Memories: The Road Less Traveled

By Granville Russell

This is a story of the life of a young boy born in 1936 during the Great Depression, who began to grow up during World War II and started school two years before the war ended.

There were two brothers and a sister born in 1938, 1940, and 1943. Their mother passed away because of cancer in April 1945, leaving behind four children aged two, four, six, and eight. Its a story about how we all survived, grew up, married, had families, and lived a normal and happy life.

With a loving grandparent, they were able to stay together for five years until the grandmother passed away in 1950. The rest of the story is about a long and hard road, about a road less traveled, with many ups and downs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 22, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543428872

Granville Russell

About the Author I’m eighty years old, will be eighty one in September. I’m still working, driving commercially for FedEx Ground part time but intend to retire next month. I retired in 2003 but went back to work in 2004 with FedEx and have been working for them the last thirteen years. My wife and I married in 1958 and have been married 59 years June 21st. We have two sons, six grand sons, a great grand daughter and a great grand son due this October. Two have graduated from collage, two are in Collage, One is in High school and the other one is in last year of elementary. I want my children and grand children to see what life was like80 plus years ago.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Granville Russell.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2017909156

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-5434-2889-6

   Softcover   978-1-5434-2888-9

   eBook   978-1-5434-2887-2

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 06/22/2017

Xlibris

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

763017

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1: I Saw The Light

Chapter 2: Moving To Indiana

Chapter 3: A New Beginning

Chapter 4: Time Changes Everything

Chapter 5: Where Do We Go From Here?

Chapter 6: Headed North

Chapter 7: My Years At R.c.a. (Radio Corp. Of America)

Chapter 8: Christmas 1956

Chapter 9: Indiana Air National Guard

Chapter 10: Dating And Romance

Chapter 11: Life Gets Boring

Chapter 12: Out Of The Frying Pan Into The Fire

Chapter 13: Wedding Bells

Chapter 14: A New Life

Chapter 15: Buying Our First Home

Chapter 16: Finally Settled Down

Chapter 17: Devastating Times

Chapter 18: A New Direction

Chapter 19: Restless And Home Sick

Chapter 20: Sickness In The Family

Chapter 21: Back Home Again

Chapter 22: My Hobbies And Past Time

Chapter 23: My Greatest Thrill Learning To Fly

I dedicate this book to

MY Wife

Mary Kathleen

My two Sons Bryan and Bill,

My grandson’s Kyle, Cody, Chase,

Spencer, Bryce and Jake

My great granddaughter Olivia Kathleen

INTRODUCTION

This is a story of the life of a young boy; born in 1936 during the great depression, began to grow up during world war two and started to school two years before the war ended.

There were two brothers and a sister, born in 1938, 1940 and 1943. Their mother passed away with cancer in April 1945 leaving behind four children, ages two, four, six and eight.

It’s a story about how we all survived; grew up, married, had families and lived a normal happy life.

With loving grandparents they were able to stay together for five years until the grandmother passed away in 1950.

The rest of the story is about a long and hard road, about a road less traveled, with many ups and downs.

CHAPTER ONE

I saw the light

I; Granville hit the lottery some time around the last week of December 1935 or first week of January 1936 and was born September 26, 1936 about five miles north of Franklin, Kentucky, Simpson County. Now; when I say I hit the lottery; think of all the people that weren’t born because of birth control or abortion that will never see the light of day. They outnumber the grains of sand on the sea shore. I was one of the privileged few. So whether you live to be a hundred or somewhere in between, be thankful that you were one of the few to be born, live, love and experience life.

My father was Eugene H. Russell, son of Harvey and Bertha Russell and my mother was Anna Lois Russell, daughter of Clarence and Cora Dinwiddie. My brother was born June 30, 1938, named Carl Gray, nicknamed (Doddy). His head was so big when he was born that he had a hard time holding it up and it doddled side to side and we nicknamed him Doddy. My sister was born September 28, 1940, named Bertha Mae and my younger brother Harlan Meredith (Dickie) was born February 15, 1943. When he got older we called him Dick. They named him after my twin uncles, Garland Meredith and William Harlan Dinwiddie.

The earliest I can remember was when I was about five years old we lived in my grandfather’s tenant house. A tenant house is what they called the house that a family lived in to help the owner with the farm work and raising the crops. It was a three room house, large living room also used as a bedroom, a kitchen and an upstairs. The walls were papered with daily news papers. You could eat breakfast while also reading the comics on the wall. My grandfather Clarence owned about a hundred and twenty acres of land. My dad worked at the shirt factory in Franklin and helped out a little on the farm. Times were really hard back then as we were still in the great depression when I was born. People were standing in soup lines and riding the rails looking for work. World War II had started September 1, 1939 when I was three years old that month. Hitler of Germany was the one who started the war. I remember when I was six years old about 1943 and 1944 standing next to an old battery powered radio (we didn’t have electricity back then) with my grandfather sitting there and listening to Hans von Kaltenborn. They always announced him as H.V. Kaltenborn on the radio. He would report all the news about the war and what Hitler of Germany was doing. He passed away in 1965.

On Dec. 7th 1941 Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii which started a war with Japan during World War II. About four years later the United States dropped the Atom bomb on Hiroshima Japan August 6, 1945. I was eight years old lacking about two months being nine. I remember standing by that old battery powered radio as my grandfather and I listened to H.V. Kaltenborn report the news the day that the United States dropped the Atom bomb on Hiroshima. He reported it like he was calling the plays in a ball game as he told about the aircraft that was loaded with the Atom bomb. The plane was named the Enola Gay and the Bomb was named Little Boy. In Hiroshima the explosion wiped out 90% of the city and immediately killed 80,000 people. Tens of thousands more would die later of radiation exposure. Three days later a second B-29 dropped another A-Bomb on Nagasaki killing an estimated 40,000 people and Hirohito announced his country’s surrender on August 15, 1945. That atom bomb was named Fat Man. That was seventy two years ago and we still haven’t learned how to live in peace.

I had started to school in September 1943 in which I would have been seven years old that month. Back then you had to be six by the time school started. I walked about a mile to a one room school that had eight grades and a Baptist preacher for all eight grades. After about three or four months they closed the school and the old school house is still standing after 74 years. I transferred to Franklin Elementary and then before school was out transferred again to Ben Davis Elementary in Indianapolis, Indiana; so I attended three different schools in my first grade. We moved around so often that I never got to settle down and get to know anyone much.

CHAPTER 2

Moving to Indiana

Times were hard and work was hard to find so dad and mom moved us all to Indianapolis, Indiana in early 1944 before school was out and I finished first grade at Ben Davis Elementary. Dad got a job at Allison, a General Motors plant. They were building transmissions for the war department. We lived in an old chicken house. Don’t laugh its true. My Uncle; Garland Dinwiddie had lived and worked in Indianapolis for some time and he and Aunt Willie lived about six or eight miles outside Indianapolis, Ind. and they had an old chicken house but no chickens. It really wasn’t that bad. We remodeled it, put inside walls in it, papered the walls and painted the rest, put linoleum on the floor and Bingo, we were housekeeping and by the way it was only one room; kitchen, bedroom, and living room all in that one room. Talk about a close family, we were close. I was only seven years old but remember it like it was yesterday. I had another uncle who also had come to Indianapolis: his name was Dowell Russell and we called him Darrell. He was a Missionary Baptist preacher and he preached at several churches there and in Kentucky and Tennessee. When we lived in what was once a chicken house my Uncle Darrell and Aunt Thelma lived in a small house trailer in the corner of Uncle Garland’s front yard. As I said; times were hard and people got by the best they could but I never knew at the time just how poor everyone was. My Dad finally rented a small three room house built of concrete blocks on High School road a couple miles from my Uncle. My mother was sick at the time but we children didn’t know the reason.

We only lived