one must understand the period of history in which those people being studied lived in order to understand how they went through their daily activities. To that end, Curtis Tillotson will present a program on railroading in Granville County at the March 1, 2007 meeting of the Granville County Genealogical Society, 1746.

Curtis was born and raised in Granville County, living for a while in Stovall then coming to Oxford while he was in the third grade. He graduated from Oxford High School in 1955, then continued his education at NC State for the next couple of years. He next worked at Chem Strand in the Research Triangle for about five years, eventually returning to NC State where he earned a BA in Liberal Arts in 1967. He had been a practice teacher at J. F. Webb High School in 1967 and 1968. Which led to his being hired as a Social Studies teacher at Webb where he taught for the next 20 years. . He says that when he first started teaching many of his students had trouble with his name, Tillotson. Very soon he became universally and affectionately known as MR. T. The high school annual was dedicated to him in 1971 and again in 1987. During his career at Webb he was also the assistant band director for five years. He retired from teaching in 1987.

Teaching had been Curtis’ vocation but his avocation has been his love of trains. After his senior year at NC State he almost went to work with Southern Railroad and his interest in railroading remained very strong after he decided to go into teaching. He wrote and had published his first book on Railroading in 1982 and since then he has written four more books with the sixth due to come out in the Spring of 2007.

Members and visitors are cordially invited to attend this meeting, which should be a real treat, Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 6:30 in the conference room at the Richard H. Thornton Library on Main Street in Oxford.

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