picture of Mattie Beth as a child
Mattie Beth Stiles was born on December 26, 1913 at the house of her grandparents, David and Jessie Copeland, in Auburn, Ellis County, Texas. Her parents were Jiles Whitfield Stiles (age 28) and Una Copeland (age 27). She had an older sister Maida Allene Stiles (born in 1906), who was seven years older than her.
Picture of Mattie Beth and Maida Allene
picture of Mattie Beth at the Auburn School
picture of MB and Eugene Parr
Mattie Beth attended a school house, called Auburn School, in the community of Auburn, near Maypearl, Texas. Auburn School had three teachers, and only went up the ninth grade. Mattie Beth said, "When we finished all nine grades there, we had a really big graduation. All the Ellis County rural schools graduated together at the Chautauqua Auditorium in Getzendaner Park in Waxahachie."
"Going on to high school would've meant that I would've had to get transported into Grandview. There were two boys who were going, but Mama didn't feel like she wanted me to ride with them. So I stayed at home and worked in the field for my daddy."
picture of "Stiles" house
In the 1930s her parents, Jiles and Una Stiles, bought an old house in the community of Auburn.
picture of MB and girls
Mattie Beth once told the newspaper reporter, Larue Barnes, how she met her husband. She said often a girl friend would spend the night and they would go out on a double date. "I remember cutting out paper dolls out of the Sears Roebuck catalog and then getting ready to go out on a date. One time a friend was visiting and her boyfriend came over to see her. We were all three standing on the front porch when he asked me to go out with him! Well, I wasn't about to tell him yes -- with her standing right there. He came the next day anyway and I rode with him when he took her home. Then we were alone. I was just 14 and he was 12 years older than I was -- a farmer down the road, who had never married. I liked him and he wanted to date me, so my parents asked around about his family. They were told that Edie and El Pipes' six boys never got into any trouble." She smiled and added, "So Charlie and I dated for eight years."
She and Charlie would alternate between attending the Baptist Church and the Methodist Church in the Auburn community. "On the Sunday that you didn't have church, you went to yout church's Sunday School and then went to worship at the other church. That way, we all knew each other."
picture of Mattie Beth and friend making lye soap
On July 24, 1937, at the age of 24, she married Charlie William Pipes (age 36). They moved into Charlie's parents house on the Mayfield Farm. "We had two rooms in the house, and I did my cooking and Mrs. Pipes did hers. I did my washing in a wash pot over a fire out in the yard. When you ironed clothes without electricity, you heated your irons on your wood stove or on the fireplace. But you had to be sure that you got all the ashes off, or they would ruin your clean clothes."
They had their first and only child, William Kenneth Pipes, a few years later on October 24, 1940. "Trying to keep diapers washed for a baby was a real chore. I always wished I had a few more. I remember how mad I was when I looked outside and saw one of our mules chewing holes in them."
picture of baptism certificate
In 1953, she and her son, Kenneth, were baptized at the First Baptist Church of Grandview, Texas. Before then, she was a member of the Auburn Community Methodist Church since she was young child.
Mattie Beth worked as a clerk for Weight Watchers for several years, and then worked as a sewing machine operator for a doll factory near Grandview for a couple of years after Charlie died.
picture of Mattie Beth with all of her grandchildren
After Charlie's death Mattie Beth lived alone until her health began to fail about 2000. At that time she moved in with Kenneth and Jerry Pipes, her son and daughter-in-law, who lived next door (at 12600 FM 916). She lived here until her death in 2004.
picture of Mattie Beth with Jerry Pipes
Mattie Beth enjoyed traveling, quilting, and shopping. She would go on a mission trip every summer with FBC Grandview to do the cooking for the youth or the adults, her last trip being to La Cueva, New Mexico in 2004, when she was 90 years old. She was a member of Sew n Sews, a quilting group at FBC Grandview, and she would always sew blankets or hangings by hand and inspired her daughter-in-law, Jerry Pipes, to start quilting as well. Mattie Beth was called "Grandmama" by her grandchildren and "Great" by her great-grandchildren. She hand-made with love a quilt for each of them, an exception for the great-grandchildren born after her death. Mattie Beth has traveled extensively, from Alaska to Niagara Falls.
Picture of gravestone
She passed away from at the Huguley Hospital in Ft. Worth, Texas on September 27, 2004, when she was 90 years old. Mattie Beth was buried next to her husband, Charlie, at the Grandview Cemetery in Grandview, Texas.
How we are related:
(1) Mattie Beth Stiles & Charlie William Pipes
(2) --- William Kenneth Pipes & Jerry Ann Priest
(3) ------A. Pipes & G. Tatum
(4) ---------L. Ducommun & M. Ducommun
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