Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/998389
Introduction
War stories
Regrets
Ingrid Koehler
November 2009
Bill’s family background
Bill’s parents
Boyhood Home
An accidental scalding
I don’t know whether I’ve told you about the deal on the
fireplace, in the front or not, but I had a brother Fred, who
was two years younger than I was and he was about
seven months old, so I would have been a little over two,
and we were there in the room and in those times, you
pulled fire coals out on the hearth and set a black tea
kettle on those fire coals to heat water. And for some
reason, he was big enough to crawl, he crawled over and
reached out and got the handle on that tea kettle, pulled it
over, spilt water all across the hearth, and it ran down
under him and scalded him evidently something terrible.
And I can remember that, I can remember seeing him
reach out. And I remember my mother coming and getting
him, calling for my daddy, who was down in the field to
come to the house, and I don’t remember anything else
about that deal until I remember us being in church, and
my mother having on a black veil, and crying. And then I
don’t remember any more about him for a long, long time.
And my mother or daddy, either one, ever said anything to
me about that, and my sister was born twelve years later,
and they never told her about that. And she only knew
about it, because she read a clipping that my mother had
in a box in cedar chest out in the hall that told about it.
And she wouldn’t even ask my mother about it, she went
down to our grandmother’s, Mammy’s, and asked her if
that was so. And, of course, it was.
They didn’t know to put tea leaves on burns at that
time, and unguentine had not been invented, and they
didn’t have anything to put on the flesh to keep the diapers
from sticking. And they finally ordered some unguentine
from New York. I don’t know how long it took to get there,
but he must have been dead before it did get there, and it
set around out in what we called the creamery for a long
time. And I think my Daddy finally used it for axel grease,
came in little pound cans.
Mammy
Turkey Bill
Horse whipped
A switchin’
A pocket knife
When I was a little old boy, and like lots of little boys, I
was fascinated by knives. My Uncle Ben had a real pretty
little knife with a real sharp blade. He always kept a sharp
knife, and I wanted to see it. He didn’t much want me to
see it and my daddy said not to, but anyway somehow or
another I finally got to see it and I took it and stabbed it in
a locus tree. I remember where we were. In our front yard
there was four locust trees that grew real close together
and I was standing sort of in the middle of them and I
stabbed this knife in one of those trees. I didn’t have a
good hold on the handle and my hand slipped down the
blade of the knife and sliced into my hand down into the
bone, cut the leaders in two and that’s the reason always
now my little finger is still stiff on my right hand and not as
large as the little finger on my left hand.
It hurt real bad, and my daddy said that was good
enough for me. We were supposed to go pick beans that
afternoon, and I didn’t want to go ‘cause I’d hurt my hand
and he said if I hadn’t played with that knife I wasn’t
supposed to I wouldn’t have hurt my hand, so let’s go pick
beans.
He gave me a big basket and we picked beans and got
it full. I couldn’t carry it in my left hand so I had to carry it
in my right hand and I guess that pulled my hand a little
more. But anyways it was a long time before my finger
got well and it’s always been stiff. I would say I was about
8 or 9, pretty young.
Firewood
Boyhood home
Cash crops
Uncle Ben used to set out there under the shade tree in
a swing with that sharp knife and a cedar stick and he had
a lot of ‘em, and he’d whittle and whittle and whittle,
shavings would pile up all around him. People riding up
and down all around the road would stop and say “Ben,
what in the world you doing?” “Cuttin’ timber.” That was
the stock answer that he gave him. And that tree was
right beside my grandmother’s house where Uncle Ben
and daddy were raised. And that’s where the mule story
came in.
School days
Teenage driving
College dances
3
At the time I attended the University of
Tennessee, starting in 1988, Alumni Gym still had
no air conditioning. They still relied on those giant,
ancient fans to keep it comfortable. I don’t doubt
that those fans were the same ones my
grandfather remembers.
I didn’t have but one change of clothes, one change of
shoes, three or four shirts and suits of underwear. I took
ROTC and, had to then, and they issued you olive drab
woolen uniforms and in real cold weather I wore those. I
scrambled through every which-a-way. I sold programs at
the football games, basketball games. I just went to
school and worked. The extra-curricular activities; I didn’t
know existed. But I made it and it in the meantime my
daddy started the tobacco business and that brought a
little more income in, and doing other things brought a little
more in. I got a little better jobs; making a little more
money. Barely got by, but I got through. When I got
through why I didn’t know what I wanted to do.
Career planning
Teaching school
I didn’t know it at the time, but the guy that really wrote
the Farm Security Act was named Rexford Guy Tugwell.
And Mr. Rexford Guy Tugwell was the appointed
Governor of Puerto Rico when Roosevelt was runnin’ for
president. And he was supposed to be a friend of Mrs
Roosevelt, and he was supposed, if he wasn’t a
communist, to have very strong communist leanings. Now
whether that’s true or not true, I don’t know, but he did
have very liberal and far-advanced thoughts. That’s for
sure. Course at that time I was a pretty strong supporter
of Mr Roosevelt, ‘cause I knew what the farmers had gone
through and what their plight was and how little they had.
He was the only person of national stature that I had ever
heard of that had any kind of a program that was
supposed to be of benefit to farm people.
Some of that stuff was declared unconstitutional. The
National Recovery Act was then, the NRA was declared
unconstitutional. They had to change some of the other
programs to change ‘em from being unconstitutional. But
there’s always been a tendency and pushin’ for one world,
for the haves to do for the have-nots. The Have-nots
always seem to think that they deserve more and the
Haves seem to think it’s not their job to provide any more.
I don’t know.
The wedding
4
Tiny was Nadine Bottoms Brown and Alvin Brown
was her husband. Tiny was Tut’s closest sister in
age.
Tut wanted Brother Coffman5 to marry us. His
daughter had been a real good friend of hers and he had
been a Church of Christ preacher for years and he taught
out here at the high school for years. She knew that he
wouldn’t marry people until he talked to them before he
married ‘em. So we went down to his house. ‘Course she
knew him and his wife and his daughter. She was as
unconcerned as she could be. But I didn’t know him, I
don’t know that I’d ever met the man or not. But I
remember him pullin’ the glasses down on the end of his
nose, “Boy, you ever been married before?” If I had, he
wouldn’t have married us. He wouldn’t marry anybody
who’d married before.
Reassignment
In the trenches
Entering Germany
At Colmar
Tut’s death
Bill: Well, that came much later. But there still many of
those people that started working in the manufacturing
plants who were raised out on the ridges where they still
had broom sage and cotton, and that was about all. And
when the plants came, they quit farming, and began to
buy another car to ride to work in, began to buy a
television, which they didn’t have. Began to have runnin’
water and bathrooms installed in the houses, and they ran
some cattle. And that wadn’t too bad for the land, but it
wasn’t good for my business, ‘cause I’d been sellin’ them
farming equipment and supplies and all of those things
and they weren’t buyin’ ‘em anymore. So I decided, I had
to do something, so what I decided was, all this land’s
layin' out there not being used, I’ll just rent it and start
raisin’ cotton. And I never had grown a lock of cotton in
my life, but it’s really not very complicated. So I got in the
cotton business, and then in the soybean business. The
first year, I believe I had twenty-two acres of cotton,
twenty-something. Did pretty well with it, and the next
year I had forty-something and the next year I had eighty,
and the next year a hundred and sixty and the next year
three-hundred and twenty. I doubled it every year. And
that year it liked to have killed all of us, before we ever got
that crop out, ‘cause we were pickin’ it by hand and I
decided that either I was gonna quit raisin’ cotton or I was
gonna buy a cotton-picker. And we didn’t know anything
about cotton pickers, except little old one-row
Internationals, and International and John Deere were
comin’ in down South in Alabama, and we had
International and John Deere dealers, and I didn’t want to
buy one of those, so I scouted around and found out about
Ben Pearson cotton pickers which was a descendant of
Russ Brothers cotton pickers which was the first people
that ever made a cotton picker that they couldn’t sell in the
United States, but they did sell ‘em in Russia. Then the
sold part of their patent right to Allis Chambers who made
a picker, and then Russ Brothers went out for some
reason and they sold the company to Ben Pearson
Archery company in Pine Bluff, Arkansas and they started
makin’ the cotton pickers. And I did pretty good raisin
cotton and few soy beans for a while.
Moonshine
Political life
Ed Lindsey and Virginia both played bridge pretty well
and Tut and I played bridge pretty well. And we played a
lot of bridge together. And he wanted to run for public
office. Mayor of City of Lawrenceburg, and he couldn’t get
anyone to run with him.
Ed and I didn’t win by much, but we won by a little. It
took three then. And nobody wanted to run with Ed and I
guess nobody wanted to run with me too much ‘cause I
was so new. ‘Course people knew him better than I did.
Somehow or another Tut and I decided that I’d run for
Finance Commissioner and we like to never have got
anybody to agree to run for Street Commissioner with us.
But we finally did, and the fellow that ran for Street
Commissioner, Junior Edwards got beat by one vote.
Ed and I won and we didn’t get along well at all. We
quit playing bridge together. He wanted to run the city
completely. He wanted one of his brothers to be City
Attorney and one of ‘em to be Chief of Police and his first
cousin to be City Clerk and ladies that worked up or went
to Church up at the Methodist Church to run the finance
office. I didn’t know about all the stuff, but I began to
catch on. So we had a right rough time. I never intended
to run but one year, one term, and when it came time for
re-election I didn’t have any idea of running. I don’t know,
but somehow or another I heard he told somebody that it
was a good idea that I wadn’t running, that I couldn’t get
elected anyway. Said I only got elected the first time by
riding in on his coat tails.
That didn’t set well with me at all so I decided well; I’ll
run and see what happens. And I did, and I got elected
and he didn’t. And then Murray Ohio was beginning to
come here and I thought I’d stay one more term, then the
Union problems were here and I thought I’d stay one more
term and that was sixteen years and I’d made up my mind
that I wasn’t gonna run anymore and I didn’t. A lot of
people said “Boy, it’s a good thing you didn’t run; you’d a
got beat this time.” And I told them “Well, you don’t know
whether I would have or not. Do you? You won’t ever
know.”
Union troubles