Gilbert Patten
In his early teens, Willie’s interactions with others his age were awkward. He had few friends and seems to have gotten along better with people a bit older than himself. He spent a great deal of time alone due to his parent’s strict prohibitions and insistence that he stay close to home when not in school. Willie was not a good all-around student but he did study the subjects that interested him. By age ten he was an avid reader of dime novels. Reading led him to a life of imagination. At thirteen he began writing his own stories.
His habits of reading and writing developed. In the Spring of 1880, at thirteen years of age, he graduated from grammar school. In the Fall he entered Corinna Union Academy. At fourteen he had grown to over six feet tall, but weighed only 115 pounds. Lanky, quiet, and inhibited, he yearned to fit in with others his age.
This excerpt from the 1880 US Census verifies Willie’s age and residence.
He read more than other boys but he had other interests. He loved baseball and played with local boys. A lack of coordination due to his growth spurt caused him to play badly, but he did learn a great deal about the game. [3]
In the autobiography Patten describes life in Corinna and his efforts to fit in with his peers. He became bolder upon developing greater interest in girls. Another boy, Patten names as Dick, took exception when Willie try to kiss a girl.
“Dick grabbed me. “What do you think you are doing, Rolling Thunder?” said he hanging on to my arm. Now Rolling Thunder was a derisive nickname that I’d been tagged with because of my dime-novel reading and story-writing habits. It had annoyed me, and now it made me very hot under the collar.” [7]
A scuffle ensued. Willie’s first real fist fight. He was so angry that Dick ended up on the floor. Willie had won his first fight.
It is interesting that a young man who, as we will see later, established a small town newspaper in Corinna in 1887 once had a nickname similar to a weekly newspaper that is now distributed in Corinna and the surrounding area, The Rolling Thunder Express.
As time went on Willie began to fit in more comfortably with his peers. He writes of secretly smoking with other boys, getting into trouble involving some hard cider, being invited to parties and the popularity of ice skating and sledding. “So when the roads were plowed out and well trodden, we took to sledding down the hill past my home and into the middle of the village. This was risky sport in the daytime, but on nights when the main street was practically free from teams and a bright moon rode in the sky, there was little danger of an accident.” [7]
NEXT 7. A RUN-AWAY