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"When I was a boy on the farm, where I was born in eighteen hundred
and eighty eight (my father had bought the tract of timber - as he was
a lumber manufacturer, and contractor and builder - and after he had
sawed the timber on the place and [built] a home on it), the Cleveland
administration came and with it the panic. And during these years my
father had the place cleared and brought into cultivation, more to
help the poor people than anything else. As I have heard him say many
times, he didn't intend to make that place his home, but it was a good
farm and he liked the community and so we lived there for around
twenty-five years.
"My oldest brother had finished the
seventh grade some two years before I did, and had gone to Lynchburg,
Virginia to do some special studies and had returned home. And when I
had finished the grades - that was as far as the county schools could
take one - I told my father I wanted to leave home and take up some
business course when the fall came. And he consented to send me. So I
answered some advertisements of various schools and decided I wanted to
go to Omaha, Nebraska. I remember one day as I was hauling up corn from
off the farm, I had been teasing my little five-year old brother,
telling him I was going away and he would be sorry to see me go. Pete
was the pet of all of us and he said, "Yes, I want you to go and I
want you go right now," but when I left little Pete was crying
along with the rest of us. Leaving home wasn't so easy, but I had made
up my mind to go, and I wanted to make good and secure more of an
education.
"When I arrived in Omaha the
government was calling for wireless telegraphy operators, and [I]
investigated the position they had to offer and thought I would like the
work. So I entered the school to study wireless telegraphy. It didn't
take me but a few months to graduate, but to get a position I had to
join the United States Signal Corps. And I was only eighteen, so I would
have to secure my parents signature to my enlistment papers. I wrote
home and asked them if they would sign for me to enlist for four years.
My parents were willing, but wanted me to come home on a visit first. So
I went home for two weeks and returned with all the papers all signed.
After I was all signed up and passed the examination, and gone through
the sham battles as operator, one day the Captain came in our camp and
was selecting a number of boys to go to Alaska for the government. And
to my surprise I was among the number chosen, "Now boys we don't
compel you to go up there, but its a good opportunity if you want to go.
Alaska is a country with opportunity and hardships, you will get double
time on your retirement record while you are up there." Well, I was
full of adventure and anxious to go.
"We sailed from Seattle, Washington in nineteen and
six, and arrived at Nome, Alaska in about three weeks later. We saw
lots of icebergs, which made sailing both slow and dangerous. Alaska
was an interesting county: a lot of Americans came up to hunt for
gold, some of them got rich, and many went home broke. I was furnished
with a dog team of six fine dogs and sleight, one which I traveled
during the winter and went from one road house to another where our
stations were located. The summer day is called six months long and
the winter night is also six months, and we longed for the first of
the sun in the spring. We had snow all winter, and when spring come
and the sun came up, it was beautiful. And the Northern lights are
wonderful, worth a trip to Alaska just to see them, but I wasn't
conscious of the sun's glare on the snow and the first thing I knew I
was snow blinded. That's why I have [had] to were glasses ever since.
"I wrote home to my parents every week,
[even] though the mails were irregular. And often I would have to wait a
month for a letter from home and friends on the "outside" as
we called it, only to receive a nice pile all at once. And how glad we
were when it come.
" I stayed up there until nineteen and
twelve - around six years - and the longer I stayed the more I wanted to
go home. So I come out to the States, and bought myself out of the
Signal Carps, and home I went. My father was still in the lumber
manufacturing business and was operating a number of mills, and I wanted
to work with him. And so I bought a mill from my father and stayed with
him until the depression come in nineteen and fourteen and the lumber
business went down, and we had to quit or go broke. We had a lot of
contracts, but the people said we can't pay for sawing as we can't sell
a foot. So I still had my trade, and I secured a position with the
Southern Railway Company as telegraph operator.
"My father moved to town, sold our farm,
and I was again at home. Then the war come on, and my oldest brother had
gone to Hopewell, Virginia to work with the Dupont Nemours Powder
Company, and he found it easy to sell real estate and was soon a leading
real estate agent. He wrote home telling us all about the prosperity of
Hopewell, Virginia, so my father and mother went out there with the
family. I was left alone in Wilkesboro, North Carolina, and it wasn't
long until I resigned my position and went to Hopewell. Any my parents,
my brother and I were in the real estate business and making money fast;
we had a lot of options on lands. My mother often warned us, "Boys
you would better be careful a crash in coming."
"And in the meantime, I had left in North
Wilkesboro the sweetest little girl I had ever seen and in the spring
of nineteen and fifteen, Nellie Brewer and myself were married at her
home in Huntington, West Virginia. After our honeymoon we come back to
Hopewell - to make it our home where I was in business. In a few
months after that, one day the Dupont Company made a statement that
their plant might be temporary and the next morning, why I couldn't
give a tract of land away. We had all our money invested, and we found
ourselves broke. We got a job with the Dupont Company and went to work
until we could get on our feet again. The war come to a close and with
it the plant closed down and Hopewell was a dead city, people left by
the thousands. I told Nell we might as well stay on and see what would
come, as I felt sure the city would come back. And soon the Tubize Silk Company came and then
other plants, and I again opened my office dealing in real estate. We
had three boys then: Marvin Jr., the oldest, and Joe [Joel T.], and
Hurbert [sic]. We wanted a girl but we had all boys. The town began to
build up, and I began a building project of a restricted district in
Crescent Ills and built and sold around a hundred houses. Then the
depression of twenty nine came. We had a lovely home in Crescent Hills
and with it our two girls, Joy , and Nellrose, and we were happy and
enjoying prosperity. I though I could sell my farm and save my other
property, but I couldn't collect and I couldn't survive for long. A
house here lost and then another, and finally we sold our home, and
moved to Arlington, Virginia.
"My family lives there, and I keep my office in
Front Royal. And after my week's work is done I go home [to] Arlington
to spend the weekend with Nell and the children. Junior has finished
high school and is working in Washington, D.C. Joe had to have five more
units, so last year I sent him to Fork Union Miliary School and that
cost me around a thousand dollars. But he is through school and is
selling real estate with his mother. She is a good business woman.
"I am getting a bit gray
now, but I am still young. A bit heavier than I used to be - around one
seventy five pounds - I enjoy a good joke, and a game with the boys when
I go home, or a game of bridge with the family. We enjoy the Sabbath day
when we attend church together, and often take a drive through the
country in the summer when it is warm. Joy and Nellrose are getting to
be grown girls, and they enjoy music and dancing. Mother is a good cook
and house keeper, though we always have a maid. She sees to the work,
and she is a great lover of flowers - that's her hobby - but she grows
some prize winning roses, chrysanthemums, and other [choice?] ones. But
I would like to have her to give up her work at Arlington and live at
Front Royal, so I could be home more of the time. I enjoy the home life
with the family, and its a treat for the week to pass, and when I can
run home for a weekend and be with Nell and the children."
[LOC: VSA, Box 188; 8 pp, 1,658 wds, handwritten ms]
This is the only life history to contain the location of the original
record. |