Palestine Woolum

Palestine Wendell Woolum, 88, of Dewitt, KY formerly of Arjay, passed away on Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at the Pineville community Hospital. He was born April 10, 1919, at Slusher, KY, in Bell County, and was the youngest child of Palestine Walker Woolum and Mary Ellen Bingham Woolum. He was known to family and friends as Wendell. Wendell was a 1936 graduate of Bell County High School and had to walk four miles from Sim?s Fork to Cary in order to catch the school bus. He only remembered missing the bus two times and graduated from Bell High at age 16 years. Wendell was by occupation a coal miner and an accountant. On occasion he would perform land surveying. He was a proud member of the Victory Missionary Baptist Church at Arjay, the American Legion and a life member of the Veteran?s of Foreign Wars. During World War II, he served as a B-17 Flying Fortress crew-member. After completing flight training, he was an aerial engineer instructor with the 2nd Air Force in Texas. He was also stationed with the 15th Air Force in Tunisia, Africa. According to his nieces, Judy Baker, Betty Collins and Geneva Moody, he was a wealth of knowledge of his vast family history and the rich cultural ways of the mountain people. His ancestral roots were traced back to the late 1700?s. His father, Palestine Walker Woolum (known to many as ?Uncle Pal?) taught school for over 60 years until he retired at the age of 82. Uncle Pal was one of the first superintendents of the newly formed Bell County School System. Wendell?s uncle and his father?s only brother, James F. Woolum, was a soldier with the Union Army during the Civil War. James was first captured by the Confederates at age 15 and taken in to Tennessee, but he managed to escape and joined the Union Army by the age of 16. Sgt. James Woolum was with Company C, 49th Regiment of the Kentucky Volunteers. He died as a result of catching pneumonia at the age of 19 and five months before the war ended. In addition to his parents, Wendell was preceded in death by his beloved wife of 37 years, Viola Stewart Woolum, brothers, James Neal, Victor Hugo, Walter Cromwell, Leo Kenneth, Daugh Neal, Albert and Ernest and sisters, Lucy W. Hutson, Mattye W. Napier, Mollye W. Cickie, Nelle W. Smith, Dora W. Hunter and Alberta W. Napier. Wendell has left his family and friends with vivid memories of life in the early days of Bell County. He will always be moved and missed by a host of friends and family. He is survived by more than 19 nieces and nephews and 39 great-nieces and nephews.