|
 |
|
My Father was born in the small coal mining community of Spadra, Johnson County, Arkansas on February 19, 1932. He was the fifth of eight children. His father was a life-long coal miner and his mother was a house wife and a cook at a boarding house that catered to coal miners. Daddy had three brothers, two older and one younger, and four sisters, two older and two younger. His two older sisters died by age two before he was born of unknown causes. My father attended school first in Spadra then at Hartman. He did not graduate. When he was eighteen, he joined the Army-Air Corps and left home for the first time. He went to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas for his basic training and then to Turner Air FOrce Base in Albany, Georgia where he met mother. They were introduced by her brother, Bud, who introduced them with:"...your future husband." Mother said that she responded with: "I wouldn't marry you if you were the last man on earth!" Six months later, on July 2, 1952, they were married in the court house in Albany, Georgia. |
|
|
Daddy was sent to Korea shortly threrafter and spent about four or five months in country. He returned to Georgia and spent another year at Turner Air Force Base. I was born in the base hospital on September 30, 1953. I was to be the first of three girls. My first sister was born in Germany in 1959 and the youngest was born in Texas in 1965. Daddy did a tour in Viet Nam in 1967-1968 and returned home safely. He was then sent to North Dakota from where he retired in 1971. He Moved back to Arkansas where he became a Deputy Sheriff with the Johnson County Sheriffs Department, then a city policeman for the Clarksville police department. He also worked part time as a custodian for the school system and a security guard. He raised honey bees and we sold honey every year. We also had a big garden and sold fresh vegetables. We had our own meat from the livestock and fresh eggs and milk. Daddy and momma milked the cows twice a day. Daddy helped with all the household chores and he instilled in us, by example, the value of hard work and team work. He and momma were partners in the full sense of the word. They were always trying to find ways to make the others work load lighter. They always put the other first and always made sure their children's needs and wants were met before theirs. There was many times they did without so we girls could have something extra, like a hand-made prom dress, or a hand-made choir robe, or five or six hand-made formal dresses for a beauty pagent. |
|
|
