The Life Of Corben Lee Newberry

Written By Corben Newberry

 

 I will start from the very beginning: Steven Newberry and Eva Mae Hudson were married Feb. 21, 1932. (I always thought that her first name was Evie)

  I was born August 21, 1933 in Macon County, Tn., In the Rock House Hollow at the very head of it. This is where all of the Hudsons lived.

    The lower part of the Rock House Hollow has a cave that goes through a hill. People have gone through it, but I could not find the desire or courage to do so. I would like to have gone through it. But all that I ever did was go into the mouth of it.

 

The West Farm

 

  One house that we moved into was on the West Farm in Macon County. It had horseweeds that were higher than the porch. It was while living here that my sister Annie got burned. She backed into an old fashion wood stove and was branded for life. It was here that I first got drunk. My father’s kinfolk brought some moon shine by for my dad, he poured some into an empty glass that we had just used for breakfast, When I wanted a drink of water mom told me to get some from the milk glasses that she had soaking for there was no fresh water in the bucket. I got the one with the moonshine in it and I drank from it not knowing any better. Later when I was turning white and in the front yard, mom asked dad “what’s wrong with Corben?” Then dad replied, “he got the whiskey in the milk glass and now he is drunk.”

   We had to go a trip for a few days. It was cold weather. Dad had to put our two hound dogs up in the corncrib. That was the only way to keep them at home with us gone. He put enough food and water in the crib to last about a week. When we got back home we found the dogs frozen to death.

   I saw my first snake here (It was a chicken snake). It was crawling in our front yard. Mom killed it with a garden hoe.

Dad built my first sling shot here. The West family had an old bantam rooster that would get on a fence post behind out house and crow. Well this was disturbing to us. I shot him and broke his leg and that was the last time that we were bothered by him. The West family never did find out what happened to the rooster.

 

 

 

 

The Clark Cemetery

 

    The next place that I remember was behind the Clark Cemetery in the Goose Horn community in Macon County. At this place is where I was running with a drawing knife and when I tripped, I cut two fingers on my left hand. (I bear the scars today)  I just wanted to be of some help to dad. Dad was in the chair making business. He bought this old wrecked car and when he got it home he took the engine out of it. He re-built the engine to make a saw and a turning lathe. Just about the time that he got done re-building it I noticed all of the parts that he had left. I told him “It won’t work” he asked, “why not?” I told him that he had taken too many parts out” He told me that “it didn’t need all of them anyway.”

     Mom and dad took me to stay with the Wakefields. Mom and dad had to take my sister Annie to the doctor. During the night I told Frank that “I wanted to go home”. He replied, “You can’t go home for there is no one there.” I made the demand, “Frank I told you that I want to go home.” They said that I really got ill with him.

   Some of the other things that I remember while living here was the black baby doll, that mom had made for me from a pair of black socks. I   carried it around so long that mom got ashamed of me packing it, so when

we moved the doll stayed behind. Another thing that I remember, that I loved to ride in a car tire that Charles and Lane Wakefield would roll me around in. Then one day I got loose and was started over a hill towards the hollow (Which would have killed me or hurt me real bad) Charles caught up to me and stopped me, and this was the last time that I rode in a tire.

(I met Charles years later when he became a policeman in Gainesboro).

 This is where we lived that I got my first truckle, (a board with a fixed back axel and one in front that I could turn and guide it by). I would ride it down the spring road to the hollow and then I would have to pull it all the way back to the top if I wanted to take another ride. For Christmas I got the black doll and a tricycle that dad had welded the forks back after being broken and thrown in the trash. (It didn’t last long for the weld broke.) While living here I had the scariest thing that ever happened to me. This one morning when I started to feed the chickens (as I always did) as I stepped from the porch there was something that came from under it and made about two circles around the house, (it made the circles faster than anything that I had ever seen). It was about three feet tall and had what looked like white fur on it, It was running on two hind legs. At the end of it’s run it headed for the cemetery. I had never seen anything like this, and haven’t yet unto this day.

 

Herbert Brown Farm

 

    Our next move was to the Herbert Brown Farm in the Goose Horn community. From here I had to walk to school at Oak Grove. While at school I was playing cars by running around the school building with a stick in my hands for a steering wheel. I had a wreck at the corner of the building with another boy. I hit the pillar and the boy hit a tree. My teacher’s name was Tag Thomas and he gave me his handkerchief to hold against my head until I could get home. Joann Brown walked me home. She and I were always doing something together. Like the time that we went to the spring to get a couple of buckets of water. We decided that we would cool off in the pond that the cows drank from, so we pulled off our clothes and went into the pond. After a few minutes we heard someone coming from the other side of the hill. We hid behind some poison ivy. When the people left, she and I got our clothes on and went to the house with the water. Neither of us got the itch from the ivy.

  Herbert was a blacksmith. He would have horseshoe corks lying around. (These are the short pieces of metal that he would cut from the horseshoes that he would turn.) We would get these and shoot them in our slingshots.

 Some of us boys would take our slingshots to school. On the way home we would use grasshoppers as targets. We would use pebbles to shot at the grasshoppers. One day it came up a storm. I was sitting on a stool and watching out a window. When a bolt of lighting hit a hickory tree in the front yard it knocked me off of the stool to the floor. I was hit with a gust of wind from the lightning strike.   

  From here we moved to the Bennet Gann Farm

 

 

Bennet Gann Pasture

 

 We moved into a house that was in the pasture of Bennet Gann. It was located just down the road from the Clark Cemetery. One night I was walking in my sleep and when I came to the barbed wire fence and ran into it, I woke up.

Bennet had this one large billy goat. I got to playing with him and shoving him around by his horns. He learned to “butt” by me doing this. In a short while he caught Bennet bent over and the goat butted him and Bennet had to sell him.

 

Wards Fork Hill Top

 

  The next place that we moved to was the top of the Wards Fork Hill in Jackson County. Annie and I rode the bus to school that was at North Springs. We had this one mule named “Doc” that dad used to snake logs with. I would ride from the top of the hill to the pond below our spring at the bottom of the hill. When we got to the pond, I would slide off over his head. Then I would go around back of him and wait for him to turn around so that I could grab his tail to pull me back up the hill until we reached the water works. Then I would climb back on him and ride him to the barn. He was gentle but stubborn.  This one time dad wanted to go to his brother’s house that was at the bottom of the Wards Fork Hill, but the mule wanted to go in the other direction, for this was the way back to where he used to live. Dad took a broomstick (that was to large for a broom) to his head and when he finished, the mule was ready to go the way that dad wanted him to go. My brother, Orden Dee, was born here. He weighed only one pound when he was born and mom had to keep him on the oven door of the cooking stove to keep him warm. The doctor would not offer any hope of him living and as Dee kept living the doctor would only up his time that Dee would live. We lived here while dad went to Barberton, Ohio to find work. We stayed behind until he would come for us. Winter was upon us and we had a tough time staying warm. Eva and Andrew came and cut some wood for us. There was a big snow on the ground when they came.

   Mom got sick from the weather and Arthur Stubblefield came and took us home with him and his family so they could take care of mom. I also remember Arthur and I went on a sled to get the potatoes that we had in a hole that was under the shed’s floor. The mule got tired of waiting on us, and he kicked the corner of the house off. He and I would take this sled to Dallas Hall’s store to get groceries.

 

 

 

 

 

Oak Grove in Macon County

 

  From the Stubblefield’s, we moved to the Oak Grove community in Macon County. The place that we moved into had a few Hackett families living there, so I always called it Hackett town. We moved on a farm that was owned by uncle Mance Hackett and aunt Hattie. They had two boys there at that time. One’s name was Joe Leon and the other they called H.C. These two boys and I went by their tobacco barn and we got some of the dried tobacco to roll in brown paper so we could smoke it. This was my first time to try and smoke a cigarette. The boys and I also went on a small trip where I first saw some flying squirrels. One of the girls was named Moline and one night she thought that she would scare us by tapping on a window, this didn’t work for we had this big dog and when mom hollered “Sickem “ the dog got after her and she nearly knocked the door down trying to get away from the dog.

  I remember going to Espie Hudsons and drinking cold buttermilk that they had kept in this big spring. They would keep milk in a box and the water was really cold. I don’t know exactly where we were living at that time but we visited them a few times. Mom told me “that one time that she left me at Espies. When it started to rain I went and got under the valley of the roof. Espie found me there with rain pouring all over me. She took too me in by the fire to dry my clothes. When my clothes were dried I headed to where the water was pouring again”.

   Ralph Ferguson was staying at Espies this one time. He and I went to the hills to cut some stove wood. We got to where one of us would climb up a small tree and the other would ride it down like a parachute. I didn’t know that this was so dumb and one of us could have got hurt badly. Him and I also would swing on a grape vine across a hollow. One of the other games that he and I would do is play Tarzan. We would climb a tree and bend it over so that we could catch hold of another. We then would climb it and we would do this over and over and over to see which one of us could go the further that the other from the starting tree without touching the ground.  

 

 We moved from the Mance Hackett’s farm after a few months to Ohio.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter two

 

                              Wooster Road N. Barberton, Ohio

Introduction to Barberton: Barberton was built by Ohio Cleveland Barber. He built it because the taxes in Akron were too much on him. He started building in Barberton. He wound up with thirty-five buildings. One O.C. Barber barn #3 cost him $1,000,000. This was when fifteen cents would buy dollars worth today. More on O.C. Barber can be found on http://www.barbertonmagics.com/

 When we got to Ohio we moved into an old store building.  This building

had a partition running down the center of it. We lived on one side and the Vinsons on the other. They had a boy named James that would get in a fight with me and then his mother would hold me while he beat up on me. This place was 764 Wooster Road N. and was a very busy street that ran from Barberton to Akron, Ohio. I had to be very careful getting to the other side of the road. There was a factory on the other side of the road as well as a candy store and a field that was on top of a hill that over looked some railroad tracks. There were three sets of tracks that the trains would go south and there were three sets that the trains would go north. We would watch these trains go by with their engine puffing big black streams from them. We would to try to count the boxcars, and the names that were on the side of them. I would also fly kites from this hilltop, I even flew paper folded planes from it and one day I had one to catch the air current and the plane just went around in circles and climbing on every pass. It finally went out of site.

  When it came time to go to school, I went to High Street School that was located about two blocks from where I lived. I had passed the third grade in Tn., but I had to go through it again in Barberton. I was sent home from school. I would have to get my eyes tested for glasses. When I got my glasses I realized that the trees, houses, and telephone polls did not have fur on them.

    As I was growing up in Tenn., I had very accurate with my slingshot .One day I took it out above the house. I shot and killed a Cardinal red bird. The police arrived in a short while. They informed dad and I that the Cardinal 

was the state bird for Ohio. Dad made me put the slingshot away until we could find a better place to shoot it.

  This was where I lived when I got into my first fight. I had a boil on my side that had two heads and was very tender. This red headed boy came up

 

 

 

 

and slapped me on the boil and broke it loose. The next thing I remember was a teacher getting me off of him. I was sent home to get medical help. Dad used a matchstick to pull the cores out with. I was told by the teacher to report to the principal’s office on my return to school. I reported to the principal’s office and told him what happened. I was sent on my way, but the red headed boy got a paddling. This boy and I crossed paths in the years to come.

  Dad took me fishing in Lake Anna that was located in the downtown of Barberton and all that I caught was small bluegills. Mom used to take us to the local park and let us play in the pool where kids play and this is where I learned to swim. Later on in years I would go to Lake Anna and swim.

   I learned to ride a bicycle here and the first time that I tried, I had an accident. I ran off of the sidewalk at an angle and I fell into the street. There was gravel on the side of the road. I wound up with a bunch of gravels in my right knee. The boy that owned the bike packed me home. Mom sent this boy to the local tavern to get dad to come home. Dad came home and took me to an Emergency Clinic. The Doctor took a small hand full of gravel from my knee. The Doctor asked me “how did you get these gravels in your knee without tearing your pants?” I replied, “I don’t know”. In the wintertime we would go snow sled riding behind our school and one day I hit this girl and she done a flip and landed on top of me and down the hill we went, but she was not hurt.

At 764 Wooster Road N. is where my brother Clayton was born. He was born on April 4, 1944 and he was the fourth child to be born in our family.

   Before mom had Clayton, dad came home drunk about 2:30 in the morning. He wanted mom to fix him some supper. When she told him that she had his supper at 10: 0’clock and she was not going to get up and fix him some more. He jerked her out of bed. He backed her into the footboard of the bed, and there he tried to break her back. I was on the bed trying to support mom and between us both, dad went backwards to the floor. I jumped on his stomach like a cannon ball. Dad was sure sick from this. Dad had brought this other man home with him. It didn’t take this man long to leave when I threatened him with a knife for not keeping dad from trying to hurt mom.

  While living here I had this memory of dad coming home while driving drunk. He had let out a couple of women and they had left his car doors open.  When he pulled into the alley and came down it and into the garage, then the door would not go in for they were open. The next day we got his car backed out and found that both back doors were sprung. When we checked the alley for measurements we found that he only had about six inches to spare on each side.

   We stayed here a couple of years and then we moved to the East Barberton Homes.

 

 

45 Circle Drive

 

We moved to 45 Circle Drive. This circle drive was a circle that each end was connected to Lamberton Street. The backside of our house over looked a dirt road with the side of the road covered with burnt coal ashes. These ashes were not the ideal surface to snow slide on. I tried after the first snow fell.   It was not deep enough, so the sled stopped and I wound up sliding on my face in the cinders, it sure done a job on my glasses.

    Dad let me use my slingshot once again. I headed for a frog pond about a half-mile away that a friend of dads owned. I started shooting frogs in the pond. I could shoot them in the head while they were in the water. A short time later the man that owned the land asked me “what could be happening to his frogs for they were all dying? I never told him that I was shooting them. I never shot anymore.

 It was while living here that this girl told her parents, that the two boys that she was seen with down in the bushes behind the house, was my buddy and I. When my father asked me about it I told him, “I was playing base ball.” He didn’t believe me, and he gave me a whipping for lying. I stayed in the house until the next day until this other friend came by and I asked him to tell dad where Bo Fowler and I were at the day before. He told dad that I was playing catcher and Bo was on second base playing ball down by the projects office. This was a lesson for dad and me.  From then on, he knew that I would not lie to him and if I got caught doing something, then I would own up to it.

  We had a garden up the road from the projects and the people that owned it was in the dice making business. There were some elderberry trees growing on their property and I picked some to make wine from. I took some of this to a football game and the police caught me and my friends that had drank some of it. Nothing was done to us but was ordered to, “ get rid of the stuff.”  My sister Betty was born here in 1947, and upon her arrival we had to move into a larger house.

 We moved from here to 70 Circle Dr. It was across the road and across a big field from where we used to live.

 

70 Circle drive

 

  While living here I took up roller skating and riding a bicycle. I could ride it and stand on the seat. I could ride it by turning backwards and look over my shoulder as to where I was going.

   Annie and I went to Washington school, where in the 6^th grade I became a “School Safety Patrol”. I was given a “Certificate Of Merit from the State Of Ohio”. I had two Perfect Attendance Awards, one for the years 1946-47,and one for 1947-48. I graduated from the 8^th grade in June 1949. While in the last year of school, I worked as a pinsetter at the Portage Lakes Bowling Alley. When we were not setting pins, we were allowed to bowl. We took turns setting the pins and bowling. I would set pins on the weekends.

  I also had a Thursday evening job at the Barberton Harold, where I was a stuffer, and my job was to put the fliers and pamphlets in the newspaper.

   While working at the Bowling Alley and after I had graduated from school, I got a motor scooter. The scooter was used and I had to have the motor support welded. I painted it all up until it was sharp looking.

 The scooter didn’t last long for mom and dad were out riding it one day and mom told dad, “I feel water spraying on my leg.” He told her to, “Get off as soon as I slow down for that is not water but gas and it could blow up with us.” She hopped off and he rode it to a clear place where he could lay it down. Well, as it so happened, it did burn up. I replaced all of the parts and re-painted it. I thought that I had done everything that I could but I was proven wrong a few days later, as I was riding by the lake in Portage lakes

 I heard an explosion under me. The valves had been damaged in the fire. By this time I had bought an old car, it was a “1929 Oakland”; it was so old that I could not get parts for it. Arthur Eye would let me drive it to work and then he would drive it home until it was time for me to get off work. This one day he came after me, and the scooter, with the car. He towed me home with a rope tied to the front end of the scooter and I rode it home.

 Dad would let me drive up Lamberton Drive to the end of it. At the end of Lamberton was Third Street that ran to the left and right of it. I would stop at the end of Lamberton and then back all the way down to a side street. I would drive up this side street that had a hill in it and dad would make me stop in the middle of it. I would pretend that there was a red light at the top.

And there were cars behind me so I would have go on up the hill without backing into the cars behind me. This is the way that he taught me to drive. (This was the only thing that I remember that dad done for me that was good.)

 

 

  It didn’t take long for the car to get gone either for it seemed that I couldn’t have anything for mom and dad. They had taken the car to get groceries and on the way the transmission went out, and there were no new or used parts to be had. I sold it back to the junkyard.

After the bowling alley I went to work for the Cardinal Rubber Company in Barberton. I was trained to inspect the parts that we made and to keep the screws in the parts before they were put into a press with raw rubber to be molded into their desired forms. After working here for a while I bought a new Harley Davidson motorcycle. I would ride it to work and roller-skating. I left this motorcycle at home when I went into the U.S. Navy in August in 1951.                                                                                                                              

 

                                                

 

Chapter 3

 

In the U.S. Navy:

My first time to be away from home.

 

 I joined the Navy on my 18^th birthday. Mom and dad drove me to the train station In Barberton, Ohio. I rode the train from Barberton to Columbus where a person from the Navy met us. There were other people that had enlisted also on the train. We were taken by bus to a hotel to await other people. That evening we were treated to a meal at the hotel. Then we were sworn into the U.S Navy. We were told that we could have the evening off and we would go to the fair grounds for a public swearing in. A couple of the fellows and I headed to town. We wound up at the burlesques show. We

drank a couple of beers apiece. Then we headed back to the hotel.

  After a good night’s sleep and breakfast the next morning, we got our clothes packed and were put on a bus. We were taken to the Ohio State Fair at Columbus. When we were all lined up, we repeated our swearing in to the U.S. Navy. After the swearing in, we were loaded back on the bus and driven to the train station. We boarded the train and soon were on our way to boot camp at the U.S Naval Training Center at San Diego. When we got there, it was really a site. We got our haircut off, (not a hair was left) so that we could be recognized when we were away from the base. We also got our

 

many shots for many diseases. Then we got our load of clothes and were taken to our living quarters.

 We were taught how to swim (for those that didn’t know how), rope tying, and knowledge about ships and living on them. We were transported to a camp out in the desert, where they really put us through some rough training. There were no fences around the camp. It had about twenty miles of sand and snakes to keep us there.  If you did try to escape, there were no places to go for the Navy patrolled the roads. One sailor tried and he ran into snakes, scorpions, and spiders not counting for the cold nights. When he came out of the desert he was wicked up by the Shore Patrol. Finally we were out of boot camp. We headed home for a fifteen-day leave before we would be sent to our next location. When I got home I spent a lot of time roller skating and riding my motorcycle.

  I think that it was Oct. when I was home on leave. I decided that I wanted to go swimming in Lake Anna. I went to the changing area and changed my clothes. I had to hold them over my head as I walked to the swimming dock.  As I was swimming, I noticed that there was a crowd gathering. The lake was closed for the winter for swimming. A policeman showed up and hollered for me to come out. I told him that I would in a few minutes. He followed me to the changing area and he waited out side the door. When I was about done changing my clothes he looked in. When he saw my uniform he came to me and asked me for my ID. When we walked out the door he told the crowd that he could not arrest me for I had the right to swim anywhere or anytime that I wanted to.  It didn’t take long for those two weeks to run out. I went back to San Diego. I was put in charge of a dozen men that were headed for Coronado, Calif. Coronado was just across the bay from San Diego. When we arrived, we were assigned to the Staff unit of this five-group unit. There were the

Beach Masters, Boat Unit, A.C.B., Staff, and U.D.T. The U.D.T. unit was better known as the Frog Men at that time. Now they are known as the Navy Seals. At Coronado there was not much to do except to wait to be sent over seas. I would spend my liberty time roller-skating in Coronado or catch the ferry to San Diego and skate or go to a movie show. When time came we boarded an aircraft carrier and we were on our way. We went up the coast until we got to San Francisco and then we headed west. After a few days at sea we came to the Hawaiian Islands. We were allowed to go ashore for a couple of evenings while the ship was being re-stocked. After they got their supplies, we were on our way again. A few miles out it was practice time. The ship would pull a target behind it and then our own planes from the ship would take turns shooting at it.

Japan

 

 After the target practice we were headed for Japan. Japan was the land of the rising sun. “ The land of the Honey Carts.” I got behind one of these carts and the smell was terrific and terrible. Their cities had the houses side by side. The only large spots of land were used for rice crops. These rice fields had long box containers where they would store the human waste that they used for fertilizer. After a few more days at sea and getting close to Japan we ran into a typhoon. The ships that were with us put some distance between each of them. We headed straight for it and then we bounced up and down while rolling from side to side. A few of us got

Sea sick, but I was lucky that I didn’t. After the storm we pulled into Yokosuka, Japan. This was the place that the Japanese built their biggest battle ship in World War II. From here we were taken by bus to Camp McGill. This Camp McGill was an army base with a small part of it was on the ocean that the Navy used. It was located across the bay from Mt. Fuji. This camp was where the young pilots of the Japanese were trained in World War II.

   I wanted to be a radio repairman but they put me into the radio staff. In this group I had to learn how to type and learn Morris Code. This part I could not learn. So not being able to learn to send and receive Morris Code I was put to cleaning up the barracks.

   In August I got the news from home that my grand father had passed away. I also got the news that dad had traded my motorcycle in on a car without my permission. Mom stated that I was half owner of the car. I felt like they had stolen the motorcycle from me.

  There were one third of our group at sea and one in Japan, one third was stationed at Coronado. When it came our turn to come home, we rode a

Military Transport Ship USS Gordon. When I got home my sister Annie and her boy friend Bill Rhodes wanted to go to West Virginia, so he could play music. I needed the car (the one that I was to own half of it). I found dad in a bar with only two people beside him in it. I told him that, “I wanted the car.” He said “No.” I went out back to where the car was parked and there was this other car parked next to it. I went back into the bar and I asked this other man, “Is that your car that is parked next to dad’s?” He replied, “It is”. I asked him “would you please move it for I am going to burn my half of dad’s?” Upon hearing this, dad handed me the keys for he knew that I would burn it. But before I could go I had to take a picture of him and me. Annie, Bill, and I went to West Virginia in the car. I also used the car to run around in while I was home on leave.

 

Over Seas For The Last Time

 

  When my leave was over I went back to Coronado. We stayed there for a while and it was back to Japan and the radio shack once again. I came to the conclusion that if I was going to get anywhere in the Navy I would have to go to school. Anything that had “School” in its title I took. I went through Fire Fighting School for on land and aboard ship. I also took Motion Picture Camera Operating School. After this school I could run the big cameras to put on shows.

 While going to radio school I was also studying for my GED. After I passed the GED I was asked how would I like to go to the Hospital Corps School? I said “fine”. I was transferred to the Doctor’s office and drove an ambulance for the medical stall. Finally my orders came through for me to go to the Hospital Corps School. I was taken by car to Yokosuka Naval Yard to await transportation. They kept us and put a lot of them that were awaiting transportation to work. I went to the sick call and got a piece of paper that stated that I was allergic to the lead in paint. I did not have to work. We had to wait for a few days before transportation came available. I got on a truck with a load of other sailors and they drove us to Moffit Field where we boarded a DC-3 plane for the trip home. We stopped over In Wake Island; another stop was Guam, then on to Honolula where the plane had trouble with its engine. We spent three days here and then we flew to Treasure Island. Here at Treasure Island I had to go to sick call once again and this time it was for

something to make me sleep. I had been awake for nine days straight. I had been awake waiting for transportation, for they would call a group every few hours. On the truck of about six hours I could not sleep. On the plane with all of the noise that it made I sure could not sleep. In Hawaii I was to busy seeing the sights. I was here for 2 days before I could get any sleep. The steam pipes that was banging outside of my window kept me awake. I was put on kitchen duty for the first day. I had a government driver’s license, so

I was allowed to go to the motor pool where I was given the job of driving trucks. I had to take a load of asphalt to the prison that was located just off base. I was mistaken for one of the prisoners. One of the guards cleared this up for me. Then finally my papers caught up to me and I was paid so that I could go home on leave. This was the second time that I had made the trip to Japan and it would be my last.

 

 

 

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Home again

 

         This time would be my last time home until I would get out of the Navy. I had met a girl by the name of Anna Marie Sells on the other trips home and I asked her to marry me. She said that “she needed a night to think about it and she would let me know in the morning.” Well the next morning I called her and she said, “Yes”. Her uncle drove us to Cookeville, TN. to get married. He had driven the last hundred miles with just his emergency brake working, for his regular brakes had gone out. We were married in Cookeville and we spent the night at her Grandparent’s house. Then when we got back to Ohio, I had to return to San Diego to attend the Hospital Corps School. Marie was back home and had gotten a job so that she could come to San Diego to be with me. I rented a room at this one house and all that I had was one room and I could use the kitchen if I wanted to. I stayed here until I could afford an apartment. Right before she came I rented an apartment down the same street. When she arrived I could tell that something was wrong with her. She acted like, she was not as glad to see me as I was her. After a few days she told me the whole story. She stated that she thought that she was pregnant by this other fellow and that was the reason that she wanted to wait until she could confront him with it. Then he told her to get lost, just before he walked out on her. She told me that “she had married me to give the baby a name and that she did not love me, but we could work it out, and maybe she could learn to love me.” It wasn’t long after this that these two fellows showed up and she went back to Ohio with them. After completing

Hospital Corps School I was sent to Corona Naval Hospital.

 

 

Corona Naval Hospital

 

 

  I was stationed here to serve the rest of my time in the Navy. While staying here I got a Lawyer and sued Marie for an annulment. They sent her the papers and she signed them and just a few days after I turned twenty-one the annulment was granted.

 I worked here at Corona Naval Hospital doing many things like ward duty, driving the liberty bus, and ambulances. One day I got an ambulance run to a place that they call “Men’s Town, (It was a place that men went to get treated for alcohol abuse) There was a wreck and two sailors were involve. It was called in as an emergency, so I put the peddle to the floor. I took two medics with me.  the next day I was called to the office. I was told that I had averaged 110 miles an hour. They took my ambulance part of my driving license away for a month.   I had my own office just before I got out of the Navy.

 One day a fellow sailor told me that he might get his dad’s crew to come and put on a show for us. When I asked him who his dad’s crew was he told me “The Three Stooges”. In about a month The Three Stooges put on a show for us. After the show I met Moe Howard and I was really impressed by him being so intelligent. He seemed like a professor instead of a Stooge.

 Corona Hospital was a beautiful place. It had a lake that was supplied with water from the lake on a hill in front of the base. The lake on the hill was supplied with water that was piped into it from two wells.

 I bought a 22 cal. Pistol before I got out of the Navy to use on my way home for my protection.

  I got my Orders and I started home in my car. As soon as I picked up my pistol, I noticed the police were keeping an eye on me. When I hit the main highway there were a different group following me. It was the Highway Patrol instead of the police. I pulled into a restaurant and I asked the Highway Patrolman if he would like to ride with me? This would save him his gas. I explained to him that I was on my way home to Ohio and the pistol was for my protection when I was asleep.

 I made the trip fine by pulling off of the road and stopping for rest. Later I had to stop to deliver some grapes in Salt Lake City, Utah.

 

 

Home For Good

 

 When I got home I was not ready to settle down. I took a trip to TN. to pick up Eva Lee Allen. When I first saw her standing on the porch and got a good look at her I made the statement “I didn’t know that you were so damm good looking”. Her sister Della had to go along with Eva and I. That coming night while we were on the road we had to pull over for it was raining so hard that I could not see the road and we had a flat tire. Eva and I were in the front seat and Della was in the back seat. We had dozed off to sleep for a while, until this big truck shook us as it passed by. Just in a few minutes the Highway Patrol came by and told us “we were in danger there”. Eva and I got out to change the tire. Eva held the flashlight while I changed the tire. Della told later, “that Eva and I were in the front seat doing something if front of her”. If I knew that she was going to lie on us, I would have made Della hold the flashlight in the rain.

 When we got to moms in Barberton. Della ran to the neighbors and wanted them to take her home. They thought that she was crazy. We stayed about a week and all the while Della was not satisfied. After this short visit I took Eva and Della back to TN. Eva and I became engaged at some time while I was down there, or while we were up north in Barberton. I remember that she wore her engagement ring back to TN. We decided to get married as soon as she got her tobacco check. I would get a job and try to buy us a house. I went to work at the Barberton Citizens Hospital. I was out looking for a second job. About noon when I was about to pass the Cardinal Rubber Company, I decided to drop in and see the people that I had worked for before I went into the Navy. The secretary told me that they were not taking any applications. For they were not hiring. When the owners drove up and came into the office He asked me, “ are you looking for work, and if so when do you want to start?” The secretary looked at them and said, “I just got through telling him that we were not hiring.” The owner looked at her and said, “I will find a place for him even if I have to fire a couple, he has worked for us before and he is a good worker.” I started the very next day on second shift. I would work at the hospital everyday except Monday and Tuesday; I would work at Cardinal rubber Co. Monday through Friday. This way I only had two jobs on Wednesday, Thursday, and Fridays. I worked this way until I found us a house at 610 Fig Drive located in the Portage Lakes area. I stayed working the two jobs until I got the letter from Eva that she was ready and had gotten her tobacco check.

 

The Trip To Get Married                                   

 Chapter 4

 

  As soon as I got the letter from Eva, I started putting the plans in operation. The plans were to call and let the Cardinal Rubber Company know that I would be going south that day.  I would not be back for a few days. I had told them earlier that I was going to get married so they would know that I would be back. Next thing that I had to do was to get some snow tires. There was snow down around Columbus. I got the tires, filled up with gas, and checked the oil and etc. I was on my way. I drove through Ohio just fine. When I got into the hills of Kentucky it was a different story. After going to the bottom of one hill and as I started up the next hill there was what sounded like a stick of dynamite exploding under the hood. When I got out to check, there was a stream of rusty water running from under the car down the hill. I tried to start it and it wouldn’t start. A truck came along and towed me to the first garage that we came to. I explained what had happen and the mechanic said, “The timing chain or the cam shaft one or the other had broke.” He offered me a price for the car and I told him that I would take seventy-five dollars and a trip to where I could catch a bus to Red Boiling Springs, Tn. I was given the money and drove about one hundred miles to catch a bus. I arrived in Red Boiling the next morning. I bought an old junker of a car. He wrote me out a bill of sale, and filled it up with gas and oil. He also gave me a gallon of burnt oil and told me “it uses a lot of oil”. I drove to Eva’s house and when I pulled up I was not in the drive way but in the road that was in front of the house. I didn’t know what kind of mind Eva’s father might be in for she was his only help that he had to work the farm and make a living. Her father was not there. He was helping Luke Gaines sell apples in Gainesboro. When she got ready, we headed for Gainesboro also. We were dreading seeing her father there. He was selling apples when we arrived in Gainesboro. He was in a good humor. The reason

for this was, Eva had told him that we were going to married. How he took it would be if she and I would come back to see them. We picked up our papers and had to go to Cookeville, Tn. to get our blood test. When we got back to Gainesboro, we went to the five and dime store and purchased a cheap wedding ring. I had left the real one in the car up in Kentucky. I had called back earlier to check on it, and made arrangements to pick it up on the way back to Ohio. The courthouse was open, but the County Clerks office was closed. Durwood Stafford took it upon himself to find Odell Bybee (the clerk at that time). They found him at the Dentist office. He had closed his office early to take his daughter for her dental appointment.

 When Odell got back to the office and got the papers, we went across the road to Champ Goolsby’s Furniture Store. Champ Goolsby was a JP, and he married us. We were married in the furniture store. Furniture was the only thing we were lacking in our house up north. Odell had kept the office open for us, and we got our marriage license.

 I drove to Eva’s family’s house. When we got there we ate our wedding supper. It was a big red apple, some cold corn bread, and some cold chicken that was left over from lunch. Luke and Andrew (Eva’s dad) had already got there before us. Andrew had calmed Eva’s mother down for she was all tore up about them losing Eva and her moving off. Luke started shooting some firecrackers off, after putting them in a corncob. One of the pieces hit Eva’s sister Bonnie on the arm. This stopped the firecracker bit. I had to go to the outhouse. Luke thought that I was going for a gun, and he left. After a short while we were off to bed. You could count the stars through the cracks in the gable end of the house. The next morning after breakfast we packed the car. I put two quarts of oil in it. Then we started our trip north to Ohio.

 

The Fairy Tail Trip North

 

We were happy and the car was running good. I drove through Tenn., with no troubles.  That changed after we were nearly through Kentucky. I was going around this curve when the right front tire blew out. I pulled to a space on the right side of the road. When I went to check the spare tire, it was flat also. I heard a hiss coming from the right rear tire. We were stuck there until a car came along. He took us to a garage where we bought two used tires. We got the mechanic from the garage to go with us to our car and change the tires and fix the spare also. After we got the tires fixed, the oil filled up, we were on our way once again. We stopped by the place and picked up Eva’s wedding band that I had left in the car. From there we were headed to Ohio. I was getting tired, so when we came to a motel, we ate and spent the night there. Every time that we stopped I had to check the oil and fill it up again. It was taking about one quart of oil for every two gallons of gas.

  When we had eaten the next morning it was time to go on home. I started the car and it ran fine, until just south of Columbus. It had jumped timing. I had to keep the engine running fast, to keep it running at all. It quit at a red light in Columbus. A big truck pushed me through the green light. We were on our way once again. Just south of Wooster Ohio there was a big hill. I was following a big tractor truck loaded with steel. He was slowed down by the weight. He was too slow for my engine to keep running. It quit about two- thirds up the hill. We were stuck there. I let the cars behind me come around me. I was going to have to try to start the car in reverse while going

back down the hill. I noticed this bus had stopped for us, and let me have the room to start the car. I backed off the hill and I tried to start it a couple of times, but to no avail.  It started at the last parking lot that I backed into. I waited here until the hill was clear. I went up it flying. I drove the rest of the way to 70 Circle drive. I parked it in the parking spaces for the projects. The car would not start again.

  My brother Dee and my mom  took us to Barberton Motor Company. Eva bought us a car from her tobacco money; they allowed us one hundred dollars on it even though it would not run. I found out later the timing had jumped to faster timing. The next day we drove to our new home at 610 Fig drive. We had taken all of Eva’s stuff from the old car and put into the one that we had bought the night before.

 

New Home At 610 Fig Drive

 

 

  610 Fig drive was located on a hill overlooking one of the lakes of the Portage Lakes. From our back door we could walk in between these two houses and then cross Portage Lakes Drive, step over the guardrail and then onto our boat dock. We fished from this dock many times. All the fish that we caught were small. I loved to sit there and fish.

  The first day was really a mess for the furnace would not stay burning. The fuel oil was all gummed up. I found the grates that had been taken out, when someone had changed it over to fuel oil. I made a trip in the car to a coal yard to get some coal. I had a bunch of boxes that we had used to store and transport our clothes, dishes, and etc. I filled the boxes with coal and the car was loaded heavy when I got through loading it, for the rear of the car was really hanging low when we got back home

The furnace didn’t last long and we bought a new one. The old refrigerator wouldn’t keep the food cold enough so we had to buy us a new one.

I went back to work the next Monday at the Cardinal Rubber Company. Eva went to work a short time later at the Thornwell Inn. It was located on the lake. There she worked for Carl and Clarence Studer. Carl worked in the bar area and Clarence in the kitchen with Eva until he got her trained in to take care of the kitchen. Eva cooked and washed dishes. She would walk to work and I would pick her up in the evening. This one day she had to cook seventy-five steaks for a banquet not counting the stuff that went with it along with the other dinners that were ordered by the regular customers. She was supposed to have a dishwasher to keep the dishes washed and dried, but he stayed so drunk that he couldn’t do them, and Eva had to wash the dishes also.

   A lady came by and offered to sell us a bunch of furniture.

 She sold it to us cheap, there were bunk beds, a stove, bedroom suite, couches, chairs, table and chairs, refrigerator, a deep freezer, and a bunch of other things.

   It was about the coming May that we found out that Eva was pregnant. She kept on working until she couldn’t work for being pregnant. Linda was born on January 19^th. 1957, at the Barberton Citizen Hospital in Barberton, Ohio. It was a cold windy day with snow on the ground. After getting Eva into the hospital, I went to park the car and I backed into a light pole, for the parking area was slick.

 After Eva got out of the hospital and some time passed. We got a lady to take care of Linda. This lady’s name was Lena Wilson. This was so that Eva could go back to work. Lena fell in love with us and wanted to adopt us. She even wanted me to go to school to learn how to run a backhoe. She said that she would buy a backhoe and a truck and trailer to move it on, and then I could do the work and we would split the income from it. We thought this was awful sweet of her, and we cared a lot for her, for she was a good woman. About this time I started my woodworking. I started by making bookshelves.

 One day a big county gravel truck ran me off of the road. (I was on my way to a store to get some baby milk for Linda) It tore the rear end from under the car, the right finder was smashed and the right front bumper was broken off. It cost me $88 dollars to get the rear end put back. From then on it seemed that every bolt had been shaken loose.

 After a while dad came to live with us. Dad and I had made a deal that included that he would come straight from work and watch Linda until I got off of work and he would not come in drunk, nor drink while living with us. We had a small room at the end of the kitchen that he could sleep in and keep his clothes. Him and I made a deal that we would work together with the truck that I had bought and that we would split the money that we could make in three parts, one for him, one for me, one for the tools and upkeep of the truck. We done good at this and dad had more money in his pocket than he ever had before.

  This came to an end the day that I was topping a tree and I looked down and there was dad talking to this other man and drinking a beer and my safety rope laying on the ground. I finished topping the tree. When I came down I told dad that we were out of business together for he had broken two rules, one was he was drinking and the other his drinking had put me in danger because he had not held my safety rope. He stayed with us until one evening he came home late and was drinking. He offered to pay Eva for her time that she would lose for that day. When I came in and found out about his coming in drinking, I put him out. I found dad the next morning in the truck. That day I took him back to where he had stayed before. He went back to work in the bar for a small amount of money and a place to stay.  I sold the truck and bought a Buick car, for the truck I didn’t think it would make the trip to Tenn.

 While working at the Cardinal Rubber Co., One evening while I was at the inspection table, we heard a loud commotion from out behind the factory. Three men in a pickup had run into a telephone pole behind the building. They had lost control of the truck, on a railroad track that sloped across the road that brought the rubber to our plant. When I got to the back dock to take a look, I saw three men that had been in the truck, one was standing and walking around, another was staggering around and one was sitting and using a towel to keep the blood wiped from his head. I told the one that was staggering around to sit down and put his head between his knees. The one that was wiping the blood I got up behind him and pressed the towel to his head. When the ambulance arrived, I told the Doctor that was with it, what each man had wrong. He checked out the first and put him in the seat next to the driver, next he checked out the man that was staggering around and put him sitting up in the back. He asked what I had there (pointing to the man with the head wound) I replied a “big Gash”. The doctor told me to ”hold what you got until I can get a bandage ready”. When the doctor removed the towel and looked at the head wound he said, “man you are lucky to have someone around that knows what to do, for if not you could have bled to death.” I asked the Doctor

for permission to call the hospital later and check up on them. He took my name down and said he would make arrangements for me to call. I called the hospital after I got home from work and they told me, “they just sewed up the head wound and sent all three home.”

   Eva started to get home sick for Tenn., and her family back in Tenn. wanted her back there for they were lost without her. She talked me into moving back to Tenn., It didn’t matter to me where we lived for I had just came out of the Navy and I could live anywhere. It wasn’t long that Andrew came after us. We were headed back to Tenn.

Her father rented the Mitchell Givens farm that was up the road from them, for us. He got Burt Lee Gaines to come and get us in his big truck. We loaded everything that we had on the truck, with all of out clothing and dishes in the car and some small things that we

could not get in the truck and be safe there. I had made arrangement for the move like the electric, water, telephone to be turned off, and people to sell the place for us, and

 

I had notified the owner as to what we were doing. 

 I had a lot of memories while working at the Cardinal Rubber Company, like they would let me park my motorcycle inside of their building when I rode it to work. I was working as an inspector of the products that they made, and I was also their painter on the inserts that went inside of the parts. Dee and I had been such good workers that they hired Clayton because of this when he went there for a job.

 

 

 

Chapter Five

 

Back To Tenn. For The Last Time

 

The Mitchell Givens farm

 

 We had packed the truck as full as we could get it. We even packed the deep freezer full.  On the way down, Burt Lee had hit a bump and all that weight in the freezer tore the bottom out. With a few screws and a jack I got it fixed back. Eva and I got to the Mitchell Givens farm before the truck did and we got the place ready for our things by getting a couple of new rugs and putting them down before the truck got there. When the truck got there, we got our stuff off of the truck. We just stored the stuff in the house, except what we needed right away. We could unpack later for it was May and we needed to get the potatoes in the ground and our garden planted. We made a quick trip to the store and got our supplies. We also picked up fifty baby chicks that we put into an out building. The next thing we knew there was a big black snake coiled up with chickens dead in the coil and had one in its mouth. I shot one shot at it’s head and missed, the next shot I shot from above and down through the coil, this did not kill it either, the last time I put the gun into its mouth and pulled the trigger and this time it died.

  We worked hard to get the garden planted. Andrew already had the land turned for us to plant, he even had the rows laid off. As soon as we got settled, I started Farming School and this brought in enough money for us to live on for a while. We also planted tobacco on the farm. We were kept busy that summer with farming and tobacco growing. Then the first thing we knew the garden started to come in. The six long rows of beans were the first. We started canning and giving away and still couldn’t pick them all off. When the garden was all over, we had canned over five hundred cans. (these included apples, peaches also. About the time that we got through canning our second daughter was born, we named her “Wanda”. She was born October 5, 1958 at the Jackson County Hospital.

   We got our water from a spring located at the bottom of a hill in front of the house. We had a water works that we used to get the water. We would send a bucket down a wire on a carriage and a rope attached to the carriage. We would have to crank it back onto a spool that had a crank attached to it.

 Our first winter was rough. One time Andrew and I took Della to the doctor, we got Jonah Clark to take us. It came such a snow that we got stranded at aunt Nola Carver’s on Wards Fork. Andrew decided to walk up the hill and get Jonah Jenkins to take him home. But I stayed at aunt Nola’s with Della for she would not stay unless Andrew or I stayed. Andrew made it home and took Eva and the girls home with him. Eva packed one and him the other. Della and I made it home the next day.

  The next year it was back to farming and we raised another garden. While we were farming there at home we would put Linda and Wanda in a playpen so that we could keep an eye on them. I also started to take a course in Radio and TV repair around this time.

          Noah Allen (Eva’s uncle) comes to live with us. He worked at Joy’s Flower Garden in Nashville and later moved to Jackson County. People took all of his money and kicked him out when he became broke. He came to us and asked if he could live with us. And that he would pay us rent. He stayed a while and paid us the rent. He got into the hog business and bought six pigs and raised them up to big size hogs. What did he do then? Well, he took them back to the people that had kicked him out before.

 

 

Bought A New Farm on Riley Creek Road

 

 We also bought a small farm on the other side of Andrew’s property and they also connected in one area. This farm was over grown with bushes. I got a dozer to clean it up and dig us a hole for us to build a basement on. We could not afford a basement so we built over the hole. We snaked popular logs for the joist and we bought rough lumber for the walls. We threw down slab lumber for a floor; we walked on this for a while until we could do better. We had to pack our water from the bottom of the hill in front of our house for a while until I could build us a water works. This was a heavy wire with a hook on it and was fastened to a bluff below our spring. A log was placed under the wire at the spring so that a bucked and carriage would have room to fit under a waterspout. The wire was ran all the way up the hill and between two trees that I had a log in and a couple of holes through it so that I could use one hole for the wire that I would rap it around, the other hole to turn the log with, to wind the wire on. I had to make a big spool for the rope that we used to let the bucket down and pull it back with. Along so far down hill we had to put standoffs on trees to keep the wire off of the ground.

   We finally got a house in North Springs that was given to us to tear down. We tore it down and we got enough wood for our floors, walls, and enough ceiling for our living room and the kitchen. The back room had floors but no ceilings. I used one of the back rooms for my radio and TV repair shop. Before we got a good floor in, we would walk on these flimsy boards that would bend under our weight. Along here I ran for Sheriff of Jackson Co. I done this so that if I didn’t get the Sheriff’s job then I would have the people know me and come to my TV shop anyways. We were still farming and at the end of this farming season and that winter our third child was born, we named her Geneva, she was born December 19, 1962. I had gotten a job at the Jackson County Sentinel. I didn’t get paid much, but it was enough to make the payments on the car and on the farm. That coming summer Eva got a job at Heavy Duty Manufacturing Co. located in Gainesboro.  Eva rode with some women that lived close by and I would drop the kids off at Cricket Davis’s, then I would pick them up on the way home. Then the first snow fell and I had picked Eva up from work and also the kids at Crickets. We went down this one hill and while I was going up the next I started to have the rear of the car slide around and Eva made a statement. “If we are going to work in town then we need to move to town.”

Dad passed away while we lived here in 1961.

 

Big Apple Place

 

 That coming spring we move to a place that had a house and a big storeroom next to it. We had left Eva’s uncle Noah Allen in charge of the place at Haydenburg. Only later to find that he had gotten rid of all of the fruit cans and my Navy uniforms that we had left there for safekeeping.

 I had quit the Sentinel and was watching the kids while Eva worked. I went back to work for the Sentinel. I had many jobs like setting type by hand, running the small presses, make up for the weekly paper, pour lead into the adds forms. That coming winter we hired a baby sitter that let the fire coals from the fire place land on the floor and burn holes in the floor. That coming spring we moved to Cheese Town in Gainesboro.

 

 

Cheese Town

 

 I quit the Sentinel and went to work part time at the furniture factory. Eva could walk to work from here. That coming winter while the furniture factory was closed I was transferred to work for the Sparkman Motor Company. Marlon Sparkman owned both of them. I pumped gas and washed cars. After Colonial built a shirt factory here, I got a job there. There was a young man working at Sparkman’s that was making more money than I was, and doing a lot less, and this is why I quit.

  I started out at Colonial making ninety cents an hour. My job was to turn pants from wrong side to the right side out. Next they put me as a bundle boy for the inspectors, I had half of the inspectors that gave me a bad time. One day one of them made the statement that they would slap me. I went to the plant manager and told him about it. He asked me “Are you afraid of her?” I replied no for what I am afraid of is that is she does I might break her jaw. He moved me to be a bundle boy for the hemmers, button setters, and buttonhole makers. 

  I stayed here for a while and then they moved me to the Trim Control Room. It was this time that Eva came to Colonial to work. In the trim control room I had to keep up with the zippers, buttons, and labels. I was also the company driver. I had to make trips to Nashville to pick up the big shots that were coming from New York to check on us. I also had to run the bias-making department. I was not making the money that I thought that I should be and I quit and went to the Boat Building factory. I had looked for work and I found one in Carthage but I chose the boat building instead for it was located in Gainesboro. I was there for just a few months and the fiberglass got to me and I was packing this stuff home on my clothes and it was getting from them to everyone else’s clothes, that’s not counting the itch from it. I went to the plant manager of Colonial and he told me that he had two openings and they were in the cutting room and shipping.  If I would come by the following Monday he would put me where he needed me the most. (Eva had already gone back to Heavy Duty, for she had quit when I did.) I showed up for work and was taken to the cutting room where I started out as a bundle boy. When one of the cutters quit then I was put to cutting. I cut any and everything from bikinis, jackets, pants, and pajamas. I cut there for a few years and when I asked for a raise I was told that they could not give me one. All the while living in cheese town Eva and I would take our girls fishing on Roaring River, and at one time we took then to a place that they called “Lock 8”. This Lock 8 place was down by Defeated Creak towards Carthage. It had walls that were about thirty feet tall and we had to fish over the walls. We didn’t take the kids back there again for it was too dangerous. We bought our first new car in 1969. It was a Chevrolet Bel-Air. I bought it on Labor Day that year. We bought a farm from Cecil Heady on Tan Yard Branch Rd.

 

 

Tan Yard Branch Road

413 Cox Ave.

We lived in Cheese Town and raised a garden on the farm. The first garden was a mess. The ground had been a yard for years. I got Earl Meadows to turn the ground for me. There were rows of grass from one end to the other.

Tom and Della came over with a wagon and were going to use a drag hire to break the rows up. These rows were so large that the mules couldn’t cross over them. While they were here we heard a noise and I thought that Geneva had fallen into the creek. Tom told me that there were a couple of men over across the road, next to an old toilet. I went to the car and got my shotgun. I shot a shot into the air and I told Tom that no one is going to run me from this place. About then we saw that the noise had came from a peacock that was sitting on a fence.

  We finely got the Cheese Town house paid off and had a little in the bank when we bought this farm and got us a doublewide trailer. Richard Scantland helped us dig the footers for it. He would dig five to my one. We finely got moved to the farm and we sold the place in Cheese Town and put the money we got from it on the trailer payments.  We worked and made a garden on this place.

   It didn’t seem long to us that our daughter Wanda got married to Richard Scantland and moved to the Montgomery farm that had pine trees all over it. Not far behind Wanda our daughter Linda got married to Curtis Ray Holloway and they moved towards Cookeville.

  Our daughter Geneva stayed home until she was ready to get married. She was going with Ronnie Denton and Nielson’s would call here for him to come to work early.

 I had cut nylon jackets for a few months and then they sent the orders for the jackets to Dominican Republic. I was sent to the plant there in the Dominican Republic to show them how to cut nylon jackets. I went and stayed two days and showed the cutter in charge how to cut it. They did not have any clamps that they needed to hold the nylon with to help them cut it. When I got back home then I was back to cutting the regular stuff. I had put an application in at the Nielsen plant. Later I called the Forman that had called here so much for Ronnie and I asked him to check on my application. He called me the next day and told me that my application was in the file that they would call people from. After a while they called me at home and Geneva called me at Colonial and said that Nielsen had called for me to come in for an interview. After the interview I went back to Colonial and then Geneva called once again a couple of hours later, and this time she told me that Nielson called and said that I could come and go to work for them in a few days. I went to a table and pulled my cutting apron off and I told them at Colonial that “I Quit”. They asked, “what about a ten-day notice that I was supposed to give?” I made the statement to them that, “I had given them over a years notice for I had told them that I would be gone when I could find a job that pays more and was not just a summer or winter one”.

 They had to pay $6.50 an hour to get a cutter that had quit them before and one that I had trained. I was only making $3.90 an hour when I quit. I started at Nielsen’s for $4.00 and would get a raise in 90 days. I started by sweeping the floors, running a spring press, back plate press and all of the machines that they had in the pressroom. I was later put to cutting picture frame moldings.

 

Other Memories on Cox Ave.

 

Eva bought her car here and learned to drive. Wanda and I taught Eva by letting her drive up Columbus hill, and in the Colonial and Heavy Duty parking lots. She did good on her Drivers License Test. Tommy (Wanda’s boy made the statement that he was going to beat Eva on his test when he took his. Eva beat him with a better score on her test, after that, she drove herself to work. She was 58 years of age when she learned how to drive.

  I had preached at Hensley Creek Church of Christ a few times. I have also preached at the Gibson Ave Church of Christ a time or two. When I decided that they would not let me preach there anymore we started going to the Lakeview Church of Christ. I started preaching   from two to four times a month. When I was begged back to the Gibson Ave Church of Christ and was told that I could fill in when the regular preacher had to miss. This was not what happened. Our preacher had to miss and I was ready to preach and in came another man that they had got to preach instead. When he found out that I was supposed to preach he left. The men of Gibson Ave Church of Christ told me that I was not wanted. I haven’t preached a lesson yet.

  There was the saddest news that we had ever gotten, here also. The news was that our grandson Curtiss Ray Jr. had passed away. He had shot himself for he did not like what was going on in his life, for he was on dope and his wife had left him. He had got to the point that he was stealing from his own family, and he could not live this way.

 I started wood working on 610 Fig drive by making a couple of “Stair Step Bookcases”. (I could not afford the wood tools to work with and there was not enough room for it either.) I started it up again after we moved to Cox Ave. I started it up after I had quit the lawn mower repair business. I take the things that I make to the Jackson County Poke Sallet Festival. It is held the second weekend in May of every year.

  We have reworked our house. We have added 2” and 4’ thickness to the walls. We have poured a concrete slab behind the house and under the porch.

   Eva and I bought a Saw Mill for Geneva and her boyfriend (Tim Jackson) to use. They cut a few cedar trees and cut them into lumber for us. They moved the saw to another place and cut there for a while. While at this place they decided that they wanted to buy the saw. They made three payments. They decided that they could make more money by taking the logs to the mill instead of cutting it up with the saw. They finally brought the saw back. I sold it to the Newberry Brothers Chair Co. 

   We bought our 1997 Chevrolet Malibu. We bought it in 2000 and it was like new. Eva and I spend a lot of time looking out the back door. We watch the deers that go across the field behind our house. We have seen from one to ten deers at a time go across.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter six

The Life of Eva Lee Allen Newberry

Written by Corben Newberry

As told to him by Eva Lee Allen Newberry

 

I was born in Jackson County, TN. As to what area I don’t know.

 

Lucy Lee’s Place

 

   I remember that we lived at a place that had this big pine tree in the front yard on my Aunt Lucy Lee’s place. When I was young I would run and hide when people came, for I was too bashful to talk to them. I used to hide under the porch or under the table. We raised some hogs that were so big that you could not see their eyes.. We used to walk to the Haydenburg Church of Christ, with Mary Jane Carnahand that was a neighbor of ours. We had to pack our water from the hollow. It was here that my sister Bonnie Jean was born and also my sister Anna Bell and brother Joseph Lee. Anna Bell and Joseph Lee died young.

 Bonnie Jean had an old wood stove to fall over on her and it burned her to the bone on her right leg. Her mother (Carrie Allen) got the stove off of her and she didn’t get a burn. Later on Bonnie was taken to the Junior League to have her mouth opened. It had locked up because of the burn. Then her parents would not force her to keep it pried open, for it would cause a lot of pain to her. Her jaws were locked once again. She would have to shove her food between her teeth to eat. Her food had to be fine and soft for she could not chew it up. She liked turnip greens. She had long coal black hair.

She would call her dad” Old Sweet Eye”.

Carrie, her mother died in 1962. After a short time her father married Reba Roberts. 

Bonnie loved her stepmother Reba, and Reba was good to her.

Bonnie lived to be 39 years of age. No telling what kind of life that she could have had if her parents had made her keep her mouth pried open.

 

Across The Road

 

   The next place that we lived was across the road where dad had bought a farm. I help build the house that we moved in to. I did not get to go to school much for I was kept busy working with dad cutting paper wood, acid wood and wood for our cooking stove and our heating stove. Della and I would saw this wood with a two man saw. Some of the wood had to be split and dad would do this. I had to go with my dad to work in the tobacco fields while Della stayed home with our mom. I done what I was able to do and as I grew older I would do more, I use to have to use a grubbing hoe to dig holes to plant corn in. This we did up and down the hills that was to rough for the mule to plow, such as hoeing, cutting, and spiking tobacco. I would go to the first set of tear poles. Della would hand the tobacco up to me and then I would pass it along to dad that was above me. He would place it so it would dry out and cure. For Christmas we might get an apple and an orange and maybe a stick of candy or two and that was about it.

   The house was too small for out family. I paid for the lumber. Dad and I built two more rooms on to it.

 I even made some of my clothes from the sacks that out flour came in. Note: (Eva made our girls clothes when the girls were young.) Della and I had to pack our corn three miles to the mill. It was located behind Dallas Hall’s store at Haydenburg. We would have to pack the corn on a pole to the mill. We would have to pack the meal back the same way, but the meal was lighter. I had to take our mule to the spring to drink. I had to pack water for a basin, above where the mule would drink. I went to the Hensley Creek School. I had to walk down a hill and then down a road   about three miles one-way.

  For our entertainment Della and I would walk to Curtis and Zelma Lee’s place. We would all walk to the picture show that was at the Cub Creek School house. Vernon Jenkins was the show operator. We would use lanterns for our light to see by. The only way we had to go back then, was to walk. I lived here and worked until it came time for me to get married and move away to Ohio.

 

Eva’s Work Over The Years

 

 Eva has worked at farming, raising tobacco, and cooking at the Thornwell Inn in Portage Lakes. When we lived at our farm on Riley Creek road she applied for a job at Heavy Duty Mfg. Co and was told that they were not hiring. When they hired her first cousin Dorothy Stafford she went back to check on her application and was told that they were not hiring. Eva told the manager Pat Bolenger that she knew better than this. He told her that he did not have to hire her, she told him that he could give her a chance like everybody else. After Pat Bolenger left she went back in and told the new manager Jack Reeves what Pat had told her and the hiring of her first cousin. Eva got the job.

 She went to work on setting collars on shirts and later they put her to setting collars on pajamas. She worked there this time for thirteen years and then went to work at Colonial where she would set yokes and then later moved to setting collars. She worked there for twelve years and then she went back to Heavy Duty for Colonial floor ladies were giving her a bad time.

 Back at Heavy Duty and she stayed here a little while and thought that she could make more money at Crotty. She got a job at Crotty and she had to beat joints together that went into sunvisors. While working here she bought herself a Chevy car and it was a small one at that. She learned how to drive it and got her drivers license at the age of fifty-eight years old. She would drive to and from work. Wanda and I had taught her well for she was a good driver. In fact she had beat her grandson Tommy (Wanda’s son) on her driving test.

 

Chapter seven

The Dogs in our life:

At the Herbert Brown Farm my brother Orden Dee (whom we always call him Dee for short) and mom found this black female dog  in the fencerow. This dog became Dee's dog. Dee would lead her around by her ears and had them wore  slick, he would also lay her down for a pillow, this wore a bald spot where he had laid his head. After we moved to the top of Wards Fork hill she had a bunch of pups. She had these pups in a hole down the hill from the spring. I followed her one-day and I found the pups. I told dad about it and we carried them to the house. We noticed this one, that was bigger than the others, and I told dad that I wanted that one. Dad had told me that I could have one and that he would have to get rid of the rest. I called him "Big Boy" for he was so big. We took him to Hackett Town with us and I gave him to the Hackett’s when we moved to Ohio.

There were no dogs that lived in the projects that we lived in. While I was riding my motorcycle to work at the Cardinal Rubber Company, this one dog would chase me. I was watching for it this one evening and it made a mistake of getting in the right spot for me to kick it, I did and it went in front of a police car and was ran over. I rode to the bottom of the hill where I turned around and went back up the hill, where the police were parked and I told them what had happened. I told them where the dog had came from and when they knocked on the door they gave the man a ticket for not having a dog on a leash. The next dog to come into Eva's and my life is when we first moved to 610 Fig Drive. Someone had given us a beagle and it would run to the front door and sit when it came time for me to come home from work. One day it went down the path that led to Portage Lakes drive and a state gravel truck ran over it.

 This one evening I was just getting out of our car and I heard these kids screaming, "He's going to kill our dog" I noticed this German shepherd had this Golden Cocker spaniel under a car and I could not call it off so I put a heavy kick to its side, and another and finally when I had kicked it enough it crawled off and we got the Golden Cocker spaniel out. It had some fir missing but was not hurt. A short while later the owners of the Cocker spaniel came to me and asked me, if we would like to have it?  They were moving and could not take it with them. We took the dog,, he had papers where he  was registered. This dog would come to the front door and wait for me also. When Linda got big enough to crawl it would get in her way and head her away from the back door that led to the back porch, for on the end of the back porch was a set of stairs that led to the basement. If we were on the porch then this dog would not let Linda get close to the stairs. We gave it to some friend of ours when we moved  back to Tenn.

 

 

 

 

         

            This is the dog that we had while at Portage Lakes. It would keep Linda safe.

 

 When we moved back to the Mitchell Givens Farm we did not have a dog, but Andrew had a couple of them. One they called “Snow Ball”, it was white with brown spots and it always had a cat by his side that was the same color as he was. When you saw one, the other was close by, and the cat would sleep laying on him or was curled up near him. The other was “Red Dog” he was of reddish but nearly black in color. He always stayed under the porch. He was getting up in years and they said that he had been run over about six times and wouldn’t let anyone touch him. This one day I tried to pet him and he bit my hand. A few days later he came up missing and Andrew asked me if I knew anything about him missing. I told him, “ I did not know what had happened to red dog and I did not kill him because he had bit me for that was my fault that he had bit me, and I would not kill him when it was my fault”.  After we moved to the farm on Riley Creek road a man by the name of Early Smith brought his two red bone hound dogs by and let them get out of his truck. Out girls (Linda and Wanda) played with one of them and when it came time for them to get back into the truck, one of them would not get back in. Early just lived down the hill from us. And he said, “I will let him stay and he knows the way home.” The dog stayed with us. He had been shot sometime in the past and every time that he heard a loud “Bang” he would go under the house or the bed. One day he treed a groundhog down by our spring and Eva went to him, and shot it out. The dog made a fast trip back to the house. (This was the first animal that Eva had ever killed with a gun.) One thing that this dog was good for, was the fact that he hated snakes, and this one day he was laying in the front yard and he jumped about three feet high and then headed for our field. When I got to him he had already killed a rattlesnake. Andrew and him killed a big rattler that it was so long that when it was laid on the back of my car it reached from one side to the other. It was so long that it was hard to lift, and the part next to his rattles would barely clear the ground. Andrew had cut the snake’s head off and the dog had pulled his rattles off. This rattlesnake made the paper, “The Jackson County Sentinel.”

   When we moved to the Tan Yard Branch we had different dogs. One was a dog-named “Princess” that Geneva claimed as her own, and I don’t remember much about it except a neighbor shot it.

One was a female German shepherd, and I had to put her down after she bit a boy that was always throwing sticks or rocks at her.

Two were basset hounds that I kept on a chain for a while and when I finally let them loose, one of them came back with a long gash in his hind leg. I took it to a vet and had it sewed up. A short time later they caught the mange and I had to have them put to sleep.

The next one was a cocker spaniel that I got from Mary Lynch. I kept it tied and fed for a few days and when I let loose, it went back to Mary’s.

 

 

 

 

         

 

This is a picture of our beloved “Snow Ball”. I bought him in 1989. I paid $25.for him from a boy up town in Gainesboro, Tenn. He was about six weeks old when I got him. After a short while, I built a pen for him on the hill in the back yard. He stayed in the pen until he got big enough to jump it and get out. When he did get out he ran away from home and a few days later as we looked out there he was back in the pen waiting to be fed. Any time that he wanted to be fed he would go to this pen or where the pen was after I tore it down. He would go with me to the hills to cut bushes or just walk around. He would go with me to the barn and to the shop. If I went to the metal shop he would go with me and if I left it open to go to the wood Shop, he would stay in the metal shop until I came back. Then he would go to the wood shop and stay until I came back to it. Sometimes lying down behind something where I could not see him would lock him up. I would go back and find him when he did not show up for his supper.

          One time Snow Ball left and was gone for five days.  When he came home he could not move, so we put food and water so that he could reach it. That evening when we came home he was barely able to move but he could walk around and after a couple of days he was doing fine. Then I noticed what looked like a bullet hole in his side. I told Eva, there was not much use of taking him to a vet for if he had made it this long then he would all right.

 When later on in life I would take our other dog “Shorty” for a walk and Snow Ball would go along with us. Sometimes Chester Hamlet’s horse would join us when we got to the corner of the fence that he was in and the four of us would walk to the small bridge towards town and turn around and walk back up the hill until we got to the far side of our barn and then head back to the house. When Snow Ball got about thirteen years old he wound up with cancer and he got short of breath and he could not make the whole walk with Shorty and I. He would try but he just couldn’t make all of the way with us and on the last he would just get to the road and turn back.

 It was August 6, 2003 that Eva and I just got back from Cookeville that we were late for out breathing when Chester Hamlet came by and told us that “something is wrong with your dog and he is down by the creek”. When I went out to check on him he had made it to the drive way and when I got to him he took a couple of short breaths and died. This was at 4:45P.M. Chester and I buried him in out garden area.

 

 

                                                                            This is our dog “Shorty” Linda bought him for $100 in Cookeville. We got him when he was just 6 weeks old. He was born December 5, 1992. I took him to the vet for his shots and every time he had gained weight. The vet said that we were over feeding him. It was better to over feed him than to starve him like he had seen other dogs get done.    He thinks that he is human. He can say “I want-um”, and “out” of course he has other ways of talking to me. When he wants out and doesn’t want to say “out”, he gets on the back of the couch and licks my face. I know by this that he wants to be taken out. He likes vegetable stew. He is a very good watchdog. He will let us know if anyone is driving up. He is very protective of us when a strange comes it. In a few minutes after he sees that they were not going to do any harm to us. He would try to feed them one of his dog biscuit.