Jack Hawks: one of Doc Witten's boys -- to this day

It’s common to hear people excuse someone’s bad behavior because of that person’s upbringing: he was bullied; her parents neglected her; his father was an alcoholic.

Early trauma is not the only reason for destructive actions. Many people experience harsh circumstances, but they quietly go on to build moral characters and become fine citizens. Jack Hawks of Tazewell, Virginia is one of those quiet people.

He would be the first person to tell you that he doesn’t know what a chair closet is. To him, chairs are to sit on, not hold a week’s worth of discarded clothes. He hangs his jacket and tie as soon as he takes them off. His shoes are lined up in the closet, too. The retired Appalachian Power Co. supervisor says there’s a reason for his being a neat freak: “I was one of Dr. Witten’s boys. I had to be neat.”

Dr. Jack Witten, descendent of a Tazewell County pioneer, is a local legend. Reader’s Digest, one of many magazines that picked up his story in the 1940s, titled it “The Bachelor Father Who Has 152 Sons.” Hawks was one of them.

“I came from a poor family,” Hawks said. “My mother died when she was 34. I was the youngest of eight children. My father couldn’t take care of us.” This was apparent to Witten, who stopped by one day in the late 1930s to doctor one of the sick children.

By this time, Witten was taking in boys who needed a roof over their heads, a warm bed to sleep in, and food. “He took me back with him,” Hawks said. “I was about three or four, people tell me. I stayed there for 15 years, until I got married.”

Pictures hanging in the Witten pioneer cabin that’s been relocated to Crab Orchard Museum say this is so. Moving from photograph to photograph, you can follow Hawks’ maturation from toddler to high school student. Posing in most of them is the popular North Tazewell doctor who was born in 1887 and died in 1959. A plaque says that he began taking in boys in 1922 and continued until his death. Along with his sense of duty to his community was an equal one to his state. He was elected to Virginia’s House of Delegates in 1923, served 10 more terms plus one as a state senator.

“I owe everything to Doc,” Hawks said. He was a disciplinarian with a personal code that he communicated to the boys. “You didn’t want to break his rules,” Hawks said. Witten neglected no part of his sons’ upbringing. “Doc said the best time to put things away is when we take them off.” It’s a routine that’s lasted a lifetime for Hawks who moves within an ordered world. “I am a perfectionist,” he said.

He’s also a hard worker, which he learned from his role model. “We didn’t have hired help. All of us were expected to keep the house clean.” The boys got up at 6 a.m., made their beds, and cleaned their rooms. Some had to sweep the walk in front of the house each morning and afternoon. Others went to the barn where they fed the chickens and pigs. Hawks’ job was to herd the cows toward the barn for milking.

Cooking wasn't one of their chores; a local woman came in to do that. “Doc loved to feed people,” Hawks said. On the night before the Tazewell High School football game, he fed the whole Bulldog team. It wasn’t unusual for the boys to cross the railroad tracks to Piggly Wiggly and bring back three buggies of food.

The farm helped provide food for the growing boys, but it wasn’t enough. Witten traded his medical services for more, and also for clothes, and, as Hawks later learned, haircuts at Repass’s Barber Shop. Said Jack Repass, the first owner’s son, “My dad kept a record of all the haircuts and Doc kept records of the times he doctored us. At the end of the year, they settled up.”

Helen, Hawks’ high school sweetheart whom he married when he was a senior, said of Witten’s boys, “They were the most popular boys in school, for they were the best dressed.”

One photograph shows the boys seated around a table doing their homework. The only time regret creeps into Hawks’ voice is when he talks about school. “I didn’t make good grades. Doc didn’t push us on that, though we were expected to pass.”

School was one place where Witten and Hawks had a disagreement. When Hawks and Helen married, “Doc wouldn’t speak to me for four or five months,” he said. “All he said to me was ‘Monk.’ He gave everybody a nickname and mine was ‘Monkey,’ for he said I was always jumping around. ‘Monk, you should have gone to school.’”

It didn’t matter. Even though he was not an electrical engineer, he moved from lineman to supervisor of 500 square miles of lines and 18,000 customers during the 41 years he worked for the power company. His mentor gets the credit for the values he instilled in him.

He also got his love of sports from the doctor. “That’s another reason the boys were popular. They played football and basketball,” said Helen, who started dating Hawks when she was a sophomore.

In the evening in front of the house was where Hawks learned to play defensive end. Witten watched as the boys tackled each other, drawing blood. Then he doctored the wounds with iodine. When the Bulldogs needed new uniforms, Witten raised the money by walking up Main Street, stopping in the stores for donations. He also took the boys to college games at the universities of Virginia and Tennessee.

Hawks went on to become one of the most respected football and basketball referees in Southwest Virginia and beyond. He also refereed in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC), a small college conference. “I don’t want to brag, ” Hawks said, “but I studied the rules book until I knew it better than anyone. I’m a perfectionist.” And a son of the doctor who expected him to give his best.

You can hear the echo of Witten’s code in Hawks’ no-nonsense speech to a team of Virginia High School football players who had gotten in a fight with their opponent at the previous game. “Boys, let me tell you something,” said Hawks, “I don’t know who caused the trouble, but if you bat an eye at your opponent, you better have something in it, or you will come out of the game.” There was no trouble in Bristol that night.

The man who still irons his pants, washes dishes, makes the bed, and believes the soap dish should be clean took the lemons that life handed him and with the help of a bachelor father made lemonade -- with no excuses.