Several years ago my granddad asked his grandkids if we'd speak at his funeral if we were comfortable. He'd always asked for little and given much. At the time we all agreed, finding courage in our denial that the day would ever come. Two weeks ago we found the day upon us, our denial having slowly evaporated over the last several years as he'd battled lung cancer. I spent a lot of time reflecting on the memories I had of him and found myself wondering what I could say that could possibly do him justice. He was the probably the single most influential person in my life. A patient, gentle man who spoke softly without even carrying a big stick, he had a calming presence. People spoke to us at the visitation, telling us how they'd learned from him, worked with him, been given kindness from him. Stories of him sharing homegrown tomatoes with neighbors and going to visit friends who were ill, stories of hard work and volunteering for his church, stories of friendships that spanned more decades than I've been alive. About five years ago I was fortunate enough to get to write the story of his life with him. For weeks we visited, called and clarified, asked questions and wrote and re-wrote until we had it right.
Today I share with you his (condensed) story.
My grandfather was born on April 10th, 1925; the same day
The Great Gatsby was published. At the time, his father owned a service station and his mother worked at the local hosiery mill. In 1929, when Granddaddy was four, the stock market crashed and the country plunged into the great depression. He said his family hardly felt the depression, since they didn't have much money to start with.
Around 1930 his father decided to leave the service station and try his hand at "farming on halves", or sharecropping. The family moved 10 miles out of town and worked Mr. McKibbon's land growing tomatoes, peanuts, and other crops. On the weekends granddaddy would ride with his daddy to town in their Model T Ford to sell crops out of the back of the car. During this time they had no electricity or indoor plumbing. Granddaddy's mama, Maggie, made granddaddy's clothes out of flour sacks and their underwear out of feed sacks. They owned a battery operated radio and they listened to Lil Jimmy, only at night so not to waste the battery.
Granddaddy and his sister, Agnes, walked 2.5 miles to and from school each day. Two and a half miles! The first and second grades shared a room, and the school was heated by a coal stove. Granddaddy never talked about hardships in the "You're lucky, when I was your age......" adage. He only talk about them when asked, and then it was often coupled with an "I've been so fortunate in my lifetime" mentality.
If there was ever any extra change, he and Agnes were given nickels and dimes to save in change purses to pay Santa Clause. On Christmas morning they opened shoe boxes containing luxuries like orange slices, walnuts, pecans, and an orange. One year granddaddy got a small wooden train and Agnes got a 12" wooden cabinet that came with dry oatmeal. Granddaddy sneaked and ate a little of that oatmeal at a time until it was all gone.
One morning when Maggie was out milking the cow, she had a hemorrhage and began coughing up blood. She became very ill. Because Maggie was sick and often in bed, four of granddaddy's cousins came to stay a week at a time to cook and take care of him and Agnes.
Maggie was diagnosed with tuberculosis and she had to go to the TB sanatorium in Alto, Georgia for three months. Her condition did not improve, and the kids only got to see her about once a month. When she returned, she began seeing a doctor in Atlanta who discovered she didn't have TB but a problem with her bronchial tube. Her treatment was to go to Atlanta and breathe in penicillin, which had just been discovered. Granddaddy and Agnes would ride with their parents in the Model A Ford to Atlanta and wait in the parking lot while she got her treatments. Her condition improved after these treatments, but she was never able to work on the farm again. Sometimes she had coughing spells and had to eat ice to prevent additional hemorrhaging. She could cook for the family, but household chores were taxing on her and granddaddy pitched in to help.The family left the farm behind and moved several miles closer to town where his daddy worked at the bleachery until he retired.
Once they moved closer, he attended Orr's school and he and Agnes no longer had to walk to school but could take the bus. Maggie would send him a fried potato biscuit and peanut butter and crackers for his lunch, with a pickle to serve as his beverage. Sometimes he'd get 15 cents, which would buy him a hamburger, hot dog, and a drink at school.
Granddaddy had 9 rabbit boxes in the woods, and would check them in the mornings before school. When he trapped a rabbit he would skin it and send it with his uncle to town to sell it for 25 cents. He picked blueberries and sold them door to door, and he once got in trouble for helping himself to Mr. McKibbon's apple tree. His mother directed him to go back to Mr. McKibbon's house and return the apples he'd taken.
A black man named Starch lived nearby and he would chop trees and sell firewood. Granddaddy said his parents always taught him to treat black people fairly, and he never felt segregation was right. (In the '30s, y'all!). It was his job to split it into small pieces for firewood. Once when he was about 10 his missed the wood and chopped clear into his foot with the axe. They didn't go to the doctor to treat this, instead treated it with Helm's (or Hellum's) salve at home. The scar lasted the rest of his life.
Granddaddy went to Spalding High School and completed all 11 grades. He had two good buddies in school, Kent, and A.B. Kent was more conservative, and A.B. was a character and loved to meet girls. Granddaddy was somewhere in the middle. They often went to parties and played games like Spin the Bottle. When the boys were seniors, a former teacher came by to inquire about some of the students. Mr. Hulsey was now working at Dundee (textile) Mills and wanted to know the names of some students who were excelling in typing, bookkeeping, and math. Granddaddy, Kent, and another boy were named and each were interviewed for the job. Granddaddy was fortunate enough to get the job, something he'd always be grateful for. He began working with Mr. Hulsey in the payroll department after school.
In December of 1941, midway through Granddaddy's senior year, the Japanese invaded Pearl Harbor. The next day at school his principal made an announcement and the whole school went to the auditorium to listen to President Roosevelt ask Congress to declare war. The country began prepping for war, and at 17, granddaddy and his friends registered for the selective service. He continued working at Dundee until he received his draft letter in 1943. When asked if he was afraid to go to war he said "at that age, you're not scared of anything."
The fearless teen was sent to Bainbridge, MD for 8 weeks of Navy bootcamp. He reported the food was good, and the experience "wasn't bad". The men boxed, did obstacle courses, and watched films about what to do in emergencies. He passed up the opportunity to test to be a Yeoman and work in an office, and waited to be shipped out.
Granddaddy was assigned to the U.S.S. Potomac, President Roosevelt's Yacht. All his records had to be cleared through the White House before he found out that the ship would be stationed in the Washington, D.C. Navy yard. He rode by Jeep from Maryland to D.C., officially a sailor in the U.S. Navy.
Once aboard the ship, Granddaddy lived in close quarters below the water level with no windows. Though the Potomac wasn't seaworthy and Roosevelt rarely came aboard, someone had to be on call 24 hours a day. While he was in the service his family missed him and Maggie wrote to him 6 days a week.
Certain crew, including Granddaddy, took turns serving at
Camp Shang-ri-la, the President's mountain home (now called Camp David). His duties mostly included keeping the property maintained, and when the President was at the camp all the men were on alert to mind their Ps and Qs. The property consisted of The Big House, as well as property for the Secret Service. Roosevelt's Scottish Terrier, Fala, had her own house there as well. There was even a trout lake that was to be filled with spring water and stocked with trout when Roosevelt was present.
The servicemen were allowed to go down one side of the mountain on liberty, but weren't allowed to go to the town on the other side. Granddaddy had a military license, and he and a buddy drove down the forbidden side of the mountain one night. He let his buddy drive without a license back while he read his mail, and the guy crashed the truck into a tree on the side of the mountain. They walked to the barracks and a decorated Army soldier helped them pull it out. It was in bad shape and the battery was on the running board. They drove back up to the base in the beat up truck, then drove down the mountain on the ride side to leave tracks in case anyone got suspicious. Granddaddy took the truck to the Navy yard to get it fixed, where it got special treatment since it was associated with the Presidential yacht. No questions asked!
After Roosevelt died, Truman took over as president. He got a new yacht, the U.S.S. Williamsburg, and Granddaddy was stationed on it. It too, usually stayed docked but sometimes President Truman would take it down the Potomac to the Chesapeake Bay to play poker for the weekend. Granddaddy remembers one sailor was assigned to stay with Truman at all times just to handle his fishing equipment. Granddaddy was stationed aboard the Williamsburg until the war was over and he was discharged in 1946.
After he returned from his service, Granddaddy and A.B. decided to travel to Florida to look for work. During the war A.B. had made money illegally selling Army t-shirts to the Filipinos and he used that money to buy a car. The young men traveled all over in the car, picking up hitch hikers and finding odd jobs. They would drive fast, and feign fear to the hitch hikers "I'm not sure if that back tire is going to hold up!"
While in the service, A.B. had to take a troop train cross country. He threw his name and address out the window of the train in hopes someone would write to him. One girl, Helen, wrote to him all throughout the war, and when he returned home he asked Granddaddy to ride with him to Kentucky to meet her in person. He didn't know at the time Helen would become A.B.'s wife.
Once the two returned from their escapades, Granddaddy went back to work at Dundee Mills. Mr. Hulsey invited him back to work in the payroll department, and he was beginning to feel the need to settle down, so he agreed. He bought a '46 Ford with his savings.
Granddaddy and a friend sometimes went to the high school football games, and they often gave a group of girls a ride home. On one such night he met their good friend Ruby, who was visiting from Columbus, GA. For their first date, granddaddy took her to a rodeo. Be still my heart! A romance developed. They married in 1950, and granddaddy described that as "one of the best things I ever did."
My aunt was born two years later, and my mother, two years after that. My grandparents bought a small house, taking over the existing GI loan at $39 a month. My grandmother wanted a yellow kitchen so he labored with a paint brush (rollers hadn't been invented yet) and latex paint after work to paint the small kitchen. He brought my grandmother over to see it, and she hated it! She said it was "stop sign yellow" and she didn't think she could cook in such a bright kitchen. So, he diluted the paint with half white and went back to work painting that kitchen. Again, it wasn't right. That sweet man painted the kitchen three times!
My mother and aunt grew up in the small house, and my grandfather continued working at Dundee. Mr. Hulsey had a sudden heart attack, and then retired. Thanks to his hard work and dedication, Granddaddy was asked to take over as paymaster for the 3,000 employees. At the time he was writing checks by hand each week, though they would eventually get a computer that took up an entire room. He would continue to work for Dundee for decades, and would retire after 50 years of service to the mill.
In 1960 Maggie was diagnosed with cancer in her female organs. No one in my family seems to know which organs specifically, since it was improper to talk about such back then. She was given six months to live. Granddaddy went to see her after she'd gotten the diagnosis. She told him "I've had a good cry and I'm not going to worry about it anymore." She passed away three months later.
In 1966 they began building a new home after outgrowing their tiny home. This one had three bedrooms and felt like a mansion compared to the old one. Though it was twenty years later, Granddaddy was still driving the '46 Ford. Ever the saver, a neighbor said to him "no wonder you could afford to buy a new house, you kept this old car!" Soon after Granddaddy sold the '46 Ford..... and bought a '50 Ford instead.
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| Auto manufacturers halted production during the war. |
My mom and aunt finished high school in the 70s and later settled down. Around this time Clifford had to go to the nursing home. Granddaddy went daily to visit him and help with his care, and he also helped look after his roommates too. Granddaddy regularly brushed Clifford's dentures and his roommate's as well. I'm not sure I'm capable of such kindness.
Granddaddy began running every day, a regiment that would last for years. He kept up with how many miles his running shoes had and traded them for new ones when they'd had enough. He ran well into his eighties and would eventually run for eleven years without ever missing a day. Take that, Forrest Gump.
When I was little Granddaddy would take my cousin and I to get an ice cream. One of my favorite stories comes from one of those trips. Granddaddy bought us an ice cream, and one of us dropped it in the parking lot. "Uh oh", he said, and handed us a dollar for another one. We dropped the next one in the car seat. "Uh oh" he said, and pulled out another dollar. Three cones and not a word of frustration later we were on our way.
He would eventually have four grandchildren and three great grandchildren. One of my greatest joys has been watching him know my son. Three years ago my grandmother passed away and my granddad had a stroke. It was a tense and emotional time for our family, but we are blessed that he never remembered her being sick. Instead he had only wonderful memories of long trips together, dating and getting married, and having children and grandchildren. When we were working together to write the story of his life he said "I'm now 84 years of age and I'm blessed with good health. I'm thankful for my family and I love them very much. God has been good to me."
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| At my wedding in 2008 |
And yet it's us who have been the lucky ones.....
