Harold Peter Henry Reese was born on July 23rd 1918 in Ekron, Kentucky. He lived there until he was almost 8 when his family then moved to Louisville. He got his nickname, Pee Wee, playing marbles. A Pee Wee is a small marble.
Reese was so small that he did not play baseball until his senior year in high school. At that time he only weighed 120 pounds and played 6 games at second base.
After graduating from high school in 1935, he worked as a cable splicer for the Louisville phone company and played amateur baseball for a church league.