Summary (Shanks Family Blog)

Summary (Shanks Family Blog): "� Page Loads Unique Visitors First Time Visitors Returning Visitors
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Chapter 1 - In The Beginning

 

It is doubtful that this autobiography will ever be concluded. I started it in the middle on 1994. Today is July 18, 1995 and while I have written nearly 50 pages, I’m still re-writing the first paragraph. I promise a renewed effort!

I feel good about my life and what I have been able to do and I want to tell others about it, thus, this measly effort to write my biography. As the little boy once said, “It ain’t no big thang, but I’m proud of it”!

Now, at age 60, in 1994 (and probably 1995), I truly feel good about myself and it’s time to share it with others. It has been a wonderful life and, for an old country boy - - a fairly successful one. I didn’t do it by myself. My family, my dad, my mom, my Betts, my Mike, my Donna, my Chuck, and all of my many friends - they made it possible for me to be where I am. They gave me confidence and a reason for pushing on. I’m a pretty lucky guy and I want to tell you about it - and, later on I’ll tell you why I’m telling you about it! For now, let’s get started!

He was a gentle man. Thin and well built. Not a lot of muscles, but strong. He was a religious man, but he did not preach to you. He let his daily life be an example for others. He was a soft-spoken person. He never raised his voice. He loved to tease and have fun. If there was ever a man made in the image of God, it was him. He didn't have much of an education. He probably finished the sixth grade at the most but he was a brilliant person. He could walk on water! He could climb the highest mountain. Few people will ever be as great as he was! I loved him very much. I miss him today, 30-plus years after his death. He was one mighty man. He was my father. He was Elbert Ruble Shanks and he was called Ruble. He died from lung cancer at a very early age. He was 66 when God called him home.

She was a beautiful lady. She was so perfect in so many ways. Thin in her early years but a little "plump" in her later years. She was a great cook. Her cornbread would melt in your mouth. She loved her God. She wanted the best for her children. She worried a lot. She was liked by all that knew her. She was smart. She was respected by everyone. She loved her husband and he loved her. I loved this wonderful woman. And, I miss her so very much. She was my mother.

She was Letha O'Dell Williams Shanks and she was called Letha. She died, after many years of suffering, and went to be with Dad at the age of 92.

In their lifetime they gave to this world six wonderful children. They were A. J., Thelma, Glen, Carroll, Don and Wayne. And, they, in turn, gave this world and Mom and Dad, a whole host of wonderful and beautiful grandchildren.

I was the fifth child and they named me Donald Mike Shanks. Everybody called me Don. I never really used Donald. It always sounded a little "sissy" to me. Now that I think about it, Mom and Dad never did tell me where the name came from. I don't remember it ever coming up in any conversation in my lifetime. What the heck, I like it and regardless of where it came from I have always been pretty proud of it and it seems to have served me well. In later years, I dropped the “ald” off of Donald and used Don M. Shanks. That sounded a little better to me!

I must have been “planned” because little brother Wayne came along after me. He often worried about missing out on life since he was the last. What if they had stopped at Don, he would often ask!

I was born at home on September 28, 1934 in a small rural community called Union Temple in Greene County, Tennessee. The area was rural in the truest sense. The house was huge, white and had a big wraparound porch. It was truly a farmhouse.

Union Temple was a farming community and the houses were about a mile apart. There were no stores, nor do I ever recall seeing any type of commercial operation in the community. Just beautiful, beautiful farms! We didn't stay there very long after I was born - probably 3-4 years. Dad bought a 110-acre farm in another part of the county. As I recall, I think the price was about $3,000.00. It was located in a community called Milburnton and we moved there when I was a very young kid. That would have been sometime around 1938. I was about 4 years old.

Chapter 2 - The Farm

 

The farm was so beautiful. There were 110 acres. It was pretty isolated. The nearest neighbor was about one mile away. The farm was sorta' hilly-like but the hills were small and rolling. There were two ponds for the cows and horses and other little farm creatures to drink from and in those ponds were some of the biggest frogs in the county. Our house sat at the end of a one half-mile dirt road off of the main dirt and gravel road that ran through that part of the county.

The house was unbelievable. It was a two-story building with a great big front porch where Mom and Dad did a lot of rocking in huge comfortable rocking chairs.

We had a large yard with great big pecan trees that seemed to be a 100 feet tall.

Beside the house - about 20 feet from the back door - was another small building that was called the "smokehouse". On the front of the smokehouse was a concrete porch with a roof. Under that roof was the cistern - a great big old concrete-lined hole about 25 feet deep that held our drinking, cooking and bathing water. Water ran into the cistern from the roof of the house through gutters and downspouts attached to the side of the house.

The smokehouse served many purposes. It was there that Dad hung "sides" of pork to cure. After the annual hog killing, the smokehouse was always full of some of the best hog shoulders and sides of meat in the entire county.

This building, too, served as a storage area and it was there that we had our Saturday baths. When Saturday rolled around, we could always count on Mom dragging out that old No. 2 galvanized tub and filling it with water from the cistern. She would always add a little hot water from the cook stove to ease our pain of taking a bath. She let us do most of the bathing but we had to pass her inspection before we crawled out of the tub. Usually she would soap up the washcloth and give our face and ears a good scrubbing before we were allowed out of the tub. We were teenagers before Mom trusted us to bathe ourselves.

Cleanliness was important to Mom. Our hair had to be squeaky clean before we passed inspection. Mom strongly believed that cleanliness was next to Godliness! She always had the cleanest, neatest house!

Out behind the house was the "outhouse", the outside toilet. Ours was pretty nice. There were two seats (but I never knew of two people occupying it at the same time). The latest Sears catalog was always available there for browsing and some old newspapers for cleaning!

I'll never forget the time that I went out to that old outhouse to smoke a cigarette. I was probably 10-12 years old. There I sat, smoking a cigarette, thinking I was about the coolest kid in the country, when suddenly the door opened and there stood Dad. While he was only about 6-feet tall and weighed about 160 pounds, when I looked up and saw him standing in that door, he looked 10-feet tall. I knew I was dead!

Dad never abused us kids, but when we did something wrong, he sure would give us a spanking that got our attention. I knew I had one coming for sure. But, to my surprise he didn't spank me. He made me carry several buckets of water from the house out to the outhouse and pour down in the toilet. You see, when Dad surprised me and opened the door, I tossed the burning cigarette down into the "hole". There was an awful lot of the Sears Catalog down there and quite a bit of the old newspapers there, too. Dad was afraid my cigarette would catch the papers on fire. Ten buckets of water carried from the house and poured in the hole was sure to extinguish any fire!

That was Dad's way of punishing me! I never smoked a cigarette in the outhouse again. As a matter of fact, I didn’t smoke any cigarettes for many years after that little incident.

Our house had the usual rooms. There was a big kitchen with a wood burning cooking stove. It was there that Mom did her finest work. She was a great cook.

There was a separate dining room with a long table and benches and chairs that we sat on. Our family loved to eat so the dining room was one or our favorite places.

The house had a little family room where we listened to the radio and had family gatherings. I sat there almost daily and listened to The Lone Ranger, Amos and Andy, The Green Hornet, The Thin Man, and other great shows that were on during those years. There was a big formal-type living room that alternated between being a living room and a bedroom depending on how many children were home at the time.

There were a couple of bedrooms downstairs and there were two bedrooms upstairs.

I will never forget that big old beautiful house nestled in those pecan trees with its big inviting porch and a yard that just screamed at you to come out and play. It was truly your classic old farmhouse.

Off in a distance about 200 yards in front of the house was the barn and the corncrib. A good farm barn serves many purposes. It houses the cows and the horses, the hay and the oats, the tobacco, the farm equipment and the chickens and it can be the most wonderful playground in the world for kids.

You can climb the barn's rafters until your heart is content; you can climb and roll in the hay until you itch all over; you can pet the horses and the cows and the baby calves, chase the chickens, hide from your parents, take a nap in the straw, build things with all the tools kept there and play grown-up farmer while sitting on all the farm equipment. What else could a kid want?

While growing up on the farm, one hog-killing event really sticks out in my mind. Dad apparently felt that I had come of age, so to speak, and asked me if I would like to "kill" one of the hogs.

I was never a hunter. I seldom took a gun out to hunt and kill animals of any type. On a few occasions in my life, probably fewer than ten, I went squirrel, rabbit or crow hunting. The killing of animals didn't sit well with this old country boy but it was a part of growing up in the country and on the farm and I accepted it as a part of that life.

Dad and Mom grew their own fruits and vegetables and raised their own beef and pork. The slaughtering of cattle and hogs for your food was a way of life.

Dad Shanks

Dad Shanks & Eddie

Chapter 3 - Shootin’ Pigs and Gigging Frogs

 

Dad thought that it was time I learned to kill a hog. He figured we needed to learn these things if we were going to be farmers.

I had watched Dad kill a hog many times. One carefully placed bullet between the eyes and into the brain and it seemed as tho' some gigantic force jerked the hog's legs out from under it. There was never a whimper or struggle. The hog died instantly. Dad had learned his craft well. The hog should not have to suffer at the hands of an amateur.

Dad handed me the .22 rifle. I stood about 10 feet away from the hog while he stared directly at me. Hogs would do that. I raised the rifle and aimed it at his forehead. He stood there motionless not knowing, of course, that tomorrow morning we would be having his innards for breakfast.

My hands were sweaty. The rifle seemed to move all over the place. I squeezed the trigger. The rifle fired and the hog went down. But, it was not like the ones that Dad had shot. This one struggled and tried to get back up. I had not done well!

Dad ran over, straddled the hog and grabbed it by the ears and yelled at me to shoot again. I got the rifle barrel up real close this time, probably four or five inches from its head. Just as I readied to fire, the hog jerked it's head and Dad's hand came loose from the hog's right ear and his hand fell over the hog's forehead, and that just happened to be the same place I was aiming to shoot. I closed my eyes and fired. When I opened my eyes the bullet had gone between Dad's fingers. A half inch in any direction and I would have shot him in the hand!

I think it was there at that very moment that I decided I did not want to be a farmer. I have thought of that time many, many times and how close I came to shooting Dad's hand. I have thanked God many times that I didn't!

We kids often went to one of the two big ponds on the farm in the evening after dark to go frog gigging. We had this long narrow plank with 6-8 nails driven through the end of it so that the nails came out on the other side and that was what we killed the frogs with. We would slowly circle the pond with our brightest flashlight in our hand.

When we spotted a frog we would blind it with the flashlight while someone slipped up with the board with the nails. We'd slap down on that old frog with the board and nails to kill it and then pull it out and add it to our bucket.

It all seems a little cruel now, but the frog legs were great. We ate them for breakfast, sort of like you would eat sausage or bacon for breakfast. After a good evening of frog gigging we would return to the house and Mom would help us cut off the legs, skin them, put a little salt and pepper on them and put them in the icebox for the night. The next morning, she would fry them and make some gravy and biscuits and the only thing left on the table would be just a few skinny frog leg bones! Man, it was good eatin'!

Chapter 4 - My Autobiography? I’ll explain!

 

As I prepare for this autobiography, it's 1994 (and we are now into 1995!). I'm 60 years old (and rapidly approaching 61) and we live in Pfafftown, North Carolina. Pfafftown is about 10 miles north of Winston-Salem, North Carolina. We have lived in this area since 1972. We really like it. We’ll probably die here. I'm retired and Betts and I are enjoying life. Whether this project will ever be finished is doubtful. I can already tell that it is a much bigger project than I thought. We will, however, proceed and I shall remain hopeful that it is completed. If it is not, I suppose it will be no big deal.

About the time I retired from Piedmont Airlines in 1988, I became interested in doing some research on my ancestry. It was frustrating. The records were few and far between. Several people had already done a very good job of locating some information so I never did get into any real research efforts. I just used what they had already found. Thus, any material contained here has been borrowed from others and I, therefore, can not confirm of verify its accuracy. I do know it comes from reliable sources so I suspect it is fairly accurate.

Since some other people had done all of the work, I just ended up rearranging the material that they had put together. As I would look at the names, their birth dates and where they were born, I had this burning desire to know more about them. Just knowing, for example, that my grandfather, Kelly Shanks, was born in Tennessee on a certain date didn't tell me a heckuva lot about my granddad. I wanted to know more! What was he like? How did he think? What kind of a life did he live? Did he suffer from many illnesses? And, the questions went on and on and on. Questions that would never be answered.

When you research your ancestry, about all you find are names, dates and locations. There is generally nothing there to tell you about the person and it was the person I wanted to know about.

I would often say, "I'd give anything to be able to sit down and talk with one of my Grandparents - especially those that lived in the late 1800s". I just can't imagine the hardships they must have suffered. How often I have wished that they had taken a pen or pencil in hand and wrote about themselves.

I don't want to make that mistake.

I want my grandchildren 50 years from now, and hopefully my great-great-grandchildren 100 years from now to be able to have something they can read and, at least, get a little impression of what kind of a person I was. I doubt if they will be too impressed, but, at least they will know a little about me.

My point, quite simply, is that I don't want my grandchildren, my great grandchildren, my great-great grandchildren, my great-great-great-grand- children (and on and on and on!) to have to wonder about me. I want them to know who I was, what I did, and what I think about certain things. This will be my legacy to my granddaughters and grandsons for many generations to come.

There is always the possibility that my writings will be lost with time. That happens. I have no way of controlling that. I just hope that my descendants will keep the material and pass it on to their children who will pass it on to their children, and so forth.

I need to make it pretty clear in the beginning that I am not a writer. While I enjoy writing and I look forward to this effort, I am confident it will leave much to be desired as a literary accomplishment. Yes, there will be many misspelled words (Does "misspelled" have one "s" or two? I don't know and I don't necessarily care about taking a lot of time to look it up!). And, there will be a host of grammatical goofs. Grammar was not one of my strong suits. So, my dear friends, I ask you to look beyond the many errors you will find in this dissertation and look at me, the man. Hopefully, there you will find a man that loved life and loved people. A man that wasn't afraid to say "I love you" to his family and many friends.

You need to know, too, that I have no outline for this autobiography. While that is obviously the way it should be done, you need to know that I am not a well-disciplined person (there are many who will disagree with that). For me to spend hours and hours developing an outline of my life would be boring. I much prefer to dig right in and get started. Of course, that will bring about a very disjointed discourse that will ramble from subject to subject and have very little continuity.

And that, my dear relatives and descendants, already tells you a little about this old boy! On some matters, of which we will talk about later, I am thorough, patient, disciplined, and well organized, but, on other things, I am impatient, undisciplined and disorganized. It simply depends on the interest I have in whatever I am doing at the time.

I need to make it clear, too, that this is not a tell-all or kiss and tell type of narrative. That would be too embarrassing, too humiliating and too stupid! There are some things you do in life; things done while separated from the brain and common sense, that simply must never be told and, therefore, I suppose, taken to the grave. While most (about 99.9 percent) of my life can be told, I must admit that there are moments that I must forever keep to myself. Isn't that true of most of us? I really don't consider myself much different than most people that have traveled through this life. A pretty average guy!

Please remember that my efforts are not necessarily meant to entertain as much as they are to be considered for historical purposes, that is, (and, I'm now repeating myself!) meant for my children and grandchildren, and so on, to have some information to remember me by. That's all!

On the other hand, if you find it entertaining, that would be great.

Chapter 5 - The Ancestry

 

As I mentioned earlier, there is not a great deal of information available on our past family members. The information that is available is mostly just names and dates. I put together, in September, 1992, a little dissertation on our ancestors and I repeat it here. As the title implies, what follows is just some rambling thoughts of mine.

Don Shanks and his Rambling Thoughts on the Shanks Family Tree

Great-Great-Great Grandfather - Moses Shanks

Great-Great Grandfather - Nicholas Shanks

Great Grandfather - Silas Carrick Shanks

Grandfather - Elbert Kelly Shanks

Father - Elbert Ruble Shanks

Son - Donald Mike Shanks

MOSES SHANKS - We know very little about our 3rd Great Grandfather Moses. I show his birthday as "ABOUT 1750" but that is based on an assumption that he was around 25 years old when his son, Nicholas, was born in 1775, however, we could be off by several years. Nicholas is the only child we have a record of but we can again assume there were several other children. We have found that most of the Shanks families were rather large and I doubt if Moses' family was much different.

We know that Moses was a Revolutionary War veteran and settled on a land grant of 500 acres on Puncheon Camp Creek waters of Lick Creek near Romeo, Greene County, Tennessee in 1787. The Revolutionary War began in 1775, the same year his son, Nicholas, was born and the war ended in 1783. You will recall that the Revolutionary War was the war that "gave birth to the United States of America". The United States Declaration of Independence was signed July 4, 1776. Moses was probably in his mid-20s at about that time. Anyway, the U. S. Government gave land and money to those who had fought in the war. Thus, the land grant to Moses. The National Archives in Washington, D. C. has records on all Revolutionary War veterans but that generally only lists name, rank, unit and state. The Revolutionary Soldiers of Tennessee book shows a Moses Shanks with the following notations:

Allen; Tenn. Sol Am. Rev. p 29 N.C. Rev Army Accts. 1-73-2 (3)

I have no idea what all that means.

A letter dated October 29, 1971 from Jim Brown (a Shanks descendent) in Minneapolis, MN to Billy Fox (a Shanks descendent) in Johnson City, TN states that he (Mr. Brown) found a letter written January 16, 1933 by a J. W. Shanks of St. Charles, VA. In that letter, J. W. Shanks said he got the following information from his mother who was then 80 years old (born 1853) and was living in Rogersville, Hawkins County, TN. The portion of the letter said:

"It seems that the Shanks' came from Dublin in the early eighties or late seventies (1775 - 1785) and settled in the

eastern portion of Virginia. Just how many came I do not know, but there was about seven brothers or cousins and they all seemed to settle in East Tennessee or Kentucky and some remained in Eastern Virginia."

Was Moses one of these brothers or cousins? He could have been 20-30 years old about that time and Nicholas could have been born in 1775 shortly after his arrival in the States from Dublin!

It further gives us a reason for his serving in the Revolutionary War to fight the British. The Irish fought for hundreds of years to be free of British rule. In the 1700s and 1800s, hundreds of thousands of Irish people left the country to be free of the British and to seek a better life. I believe that Moses was one of one of those seven brothers and cousins that came from Dublin in the late 1770s or early 1780s, settled in Eastern Virginia and then moved to Hawkins County (Rogersville) in East Tennessee.

Another item that supports this theory is the notation on a census report on Moses' son, Nicholas, that says he (Nicholas) was "of English-Irish Origin". In other words, his ancestors were from Ireland, which was under British (English) rule in those days. Moses, I believe, came from Dublin, Ireland! I gotta' tell you, folks, March 17th, St. Patrick's Day, will in the future have a more special meaning.

NICHOLAS SHANKS 1775 - 1838 - Our 2nd Great Grandfather Nicholas worries me! I've got him pictured as wanderer. He was born in 1775 and he died in 1838 at age 63. He married a gal from Pennsylvania, our 2nd Great Grandmother, Rosanna (Rosey) Graham. We don't know when Rosey was born. She died in 1840 - 2 years after Nicholas died.

Did Nicholas wander off to Pennsylvania to find Rosey or did Rosey come south to Nicholas? He fought in the War of 1812 (1812-1815) and is known to have participated in the Battle of the Horseshoe.

After he and Rosey were married they apparently stayed close to Greene County because census records show that they both died in Greene County. Interestingly enough, we do not know where they were buried! Census shows their son, Silas Carrick, may have come from Hawkins County so Nicholas & Rosey could have been buried in Hawkins County (Rogersville), TN.

An early 1800s census has a note that they had 12 children - 7 girls, 2 boys, and 3 children whose sex we do not know. Nicholas and Rosey gave us our Great Grandfather, Silas Carrick - let's call him Silas. We only have his and his brother, Moses' (obviously named after his Grandfather) birth dates. Silas was born in 1799 and Moses was born ten years later in 1809. One census says that Nicholas and Rosey had 12 children but it only lists Silas, Moses and Susannah. The report shows them as the 5th, 6th and 7th children but does not list the other children. A real mystery. Nicholas would have been 24 years old when Silas was born and he would live another 39 years before dying in 1838. I wonder what kind of a relationship they had. Nicholas' son, Silas and his wife, Elizabeth Milburn, and most, if not all of their 9 children were buried at the Methodist Church in Milburnton, TN. But, again, we do not know where Nicholas and Rosey were buried.

Let's go back to Moses, our Great Grandfather Silas' little brother and our Great granduncle. There's an interesting story here. Records indicate that when he was 31 years old, in 1840, he moved to Scotland County, Missouri and, listen to this, "took all of his sisters". Remember, his dad, Nicholas died in 1838 and his mother, Rosey, died in 1840 and in that same year, Moses packs up Jane, Mary, Nancy, Rebecca and Susannah and leaves town!

He loads these five young, unmarried, and, I assume - since they were Shanks' - beautiful women on wagons and heads out to Scotland County, Missouri. You gotta' believe that took guts! He married Sarah McLaughlin in 1859 in Missouri. She, too, was a native of Greene County, TN. Moses would have been 50 years old when he married Sarah. She died in 1872. They had 4 children. Moses then married Mrs. Elizabeth Prince Mathes, a widow, in 1876. Moses is now 67 years old and his new bride is 29 years old! The History of Scotland County, Missouri (pages 1211 & 1212) published in the 1880s says that Moses was:

"an old and respected citizen of Miller Township, Scotland County"

and said that his father, Nicholas,

"was of English and Irish origin and at the time of his death, which occurred in Greene County, Tennessee in 1838 was in the prime of life."

This same biographical sketch on Moses reiterates that Nicholas fought in the War of 1812 and "participated in the battle of the Horseshoe". The sketch further identifies Moses as the 6th child and said he owned 520 acres "of as good land as is to be found in the county". And, this, my fellow Republicans, will break your heart..........it said Moses "is a decided Democrat".

The bio-sketch did not mention Great Granddaddy Silas. There is something here we need to ponder, folks. Apparently Moses took all of Nicholas and Rosey's family to Missouri.....except Silas. Our Great Grandfather Silas stayed in Tennessee to bear Elbert Kelly, who bore Elbert Ruble who married Letha.. etc.. etc.. see what I mean! I don't want to even think what might have happened if Silas had gone off to Missouri with Moses and the girls. Incidentally, to put the finishing touches on that Missouri group, Jane married Josh Cox and had 3 children, Mary married John Rhodes and had 4 children, Nancy married John Alexander and had 3 children, Rebecca married Ephriam McLoughlin and Susannah apparently had some problems - she lived with Moses until his death in 1889, nearly 50 years after they moved to Missouri.

Moses is not a "direct descendent" of ours - just one of the Uncles along the way, but we have some good information on him and I wanted to pass it a long. I found it interesting and it still scares the heck out of me that Silas could have gone along with Moses and the girls to Missouri and if he had we wouldn't be here -as we know it - today! I'd be living in Missouri and be someone else's brother! Thank you Great Grandfather Silas for staying home and keeping the home fires burning!!

Let's get back to Nicholas. Another letter from Mr. Brown in Minneapolis to Billy Fox in Johnson City says:

"Do you know the names and dates of the other children of Nicholas & Rosey? You joked about Nick being a horse thief but I have found a Thomas Shanks who may be connected with my line who was hanged as a spy by George Washington during the Revolutionary War."

Let's recap Nicholas, our 2nd Great Grandfather - He was born in 1775 and was 63 years old when he died in 1838. He married Rosey Graham from Pennsylvania. She died in 1840. They had 12 children. We know the names of 7 of them and we know those 7 lived to marry and have children. Six of them moved to Missouri. Each family we research from those years had several children to die as infants so it is possible that the 5 we are unable to locate died in infancy. Nicholas fought in the War of 1812. He apparently was a farmer because his son, Moses', biographical sketch from Missouri said "while in Tennessee he followed agricultural pursuits on a farm given him by his father (Nicholas)." Was he a horse thief?? No, I doubt it! We don't know and probably never will - and that's okay with me.

SILAS CARRICK SHANKS - Our Great Grandfather Silas Carrick (again, let's call him Silas - I don't think they would have called him Carrick!) appears to me to be the opposite of his dad, Nicholas. I see Silas as a pretty stable person. Remember, he is the one that stayed home when his brother and sisters went west. Silas was born in 1799. We do not know when he died. He is buried in the Milburnton Methodist Church Cemetery with his wife Elizabeth and three children, Luisa, Nancy and Jonathan, who apparently died young. Someone has replaced the tombstone with a new one and it only shows the birth years for each one.

Silas married Great Grandmother, Elizabeth Milburn, a sister of Rev. William Milburn and Rev. Joseph Milburn. They were married June 29, 1820 and this probably tells us why he stayed home when Moses and the 5 girls left for Missouri in 1840. Silas is believed to have come from Hawkins County (Rogersville) and settled in the Milburnton area and lived there until his death. They had 9 children - Our grandaunts and granduncles plus Granddaddy Kelly! Luisa, Nancy and Jonathan died in their teens and 20s. Lucinda lived to be 81. Her first husband was killed in the Civil War. He served with the Union Army. Uncle William Milburn was 68 when he died, and he had 2 wives and 19 children! Uncle Asbury Milton was also killed in the Civil War - he, too, served with the Union Army. I THOUGHT WE SHANKS' WERE ON THE SIDE OF THE SOUTH! Uncle Walter Emerson moved to West Fork, Arkansas and married a couple of times. Uncle Silas Carrick, Jr. lived to be 76 years old. And, we all know about our favorite one of all in this family - Grandfather Elbert Kelly, and his 3 wives named Mary!

Great Grandfather Silas' life apparently was not too exciting. He didn't fight in any wars and he didn't move to another state. He apparently stayed close to Milburnton where he lived, worked and died.

The 1850 census says the following about Silas' and his family. Silas was 52 years old (in 1850) and the census showed his occupation as "blacksmith" and his estate valued at $300.00. Wonder what that would be in 1992 dollars? That same census said Lucinda and Nancy could not read or write. Lucinda was 28, Nancy was 20. It also said that William Milburn and Grandfather Elbert Kelly were "farmers" and that they had "attended school in yr".

ELBERT KELLY SHANKS - Our Grandfather Kelly was a heckuva man! I'm not sure whether he was called Elbert or Kelly but let's call him Kelly! He had three wives and 12 children and as we all know, gave us the greatest Dad that ever lived on this earth. Dad Shanks was the last of Grandfather Kelly's 12 children.

Elbert Kelly Shanks & Mary E. Fraker - - - A little study of Kelly's marriages would indicate that he was a very strong-willed person. Further study reveals some other interesting information. Let's look at a few of the facts that are available. Grandfather Kelly's first wife, Mary E. Fraker, was born in 1841 and died in 1868 at the young age of 27. There is no information on the cause of her death. She and Kelly had one son, Joseph Asbury. Joe was born in 1866 so Granddad Kelly got a little bit of a late start for a man destined to have 12 children. He was 31 years old when Joe was born. Here's a thought. . . .The Civil War was fought from 1861 - 1865. Grandfather's age during that time would have been 25 - 30 years which would have made him pretty prime material for military duty but I know of no records indicating that he was in the Civil War. On the other hand, remember that Joe, his first child, was not born until 1866 - one year after the Civil War ended. Could it have been that Kelly fought in the Civil War (1861-1865), thus the reason for him being 31 years old when Joe was born in 1866. I don't know! Whoops! Forgive me for I know not what I say! I just dug a little deeper and found that Grandfather and his first wife, Mary E. Fraker, did not marry until November 28, 1865 - just barely 6 months after the end of the Civil War. He would have been 30 years old and she was 24 years old. Joe would be born 11 months after their marriage. The question still remains, however, - - did he have any involvement in the Civil War and was that the reason for his late start on his family. Anyway, his first wife Mary E. died April 12, 1868, about 2 1/2 years after they were married and little Joe was about 18 months old. She was a month and a half away from her 27th birthday.

Elbert Kelly Shanks & Mary A. Basket - - - They were married on March 21, 1870 - about 2 years after Mary #1 died. (Pardon me for assigning numbers to his wives, but it makes it easier to follow.) His new Mary #2 was 26 and he was about 35 years old. Little Joe would be close to 4 years.

And, if all of our dates are correct, Grandfather Kelly and Mary #2 apparently were quite intimate long before their marriage on March 21, 1870..... 'cause Ida, their first child, was born June 12, 1870! Just 3 months after they were married. (Didn't we find a similar situation with Grandfather and Grandmother Williams on Mom's side of the family - they were married June 20, 1886 and their first child, Mary Adaline, was born May 5, 1885 - a year prior to their marriage!!) Lordy! Lordy! Our grandparents apparently were hot-blooded folks! God Bless 'em!

Anyway, enough dirt - let's move on! Granddad Kelly and Mary A. (#2) after a quick start had a total of 10 children. As in the case of most families during this era - several "died in infancy".

Keep in mind now that these were our Half Aunts and Half Uncles - Dad Shanks' half-brothers and sisters. Joe, from Mary #1, would go on to live to the age of 62. Ida, born 3 months after Kelly's marriage to Mary #2 "died in infancy". Thomas died at the young age of 21. He was a teacher. Effie married but died at age 35. Edgar lived 7 months. Lulu married Ellison Bailey and lived a long life (date of death unknown). Lena died when she was 8 years old. Garfield died at age 48. Bertie was 67 when she died. Elmer was 75!! Luther was 67 years old. Dad, born to Mary #3, was 66 years old! This is interesting, so let's recap those 12 ages at death from Joe to Dad Shanks. Their ages at death were:

62 - infant - 21 - 35 - 7 months - 80s - 8 - 48 - 67 - 75 - 67 - 66

It appears that Grandfather Kelly spent an awful lot of time burying his children.

Kelly and Mary #2 were married March 21, 1870 and she died June 18, 1892. They were married 22 years. Grandpa Kelly was left with some pretty young children to care for - The youngest, Luther, was 3 years old, Elmer was 7, Bertie was 9, Garfield was 11, etc., etc.

Elbert Kelly Shanks & Mary J. Brown - - - And, along comes the one we owe much to - our Grandmother Mary J. - Grandfather's Mary #3! What would you give to set down and chat with her for a few minutes! They were married March 16, 1893 - 9 months after Mary #2's death. She was 40 years old and Kelly was 57 years old. I don't get the feeling that Elbert Ruble Shanks was in their plans because he was not born until 1897, nearly 5 years after their marriage.

She would have been nearly 45 years old and Granddad Kelly was at a grand old age of 62!! We almost didn't make it!!

Dad's Dad, Kelly, died July 31, 1903 at the age of 68 when Dad was 5 1/2 years old. Dad's Mom, Mary, died November 13, 1917 at the age of 64 when Dad was 20 years old.

Three years later at the age of 22 years on April 4, 1920 he would marry a beautiful young lady named Letha O'Dell Williams. She was not quite 20 years old and they would combine to become the greatest Mom and Dad that ever lived! And, they gave this world my brothers and sister that I love so dearly - Andy, Thelma, Glen, Carroll and Wayne and we all gave birth to a host of wonderful children that will forever carry forth the rich heritage of the Shanks Family.

These Ramblings Respectfully Prepared By:

Don M. Shanks, September, 1992

Chapter 6 - The Ancestry Continues!

 

The chart that follows is a little more simplified and shows the direct descendants of Moses Shanks, my Great-Great-Great-Grandfather. I find this chart most interesting and it is especially easy to read.

DIRECT DESCENDANTS OF MOSES SHANKS

1. MOSES SHANKS b. ABOUT 1750 d. Unknown

m. Unknown

2. NICHOLAS SHANKS b. 1775 d. 1838

m. Rosanna (Rosey) Graham b. Unknown d. 1840

1. Jane Shanks b. Unknown d. Unknown

2. Mary Shanks b. Unknown d. Unknown

3. Nancy Shanks b. Unknown d. Unknown

4. Rebecca Shanks b. Unknown d. Unknown

5. Silas Carrick Shanks b. Jun 3, 1799 d. Unknown

6. Moses Shanks b. Jul 28, 1809 d. Sep 1889

7. Susannah Shanks b. Unknown d. Unknown

* Total 12 children - 7 Girls 2 Boys 3 Sex unknown

* The names of 2 Girls & the 3 Sex Unknown are missing

3. SILAS CARRICK SHANKS b. Jun 3, 1799 d. Unknown

m. Elizabeth Milburn b. 1802 d. Unknown

1. Lucinda Shanks b. Oct 26, 1821 d. Dec 15, 1902

2. Luisa J. Shanks b. 1827 d. Unknown

3. Nancy A. Shanks b. 1830 d. Unknown

4. William Milburn Shanks b. Apr 13, 1833 d. Nov 14, 1901

5. Walter Emerson Shanks b. 1834 d.. Unknown

6. Elbert Kelly Shanks b. Dec 4, 1835 d. Jul 31, 1903

7. Jonathan W. Shanks b. 1839 d. Unknown

8. Silas Carrick Shanks b. Jul 10, 1841 d. Mar 30, 1917

9. Asbery Milton Shanks b. 1843 d. Unknown

4. ELBERT KELLY SHANKS b. Dec 4, 1835 d. Jul 31, 1903

m. Mary E. Fraker b. May 30, 1841 d. Apr 12, 1868

1. Joseph Asbury Shanks b. Oct 18, 1866 d. Aug 28, 1928

m. Mary A. Basket b. Mar 18, 1844 d. Jun 18, 1892

2. Ida Shanks b. Jun 12, 1870 d. Unknown

3. Thomas W. Shanks b. Jan 16, 1872 d. Jul 9, 1893

4. Effie M. Shanks b. Jul 9, 1873 d. Jun 7, 1908

5. Edgar Shanks b. Nov 20, 1875 d. Jun 28, 1876

6. Lulu Shanks b. May 9, 1877 d. Unknown

7. Lena Shanks b. Jan 19, 1879 d. May 3, 1887

8. William Garfield Shanks b. Feb 2, 1881 d. 1929

9. Bertie E. Shanks b. Feb 21, 1883 d. 1956

10. Elmer J. Shanks b. Feb 19, 1885 d. 1960

11. Silas Luther Shanks b. Aug 26, 1889 d. Nov 6, 1956

m. Mary J. Brown b. Jul 18, 1853 d. Nov 13, 1917

12. Elbert Ruble Shanks b. Dec 26, 1897 d. Dec 29, 1963

5. ELBERT RUBLE SHANKS b. Dec 26, 1897 d. Dec 29, 1963

m. Letha O'Dell Williams b. Sep 8, 1900 d. Nov 17, 1991

1. A. J. (Andy) Shanks b. Aug 24, 1921 d. Aug 14, 1966

2. Thelma Nadine Shanks b. Apr 30, 1923

3. William Glen Shanks b. Feb 2, 1925

4. Carroll Dean Shanks b. Dec 3, 1927

5. Donald Mike Shanks b. Sep 28, 1934

6. Elbert Wayne Shanks b. Jul 27, 1936

6. DONALD MIKE SHANKS b. Sep 28, 1934 d.

m. Betty Lee Keys b. Dec 17, 1933 d.

1. Michael Lee Shanks b. Jan 4, 1954

2. Donna Lynn Shanks b. Dec 18, 1958

3. Charles Robert Shanks b. Oct 6, 1960

Chapter 7 - The Family Name

 

There is a little story about the SHANKS FAMILY NAME that, I think, bears repeating. Whether it is true or not, I, of course, do not know. It does make for interesting reading.

THE SHANKS FAMILY NAME

"The Story of Your Name", 105 South Moore Street, Clayton, NC

Several thousand years ago everyone was known by their first name. As the population grew, that became confusing since several people could have the same first name. Thus, people began using additional words and phrases to describe or refer to an individual.

In this manner, John (who lived by the river) would become known as John (at the) River, while another John, who lived in an open field might be referred to as John (at the) Meadow or John (at the) Field. John, the village blacksmith would become known as John Smith in order to distinguish him from John the Baker or John the Cook. Thus, the beginning of the last names that would be passed from one generation to the next.

Others would be identified by a nickname they had acquired (and this is how the SHANKS got their name), such as "Long" for the tall man, "Short" for the small man, "Brown" for one with dark skin, or "White", denoting the man with a light complexion or gray hair. Sometimes names would be taken from the person's father, such as Johnson (son of John) or Thompson (son of Thomas).

Almost every family name today was acquired in one of these ways.

One source (“The Story of Your Name!”) says the SHANKS name began as a nickname and was used to further identify - -

"one who was bow-legged, or in some way had peculiar legs."

This source says our "country of origin" is Scotland and England.

Other spellings are SHANK or SHANKE.

Foreign equivalents of the SHANKS name are:

LEGGE (Norwegian) KRUMBEIN (German)

There are approximately 16,800 SHANKS in the USA.

The SHANKS name rank in size is 2,702nd (Smith is #1).

Chapter 8 - More Stuff On Our Ancestry

 

The following piece was received over Prodigy (a communications network) by my son, Michael. I have no way of verifying its accuracy but it does make for interesting reading:

Message from Mark Shanks to Mike Shanks dated February 18, 1991

"Incredible, my name is Mark Shanks originally from Detroit, MI but now living near St. Louis. Your history of the family is the same as the one that I have in a handwritten "Tradition and History of the Shanks Family", written in the 1880s by George M. Shanks who lived in Dexter, MI. He says that the SHANKS migrated from County Down, Ireland in 1765 and settled in Pennsylvania.

Joseph Shanks was a soldier in the Revolutionary War and was wounded but returned to service and eventually was killed at the Alamo. A visit to the Alamo, however, did not turn his name up.

Another name was John Peter Clever (J.P.C.) Shanks who was a hero at the (Civil War) Battle of Bull Run. He was presented a sword by Abraham Lincoln and he commanded the 7th Indiana Cavalry. I have a copy of a recruiting poster that is a popular eastern souvenir. The poster says:

ANOTHER CHANCE TO AVOID THE DRAFT!

Enlist in the 7th Indiana Cavalry...commanded by J.P.C. Shanks

He was later made Commissioner of Indian Affairs and was adopted by the Cherokee Indian Tribe and given the name of "Silver Locks".

George M. Shanks claims to be the only one able to trace the family, evidently forgetting the southern branch of the family.

My father was one of seven brothers. The boys were sent out to foster homes at an early age because of the depression and as far as I know only two survive - my Uncle George, who is a Doctor in Grand Rapids and my Uncle Paul, who lives in Arizona somewhere. My father retired from the Detroit police in 1973 after 25 years and became the head of security for the MI State Lottery.

I have one brother who is an engineer with GM and a sister who is a medical technician near Lansing, MI.

I am a 1976 US Air Force Academy graduate, flew B-52s from Loring AFB, ME and have been an engineer with McDonnell Douglas since 1982. I would like to exchange information with you."

Mark Shanks

February 18, 1991

During some later research I found some additional information on J.P.C . . . . John Peter Clever Shanks was apparently quite a man. The book I found, The Civil War Dictionary by Mark M Boatner, III, had a little article about him. It described him as follows:

SHANKS, John Peter Clever. Union officer. Virginia. Appointed from Indiana. He was commissioned Colonel Aide de Camp to General Fremont from September 20 to November 19, 1861. He was named Colonel Additional Aide de Camp

on March 31, 1962. On October 9, 1963 he was named Colonel of the 7th Indiana Cavalry where he served for the remainder of the war and was mustered out in September, 1965. He was promoted to Brigadier General United State Volunteers on December 8, 1964 and Major General of the United States Volunteers for war service.

In that same book, there was some additional information on a John T. Shanks, apparently one of our ancestors. This particular information was mentioned in an article about a gentleman named Benjamin Jeffery Sweet, a Union officer (1832-1874). I gotta’ tell you, I really have mixed emotions on this story. On the one hand, it seems to portray him as a traitor, but, on the other hand, a man of his convictions and his word.

This is the first I have found on John T. Shanks so I am not sure where he fits into the family tree. In any event, the story is interesting.

It said in part (and this is my interpretation of the article) that:

Major Sweet had malaria and commanded several Wisconsin regiments. After being seriously wounded, while mounted on a horse, he took command of Camp Douglas (Illinois) where 10,000 prisoners were held. He received word that there would be an outbreak on July 4 and the prisoners would arm themselves to sack and destroy Chicago. He quickly added to his garrison (guards) and strengthened his force and by doing so discouraged the outbreak.

The following November, however, he received word that there was another break planned by the prisoners for election night, just 3 days away. The word was that, that after the break, Chicago was to be burned and that was to be the signal for a general uprising of 500,000 well-armed men throughout the western country. Sweet only had 796 men. Most of them were unfit for duty. There was no way, with those few un-trained men that he could stop an uprising of 10,000 men.

He realized that in order to stop the men, he must arrest the leaders of the uprising. He called on one of the prisoners, John T. Shanks, to locate the rebel conspirators. Sweet arranged for Shanks’s escape from the camp to allay the Confederates’ suspicions and then had him trailed by detectives under orders to kill him at the first sign or treachery. Shanks, however, served Sweet well. The leaders were under arrest within 36 hours. The citizens of Chicago were most appreciative and held a mass meeting to thank the man who saved their city. Sweet was promoted to Brigadier General of the United States Volunteers

for his actions in saving the city. After the war ended he practiced law and held several offices

in the federal pension and internal revenue offices.

While these stories seem to indicate that our family had a considerable military background, our research into our family seems to reflect that our ancestors were mostly farmers.

That changed along the way - somewhere around the middle 60s. The 1970s, 80s and 90s brought about a more divergent occupational group in our family. Unfortunately, there are few farmers. I am sure that my father would be most disappointed! He was a farmer at heart and would have loved to see one of his sons become a farmer.

There are now school teachers, computer specialists, computer salespersons, salespersons, manufacturing management, physical therapists, floral shop owners, architects, bankers, insurance executives, airline folks, day care and early childhood specialists and providers, administrative-type and on and on and on. There are no farmers among my nephews and nieces! Again, Dad would not have liked that.

The Shanks families in our ancestral studies were quite large in the late 1800s and early 1900s with 9-10-11-12- children in a family with one family having 18 children! I think that was quite common for that time period. Now, however, that has changed dramatically with the average family now having only 2 or 3 children and I think that, too, is common for families of the 1990s.

Our family was not a wealthy one. Probably average. The Shanks' were never known to be poor, nor did we have a reputation for being rich. I suppose that puts us somewhere in the middle. Everyone seemed to have a nice house, nice cars and the usual nice amenities of our time but few of us had many real luxuries. There were exceptions, of course, but we won't mention any names.

Chapter 9 - My Dad

 

Dad was quite a man. He was born December 26, 1897 and he died December 29, 1963. He was 66 years old. He died in the Carter County Memorial Hospital in Elizabethton, Tennessee. He had lung cancer. He smoked cigarettes, but so did everyone else in those days. The cigarettes probably caused the lung cancer and took him from us much, much too soon.

As I mentioned earlier, he was a religious man. There was seldom a Sunday that you did not find Dad in church. I remember for many years at the Clear Springs Methodist Church, he served as Superintendent of Sunday School. In that position, it was his job to call the church to order each Sunday, announce the songs that would be sung, and every fourth Sunday introduce the minister for his sermon.

Our minister had four churches that he preached at so we only got him every fourth Sunday. I remember, before going to church, someone would always ask, “I there preaching today”?

We didn’t have a church bulletin. Dad would announce the songs that the choir and the congregation were to sing. I can hear him now saying, “Everyone turn to page one hundred and thirty-one and let’s sang ‘In the Sweet By And By’. Mrs. Johnson will play the pi-ano this morning”! Dad always referred to the piano as the “pie-ano” - never the pee-ano. He always embarrassed me by doing that. He would use “sang” instead of “sing”, “ain’t” instead of “isn’t”, and so forth and so on. While that bothered me then, it would be music to my ears today!! Dad would announce all of the church programs, including the meetings of the ladies of the church, the church picnics, and so forth and so on.

He was proud of that old white church that sat in the middle of the community and he devoted many hours, and dollars, to it. He believed in his God, prayed at every meal and at bedtime but did not “preach” to others. He let his actions, his behavior, his demeanor, his way of life be his ministry.

Chapter 10 - Dad Left too soon!

 

I don't think any of us will ever forget Dad's passing. It, as you might expect, was quite emotional. We loved him so very much.

I was working for Piedmont Airlines in Washington, D. C. at the time. Someone, I don't recall who, called to tell us that Dad was near death and it would be best if we came home. When I arrived I was ushered into the hospital room where Dad lay. He was in great pain. His legs were tied to the bed to keep him from thrashing around and tearing the medical devices from his arms and legs. I felt so sorry for him. I bent over him and hugged and kissed him and told him how much I loved him. He was in a semi-conscious state. He couldn't talk but I have always known that he knew I was there. I soon left the room. It would be the last time I would see Dad alive.

Each of the children, Thelma, Glen, Carroll, Wayne, did the same. Dad wanted to see each of us one last time. We loved him and he loved us.

A short time after we had all visited with Dad in the hospital room, it was painfully obvious that he wanted something. He was very restless, thrashing around a lot. He couldn't talk but he was making sounds. He wanted something or someone very badly. We concluded that he wanted to see Mom who was being kept out of the room so she would not have to see him suffer. Mom was taken into the room where Dad lay. They embraced and she talked with him, telling him of her great love for him. God called him home a few minutes later.

I was 29 years old when Dad died. I only wish that I had spent more time with him. He was so wise. I had gone off to another high school away from home and after completing high school, I got married and went off to work. So from about age 14 or 15 I was not at home much so I missed a great deal of time with Dad.

Chapter 11 - The Shanks General Store

 

Dad was a farmer and a very good one. He was also a merchant - a grocery store owner. I don't know the reason but he bought a general merchandise store in Clear Springs, Tennessee about 5 miles from the farm in Milburnton. Clear Springs was often referred to as Jockey. Again, I don’t know why, but an awfully lot of people called it by that name. The store was pretty typical of most of the stores that operated out in the country in those days. Dad sold everything from gasoline to farm equipment to clothing (farm overalls!) to groceries to haircuts. The store was a huge, white building and close by it (about 25 feet) was an old flat roofed, tarpaper covered building that was our beautiful home.

People came from miles away to shop at Dad’s store. He was highly respected as a person and as a businessman. Dad’s word was as good as his name. You could trust him. He never, never told a lie.

Saturday nights at the store were special. It was quite an event. As a matter of fact, it was, indeed, a community event. Folks came in from all around the area. There was a big pot bellied stove in the middle of the store with chairs benches all around it. It the wintertime, the farmers would come in on Saturday night, set around the stove and talk. In the summertime, too, they would set around that old stove and discuss everything from politics to religion.

Going to The Shanks General Store on Saturday night was the social event of the week. It was also time to buy the weekly supply of groceries. Or, fill the car up with gas (However, as I recall most of the folks only bought $1.00 or $2.00 at a time!) Or, you could get a haircut. Dad had the only grocery store in Tennessee, I believe, where you could buy gas, your groceries, a plow, a pair of overalls, get a bologna sandwich and get a haircut all at the same time.

Dad had a friend, Orem Thompson, who would set a chair on some wooden boxes in the back of the store and give haircuts. I got my hair cut in the back of that old store for many years. The cost? I don't remember! Probably about 50 cents.

Dad also sold sandwiches! His sandwich menu was not very extensive. You could get a bologna sandwich or a cheese sandwich. That was it! In the cooler was a big stick of bologna and a stick of cheese. For 10 cents you could get a slice of bologna or cheese and 2 slices of bread or, if you wanted, crackers. These crackers were different. I’m not sure you can buy them today. They were four of the smaller crackers that you buy today “joined” together to make a cracker the size of a slice of bread.

Dad always had some mustard or mayonnaise available for the sandwiches. A slice of cheese about 1/4 inch thick and two of those big old giant crackers, a little mustard and a Pepsi was hard to beat. I loved it! And, you couldn't beat a thick slice of bologna with a dab of mustard and a couple of slices of bread and, again, a big Pepsi or a big old orange drink.

In front of the store was a single gas pump. By today’s standards it was truly an antique gasoline pump. It had one of those clear, glass tops on the top of the pump that you pumped 10 gallons of gas into and then let that drain into the car gasoline tank. On that glass pump were marked the number of gallons you had in the container. You would usually pump 10 gallons into it and if the customer wanted just two gallons, you’d let 2 gallons drain into the car tank.

I don't remember the price of gas in those days (the middle 40s), but I suppose it was only 20-25 cents a gallon. People would drive up and honk their horn and one of us would go out and service them. As I recall, the gasoline was Texaco.

Dad let everyone have credit to buy their groceries or gas. The folks would come in, buy their groceries and ask Dad to charge them until they sold their tobacco crop, which was always in the Fall of the year. Dad would "carry" them on the books all year and when the tobacco went to market and they got paid for their tobacco crop, The Shanks General Store was the usually first stop for a majority of them and he was paid in full. There was no interest or carrying charges! Some, as you might expect, did not pay. When Dad sold the store, he was owed hundreds, if not thousands of dollars, most of which he never collected.

Dad had his own accounting system. One, quite frankly, that was not that unusual in those days. And, it was a good one. There were no computers. No cash register. I’m not sure I can describe his accounts receivable section - that’s where he kept his charge accounts. There was a big stack of “metal “ pages about 24 inches by 24 inches that lay just behind the store counter in easy reach. On each page of those metal pages, on the front and back, were metal spring-clips that held the 3 inches by 5 inches charge slips. There were probably about 12 clips on each side of these metal “pages”.

When someone came in to buy something, it was itemized on the charge slip which was nothing more that a piece of paper about like the one that a waitress takes your meal order on. There Dad would write down what the customer bought and the price. At the top of the little form was the “balance brought forward”, then you would add up what they had just bought, and then at the bottom would be the total of what they owed Dad. This was always done in duplicate. The customer would get a copy and Dad would then insert his copy under that customer’s particular clip. That way, the customer always knew what he owed. When Dad was finally paid, all of the little pieces of paper were removed from the clip, marked “PAID” and given to the customer.

Over the store was an apartment-like living quarters. Actually, it was one huge area. There were no rooms. Someone had finished off the area and put wallpaper on the walls. It had nice hardwood floors. Mom and Dad used in occasionally as a sleeping area when we had company. There was no bathroom, of course. There was an outdoor toilet beside the store.

There was one lady who lived close by that tried to beat the system. She and her family only lived about a quarter of a mile away and she was often sending the kids to the store to get something. Or, it was close enough that she stopped in almost daily to pick up a few items. Instead of having Dad add the newly purchased items to her account, she would ask Dad, or have the kids ask Dad, to “put it on the wall”.

Her account was usually pretty big and it was her way of trying to keep it from getting bigger. Her intentions were to have Dad to hold the “ the little charge form” and she would pay for it in a few days, and, therefore, the items would not be added to her already highly inflated charge account. Unfortunately she seldom ever paid for those slips “on the wall”.

The little slips were literally on the wall. They were hung on a nail. Behind the store counter were the shelves holding the groceries. There on the shelves were the boxes of cereal, the flour, the corn meal, the cans of vegetables, the bags of sugar, and so forth.

Customers would tell Dad what they wanted and he’d get it off the shelve, place it on the counter and use a scratch piece of paper or the side of the paper sack that he would bag the groceries in. If they were paying cash (which was seldom), he would add up all of the items to get a total, collect the money and place it in a wooden drawer that pulled out from under the counter. If the groceries were to be charged, he, of course, would use one of the little charge forms to itemized the groceries, show the total and add them to their account.

On one of those shelves, was a finishing nail, which had only been partially driven into one of the boards dividing the shelves. It was there on that nail that Dad would hang the little charge forms when he was asked to “just put it on the wall”. And, they would usually add, “I’ll be by to pay you in a couple of days”. But, they seldom did!

Anyway, our next-door neighbor who liked to have her groceries “put on the wall” left my dear, softhearted father with two sizable bills - the ones on the wall and the ones in her regular account. While she and her family were well respected in that little rural community called Clear Springs, they left Dad with sizable debts.

I think the way Dad handled his debts, not only with this lady and this family, but with everyone, said a lot about Dad, the person. He was so nice, and so sensitive to people’s feelings, that he would rather take a financial loss, rather than offend anyone over what they owed him. As a result of his kindness and sensitivity, he lost a considerable amount of money simply because he would not pursue or push those that owed him money. It bothered him when he thought others were mad or upset with him. He couldn’t stand that!

Chapter 12 - This Old House Had A Flat Roof

 

Beside the store was an old unpainted, flat-roofed house where we lived. I don’t think it had ever been painted. It had tarpaper tacked to the sides. It really wasn't much of a house, but Mom, always proving you could do a lot with a little, kept it so neat and clean, it really was delightful. The house had a small kitchen with a wood burning stove, a small dining room, a small living room that also had a bed in it, and, two small bedrooms. Everything in the little house was small - - but, we loved it. I actually remember more about living there than at the farm.

There was no water in the house. No cistern. No well. No pump. No water. No Nothing! Our water came from a “spring” at our next-door neighbor’s house. It was the mine and Wayne’s job to take a couple of buckets each day, walk the nearly half mile to our neighbor’s house, dip those buckets into the big hole of water made by the spring and carry them back to our house. There, Mom would preserve the water for drinking, cooking and baths. When it got low, off we would go to our neighbor’s place and their spring for more water. I’ll never forget that spring. It was fascinating.

The spring was about 100 yards from our neighbor’s house in a valley-like low spot in a field next to their house. There was a little small 15 feet by 15 feet building and in that building was the spring. There were lots of rock around the spring. There were big one-foot and two-foot boulders, and in the middle of those boulders was a spring or water about four feet by four feet wide and about one foot deep.

The water was the clearest, cleanest, coldest, best-tasting water anywhere. It was kept in stainless steel buckets on the counter in the kitchen with a dipper close by. A dipper is a metal coffee-cup-lookin’’ thing with a long handle on it. We’d take that dipper, reach down in that old bucket and get our drinking water. We all drank out of the same dipper. It was there at the spring of our neighbors that Wayne and I would fill our buckets and tote them back to our house. On occasions, Mom would stash our milk there in that cold spring water to keep it cold.

A spring of water flows all of the time. Water seeps up out of the ground from an underground source of water resulting in an endless supply of water lasting decades or, for what I know, centuries. The water usually forms a puddle or little pond of water on the top of the ground. The water then flows off into a creek-like stream of water. Since the water is always flowing, fresh water is constantly being added and the stale water is being displaced down the stream so the water is always fresh and clean and good tasting.

One of the bedrooms of the house was very, very small. It was the one in the very back of the house. It was just large enough for a small twin bed and, as I have heard Carroll say on many occasions, you could lay in bed and stretch yours arms out and touch the walls on both sides.

And, again, as was the case at the farm, there was no indoor plumbing. The outhouse here was about a hundred feet from the back door. It was not near as nice as the one up at the farm that had two holes. This one was one-holer. On the other hand, we had two! There was one that sat beside the store. It, too, was about 100 feet from the house. If you had to go, you could always find one of them empty. I suppose us having two outhouses made us pretty classy in those days. Most folks only had one!

I have great memories of this home. It wasn't very pretty but it was “clean as a whistle”, as they would say, and it was a fun house. There were always people coming and going at the store so there was always some activity around. You always had someone to talk to and as a kid that was a pretty big deal. It was fun to sit around the store and listen to adults talk adult-type stuff like politics, religion, farming, etc. I learned a lot from them.

It's funny how little things or little incidents serve to remind you of events, places and things that, otherwise, you probably would have forgotten. Things that really don’t have anything specific to do with the place or thing you are talking about.

One of the memories of this house was when Dad gave me my last spanking. It was really a whipping but I hesitate to use that word because today (1994) that seems to imply "child abuse". I, quite frankly, and very simply, got whipped on this occasion and I deserved it and, make no mistake, Dad whipped me for only one reason - he loved me!

It was a Sunday and I had asked to go to the Sunday evening church services. The Clear Springs Methodist Church was about 2 miles from our house and the store, an easy walk for a 14-year old. On the way there I had to pass the house of a young girl that did not have a good reputation in the community. She was what they called in those days - loose! On the way to church I stopped to "chat" with this young lady and went off to romp in the hay (so to speak!). While we were chatting and romping in the hay (so to speak!), the first thing I knew, church services were over and I hadn't made it to church.

In a small rural community, everyone knows everyone, and lo and behold, one of the other churchgoers informed Dad that I never made it to church! Oh, was Dad mad! When he got to me, the belt was already off and I got exactly what I deserved - a good whipping! After that, you better believe, when I told Dad I was going to church, I went to church. As I recall, that was the last whipping Dad gave me. There were many, many more that I deserved, but Dad thought I was too old for whippings. While that was my last whipping, we had many, many "talks" when I didn't live up to Dad's standards. Sometimes the talks were worse than the whippings.

Lest I be misunderstood, Dad's whippings were never that bad. Yes, they hurt. Yes, they left some red marks. Yes, they helped me know right from wrong. Yes, I deserved them. And, no, no, no, he never, never abused me.

While we lived there, in that tiny, little, flat-roofed, tar-papered house, there was another incident I recall that, for some reason, I associate with this house, although the house itself had absolutely nothing to do with it. A couple of us kids (we were around 12 years old) had gone off into the fields to play. There were literally hundreds of acres of land to wander around on. This was farming country and most of the fields were pretty well cleared of trees so we could wander as we please without fear of getting lost. On one of these trips we came upon a nest ofd baby skunks.

I had read where someone had "de-skunked" skunks and made house pets out of them. The article made it sound fairly simple. You cut a one-inch long incision on each side of its butt, locate a little sac there, surgically remove that sac and you had an odor free skunk.

We caught the little fellows, used a razor blade to perform the surgery, located and removed the little sacs (they were exactly where the article said they would be!). As I recall, we "worked" on three of them. One died within a couple of days and the other two escaped before we could find out how our experiment worked. It was not a proud time in my life. It was cruel and harsh to the little baby skunks. I've often regretted that little incident in my life. On the other hand, what we had done bothered me so much, that I developed a very deep sensitivity towards wild animals. I really hate to see any animal killed.

Chapter 13 - My Fascination With Speed

 

I had a fascination with speed! It is absolutely amazing that I am alive today. I would kill my kids or my grandkids if they did some of the crazy things I did. I hope my confessing to the dumb things I did doesn’t encourage them to go out and do the same. Seriously, I should have gotten killed in a car crash years ago. I loved to drive fast when I was young. I have slowed down a little but I still loved speed!

I started driving at the usual age - sixteen. I was ready to go the first day I could legally obtain my license. I bugged everyone, my Dad, my brothers, my sister, everyone to let me drive. “Please, Dad, let me drive home”, I would beg. “Please, Glen, let be borrow your car”, I would plead. “Please, Carroll, let me drive”, I would ask. And, on and on and on, until someone relented..

I had a reputation. I’m not to proud of it now, but I had a reputation. I was the fastest driver in the county - bar none. There was no one that could drive as fast as me. No one could put a car into the corners like me. No one had the nerves to do those things I did in a car.

At age 16, it was 1950. Now the cars in those years would not fair very well today, but don’t kid yourself they were plenty fast. Dad had a sleek-backed 1939 Plymouth and it was very fast. I don’t remember the horsepower, but it sure would move out in a hurry. That old ‘39 Plymouth was the family car - - but, I used it for a racecar! Dad trusted me and was very good to me. If I asked for the car, he usually would let me have it.

At the time I started driving we were still living in Clear Springs (Jockey!) in that old flat-roofed house that I loved. Chucked, Tennessee was exactly five miles away. That’s where the action was. There was where all of the teenagers within a ten-mile radius went to hang out and that was where I went to show off. Now keep in mind this was pure country. When you left Jockey to go to Chuckey, it was five miles of country roads. They were paved, of course, but they narrow and very winding. There was not one mile of straight roads in the whole five miles! It was a fun road. You could lay into those curves. Only your nerves limited your speed.

I would go to Chuckey, as I recall, several times each week. I would especially go every Saturday night. That was when we really showed off. That was the time to stick our necks out and do all the dumb things we could conjure up.

Chuckey was located at the intersection of a main highway (meaning a highway that connected two big cities - in this case Greeneville, Tennessee and Johnson City, Tennessee) and a highway that served the local farm communities (meaning in this case the little country crossroads where my Dad’s store was and Chuckey!)

I would ask Dad for the car. I had to always promise him that I would go directly to Chuckey, I would remain there, I would go nowhere else and at the designated time, I would come directly home. I had to promise him, too, that I would drive slowly and carefully - never exceeding the speed limits. Finally, he would relent, let me have the car and away I would go to Chuckey at top speeds. There I would hang out at the little restaurant, drank sodas and we boys would boast of our latest achievements (which were few!). While I was dating a pretty young maid in a nearby community, I don’t recall that “girls” were a part of our conversation. It was mostly cars and who had the fastest and who had done the most daring thing recently.

This little intersection and the restaurant sat at the bottom of a long one-mile upgrade that tended to really slow down t he big trucks that passed through. Those big trucks with their heavy loads would hit that hill and immediately their speed would drop off to a crawl. If we caught a load of watermelons coming through, we would jump into the car and a couple of us would stand on the front bumper while the other us drove the car up real close behind the truck to allow those on the front bumper o reach into the rear of the truck and steal a couple of watermelons. It was usually my job to do the driving. I tended to have the right touch and abilities, plus the nerves and the car, to drive the car in and under the rear of the truck and get the others close enough to do their thing. I, of course, used the family car and Dad and Mom would have been awfully disappointed to have known what I was doing with the family car.

I always put on a show when I left the restaurant. It was located adjacent to the main road and it was slightly lower than the lever of the main road, which meant you had to come up over a slight rise in the pavement to reach the main highway. I would always pull nose-first into the parking lot beside the restaurant.

When I was ready to leave (I would usually wait until I had a good sized audience!), I would get into the car, start the engine, and rev the engine rather highly several times. I now know that that was my way of getting everyone’s attention and letting them know that Don Shanks was ready to leave and it was show time!) With the engine revved rather highly and the car in reverse (it was a stick-shift, of course), and the highway clear of oncoming traffic (I hoped!), I would release the clutch and that old ‘39 Plymouth came alive.

The car would come backwards, up over that nearly 12-inch ramp-like-rise in the parking lot pavement and onto the main highway while backing into the opposite direction that I intended to go. You could hear the tires scream for miles away. If performed properly, the car’s front end would come off the pavement as I came up over the rise and slammed onto the main highway going backwards. At the appropriate time, I shifted to first gear, pushed the accelerator nearly to the floor and released the clutch. Again, there was those screaming tires and the burst of speed as I now began to move forward down the highway.

It was quite a show but it didn’t stop there. After my rather dramatic exit blast off down the highway, I would hold the car into first gear and the accelerator to the floor until I absolutely wrung every bit of horsepower from it, the I would shift into second gear and again there the accelerator was held to the floor until the car reached its absolutely top speed - - and then I would go to third gear. Sometimes it would take me two miles to get to third gear.

You can imagine the damage I was doing to my father’s car, not to mention the dumb, stupid thing I was doing was causing untold danger to myself, the other occupants of the car and the other innocent people that were on the highway. Someone was truly looking down on me!

On one of those occasions, I had made my show-stopping exit and headed off down the highway towards Greeneville. About two miles below Chuckey was a long downhill stretch that ran about two miles. As I got to this particular sections I came upon a large Greyhound passenger bus. I didn’t follow anything. If there was someone else on the highway in front of me, I had to pass them. The bus was no exception.

I moved out to pass the bus and as I got along side of it, I noticed that when he hit the downhill grade, his speed was picking up. I could tell it was going to be a race to the curve at the end of the two-mile straight run. One of us would have to get there first or one of us would have to back off! It wasn’t going to be me.

Keep in mind that this was a 1939 Plymouth. It had power and speed but nothing to compare with today’s 1990s cars. The bus and I ran side by side. I was wide open. The accelerator was on the floor. I was passing the bus but only an inch at a time. Time was running out. The curve was coming up and I didn’t want to go around that blind curve side by side with that bus. I had done it before while racing other cars and lucked out, but for some reason, I didn’t want to do it with a big old 40-passenger bus.

I remember very well checking my speed while along side of that bus. The speedometer read 105 miles per hour!! I could believe it! That bus was doing a 105! I didn’t look at the speedometer again. It could have gone higher but I was to busy and to scared to look down at it again!

We were near the curve. I’ll never know whether I out ran the bus or he backed off and let me have it. I passed him just before we got to the curve. I only know that I never lifted (the accelerator) and never would have. The accelerator was on the floor and it was going to stay there. It was all or nothing (which was so dumb)! I “ain’t” bragging. It was another dumb, stupid thing to do. I was awfully lucky. God, of course, was with me.

I often wondered about the driver of that bus. He was a gutsy guy! In 1950 you wouldn’t find many men that would push a big old Greyhound passenger bus to 105 miles per hour!

On the clear moonlit nights that I would leave Chuckey to return to our house in Clear Springs, and after doing my personalized exit at the restaurant and running the car miles in its lower gears, I would often see if I could drive the entire five miles home without using the car’s headlights. There was not a lot of traffic on this little country road, but it was narrow and it was very curvy. While it was a test of my intelligence, I thought it was a test of my skills to drive it in complete darkness. I, of course, had driven that road hundreds of times. As they say, I could have driven it blindfolded (It think!), even at the age of 16!

It wasn’t really that difficult with a good moon. The moonlit night would allow you to see a faint outline of the road. It took a little imagination, a lot of nerve and a penchant for the daring and the unusual - and, a lack of brains.

In those days there was no reflective-type centerline or side markings on the highway so you had no guides on the highway. There was nothing there but a dark black asphalt highway that tended to get lost in the darkness of the night. The key was to concentrate on following the outline of the highway in the dim moonlit and maintain a good high rate of speed. Speed was important. It was no fun just to mosey along in the darkness. It had to be done at a high rate of speed. I did that successfully numerous times and I survived. Why, I don’t know, but I suspect I had someone riding in the right seat that, someday, had plans for me. There is no other answer.

Speed consumed me during those teenage years. It really bothers me that I now write about it. I am afraid that some of my grandchildren or great-grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren, etc., will someday say, “My grandfather drove fast and he survived. If he did it, it must have been okay!” They need to keep a few things in mind.

One, it was wrong. Dead wrong! It was a violation of the laws of the good state of Tennessee and when you break the laws you are wrong - nothing more nothing less. There is no way to justify breaking any law of our land!

Two, the cars we drive today and will be driving in the future are much more advanced and much more powerful. They accelerate faster giving you less time to react to situations. I can’t give you any figures that compare the performances of the cars of the 40s with today’s cars or the cars of tomorrow, but suffice it to say, those cars will kill you a lot faster that the cars of yesterday.

Third, we need to think, as I failed to do, about the other good folks out on the highway. They do not deserve to be placed at risk with their lives simply because we want to show off for our buddies. That’s pure stupidity!

Fourth, life is so beautiful. I think so often of the unnecessary risks I took and the times that I came near death. It was only through the grace of God that I survived. If I had gotten killed in a car accident, I would not have enjoyed my wife, “Betts”, I would not have been around to father Mike, Donna or Chuck. I would have never seen my beautiful grandchildren. And, what a tragedy all of that would have been.

Fifth, there are cops everywhere today. It way probably jerks like me that caused a great increase in the population of the Highway Patrol. I don’t even recall seeing one in those days. There probably wasn’t one or two cops in the entire county. Now you don’t drive two mile until you see one. And, that’s good! You drive fast now, and you lose your rights to drive.

My story must continue! I was visiting Glen and Gladys one rainy Sunday morning. Why, I simply don’t recall. They were living out near East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, Tennessee. I asked (begged!) Glen to use his car to take a little spin around the city. I had not been driving very long. I was inexperienced. I suppose Glen was wanting to be nice to his little brother, and, I am sure, trusting him to drive safely, relented and let me have his car.

I drove out around the college. The streets were wet. I was driving entirely too fast for the wet road conditions, but, being a 16-year old kid, I knew everything. I am sure that in my mind, I could handle anything. I was returning to Glen and Gladys’ home and as I rounded a large sweeping curve with a gasoline service station on the corner, I lost control of the car. It was a right-handed curve and the service station with two gas pumps out in front of the station sat in the curve on the right-hand side.

I was approaching the curve at a pretty high rate of speed. The car started sliding sideways. I tried to recover but the car continued sliding sideways into the curve. I locked the wheels, grabbed the steering wheel, and I am sure, closed my eyes, for the enviable crash that was to come. The car seem to slid forever. The front end started to come around to where the back end was supposed to be. I was now looking in the direction from which I had come. I was completely out of control. I was just a passenger.

A funny thing happened. The slide slowed. I was still sliding backwards and out of control but I was going slower! Then, there was a bump. I looked out the left side windows and there was the two gas pumps. I had slid up to the gas pumps and the tires were resting against the little concrete barrier that surrounds the pumps and protects cars from hitting them. It was as tho’ I had pulled up to them to fill up with gas. Since the tires were against the concrete barrier, I, admittedly, was a little close, but I could have easily filled the gas tank from the pumps there. I was heading in the wrong direction. I put the car in first gear, pulled away from the gas pumps, made a turn and went on to Glen’s place. Since it was Sunday morning, the service station was closed. I was lucky in so many ways.

Glen never knew about that little incident until about 45 years later. He tended to worry a lot and I didn’t want to worry him! He probably wouldn’t even lend me his car today.

Carroll and I had gone off to a high school in Greene County. It was called Ottway High School. It was really pretty neat and it was, to say the least, rather unique.

When Carroll graduated from college, several members of the community and members of the county school board interviewed him and hired him to be the principal of Ottway Highway High School there in Greene County and a way, way, way back in the country. The school was surrounded by nothing but dirt and gravel roads. There were no paved roads and that might give you an idea how far we were back we were in the country.

The school classrooms were in one large brick building and the high school gymnasium was in a separate building about 100 feet away. In the gym, of course, was the basketball court and at one end was a raised stage where school plays and other school programs took place. In a corner to the left of the stage was an area the local community leaders had built a little L-shaped apartment to entice Carroll to come to the school to work

Carroll had accepted the position and, of course, the apartment and since I was just entering high school asked me to go along. Mom and Dad agreed and away I went to Ottway. It sure was different. In that little apartment (if you could call it that!) was a big double bed that Carroll and I slept in, a little table to eat off of and a little cook stove.

Now imagine this, you are miles from everything and you living in a small corner of a huge, barn-like building that makes all sorts of funny noises. At times it was quite scary. There were times that Carroll had to be away on business so I was all-alone. On those nights I would play basketball in the gym all night - never going to bed. When the basketball stopped bouncing at 3:00 o’clock in the morning away out in the country, it got awfully quite and you heard some strange sounds - most of them imaginary.

We were often invited to the local resident’s homes for dinner. And, I as recall the young single young ladies invited us often. While I was a little too young for the local young women, Carroll was considered quite a catch! We certainly didn’t go hungry!

On one of those occasion, Carroll had gone to a young lady’s home for dinner (and he took me along!) and, while there, I enticed Carroll to let me have his new, beautiful green Chevrolet to take a ride. I suspect he wanted a little time with the young lady so he quickly allowed me to take his new car out for a ride. As was the case with Glen, I had little experience and a desire to drive fast.

Again, remember that in this part of the county there were no paved road. They were all gravel and they were all quite narrow. As a matter of fact, I seriously doubt that you could stop a car on one of those roads and turn it around. The roads were not, I don’t believe, the width of a car from nose to tail so it would have been most difficult to turn a car around in the middle of the road - if not impossible. But, I managed to do it! And, at a pretty high rate of speed!

Carroll gave me the keys to his car and I drove off up the gravel road from the house we were visiting. After a few miles, I turned at an intersection and headed back to the house. I was driving fast, too fast for the road conditions. There was a slight bend in the road. It wasn’t a curve, just an ever-so-slight bend in the road. Gravel roads tend to be a little rough. In this particular section of the road - and in the bend in the road - in had a washboard-like surface and the car, at the speed I was driving started sliding sideways.

Again, as was the case with Glen’s car, the tail wanted to come around and replace the front of the car. My problem here was there wasn’t enough on this little narrow road for the car to come around - or, at least I didn’t think so. Again, I was out of control. I was in a high speed slid and going sideways and I was just along for the ride. . . . .and I’m driving my brother’s brand new car. This is going to be hard to explain!

What happened next, I will never know. Somehow, the car came all the way around on that narrow road. When it switched ends, the front end and the back end had to touch the bushes on the sides of the road. When I finally got the car stopped, I simply slipped it into first gear and drove off into the direction from which I had come. I went to where I could turn around and took Carroll’s car back to him at 10 miles per hour. He, too, wasn’t told this story until about 45 years later! Hey, there’s no need to upset big brothers. They might never lend you their cars again.

Chapter 14 - I Loved To Fly!

 

My big brother, Glen, got me into flying. He had learned to fly and listening to him and hearing his excitement about it got me interested. He was about as close to a being a fanatic about flying as anyone I know. He loved it. I have him to thank for this exciting piece of my life.

Flying was probably one of the most exhilarating things I ever did. You have to fly an airplane to understand the thrill of it. There is certainly an adrenaline flow when you push those throttles forward, the plane rolls down the runway, you gently pull back on the control (stick!) and the plane lifts into the air. Suddenly the ground is no longer there and you’re in control of this machine that is literally sailing through the air like a giant bird. It is a sensation that is almost unexplainable. Then, you gain altitude and the people, and the cars, and the houses, everything, gets smaller and smaller and the higher you go the smaller they get. What a sight!

I took my first lessons at the Tri City Airport at Blountville, Tennessee. I had arranged with the Appalachian Flying Service that was based there to take the lessons in a PA-11 which was very similar to a J-3 Cub that was often used for training in those days. The PA-11 had two seats, which were tandem-style, that is, one behind the other - not side-by-side. It had a 65 horsepower Continental engine.

My first lesson was scary and exciting. I had laid awake many nights thinking about taking flying lessons. It was literally a dream that had come true. My instructor took me out for about 30 minutes, showed me how the controls worked and a few simple maneuvers. I have never forgotten one incident from that first lesson. In your beginning lessons an instructor will, on occasions, close the throttle, tell you that you have a dead engine and ask you where you are going to land. It was an important part of the training - how to deal with emergency situations.

Near the end of that first lesson, my instructor, sitting behind me, suddenly pull the throttle back to simulate a dead engine. He yelled to me that I had lost my engine and asked me where I was going to attempt to land. I was supposed to search the terrain in our immediate area for a possible landing spot - preferably a good flat farm field - that I would have a good chance of putting the airplane into (with a dead engine!) and walk away from. When the throttle was closed and I was told I had an emergency, I immediately looked for a landing spot. I looked out over the nose of the airplane and picked out a field that I thought I would be able to land it had it been a real emergency and told my instructor which field I had chosen.

He complimented me, saying, yes that he believed I could put the plane into that field, but he would much prefer the “airport” which was directly below us. I learned my first lesson. In an emergency, don’t look just in front of you for a possible landing site, but look below and behind you, too.

As I recall, back in those days (1953-1954), you only needed about 10-12 hours of instructor training before you “soloed”, that is, went out by yourself. You never knew when you were going to be cut loose. In my case, as I remember it, and I have a log book around somewhere to confirm it, but I soloed at about 10 hours - a little better than the average student I learned later (I was proud!).

I remember my solo very well. My instructor and I had been out practicing “touch and go’s” (landings and takeoffs) when he suddenly informed me that he needed to go to the bathroom and if I would stop near the end of the runway before taking off the next time he would get out and go to the bathroom there at the edge of the runway. I did as I was told and as he crawled out of the back seat of the airplane, he turned and said, “I think you’re ready, why don’t you take it around this time by yourself”. I nearly fainted! My heart missed several beats. I wasn’t really that scared as much as I was excited.

After he left the airplane, I turned and taxied into position for takeoff. I lined up with the runway, pushed the throttle forward and that little airplane roared down the runway. My mind was racing to keep up with all the things I had been taught in the previous training sessions. Full throttle, push the stick forward to get the tail into the air, watch your speed, keep the airplane straight down the runway, lightly on the rudder controls, watch for the liftoff speed, pull back slowly on the stick, keep the airplane straight, watch your speed, now set up a good climb rate, climb slowly to 600 feet, turn left and climb to 800 feet, turn left again, now you’re parallel with the runway you took off from and headed back in the opposite directions from which you took off, and it’s time to catch your breath because in about 60 seconds you have to start your landing procedure.

Several people had told me, “On your solo flight, don’t look behind you. Fly like your instructor is still in the back seat with you”. In all those training hours, because of the tandem seating, you never saw your instructor. Oh, you heard from him. He yelled at you all the time, but since he sat directly behind you, you never saw him. But, you knew he was there and he would take the controls when you got in trouble.

Some students, I had been told, had been known to get a little excited and get in trouble on their first solo flight when they looked in the back seat and didn’t see their instructor there. They said it was much better to “pretend” the instructor was back there with you and you could do that IF you didn’t look back into the seat behind you.

I absolutely couldn’t resist it. I had to turn and look. When I turned my head to look into the back seat, it was a new high for me! My heart raced, my hands got a little sweaty and a couple of beads of sweat popped out on my forehead, but I felt totally confident. It was just so exciting knowing that I was flying by myself. Looking into that back seat and seeing it empty was exhilarating. I will never forget that moment. My solo flight was one tremendous accomplishment. Probably at that time in my life the most exciting thing I had done and certainly ranks near the top of my lifetime accomplishments.

After the look into the back seat and finding out that - yes, the instructor really, really did get out back there, I set up my landing pattern as I had been instructed in the previous weeks and, I remember it very well, I greased it on that old runway. It was one of my best landings ever!

After I landed, I taxied over to my instructor to pick him up (He didn’t really have to go to the bathroom!) and we taxied back to the hanger where he signed me off to fly solo. I left there feeling ten feet tall. It was, indeed, one of many great days in my life.

After the solo flight, you sort of alternate between the instructor riding with you and going out by yourself to practice. The times I had out by myself were fun. It is hard to explain the feeling or the sensation of being in a small airplane by yourself flying through the air at ten thousand feet.

I did not necessarily like the maneuvers training. The maneuvers were designed to teach you coordination of the use of the stick (control) and the rudder pedals. In other words, if you wanted to make a left turn, you gently pushed the stick to the left with your right hand and at the same time gently apply pressure to the left pedal with your left foot. If it was not done properly - and well coordinated - the turn would be very sloppy! Done properly, the turn would be very smooth. Anyway, the many maneuvers were designed to teach you coordinated moves and after a while (one to two hours!) they would tend to get a little boring.

The one training I really enjoyed was the “touch and go’s”, that is, landings and takeoffs. You simply took off, circled the field, landed, and when the airplane slowed on the runway, you gave it full throttle and take off again, circle the field and on and on. I liked landings. They were always a challenge to see how smooth I could make them. I developed some new techniques that the instructor was not aware of and found I could really slip it on using my new-found technique. While it was contrary to what I was instructed, I could do some great two-point high-speed landings with that technique.

I eventually “graduated” and received my Private Pilot’ License and to do that you simply had to take a written test on flight rules and take a short flight with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) examiner. That went quite well as I recall. The examiner took you out and you showed him that you could take off and land the airplane, do certain maneuvers, and usually, when you least expected it, he would pull the throttle back and yell “dead engine

My intentions in those days were to become an airline pilot and to do that I would need a Commercial Pilot’s License which grants a pilot the right to fly people “for hire” and an Instrument License which trains and authorizes a pilot to fly “in the blind”, that is, in clouds, rain, etc. Shortly after completing my “private” I started training on my “commercial”. Both, the flying and the knowledge, would become much more involved. I would have to do more difficult flying maneuvers and learn navigation to get my commercial license.

I was a member of the Civil Air Patrol (CAP), a civilian branch of the United States Air Force, that did some training and search and rescue flying. Our CAP unit found a Piper PA-18 super cub in Richmond, Virginia for sale and we bought it for $600.00. There were six (6) of us that put up $100.00 each to buy the plane and we gave it to the CAP unit. The PA-18 was a great airplane. The Air Force used them for training and when they wore them out, they would let the CAP units around the country use them. It had a 115 horsepower, Lycoming engine, flaps, toe brakes. Toe brakes were unusual for small aircraft as most of them had “heel” brakes - little pedals that you pressed with your heels as you taxied in order to steer it. If you wanted to go left, press the left brake and to go right, press the right brake.

The PA-18 had so much power it would almost do loops from straight and level flight, but to do them properly you simply had to push the nose down a little, give it a little extra throttle, then pull back on the stick and she would do perfect loops.

My commercial training went fairly well and I soon received my license.