The Life and Times of Carroll B. Cheek

By Christina Cheek Ross

Born into a lower-middle-class depression-era farming community in northwestern Missouri, Carroll B. Cheek was a product of his time. During the depression, there was a constant fight for survival. Jobs, housing, even food were scarce. Farming kept families alive. Children worked to help support the family. Everyone did their part. Play was a luxury few people enjoyed. To put it mildly, the United States of America was in crisis. Not before or since the crash of 1929 that caused the Great Depression has the US posted such high unemployment rates, low salary wages, and lack of sustainability. People relied on each other. Everyone but the very rich suffered.The outbreak of World War II provided jobs, whether in the military or on the home front. Everyone pitched in for the war effort. After the war, military personnel came home to a thriving economy, where suburbs were developed outside major cities. The age of convenience was born in the 1950s, and processed food filled the grocery stores. Track housing was designed to mass-produce shelter and appliances relieved the hard work of washing clothes, cleaning floors, and preparing food.Cheek, as he came to be called, was prepared for anything life could throw at him. Known in the world of racing, Carroll Cheek was something of an enigma. He knew mechanics. He could build any type of engine. This understanding seemed natural to him as he did not go to college or trade school to learn mechanics. While he had jobs in the world of automobile mechanics, dairy distribution, and his own company of oil and gas storage, Delta Tank, he always migrated back to his first love-building and restoring engines. He built race car engines. He built airplane engines. He built dune buggy and motorcycle engines. To say he liked to "go fast'" is an understatement. He loved to go fast! The faster, the better. He far exceeded the nine lives allotted to any human being. He survived multiple race car, motorcycle, and airplane crashes. He lived with someone else's liver in his body. He made surviving death an art. This is the story of a man who knew few boundaries, always creating new ones, and lived life on his terms. This is the story of the life and times of Carroll B. Cheek.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9781685179168

Book preview

Section 1

SECTION ONE—Early Life

Early Life

A Boy Named Carol

Carroll B. Cheek was born Carol Burgess Cheek on March 6, 1939, in Holt, Missouri. Holt is a small farming community in the northwest corner of Missouri.* Father Earl told him, The snow was so bad the day you were born, the doctor had to come to the house on horseback to deliver you. His first name, Carol, was chosen before he was born. I was supposed to be a girl, he recalls, and his parents liked the name, so I ended up with it. His surname, Cheek, is of Anglo-Saxon origin and is a nickname for someone with a scar on their cheek, possibly acquired in battle. It derives from the seventh-century Middle English Cheeke, well established in Essex, Hampshire, Isle of Wight. The Cheek family can trace their descent in an unbroken line to Richard Cheeke, who, under King Richard II (1377–1399), held the manor of Motteston on the Isle of Wight. Carroll’s middle name, Burgess, came from his uncle on his father’s side, a half brother named Marion Burgess Cheek, who served in World War I. Burgess can be traced back to eighteenth-century England. Carroll has a scrapbook of pictures and articles of 1920s aviation that includes an aircraft with Burgess Cheek painted on the side.†

Carroll’s father’s name was Earl none Cheek. They teased him that none was written on his birth certificate under middle, so they called him Earl none Cheek. Earl was tall and athletic with sharp Clint Eastwood–type features. He had a quick smile and an easy way of talking. As they say, He never met a stranger. He was as comfortable talking to homeless people as he was any President. He did not suffer fools lightly but forgave easily. He was comfortable to be around. Carroll recalls his father could ‘cipher’ in his head faster than anyone I’ve ever known. Earl’s father’s name was Elisha Henry Lafayette Cheek. Elisha was a religious man who relocated the local Methodist congregation to Holt, Missouri. Elisha then purchased a new 1926 Ford Roadster but never learned to drive it, so his son Earl learned to drive it when he was twelve years old. The local Ford dealer encouraged Elisha not to let the engine get low on oil, so he instructed Earl to add a quart of oil to the engine every time he drove it. The car soon became flooded and would not run, so they pulled it into town with a team of horses and got the problem solved. Due to the Great Depression, Elisha ended up losing the one hundred–acre family farm because of a $1,400 debt. Earl pleaded with his father not to turn the farm over to the bank, but he refused, and the family lost the farm. Carroll never met Elisha; he died in 1938, the year before he was born.

Earl’s mother was named Maggie Elizabeth Odor, who died giving birth to him. He was then brought up by his aunt Nancy, who had several children of her own. It was not the norm in Nancy’s family to show love and affection, and this lack of tenderness made for difficult relationships later in Earl’s life. Earl had a sister named Ruth Lee. Ruth was a few years older than Earl. Ruth later taught Carroll’s future father-in-law, Benton Peters, math in high school. Of the few family keepsakes Carroll has, one is a Bible owned by his Aunt Ruth. He also has some handmade walnut picture frames made by his great uncle. He values them greatly.

The name of Carroll’s mother was Edith Zenola Corum. Corum is also of English origin. Edith’s father’s name was Arthur David Corum, born circa 1895. The name of Edith’s mother was Lorine Coursey Corum, born in 1898. Arthur and Lorine had twelve children, who were born in Missouri. They were an athletic family, perhaps because they all worked long hours on a farm. Arthur was said to be a very good baseball player. Carroll remembers, The Great Depression didn’t affect Arthur so much because they were already poor before it hit. As a sharecropper, my grandfather never owned more than the food on his table and the clothes on his back, so he didn’t have much to lose. Carroll got to know his maternal grandfather well, as Arthur lived to be quite old. Arthur’s daughter Edith grew to be tall with Celtic features like her father. Pale skin, reddish hair, and freckles enhanced her attractive build. Carroll describes his mother Edith as brilliant in many ways but lacked self-confidence. He said this was because she was too concerned of what others might think of her. Born in 1917, Edith was the oldest, then her sister Mary Kathryn was born, then brother Joseph Arthur (who served as a Captain in WWII), brother Donald Lee (who served as a Sergeant in WWII), sister Juanita, brother James (Jim), sister Minnie Lou, sister Betty Sue, sister Margaret, sister Judith, and twin sisters Florence and Flora. Between the twelve siblings, there were fifty-plus grandchildren. Most of them lived twenty miles apart in the same city. They were a religious family. They went to the Church of Christ. They did not have the wardrobe to dress up for church. They did not have the disposable income to take vacations. There were no televisions, computers, or cell phones when Carroll grew up, so for entertainment, the families would get together and tell stories. "There were lots of stories told about snakes. There was the hoop snake that rolled down the road like a wagon wheel."‡ "There was the hook snake, which had a blade on its tail that could cut off the legs of horses." They did have a radio—a wooden Zenith upright, where they listened to boxing matches on Friday nights and the grand ol’ opry on Saturday nights on the WSM radio station from Nashville.

Carroll had three siblings, David Earl Cheek, who was eighteen months older; Joseph Lane Cheek, who was four years younger; and the youngest, a sister named Janet Sue, who was eight years younger. His mom Edith said Carroll didn’t really care for having a sister. They had a dog named Tippy and a cat named Tom.§ When Carroll was born, his father, Earl, was a day laborer on a local farm, and his mother was a mom and housewife all her life, a career he described as very honorable. During the Depression, there were few choices in careers. People looked for jobs in order to survive instead of pursuing careers they were passionate about.

Depression Era Survival in Middle America

The Great Depression began in 1929 when the US stock market crashed, causing banks to fail. It lasted until 1941, when the Japanese bombed the US Naval Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Between 1929 and 1933, the stock market lost almost 90 percent of its value. Although it began in the US, the depression quickly spread throughout most of the world. Millions of people were out of work, hungry, and homeless. Around 11,000 banks failed, losing over $1 billion in bank deposits, leaving people with no savings. Before the crash, unemployment was around 3 percent. After the crash, unemployment rose to 25 percent and peaked in 1933, leaving 1 in 4 (thirteen million) people without a job. The average family income dropped by 40 percent. Over 273,000 families could not pay their mortgages and were evicted from their homes. In the larger cities, people would stand in line for hours to get bread and soup to keep from starving. In the country, farmers struggled, especially in the Midwest, where a great drought