Page 52 - Tattnall County

and Martha’s lived in Cobbtown. At sixteen he had taken over his father’s former job driving a school bus when his father died. Martha was in the 10th grade at the time and although she didn’t ride his bus, he saw her at the school when he would load the bus. After a time, he worked up the nerve to speak. She obviously captured more than the young bus driver’s eye. This November will be their 59th Wedding Anniversary.

After high school Martha attended Berry College in Rome and then transferred to Georgia Southern in Statesboro, Georgia. Harry went to Georgia Military College (GMC) in Milledgeville, Georgia. They were only able to see one another in between semesters, during Christmas, and summertime. They couldn’t talk on the phone because “We didn’t have phones then,” explained Martha. In July of 1952 Harry joined the service. The following September Martha began teaching school in Cobbtown. Two months later Harry and Martha were married and she moved to Fort Jackson, South Carolina where Harry was stationed. “The Forgotten War,” as the Korean War has been called, began in June of 1950 only fve years after WW2 had ended. It was in actuality the frst military confict of the cold war and would take 36,574 American lives with 103,284 wounded (www.fas.org). While still in basic training, Harry was pulled out to serve as an instructor for young recruits because of his military school background. He would continue to serve in this position throughout the war. Martha taught kindergarten in South Carolina until an opportunity became available to work as a clerk in transportation for the Civil Service. The position paid twice that of a teacher. After three years at Fort Jackson, Harry got out of the military and moved back to Cobbtown. The Martin’s built a small house behind Martha’s parents and

Harry farmed the land with his father-in-law. During that year of farming, Eddie, the frst of their four sons, was born. In 1956 Harry and Martha moved their small family to Americus, Georgia where Harry attended vocational school and their second son, Glen, was born. Two years later when Harry fnished school, he began working from the back of a Hardware Store in Radio and T.V. repair in Pearson, Georgia. Around that time Harry heard of work that might be available at the Mobilization and Training Equipment Site (MATES) in Fort Stewart, Georgia. He tried out for the position and was hired to work on two-way radios in tanks and as a radar electronics repairman. Taking the job had a stipulation: he had to join the National Guard. When he retired from the National Guard thirty-six years later, his rank was a Command Sergeant Major. Harry and Martha saw the job as an opportunity to move their family back home even though Harry would have to make a ffty-fve mile one way commute. Fortunately, there were others nearby who worked at MATES and so car-pooling made the drive a little less diffcult.

Harry and Martha cleared a piece of land and then each picked up a shovel and began to dig a well. At about ffteen feet they hit something so hard that they had to get help. After fve or ten more feet of digging, water started pouring in. Harry and Martha moved their young family into their new home in October of 1959. They were able to use that hand dug well until about 1965.

Martha went back to teaching when Eddie and Glen started school but when their third son, Don, was born in 1962, she only did substitute work from time to time at the school in nearby Collins so she could spend more time at home with her children. In 1968 and 1969 Harry and Martha built chicken houses. A year later, their youngest son, Jim, was born. Martha and the boys took

care of the replacement pullets until they were laying age as Harry continued to commute to Fort Stewart. He would leave early in the morning and make it back home in time to eat supper with his family. Today the government has spent untold amounts of money to discover that deliberate time together as a family at suppertime is a key factor in the health of our children and of overall family well-being.

Martha has always loved fowers. After the two older boys were in school she took a foral course. When Jim was about two, she started working at Kennedy Floral in Cobbtown part time. One by one the boys went off to college and Martha continued to work with the Kennedy’s at their business in Metter, Georgia.

After college Eddie began working in Hospital Administration in Savannah and in the mid 80’s he moved to work in the hospital in Claxton, Georgia. He also bought the hardware store in Cobbtown and opened a foral shop in one section for his mother. After the Kennedys bought the fower shop from Eddie, Martha again went to work with them in Metter until 1991 when Eddie was diagnosed with ALS. “Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), often referred to as ‘Lou Gehrig's Disease,’ is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the brain and the spinal cord (www.als.org). The disease is terminal. Doctors gave Eddie approximately three years to live. Eddie continued to work until it was impossible and Martha immediately quit her job in Metter. She and Harry knew that one of the things their son would eventually loose would be the ability to speak. Harry had retired in 1986 from his job in Fort Stewart after thirty-one years. He had started raising cows and cut, raked, and bailed his own hay until this past year. When Martha quit working in Metter, Harry went out to the holly tree that he and Martha had planted in their yard some ffty years