Bill

By William E. Bradley

This is about my life and my experiences in World War II.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 20, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504978293

William E. Bradley

The author has lived a long and interesting life through the 1030 Depression, a broken home at twelve years of age, and served in World War II. Anyone interested in how one can overcome and make something of himself through the help of Jesus Christ would be interested in the book.

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© 2016 William Bradley. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/19/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7827-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7829-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016902210

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.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved. [Biblica]

Contents

CH. 1 The Beginning

CH. 2 A Broken Home

CH. 3 The War

CH. 4 The War Is Over

CH. 5 Starting A Family

CH. 6 Working For Self

CH. 7 Hunting

CH. 8 Starting A New Life

CH. 9 Beginning My Studies

CH. 10 Friends For Life

CH. 11 Nancy

CH. 12 Camping

CH. 13 Working At The Jail

CH. 14 Visiting

CH. 15 Another Change In My Life

Introduction

Creation

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (2) Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (3) And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. (4) God saw the light was good, and he separated light from the darkness. (5) God called the light day, and the darkness he called night. And there was evening, and there was morning, the first day. (6) And God said, Let there be an expanse between the waters to separate water from water. (7) So God made the expanse and separated waters under the expanse from the waters above it. And it was so. (8) God called the expanse sky. And there was evening, and there was morning the second day. (9) And God said, Let the waters under the sky be gathered to one place, let the dry ground appear. And it was so. (10) God called the ground land, and the gathered waters he called seas. God saw that it was good. (11) Then God said, Let the ground produce vegetation: seed- bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds. And it was so. (12) The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. (13) And there was evening, and there was morning, the third day.

(14) And God said, Let there be lights in the expanse of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark seasons and days and years, (15) and let them be lights in the expanse of the sky to keep light on the earth. And it was so. (16) God made two great lights, the greater light to govern the day the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. (17) God set them in the expanse of the sky to give light on the earth, (18) to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. (19) And there was evening, and there was morning the fourth day. (20) And God said, let the waters teem with living creatures, and let the birds fly above the earth across the expanse of the sky. (21) So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the waters teems, according to their kinds, and every winged bird according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. (22) God blessed them and said, Be fruitful and increase in numbers and fill the water in the seas, and let the birds increase on the earth. (23) And there was evening, and it was morning the fifth day. (24) God said, Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: livestock, creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals, each according to its kind. And it was so. (25) God made the wild animals according to their kinds, livestock according to their kinds, and all the creatures that moved along the ground according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. (26)

Then God said, Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the living stock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. (27) So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. (N.I.V.)

Chapter 1

This is a life story of one of God’s creatures not so much different than millions upon millions of other life stories. I believe that your life is governed and developed by the times that you lived in. And your character is developed by the way you handled it, some good and some bad.

The best way to start is to start from the beginning. I was born June 26, 1926 to Ray and Mary Bradley, just before the Great Depression of 1929. My father was 6'2" and very athletic with a lot of charisma. He started preaching in the Pentecost faith at the age of 14, and met my mother in the church. My grandfather passed away in 1925 about 10 months before I was born. It was during the depression that a lot of families had to live together. My mother’s brothers were still in school and her sister Beulah was only six years old so for a few years my father and mother took over the responsibility of the family.

The church elders wanted to evangelize the tri-states, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. So they sent my father and family. We went to different towns to hold revival tent meetings. We moved from state to state and city to city for the first 10 years of my life, going to six different schools during that time. Higher education was not important to my parents or the church in the 20s and 30s.

After a year and a half, we moved from Indianapolis to Dayton, Ohio, where my mother gave birth to my brother Don. Some of my earliest memories were seeing him sitting in his highchair at the supper table.

In the winter of 1928 – 29, I remember a particular snowstorm and watching my father shoveling a path from the back door to his car. The snow was so deep that mother would raise a window and get a dishpan and fill it with snow and put vanilla favoring in it and we would eat it like ice cream. One sad thing that happened in Dayton was that my father was injured in the tire factory where he worked. While he was cleaning one of the wheels on the assembly line, someone turned it on and he got a hand caught in it. He lost one finger and one was so badly damaged that for the rest of his life it was stiff. However the stiff finger helped him to play the banjo. My mother also played the piano in church and every now and then they did a duo. They were musically inclined and I never did understand why they never passed their talent on to their children.

My father loved the church. This was one of the great things that he did while living at Dayton, Ohio. There was a labor strike at the tire plant where he worked, and many of the men from the church worked there also. Some of the men were carrying guns and it was getting very dangerous. My father was able to persuade them to go home. Soon after that, the strike was settled.

In 1929 we moved from Dayton Ohio to Indianapolis Indiana, where my brother, Bob, was born in March in 1931. We lived in the Brightwood suburbs in the only house on the block. At the end of the dirt road was a large grassy area with a lot of room to play. I do remember my father taking his old model A Ford and cutting the back half of the roof off turning it into a small pickup truck.

The summer of 1932 we moved from Indianapolis to Herrin, Illinois, where I started