1930's

[Graeme]

1930Site Date Map Names of family members will crop up from time to time, here's an overview as to where they sit in the family tree:

[Graeme]

1931Site Date Map Sometime in 1931 Gladys' father, Bob Smith dies. He was buried in an unmarked grave.

[Graeme]

1932Site Date Map

[Graeme]

1933Site Date Map Avery Day in the main street in Tupelo, an Avery Tractor can be seen with people on the back. I'm none too much the wiser as to what Avery Day was and why it was named after the mode of transport used or what it was transporting.

18th May 1933
On May 18, 1933, Congress passed the Tennessee Valley Authority Act. The TVA enabled the building of dams to control the Tennessee River and brought electricity to thousands of homes as well as creating a reforestation program and building homes, farms and small factories.

17th June 1933

Vernon Elvis Presley & Gladys Love Smith wed.

Orville Bean owned the land next door to Jesse Presley which had an empty lot on it on Old Saltillo Road. Bean loaned Vernon $180 (with interest) to build the house then charged them rent until the loan was repaid. This was standard practice for all Bean's tenants.
The following photo was taken circa late 1930's to early 1940's:

[Graeme]

1934Site Date Map 6th July 1934

Tupelo Garment Company

First Annual Picnic for Tupelo Garment Co. and Reed Bros. Inc. Employees

1934_gladys_pregnant.jpg (14.67 KiB) Viewed 11849 times

5th October 1934
This view looking west on Main Street shows a fair parade on October 5, 1934, the original Tupelo Hardware visible on the right Photo courtesy Tupelo (Images of America) thanks to http://www.scottymoore.net

18th November 1934

In November of 1934, President Roosevelt came down to Tupelo to open the Tennessee Valley Authority and strangely enough, of all East Tupelo, only the area above the highway was wired for electricity. Strange because they were the people less likely to have afforded it. The Presley house was wired but it was never hooked up during their time. They used oil lamps.

The following is a record of what the President said:

Senator Harrison, Governor Conner, Mr. Mayor, my friends:

I shall not make a speech to you today because we are assembled on this glorious Sunday morning more as neighbors than as anything else.

I have had a very wonderful three days; and everywhere that I have gone, the good people have come as neighbors to talk with me, and they have not come by the thousands—they have come literally by the acres.

This is the first time in my life that I have had the privilege of seeing this section of the State of Mississippi. Many, many years ago, when Pat Harrison and I were almost boys, I became acquainted with his stamping ground down on the Gulf. Today I am especially glad to come into the northern part of the State.

Two years ago, in 1932, during the campaign, and again in January, 1933, I came through Kentucky—through the Tennessee Valley—and what I saw on those trips, what I saw of human beings, made the tears come to my eyes. The great outstanding thing to me for these past three days has been the change in the looks on people's faces. It has not been only a physical thing. It has not been the contrast between what was actually a scarcity of raiment or a lack of food two years ago and better clothing and more food today. Rather it is a something in people's faces. I think you understand what I mean. There was not much hope in those days. People were wondering what was going to come to this country. And yet today I see not only hope, but I see determination and a knowledge that all is well with the country, and that we are Coming back.

I suppose that you good people know a great deal more of the efforts that we have been making in regard to the work of the Tennessee Valley Authority than I do, because you have seen its application in your own counties and your towns and your own homes; and, therefore, it would be like carrying coals to Newcastle for me to tell you about what has been done.

But perhaps in referring to it I can use you as a text—a text that may be useful to many other parts of the Nation; because people's eyes are upon you and because what you are doing here is going to be copied in every State of the Union before we get through.

We recognize that there will be a certain amount of—what shall I say?—rugged opposition to this development, but I think we recognize also that the opposition is fading as the weeks and months go by—fading in the light of practical experience.

I cite certain figures for the benefit of the gentlemen of the press, who have come hither from many climes. I am told that from March of this year, when you started using T.V.A. power, the consumption of power for residential purposes has risen from 41,000 kilowatts to 89,000 kilowatts—an increase of—26 percent. I understand that from the financial point of view, in spite of various fairy tales that have been spread in other parts of the country, your power system is still paying taxes to the municipality. That is worth remembering. Furthermore, I understand that, as a whole, it is a remarkable business success.

I talk about those figures first, for it has been so often wrongly alleged that this yardstick which we are using could not be applied to private businesses, because a Government yardstick receives so many favours, because it is absolved from paying this and paying that and paying the other thing. Well, we are proving in this Tennessee Valley that by using good business methods we can instruct a good many business men in the country.

And there is another side of it. I have forgotten the exact figures and I cannot find them in this voluminous report at this moment, but the number of new refrigerators that have been ,put in, for example, means something besides just plain dollars and cents. It means a greater human happiness. The introduction of electric cook stoves and all the other dozens of things which, when I was in the Navy, we used to call "gadgets," is improving human life. They are things not especially new so far as invention is concerned, but more and more are they considered necessities in our American life in every part of the country.

And I have been interested this morning in seeing these new homesteads—not just the buildings, not just the land that they are on, not just the excellent landscaping of the trees among which those homes have been set, but rather the opportunities that those homes are giving to families to improve their standard of living.

And finally, my friends, there is one significant thing about all that you are doing here in Tupelo, that others are doing in Corinth, in Athens and Norris, and the various other places where accomplishment can be seen today—aye, the most important thing of all I think is that it is being done by the communities themselves. This is not coming from Washington. It is coming from you. You are not being Federalized. We still believe in the community; and things are going to advance in this country exactly in proportion to the community effort. This is not regimentation; it is community rugged individualism. It means no longer the kind of rugged individualism that allows an individual to do this, that or the other thing that will hurt his neighbours. He is forbidden to do that from now on. But he is going to be encouraged in every known way from the national capital and the State capital and the county seat to use his individualism in cooperation with his neighbours' individualism so that he and his neighbours together may improve their lot in life.

Yes, I have been thrilled by these three days, thrilled not only in the knowledge of practical accomplishment but thrilled also in the deep-seated belief that the people of this Nation understand what we are trying to do, are cooperating with us and have made up their minds that we are going to do it.

And so, in saying "Good-bye" to you for a short time—because I am coming back—I ask all of you, throughout the length and breadth of the Tennessee Valley and those areas which form an economic portion of that Valley, to remember that the responsibility for success lies very largely with you, and that the eyes of the Nation are upon you. I, for one, am confident that you are going to give to the Nation an example which will be a benefit not only to yourselves, but to the whole one hundred and thirty millions of Americans in every part of the land.

The site where the President gave his address as seen in more recent times:

Ramage: Today is the twentieth of February, the year 2000, and today [as] part of the Lee County Oral History Program, we're talking to Janelle McComb. My name is Marty Ramage. Janelle, if you will, tell me your full name, including your maiden name.

McComb: My full name, and this is going to amaze you. You never knew that I had three names. One was Lyn, one was Dale, and one was Janelle Patey. So, when I got to the first grade, I combined the first two so I wouldn't have to write three names. I was—so, they called me Janelle. And I was a Patey. And I was born—I was not born in Tupelo, but it was like your mom went home to have you. So, I was born when Mama went back to South Mississippi to have her first child. So, they brought me back here when I was six days old, too weak to fight back. (Laughter.) So, I've been here ever since. And I grew up in what is known by several names. I grew up in Milltown, and Milltown's name derived from the fact that the cotton mill was its chief industry back in those days. And I had two uncles that worked in the cotton mill, and an aunt that worked in the office, Mae Patey. And she was very young, and ironically died at the age of nineteen on her honeymoon, when a horse fell and killed her. She married one Saturday, and I think within a few days was dead. Granddaddy—

Ramage: What was your father and mother's names?

McComb: My father's name was Ralph Allen Patey. My mother's name was just Kathleen Nichols. And Mama met my dad; my aunt had come to Tupelo to—there were three girls and one boy in Mama's Nichols family. So, my aunt preceded Mom by coming to Tupelo to seek a job. And at that time the Carnation Milk Plant was being built. So, my Aunt Matt also worked in one of the garment companies. So, when Mom's other sister came, Arthur Burgin from Kansas had come to supervise or work with the Carnation Milk Plant, and she met him and married him. That was our first introduction to a Yankee member of our family, and after the Carnation Milk Plant was built—Mom's family was from down around Philadelphia, Mississippi, Decatur, and we still have family there, Meridian. So, my aunt and uncle moved to Philadelphia where one of my maternal uncles had a plumbing shop and in fact my first cousin and them have the Chevrolet dealership down there, now which has been a longstanding family business, but—

Ramage: Now, on the Patey side, your grandfather (inaudible.)

McComb: Now, I'm talking about my grandfather was William Riley Patey, and it's real odd that back when we were growing up, we didn't have what you'd call genealogical societies. We grew up in an era when children were seen and not heard, and I look back now and wonder, except for me—I was the one that asked all the questions, but I find it so strange and odd that I went through my life and never particularly became interested in my lineage until I got older. And I just accepted the fact, that was my parents and grandparents and for no particular reason that it would interest me where they came from. But now I'm intrigued. And in the days of Internet and things, I'm beginning to research and go back and find out what I'm all about. And, but I do know that my grandmother and granddaddy were very fortunate in the fact that they were able to build what we called a big house in Milltown. And Granddaddy owned his own home, and he built his grocery store. Then, he built our home next door to him because after his daughter died at a very young age, I was the first girl to be born. So, he literally just moved me next door and called me her name all the days of his life.

Ramage: What was her name?

McComb: Mae. And so they practically raised me. But Grandmother didn't have to work, and because of the farm down across the bridge, they were able to have a cook, and she would take out her work in groceries from the grocery store, and her name was Aunt Alma Davis. And she had a grandson that was delivered by Dr. Feemster[?], and he was called Feemster Davis. Feemster later went on to become a doctor in St. Louis, and I always have wondered if maybe Dr. Feemster was instrumental in getting him a scholarship. It was back in those days, you named your children after prominent citizens, and they're getting a little more difficult to find politicians to name their children after, now. So, they just sort of scoot away from that. (Laughter). But doctors are still in there. But—

Ramage: Now, your Grandfather Patey was originally from Meridian, right?

McComb: No. Nashville. He came from Nashville. This is why that I'm beginning the research. From the Carolinas and Nashville, then apparently, from what we can find out, he went to Meridian to work and milled, and met my grandmother there, who was an Abston. And apparently from the looks of her clothing and my grandfather Abston, they apparently were in some kind of business there. And this is what that I'm really trying to find out now on both sides where—just, you know, as much about my family as I can find out. But—

Ramage: So, he came to Tupelo with the mill?

McComb: Yes. Or, not with it; it could have been here, but he came to—

Ramage: Because of the mill?

McComb: Right. And—

Ramage: Was he one of the few people that lived in the mill area that actually owned the property?

McComb: He built his own home, and it was a rather huge home. Had a big veranda, and a dog trot through it. And my grandmother's sister still lives in Meridian, Aunt Kitty, and she had a beauty shop, and she wore the furs around her neck. And she would get on the Doodlebug [the name of the locomotive or train] and come to Tupelo to visit. So, this leads me to believe that my grandmother's side was a bit affluent, and she was a bit of an artist. She would sit in Granddaddy's store and paint. And they sort of looked like Grandma Moses, and then some of them, you never knew what they looked like. But the salesmen always picked up on that. If they bragged on Grandmother's painting, she'd say, "What do you sell?" One day the corn flakes salesman came in, and she said, "What do you sell?" And by the way, his name was Mr. [Evans] Gore.

He said, "You know, that's the prettiest painting I've ever seen."

She said, "Bill, we're out of corn flakes." We had enough corn flakes. We ate them; we bathed in them. We shampooed our hair with them. (Laughter.) So, he moved her and her easel back inside the house. But we had a [time keeping her there.]

Ramage: What year were you born?

McComb: I'm not going to tell you what year I was born, Marty. That's carrying it a little too far. (Laughter.)

Ramage: Well, what era? The 1920s?

McComb: In the '20s. And, but we had—I started school very early, five years old, and the school—the mill village had their school, and it was more of an independent area that had just about everything there that encompassed the whole village. The school was named after Mr. Herd Ledyard who was with the mill. And—

Ramage: How do you spell his name?

McComb: H-E-R-D. I've seen it spelled both ways. I've seen it spelled H-E-R-D and H-E-A-R-D, L-E-D-Y-A-R-D. And he was a brother-in-law to Mr. Will Robbins[?], D.W. Robbins who was a former mayor. And he, Mr. Robbins, lived in the big house where the Health Department is. And Mr. Ledyard lived the third house down; the two-story house right down the street.

Ramage: Now, was he not the principal for the school, Mr. Ledyard?

McComb: He was on the school board or the principal. My memory leaves me there, but I know that he was either a principal or on the school board because it was named Ledyard School. And I can even go back and remember—and I was really amazed the other day. I was talking to Mr. Glenn McCullough Sr., and I was telling them my first teacher's name was Ms. Carrie Mae Wright. And she said, "I'm startled. They were from Atlanta."

And I said, "That's right. And she had a son named Baskin[?]." So, the Hudson family in Atlanta knew—I don't know why they wound up in Tupelo. Then Ms. Douglas Hunter[?] was second-grade teacher, who, later her brother owned McGaughey's. The third-[grade] teacher was an old maid spinster, Ms. Nell Huey[?]. And the fourth-grade teacher was Mrs. Standard Topp whose brother-[in-law]—the Topp family above the bank of Mississippi there, was his office [dentist]. [The dentist was Mr. Standard Topp's brother; his wife, Mrs. S. Topp, taught school.]

Ramage: Dentist.

McComb: Dentist. In fact, he lived long enough to be a dentist to my first child, my son. So, then of course, Mr. Nanney underneath, you know, was the bank [president]. But the years I've been in Milltown, was not like the Milltown you see now. I don't think I ever saw—if they gave Garden Club awards for pretty lawns, everybody—I mean every house, they just relished and reveled in the idea of how pretty their lawns were. And they seemed to be born horticulturists. They knew when the planting season, and they went by the Almanac, and they would buy seed from Phillips[?] Seed and Feed Store up on North Spring Street. And Joe Phillips is still living today, and ironically went on to have a nursery. And there were, the funniest thing, during those years, there was—let's see, Latham[?] and the Moores[?] owned one store at the—not jointly but—then, you had a store across the street at one time that was owned by Henry Moore[?] and one owned by my uncle. Then you had Ridge[?] Grocery which was formerly McDaniel's[?]. That happened to be Roger Wicker's wife's granddaddy. Then on up the street, and later it became—next to it was Mr. Hoyle Greene's[?] store. Then up the street you had Bramlett Grocery, and across the street, you had Dinah Greenhill[?]. So, all the grocery stores, I thought it was most unusual that every one of them was on Green Street, but that was your main thoroughfare. [Also, Granddaddy's grocery store.]

Ramage: And that was Milltown?

McComb: That was Milltown. That was all—they were all across the track.

Ramage: All south of the tracks.

McComb: Every one of them was south of the track. And—

Ramage: Now, let me ask you this, Janelle. Did the mill itself own a company store? Or did they—

McComb: No, the mill did not own a company store, but I'm not real sure on this, but I do know that the mill doctor was Dr. William Robert Hunt. And if you worked at the mill, and you owed him a bill, they had the authority to work this out with Dr. Hunt to take it out of your paycheck and give it to him. So, I'm assuming that the grocery stores worked on the same system because you were paid in cash in brown envelopes, and I think the one I remember the most, Guy Sanders[?] was office manager, and Ms. Annie Belle Reese[?] worked in the office. And one of the Rogers, Mr. Rogers, O.B. I believe, was connected with the mill office, also. And you got paid every Friday, and on the mill grounds in front of Ledyard School was a baseball field and a huge picnic area with playground equipment and a roof, and we used the ball field some to play tennis. Well, sometimes they would stretch a net for us, and we could play tennis. There weren't what you'd call designated playgrounds. You more or less had your own playground. You had your—ironically, kids owned bicycles. Not a lot, but there were bicycles in the neighborhood, and then we invented our own games and played double hopscotch, and spinning the top, and there were many eras in my life that I look back that I see games, now, that I could say that we were responsible for, because you can buy hopscotch sets, now, and you can buy jumping ropes, now, when we whacked them off of the end of a rope off of the truck.

Ramage: Improvised.

McComb: Yeah, improvised. And we would have our own plays. We'd put a sheet over the clothesline in the backyard, and we'd put bricks and make us a stage. And it was the days of the silent movies, so, we didn't have to say anything. We'd just act. And we'd have an impresario, and they'd pull the curtain back, and we'd have the announcer. And then we would just do silent movies and let you figure out what we were doing. And then it was in the era where, I remember one insurance salesman, Mr. Marlin Reese, [whose son] Jack Reese, later great athlete was his son, and every house, he was so good to the kids. And Granddaddy always taught me to be an entrepreneur. "Learn how to work with your hands." So, Mr. Reese and I raised bantam hens on halves, and he'd buy the chickens, and I'd raise them. Then, we'd sell them and split the money. So, I learned a lot. You were taught back in those days, there were no idle hands. You were really—you pulled your own load, and—

Ramage: Now, Janelle, most of the homes in Milltown, they were owned by the mill, right?

McComb: They were owned by the mill. I think maybe Mr. Earl Nash[?], that lived across the street, built his home, but I doubt if there were more than three homes built by the mill, at all, and I know in 1944 when they was working out a deal with Mr. Erin Dillard, and Mr. (inaudible) was trying to work out a deal with some of the Leakes and Mr. Dillard, there were ninety-nine homes still left that were in good shape, and they got them for a real good bargain. That was after the mill strike which occurred in 1937. And you had—that was probably the saddest thing that ever happened to a group of people. And I think it broke Mr. Ledyard's heart.

Ramage: Now, let me ask you this. The society in the mill, Milltown—and this would have been in the late '20s and early '30s before the strike and everything, would you have community get-togethers?

McComb: Oh, yeah. Yeah, and the big thing was, too, that the mills made it—the mills and the garment companies were very active in having picnics down on the mill ground patio, and the name of the baseball team was the Bluebirds. And they had shirts with the bluebirds on it, and those were heck of games. There were some people on that team that could have been really professional, pro people if they'd have had scouts.

Ramage: Now, would you ever go to the—would you ever go over to the fish hatchery?

McComb: Yes. That's what I was going to—on a Sunday, that was known as the courting place. I can just see, now, one couple in particular, Cooper and Jesse Williams,[?] and they would hold hands, and they would go down to the fish hatchery. And they'd—he'd pick—they'd pick water lilies for their girlfriends. I have a picture of my mom down there. I also have a picture of my dad holding me in his arms on that middle building. There used to be a white middle building in the center. And Dad was holding me along with Marie Bramlett[?]. You know the Bramlett family in Tupelo. And that was really about the only place—you didn't have cars. So, that was really about the only place—and you could also have picnics down there, and that was about the only place that you really had to go.

And then, like my friend and I were talking tonight, most all of us that went to Second Baptist Church, were baptized in the fish hatchery by a minister from Ecru[?] named Brother H.G. West[?]. There were a number, several ministers who attended to the needs of that church. And also back in that era, I can remember Mr. Byron Long[?] would leave his church [First Baptist] and go out to Brother Ike Berryhill's church and teach Sunday school if they had a shortage, and then go back to his church. Same thing with Dr. William Robert Hunt[?]. He belonged to First Baptist Church, and then they broke away and formed Calvary. But he would come to Milltown because most—his nurse's name was Ms. Buckalew[?], and when you saw her with her little white uniform on, you knew somebody was having a baby. And so, he had such an attachment to Milltown that if there was a shortage in teachers, or you needed a speaker—I remember I was in one of Dr. Hunt's Sunday school classes when I was about ten.

And he was—if a statesman ever lived. And he was the epitome of what a gentleman was, and so was Mr. Herd Ledyard. He was tall and agile and diplomatic-looking, but he had a sense of caring that you don't usually find today. Business people are so big, the conglomerates, that they don't have time to have an intimate association like he did. But these were his people, and he cared for them very much, and his heart was just broken when this "alien" as I'm reading from the Mississippi Book of History, "when an alien came in, an alien element came in and called the people out on a strike." Well, of course, he presented it to them as pie in the sky, and I am one that used to listen to his speeches. And—

Ramage: Now, let me ask you, before we get to that point, let me ask you two or three more things about earlier in life. You know, really, your family being in Milltown, and would this be a true statement? While most of the people were poor that was in Milltown, your family was more of the affluent in the Milltown—

McComb: Right. Because of Grand—

Ramage: Because of your granddaddy.

McComb: Right. Right.

Ramage: And was it fun to go in? Could you go in and get pretty well what you wanted from your granddaddy's—

McComb: Well, Granddaddy was the epitome of what all granddaddies should be. At ten every morning, the store was closed. And the back door adjoined the— he called it—the veranda of the house. There was two big rockers. He'd put one of us on one knee, and one of us on the other, and he'd bring us a banana or an apple. And he had a little ritual. He'd sing, "I got a gal in my backyard. She totes my meat, and she totes my lard. Doodah. Doodah." And then he'd give us a banana, and that was our fifteen minutes. Closed. I don't care if twenty people were standing there hollering, "Bill."

He'd say, "These are my grandkids. These are their fifteen minutes."

Ramage: So, he closed down the store.

McComb: Closed the store. Locked it up.

Ramage: (Inaudible.)

McComb: And in the afternoon at three o'clock, same ritual. So, the community soon got to learn that at three o'clock, don't [disturb Bill Patey].

Ramage: [You knew when] to go.

McComb: You knew when to go.

Ramage: You didn't go at ten, and you didn't go at three.

McComb: But we knew. I think, if I knew anything in my life—and that's why I care so much for people, now. And I know even now, people say, "You're such a hugger and a hand-shaker." But I was taught to care because they cared for me, and I can remember Granddaddy turning the cover back on my face at night thinking I was asleep, and he would brush my hair back and kiss me. And I was awake, and I knew when he did that.

And I've often said, "You can live without a lot of things." And people—money was not a very prevalent thing, but—

Ramage: You felt secure?

McComb: But we were loved, and we were wanted, and I know that. Granddaddy built a large—when he came he built probably the first storm cellar in Tupelo. He put a hand water pump in it; bunk beds up against the wall, not like you'd see today, but bunks. And we used it for a playground. We'd go down and play dolls during the pretty weather, but also, it was the neighborhood, when a tornado or storm came up. And it was a joke in Milltown that Bill Patey could smell a storm. And if he saw something that didn't look right, that store was closed again because he had stock in the Peoples Bank, and he was more concerned about his family than he was—Mr. Josh Whitesides[?], [bank president], was one of his best friends and he would—

Ramage: Let me ask you this, Janelle. Let me ask you this question. Did they close the store on Wednesday afternoons? You know. There were a lot of towns in the South—

McComb: No, they didn't.

Ramage: —that closed the stores one afternoon a week.

McComb: Well, now that used to be, later. But in the early years, they didn't.

Ramage: They did not.

McComb: They did not in the early years because I remember when stores did close, but it would have been more during—

Ramage: —the '40s maybe, and the '50s?

McComb: Right. And crop season and things like that, but our big day—like I said, I was taught to work, how to make money, so I had me a clientele. I got me a note pad, and I'd go knock on everybody's door; they'd worked all week. And if one wanted me to get them a girdle at McGaughey's, I earned a dime. They gave me the type of the girdle and the dime. If one wanted a pair of shoes, they gave me the size and showed me where they'd seen the shoe. If they wanted me to go to Mr. Betts' grocery store and get a sack of grapes, I'd charge a dime. So, usually about every weekend, I picked up about a buck running a courier service.

Ramage: That is wonderful.

McComb: So, now, you see that, now. You can call Russell's Restaurant[?], and the courier brings your food. And, but I guess I was about the first courier, and I sat out one day, and what made me think about it was my grandmother said, "I don't really feel like going to town today. I'll give you a dime if you'll go."

And a spark hit me, "If she'll do it, I bet there's a lot of other people." So, I started me a little business. I'd go from house to house. And I had a red wagon, a Red Flyer, and I would take—it jointly belonged to my brother and I. And I would take my wagon, and I'd go to town, and I'd come back and deliver.

Ramage: Now, let me ask you this. November 18, 1934, in Tupelo, Mississippi, the president, President Roosevelt came. Do you remember that?

McComb: I certainly do. I was standing on the corner of a Red Lawhon service station with my dad. We didn't go to the ball field, but Daddy carried us all up to see history. And they were first, I guess, the car did not have a top, it was turned back, if I remember that correctly. And I thought that was the greatest thing in my whole life. I didn't go when Truman came, when Bush came or when anybody else. But to see President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and I think the thing that Dad, Granddaddy impressed upon us was the fact that he didn't let a physical impediment keep him from being the highest—holding the highest office in the land. (Telephone rings.)

(There is an interruption in the interview.)

Ramage: So, President Roosevelt came to town.

McComb: He came to town, and—(telephone rings.)

(There is an interruption in the interview.)

Ramage: So, when President Roosevelt came to town, was everybody excited in Tupelo?

McComb: Oh, very excited. And Natchez Trace Villas, he was going to visit a home there. And it happened that the brother [and sister I went to school with was the home he visited. They lived at the Natchez Trace Parkway homes, federally funded homes for federal park employees].

Ramage: (Inaudible) Natchez Trace Park (inaudible).

McComb: Park, right. And he was going to visit a home. No one knew exactly which home he was going to visit, but till he got there, and it happened to be the home of two of my classmates, a brother and sister. And we couldn't wait till they got to school the next day because they got to go through all the rooms. And we just wanted to touch them that they had (laughter)—the president of the United States had been in their home. But—

Ramage: Do you remember seeing President Roosevelt in the car?

McComb: In the car. But I did not go; Dad did not take us to the ball field.

Ramage: Where he spoke.

McComb: Right. But I can remember that my granddaddy's store, as many stores did, was a voting place for people to vote. And Granddaddy was always a politician. And I think one of the biggest thrills I ever got, Bilbo would visit Mitchell Court[?]. And they were having his birthday there. Granddaddy closed. Nothing stopped Granddaddy from grand-kids and politics. So he closed that store, got my brother and I by the hand, my grandmother; we went down to Mitchell Court to hear Bilbo speak. And he did wear the proverbial red suspenders. Granddaddy said, "I want you to look at his suspenders." But he could make a speech.

Ramage: Bilbo could?

McComb: Bilbo could make a speech that you'd just—I can understand, you didn't have to like him, and my granddaddy would always go saying, "I wouldn't vote for that son of a gun." By the time we got back home, he was ready to vote for him fifty times. (Laughter.) He had a charisma about him, and he predicted so many things, now, this era, that we're facing. But he was quite a politician, and he just completely captivated his audience. And so we sort of grew up on—and as we would walk, Granddaddy would say, "This is your heritage. If you don't vote, don't ever complain about any situation that evolves from it, because you're the guilty person."

(End of tape one, side one. The interview continues on tape one, side two.)

Ramage: So, your grandfather was a big politician.

McComb: Oh, he was.

Ramage: And he enjoyed politics?

McComb: He really enjoyed it. And he would—

Ramage: Now, where was Mitchell Court?

McComb: It was on the corner where you go right to go to the VFW Club. Two doctors had bought that house, and it burned. Brick home right there on the corner.

Ramage: Oh, the Mitchell Mansion?

McComb: Mitchell Mansion.

Ramage: Down on West South Green?

McComb: They called it Mitchell Court, then.

Ramage: They called it Mitchell Court.

McComb: Mitchell Court.

Ramage: So, Bilbo would come down (inaudible).

McComb: Bilbo would be at Mitchell Court and speak. So, when they cut his birthday cake, I guess I was probably twenty-one before I ever moved it out of the cabinet; that was the greatest thing in the world. I'd peep at it; I wouldn't eat it on the way home.

Ramage: So, you had a piece of Bilbo's—

McComb: I had a piece of Bilbo's cake. But I think politics has always fascinated me. John Bell Williams' wife and I were in service at the same time, and so I got involved in his campaign. But politics have changed a lot.

Ramage: Let me ask you this, Janelle. What did, you know, growing up on Saturday night, what would they do in Milltown on Saturday night? Or would they all go into downtown Tupelo, across the tracks, to—

McComb: Well, everybody had a Victrola. I say everybody, but most—Granddaddy had one, a big one, and I would get a nickel to crank it. Then when that arm wore out, you tried the other one, and then they would do the Charleston, and they'd roll up the rug. And everybody would dance. Or you'd play a card game. The old older people did. And then the big thing, you would listen to the radio. Now, everybody didn't have a radio. And so, you would listen to the radio. And then I remember this one particular restaurant on the corner opposite Granddaddy's store, they—

(A portion of the interview has been deleted at the request of the interviewee.)

Ramage: Now, you belonged to the Second Baptist Church?

McComb: Second Baptist Church. And the—I joined when I was twelve years old and was baptized. And I had an aunt that was worried to death because she thought she never—she was a widower. And we went home that night, and she said, "You are going to be our problem."

And I said, "What?"

She said, "You've got to be real good when you join the church and become a Christian. And I just know you're not going to obey all the rules." So, (laughter) I didn't sleep good that night because I knew she was just about right because I was a tomboy. I climbed the trees. I did all the things she didn't think I ought to do.

Ramage: Now, did y'all go to movies?

McComb: Oh, yes.

Ramage: Now, where were the movies?

McComb: Lyric and Strand Theaters. And the greatest joy in the world, and I wish he could have lived to see it. I talked to him the other day, Bill Thrift, [Mr. Thrift's grandson]. Mr. Thrift was something. [Mr. Thrift was our first taxi cab.] He had this car with his gray driving gloves. And you had your time set; our time was Monday. And he would pick Grandmother up, and she would put her cloche beaded hat and her furs on her, and he would pick us up at Ledyard School. And we would go to the movie at the Strand one Monday. The next Monday we would go to F.W. Woolworth's and TKE to get a cherry Coke. Mr. Thrift had his pocket watch, and he timed it. So, you knew. And different families had different days and hours, and he kept his little book. And Dolly[?] told me the other day, said, "I wish Bill could have remembered all those years. He never knew about all those years." He was tall, thin, wore a gray fedora hat. Everything was gray about him, even the gloves.

Ramage: So, he would take the families from Milltown?

McComb: Any time, anywhere, but Milltown especially. He had his route. So, he'd pick us up at Granddaddy's store. And he'd get out and open the door. And we'd get in. But we had a regular—the Strand one time, the Lyric one time, Woolworth's. Those stores that we could go to. But I think the joy of growing up in any mill town is the fraternization, the love for your neighbors that—I rarely see my neighbors when I get in.

Ramage: Now.

McComb: Now. But there was a joy that if they had anything that you needed, they shared so abundantly with it; I miss a lot of that. And so, I decided after many, many years, a couple, three years ago, I had open house for all of my neighbors. I never had even met all of them.

Ramage: Oh. Where you live, now?

McComb: Yes. Where I live now, I decided—

Ramage: And have for years.

McComb: Yes, 1955. So, I decided, "You know, I never see my neighbors." So, I just got on the phone and called them all. And I said, "I want you to come. And I'm going to have an open house for my neighbors." And I'm so very glad because several are dead. And open house was every weekend in Milltown. You didn't miss church, now. That's just something you didn't do. And—

Ramage: Now, they made—what did Milltown? They processed the cotton over on, I guess, the east side of the railroad.

McComb: Right.

Ramage: And then they brought it over, and they made the cotton, or they made the cheviot.

McComb: They had a spinning wheel; I mean spinning room. I well remember that. They had a spinning room where they had the cotton thread. They would spin that and weave that into this material called cheviot. But now I understand that before the era of the cheviot, the first two years, they just made a cloth that was—cheviot had an identity because it was thick. I always thought as I grew older and looked, it was the kind of material that you would cover chairs in, now.

Ramage: So, it's thicker.

McComb: Thicker, but, yet we wore it. And you know, our dresses was made from it. But I understand that the first two years was a diverse different type of material that they had. But the camaraderie, the joy of knowing there was no crime. You didn't have a key. There was no point in even owning a door key. I didn't even know what a key looked like.

Ramage: You didn't lock your house.

McComb: Never locked your house. But Grandmother had a side room built on the house, mostly for us to play and to read. But she was so—(phone rings.)

(There is an interruption in the interview.)

Ramage: All right. So, your grandmother, did they have a garden or anything?

McComb: Yes. Yes, and my grandmother's widowed sister Aunt Jessie lived with them. And they had a garden. And Granddaddy would work the garden along with my dad who lived next door. And then, back in those days, we had what you called hoboes. They would come in on the rails on the trains, and the story goes that they would mark a house that they knew they could get work and help. Of course, my grandmother with all of our great love for her, was the most naive person in the world. So, she thought—one day she said, "Bill, instead of you working the garden and cutting the wood, I'm going to help some of these hoboes out when they come. I'll let them stay in the kid's room that we fixed for a play room, and they can do the heavy work. When you leave the store, you don't have to fool with it."

Well, we had three. One of them left with Granddaddy's watch the next week. The other one left with Granddaddy's coat. She tried the third time, and he left with a bunch of her clothes, so, there were no more hoboes. And the door was locked, and my granddaddy gave her a lecture on her inability to judge people (laughter), and that he still believed there shouldn't be hoboes, that there was plenty of work that they could have made and done. But we did actually find—and we'd heard this, but we would find on a gate or a post by a house where they would actually put a red mark that this is a good place to come to. You get food. But Grandmother would pay them, but they would, in the night, if they knew they were leaving the next day, they would leave with something. So, the crux was getting Granddaddy's watch. So, that ended the extra help that we had back in those days.

Ramage: Now, the Tupelo tornado of 1936, April the fifth. What do you remember about that day?

McComb: I remember that day so vivid. Granddaddy got up that morning, and it seemed like an everyday ritual. He would go on the veranda, and he would scout; look at all the clouds and that would determine where we went that day or what we did. So, Granddaddy—it was just common knowledge in our neighborhood that Bill Patey could smell a storm. So, he began to call [a] gathering of the clan. And he said, "Mae, you get your little friends over here, and you get their mamas and their daddies because we are fixing to have some bad weather."

And I said, "Can we go to Sunday school?" So, we went on to Sunday school. Granddaddy didn't think it was going to hit. It didn't really begin to get—and it was yellow back in that east, southeast.

And he said—about that time the perennials that came all the time began to come. And I well remember that it was really a huge room. Your storm cellars today couldn't touch it. And, like I said, we had bunk beds which was actually just boards put there with coverings on it because, I mean, it could just have a slight rain, and Granddaddy put us in there. But that particular day, he just was, oh, so nervous. And he—enough people began to trust his judgment to begin to realize that we were—Granddaddy said, "We are in for some big trouble."

So, we all got in the storm cellar, waiting for—Granddaddy said, "Waiting for it to hit." And there was a rope tied onto the door. The latch, Granddaddy knew, the latch wasn't going to hold it. So, he got a rope and attached it to the door, and it took three men to hold that rope to keep the wind from sucking that door open. And I never will forget Granddaddy counting; there were fifty-five people in that room [that] night. And Virginia Ingellis' mother was one of them, Virgie Christian[?]. She was there that night. And she would, to allay our fears, she would start telling us stories. You know. Because Granddaddy never left the top of that stair till it was over. And I mean, then he wouldn't let us out. He said—it was a boom. You could hear the rolling; even as children, we could hear a roar.

Ramage: It was two miles north of you.

McComb: Right. But you could hear it roaring like a freight train! Like a freight train. So, even after the roaring stopped, it was just like dead silence for a long time. Well, of course we wanted to get out, but just before we started out, you could hear sirens and screaming. Granddaddy said, "No. Nobody's getting out right now." He didn't know but what there was another one. He said, "Sometimes they come in twos." Well, then we didn't want to get out. But then we could hear what Granddaddy later said, was fire trucks. You know, the thing on the fire truck. And then, Granddaddy ran in the house to turn the radio on to see, and they was announcing what had happened, and calling Dr. Carl Feemster[?]. They had him on a phone where the Methodist church is asking for volunteers, people to come up, "Help, we're critical". And then some way through the dot, dot, dot system, they would contact Memphis, and people began to hear of it. And of course, now I understand that they didn't have any trouble getting to Tupelo, but they found difficulty in that particular area getting to where their services were needed, and especially the area that I'm living in, now, was just wiped away. And that family of thirteen, the Burrough family was living there.

Ramage: Now, they were out at (inaudible.)

McComb: Right, and my good friend Bill Cooley[?] lost, I believe, a brother. I'm not real sure; lost a family member, and they couldn't find Bill for several days. He was in Memphis in a hospital. And—

Ramage: Now, do you remember what y'all did? Did y'all go anywhere after?

McComb: Well, I was going to tell you what we did. Mama and Daddy, and everybody, said, "Let's go help." They needed the help at the hospital. So, we passed the old Tupelo Ice Plant where it still is right now. We went that way. And I remember, as vaguely as I can remember, that Dad or somebody stepped on it looked like a door or a big plank, and when it flopped over on the end, there was a body. And so, of course, kid-like, it scared us to death. We didn't know whether it was dead, living, or what. But Daddy moved us over on the end of the ice plant. He said, "Y'all don't move till I go up here to get to the hospital, somebody to come down here and get whoever this is."

Ramage: Do you think they'd been blown from up there?

McComb: No, it didn't take long for them to get there.

Ramage: No. Do you think the body had been blown?

McComb: Oh, yeah. They decided later; we heard the story that the body was blown from the west side, as the railroad went west that way, to that area there. And I understand, later, that there were numerous people found out in the west—we call it Willis Heights—that were found wounded and, you know, incapacitated, and it was just—well, I think my life was for many, many years scarred. I know even when I left for junior college, five or six years later, my dorm room was on the second floor, and man, all I had to do was just see it come a rain, I hit the dining room down on the basement floor. The fear, the fear, the fear of having gone through that made me—Granddaddy said—they put me on the Doodlebug and sent me to East Mississippi Junior College. Granddaddy said—

Ramage: Now, was that at Scooba?

McComb: Scooba. And Granddaddy said, "If you hear or see a cloud or one drop of rain, you get down as low as you can get." So, he went with me. We all went on the Doodlebug, and Granddaddy scouted me a place. First thing he did was scout me a place in the dining room for me to hit if a tornado came. And you know, it was for years, it was for years before I ever overcame the fear of tornadoes. And then to listen to people who actually saw the funnel-type thing that did not have storm cellars, and would tell us about it when we'd go to school, make-shift schools, later, and those kids who had to sit and look out their windows and see that funnel-type thing, it left a mark. But the great tragedy—and it's the funniest thing that seems real strange to me, that in this area, we seem to be hardest hit a lot of times by many tornadoes, many storms. Not anything of any major merit, but I'm wondering now, we don't see these things anymore like—

Ramage: You did.

McComb: That we did. And I'm wondering why. You stop and think about it. You don't hear of a lot of tornadoes like you used to back in those days. So, I'm glad that we were prepared and that Granddaddy was intelligent enough to be prepared. And to take care of his family. And I talked to this girl tonight. She happened to be—a girl. She's eighty. She was in the storm cellar that night, and she was the niece of the Burrough family that were killed; all of them were killed. And so, she was one that went to—her aunt and them all went down to Kosciusko to work in the mill. And the name of that mill was the Appernog[?] Mill in Kosciusko. Then a number of them—I found out—went to Memphis to work at Fisher[?] Aircraft. And it just ended an era for us of friends—

Ramage: Well, now let me ask you that. And that's a good question to get off on this. The tornado occurred in '36, and then in 1937—of course, this was in the midst of the Depression. And then in 1937, a strike.

McComb: Strike.

Ramage: And what do you remember about the strike at Milltown?

McComb: Well, the funniest thing about it was we thought it was the grandest thing in the world. I mean, really. It was out of the ordinary. Anything for children growing up out of the ordinary, and there a strike in a little mill in a town, and there was people hanging out the windows waving, like, "Boy, we've got it made. We've got pie in the sky." And then, you didn't begin to see those people waving out those windows. And the next car—

Ramage: Now, did they stay inside the mill?

McComb: Stayed in the mill. It was actually what you'd call a sit-down strike. And then, they began to get hungry. So, you had to find a way to get food. And I can remember food being sent up on ropes. They wouldn't let you go in the mill. So, you had to send food up on ropes. Well, see, the way it was told to them by this "alien" who came in, it was just going to be a matter of a few days, and they'd come across, and that'd be it. So, they sort of made a lark out of it till, then, the reality of what had happened hit them. And then, there the anger began, and the disillusionment, and the old saying, "You don't realize you had it made in the shade till the tree's gone." And I saw reality hit the superintendents and the supervisors and the people who knew what might be coming ahead. And Granddaddy cried. I never will forget him sitting in the bedroom crying. And he said, "This is something you hear about back East, but this just don't happen in Tupelo." So, he was sensitive enough to the fact that—and when they discovered the mills were not going to open—

Ramage: So, they actually closed down the mills?

McComb: They just closed it down. And I don't recall a lot of negotiating going on because money was tight back in those days. They didn't have a lot to negotiate with. And Mr. Ledyard was trying to help, as they say, these—they called them "hill people." I never knew where they got the word, "hill people." But, he was literally trying to help these people eke out a living, and he knew that they didn't have the equity and the money to meet the demands of these people who were so sucked in, more or less, by these—

Ramage: Strike and the outside element.

McComb: The outside element. And I still refer to the stories in the paper, and this book quotes, "an alien" coming. An alien is not a local personality.

Ramage: Now, who did they get local to do this work?

McComb: I don't know, if they refer to this man as an "alien." His name was Jimmy Cox[?]. Now, I don't know where this alien came from. But—

Ramage: And so, he was sort of the—

McComb: He couldn't have been here long if he was referred to as an alien.

Ramage: So, he was the one that started—

McComb: He was the prognosticator, as they say. He was the one that they would have secret meetings at night in homes, getting them prepared to pull the switch, stop the machinery from going, and announce, "We're striking for better pay, better wages." And in all, you would have had to known people like Mr. Ledyard. And I think you missed a great joy not knowing Mr. Josh Whiteside[?]. Those people—Mr. Medford Leake—those people were people who, as we say, still had it a little better, but they knew that their livelihood also depended on the mills and etcetera. So, it was quite a blow to both sides of the fence to see this happen. But, I wanted to reiterate a story to you that I told you that once—and Jimmie brought this up tonight, this friend of mine. Do you remember me telling you about how deaths would occur and people would lay them out? OK. She reminded me of this story tonight which I told you.

We had a neighbor named Lorene Gregg[?] who was probably an epileptic. And Jimmie even knew more than I. They had her laid out on the bed, stiff, and the casket on the front porch had been delivered. And all of a sudden Lorene comes out of this epileptic seizure which probably lasted—Jimmie says it probably put her in a coma. So, the neighbors—she was born to a couple late in life, so, the neighbors had bathed her and put her burying clothes on her. Jimmie was telling me tonight, the casket was out front, and about five hours later, Lorene stirred and moved. So, that blew the funeral. (Laughter.)

And she lived several more years, and we were playmates. And we used to play a game. We'd go in the house, and you'd get ten items. It could be a thimble—and Granddaddy's old cigarettes in the tin boxes—and I'd find the tin boxes that was left, and if you had a little Kewpie doll, we'd make an opening in the wire fence, and you'd put your ten gifts behind you, and at the same time—you couldn't fudge—you'd holler, "One." Both gifts had to go through at the same time, and we called it Swap. So, that was a game for us. We'd swap a gift for a gift, none not knowing what the other one was going to get. And, so it was an—

Ramage: In the strike, let me ask you this, Janelle. The strike, what did they ever say to Mr. Cox when—

McComb: Well, I think I mentioned that once and got scathed, but Mr. Cox disappeared, and that was the end of his era. But I still can't leave Milltown without talking about Tupelo. The soldier that's on the courthouse lawn was in the middle of Main Street, then.

Ramage: The Confederate monument.

McComb: Yes. And the beauty of the town, and the joy—I know when I was graduated from high school, my uncle gave me five dollars, and I went to McGaughey's and bought a dress, shoes, and a pair of hose and had twenty-three cents left. When Roy and I married, I went to R.W. Reed[?] Company with ten dollars and bought a dress, a pair of shoes, and hose. And I probably could go now with 300 dollars and come out with a pair of hose and a pair of shoes (laughter), but what we're talking about, now, is—I'm not just saying Reed's. I was graduated with Jack, and that was the only—McGaughey's and Spights and Jack's were the only—but talking about how prices has escalated because wages are better, and your whole community is better. And going to town was our big thing; we'd go to TKE's and drink a sarsaparilla and a cherry Coke and park your car and chew gum and watch people go by. Go to Blue Bell Café down by Reed Brothers. Go to Berry[?] and Baker Furniture Company, look at the new beds that's come in. Go to Glasgow[?] Drug Store, get a Coke for a nickel. It was—I'm still a downtown person.

Ramage: All right. Now, one of the things that I'm sure you remember, growing up—

(End of tape one, side two. The interview continues on tape two, side one.)

Ramage: All right. The North Mississippi Alabama Fair and Dairy Show.

McComb: Mississippi / Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. And I well remember Ms. Daisy Thompson[?] and Ms. Glenn McCollough[?] Sr., Ms. Margaret, they were sort of in charge of the building there. You'd bring your ferns, your crocheted pieces, and your canned goods, and they would judge, and you would win a prize on that. That was one of the big things at the Fair. And then on children's day, all the schoolchildren marched from the courthouse to the Fairgrounds, and you got a free—you could go in free. And the rides, and all the schools, underneath the bleachers, would have a stand where they sold hamburgers and Cokes, and they'd make money. It was a fund raiser for their [schools]. But to go down the aisles; and I still miss it. At my age in life, I still wish we had a Fair. You'd see the fat lady, and the alligator man, and the man that could twist his legs around his head. And I know that I—they would always have one or two show girls, and every husband in Tupelo was warned they had better not go (laughter), and also the children. But one day I decided I was going to go see her do a fan dance. And I sat down, and I turned around, and it was our insurance man. And I said, "Don't tell my mama."

He said, "Don't tell my wife." (Laughter.) So, I saw my first fan dance at the Tupelo Fair. So, then they would have the Ferris Wheel, and the domes where the cars would ride in the dome. The candy, cotton candy. Throwing the balls.

I don't know. I miss that era, and people keep telling me things change. And I realize things change. But they don't change in your mind when you stop and reminisce. I think the joy of growing old is to be able to remember that there was a time that was slow, and there was a time when people could visit their neighbors. There was no Internet; it was how we met. And you didn't have to pass an ordinance to teach your children how to say, "Yes ma'am." And, "No ma'am." That was taught at home. You sent your children to school to learn. And this, I think, today—and I may not even should get on this subject—but I think manners should be taught at home, and books and what is in those books is the teacher's responsibility. They're putting too much on the teacher's today. They can't be all things to all people. So, I think—I grew up in an era that everywhere my parents went, I went. You're in an era, now, you have a babysitter or a nanny or a full live-in, and that's great, if that's what you want to do. But I think somewhere along the line of what we've learned, we lost something very valuable. We lost the tender touch of a friend who walks over and says, "I want you to know I care for you very much." I can go a whole week on that. It doesn't have to be a magnificent gift. A friend is a presence, a presence; you give yourself. And just merely by someone walking up to me, their presence makes me feel good and clean on the inside when they say, "And how is your day?" I think we've gotten away from that, when we have to go to Internet to find out what's the cheapest bargain at Wal-Mart. And I miss the camaraderie of growing up, and I am glad that I will not live to see what the next fifty years will bring. And the Peoples Bank, the only thing that I disagree with them now, is I don't like to push all those buttons, where I didn't used to have to push them a year ago.

Ramage: Now, let me ask you this. You were talking about the bank. And when you graduated high school and [got out on your own], do you remember the first time you needed to borrow money?

McComb: When I got out of college, I went—my granddaddy—I was going to teach school. My granddaddy said, "You'll be borrowing money from time to time, so you go down to Mr. Josh Whiteside"—because Granddaddy had stock in the bank—"tell him Bill Patey said that you're his granddaughter, and you want to establish credit." Mr. Cliff Eason was teller. Mr. Josh sat there with that green—what do you call them?

Ramage: Bills.

McComb: Bill cap. And he was writing. And I walked over, and I said, "Mr. Josh. My name's Janelle Patey. My granddaddy's Bill Patey, and he said for me to come up here and talk to you and to establish credit." I was saying it so fast. And he never looked up.

He said, "How much you want to borrow?"

I said, "Fifty dollars."

He said, "How you going to pay it back?"

I said, "With money."

And he looked up. I didn't know he meant monthly payments. (Laughter.) And he looked up real funny. He said, "Well, if you're going to pay it back with money," he said, "Cliff, let her have fifty dollars." So—

Ramage: That's all it took.

McComb: That's all it took. But he never looked up. But when he said, "How are you going to pay it back," I had never borrowed money, so I didn't know he meant monthly installments or what.

And I was dumb, and I said, "With money."

And he turned and looked around. He said, "Cliff, let her have fifty dollars." So, (laughter) but, I don't know. The sad thing I find with prosperity [is you become a number instead of a name].

Ramage: Now, do you think that we are better off? I mean, generally everybody is better off now than they were in the '40s.

McComb: Oh, sure, if you want to put it on a financial basis.

Ramage: Right.

McComb: If you want to put it on a financial basis, but I still am glad God let me grow old to know the best part of living, I was a part of it.

Ramage: World War II. Do you remember World War II in Tupelo?

McComb: Very vividly.

Ramage: How was Tupelo during—do you remember when Japan attacked the United States?

McComb: And I never will forget that. I was watching TV the day that soldier kissed that girl out in California; it made the front of Life magazine, I watched that on the program. And a valuable lesson I learned. A valuable. This has taught me one of the greatest lessons in life. It came out in the paper that nails were going to be hard to get.

Ramage: In World War II?

McComb: Yes. I went running down to Tupelo Hardware and bought the biggest sack of nails I could buy. We've still got those nails that are rusted, and the bag has fallen apart, but we leave them out back in that old building to tell, "Don't panic till you get the true facts."

And Roy won't let me move them. They're rusted, and the other day we went out there cleaning out, and he said, "I'll never forget the most valuable lesson we ever learned in our life. We never drove a single one of those nails, but the immediate fear that you'd better grab them while you can get them fast." And we were in line with people getting nails. So, I think people have really—but I miss. The one thing I miss the most. I grew up when a man's word was his bond. I grew up in that era, and when I walked away from somebody, I believed what they told me.

Ramage: Whatever they said.

McComb: Whatever the said was the gospel. I went to bed at night and it never occurred to me that that wasn't the way it was, then. And that hurts.

Ramage: Now, let me ask you this, Janelle. You married and you had one son.

McComb: One son.

Ramage: And his name is?

McComb: James Michael Hill.

Ramage: OK. And then, you—

McComb: His father and I divorced when he was about two and a half, and I—

Ramage: Your second husband was Roy McComb.

McComb: From Saltillo, [Mississippi], seven miles behind the Saltillo Depot.

Ramage: Now, how did you meet Roy?

McComb: At church. A friend of mine attended Harrisburg Church, and she was going with a man that worked down at The Tupelo Journal, then. And she had been married and had a daughter. And they were going to revival at Harrisburg Church, and he was a friend of Roy's. And Josephine said, "I don't want to go." I think it was her second day. "He's got a friend. Would you like to go with us?"

And I said, "Where?"

She said, "To Harrisburg church."

I said, "Well, I guess so." I wasn't jumping for joy. I don't know; I thought he might take me out to eat, but anyhow we went. (Laughter.) We went to Harrisburg Church, and the thing I remember most was I carried my child. I carried my child. And I didn't know what I was going to say or do, but I had never been away from him, and I had gone back to teaching school. And he was standing at the door when Roy came.

And he said, "Are you going to leave me?"

And I said, "No. I'm not." So, we both turned around, and I introduced my child. And I said, "I've never really been away from him since his father and I divorced."

And he said, "That's fine." So, he stood between us. And then when Roy and I married, we were going to Memphis on our honeymoon.

We got to New Albany, and we remembered that little face standing at the door, saying, "You wouldn't go off and leave me, would you?" And he was approximately four.

We got to New Albany, and Roy turned around and said, "Are you thinking what I am?"

And I said, "Yes." We turned around and got our son, and he went on our honeymoon with us which was a one-night honeymoon. But, it's, "Love me, love my child." So, we started our lives, I feel like, on the fundamentals that we came as a team. And he had every opportunity to deny that. And Mom did not want us to marry because she felt it was very strange to her, after divorcing James for an impropriety in his life, Mom couldn't understand that he would love Jimmy as much as he would love me, that he would take the responsibility. But it worked. We're still a unit. We have a grandson that he worships. Two granddaughters.

Ramage: And your grandson's name is?

McComb: My grandson is Michael Blair Hill. And he is God's greatest gift to anybody that ever lived. And he is everything that we could ever want. He tells us—at least three times a week, he calls from Ole Miss to tell us how much he loves us. He comes over every weekend to assure us that he still loves us. From a tiny baby born on Saturday, 1978, he is now six foot, four [inches]. And he's a very fine Christian young man. He's president of the Ole Miss Student Council. And his "yes ma'ams" and "no ma'ams" were taught at home and not in school. And he knows that he is loved, and we feel like that our lives—you love your children, but there's something special about those grandchildren. And if I had any one thing to say, "That has enriched my life," it's been the joy of this boy. He's everything that God could have given.

A proprietor of a store wrote him a letter this week that touched us that, "We understand what a fine young man you are and that some day that we'll all be taking notice in Tupelo. And if you ever need me, even for a personal visit, please let me know." So, we were very proud of his reputation. I get a half-day maid once a month. So, Blair had not met this one. She comes and cleans house. And he walked in recently, and he said, "My name is Blair, and I'm so glad that you're helping my grandmother. She has not felt well. Do you mind if I get your phone number in case Granddad's out of pocket, and we may need you?" So, this is the boy that—

Ramage: And you really helped raise him?

McComb: We raised him. We raised him, and everybody in Tupelo knows we raised Blair. He has his own room, now, his door key, the same bedroom suite his dad had, the same bedroom suite we had when we married, when we bought—so, it's been handed down from generations. He has his own door key. And when Roy and I bought that bedroom suite at Home Furniture Company; then Blair, his dad used it; and then, now Blair. And I hope I live to see Blair's children, if God is good to me. Usually.

Ramage: Now, let me ask you this, Janelle. Two or three different things. First of all, do you—in looking at Tupelo years ago and looking at it, now, of course, it's changed.

McComb: Sure.

Ramage: It's changed. You used to work at Monts Tobacco.

McComb: Right. Almost forty years.

Ramage: Almost forty years at Monts Tobacco. And you really were the office manager.

McComb: Right.

Ramage: And you didn't have to have the computers and everything.

McComb: No.

Ramage: You did it all by hand.

McComb: And I did all the tax. We were audited. You would be audited every thirty days because you had to report to the State Tax Commission every thirty days because you dealt with federal and state stamps. Those stamps had to match the cigarettes you bought. The invoices that came from R.J. Reynolds, Brown Williamson, [etc.] I had to note every one of them, and I had to fill out forms for the State Tax Commission. Now, this is how acute they were. If we missed—if we were three cents over on a stamp, they would bring a little can, step outside and burn that stamp so you couldn't use it, again. That's state law. State law. There was nothing—people used to say, "Does it not bother y'all to have to be checked every thirty days?"

I said, "No. No."

Ramage: What year did you retire from Monts?

McComb: Ninety-one. [ I remember once after leaving ], there was an error made, and they could not find it. So, you know, if you try to do right, you're not afraid of anybody. You know. CPAs and the government, they've got their jobs to do. So, we were great friends. So, I went down, helped them look for that error. I'd bring it home, and I just liked to worry myself to death for three months. I never could fathom an error going on that long. Everything matched. Everything. In the night—if you've ever had something just hit you in the night—I thought, "I know what she's done." I couldn't wait. I got my clothes on at one o'clock; I went over to Mr. Mont's house on North Church and waked him! I said, "I have found that error."

He said, "At one o'clock in the morning?"

I said, "Yes. If I'm going to be this exhilarated, you are, too." The girl had inadvertently entered the invoice number rather than the invoice amount, and it had thrown the tax record off. So, they were (inaudible) compensating. And when I had called them before, I said, "You know, we've been going through this for years; I need some time."

And they knew that everything was going to be done right; they said, "Janelle, take all the time you need." So, I called them the next day, and that was the days before we had the machinery where you could do.

And I said, "I have found the error."

And they said, "Well, bully for you. Where was it?" And I told them. And he laughed. He said, "Oh, Janelle."

I said, "Can I mail it or do you want me to bring it down there?"

He said, "Why don't you just come down here and spend the day and bring it?" So, I—but I also had some incidents, you find if people don't want to do right. I had a sliding glass window through my door that looked over the warehouse. So, one day—when the tax people ask for your records, you have to give them. You know, I mean, you've got to give them. So, there was a store in Union County, the State Tax Commission asked for his invoices. Well, he just didn't do quite right. So, one day he was drinking, and he came by my window, and slid the door, and started to hit me with his fists.

Ramage: The store owner?

McComb: The man that owned the store. So, I just fell back in my chair, and fell over in the garbage can, but he started crying. And he said, "Oh, Janelle, I know it's not your fault." He apparently owed them quite a bit. But he said, "I'm so sorry. I wouldn't have had this to happen." And we both cried because he was one of my, one of the favorite customers we'd ever had, but he was known to nip a little. But I can truthfully say that if I had my life to live over, I worked for the finest people that God ever put breath in.

Ramage: Who are they?

McComb: C.W. Monts Sr. and Jasper Walker Monts who just died recently. And every Friday when I would leave, he would come into my office and say, "I hope you have a wonderful weekend." On Monday when I'd come in, he'd come back and he'd say, "How's my girl? Did you have a good weekend?" I could go all week on knowing that he cared enough to carry my little boy [who] got his front tooth knocked out in school; I had to work. He got in his big Cadillac, and went and got him. He was sitting on the back seat with his tooth knocked out and his little cap on. We had a great camaraderie, and it's something you don't find. You don't find.

Ramage: Now, Tupelo, who do you see in your years, living here all your life, who do you see as the great leaders of Tupelo? I know that that's a loaded question.

McComb: If I had to pick a man—and there were a lot of people that probably didn't understand him—I'd have to pick two, and they worked together. Mr. Harry Rutherford[?] and Mr. George McLean. And I really and sincerely feel that those two men had Tupelo's interests at heart. Mr. McLean was somebody that you could go down and talk to. And Harry Rutherford was the epitome of what a gentleman is.

Ramage: They were at the Journal, right?

McComb: Mr. Rutherford was right under Mr. McLean. When they came here, it was a broken newspaper. Broke. And they raised it up. Well, when you say, "leaders," I don't quite get the context of what a leader really is.

Ramage: I guess that one thing—and you've seen Tupelo come from what it was during the '20s to what it is now, and (inaudible.)

McComb: I think Mr. McLean was a dreamer that this day would come. I think he had vision, and I think it's going to take people with vision, not myopic vision, not vision that's going to be in one arena. But I like people that's got it for the whole spectrum, and I don't isolate one entity of a town. I love to see the whole town encompassed in one big, massive dream where everybody can work together and make—

Ramage: Do you think he tried, that Mr. McLean tried to get the county people and the city people together?

McComb: I think Mr. McLean—

Ramage: —and the whole area.

McComb: I think Mr. McLean was a man that—I found him somebody that you could talk to. You may not have even changed his mind on some things, but I found him very easy to talk to. He had time for you, but I think he was a massive dreamer, or a dreamer of massive entities, not just one area. So, I don't know. I don't know. I think—I grew up in the era of Debro and John Allen Cook[?] in the black neighborhood. They had grocery stores, and John Allen would come get us on the weekends and take us fishing. He served at my son's wedding, and I am totally color-blind. I really am. I think—I do not judge a man by the color of his skin, but by the color of his soul. And I don't believe in handouts to whites or blacks. I think you earn, you earn respect. And color does not make any difference. I think there are certain arenas that you're going to have good and bad and also-rans in the whole spectrum. But I'm glad to see Tupelo working together. I was so glad to see people go up and help clean the hill. I'm glad to see something happen, now, in Haven Acres, and I think if everybody would work together to make everybody's area a better place, all your troubles would be over. But I don't like people with egos. I'm a person, I like to do my thing, and like the old Indian, fold my tent and go on. Go on to other things. There are so many things in this world, that I would give anything if I was twenty-one.

Ramage: Would you?

McComb: I would. I would, more than anything. If I was twenty-one, I would dream of going to places like Haven Acres, and especially the hill where I knew so many people. And I wish the old farm was left down there where I could see the people pulling their cotton sacks, singing, "Swing low, I'm coming home." And I would like for them—they dreamed of a better place. I would have liked to have been a small part of them seeing a world that changed and—

Ramage: Was Tupelo ever that racist (inaudible)?

McComb: You know, it's a funny thing. I didn't even know we had a problem till the government told us. There was a difference, and you still had your black and white differences, but it wasn't an angry difference. It was a difference that was accepted until some day till somebody said, "Hey, wait a minute. We're all God's people. What's this big thing about?" I can see girl and boy, and men and women, but I didn't particularly see black and white. I saw no reason to have separate drinking fountains. I don't know.

Ramage: Tupelo never did have the race problems like other places.

McComb: No. They didn't. And I give that farm [owned by Peoples Bank, Tupelo, Mississippi,] down there one of the biggest credits for that. I do. We were welcome in those shanties. And when I say shanties, they were shanties, but we were made to feel special when we could lick the sugar cane that they were doing, when we'd get on their cotton bags, and they'd pull us out with them. I really—they were friends. There was no color, and look what great black artists you've got, now. Look what black statesmen you have now. Thurgood Marshall served on the Supreme Court for many, many years, and I think a very learned man. Now, from him, I learned a lot. If I had to pick one person in my life that would be my hero, that I would love to just sit for hours and listen to him, it would be Henry Kissinger, Jewish. But I think he has more intelligence, more dry wit, the ability to see beyond race, creed, and color. A faith that I think it's taken a mixed-up world to take a simple fact there's got to be a God. You didn't make that tree, and I didn't. And there wasn't a cult living that made that tree, or Second Baptist Church or the Episcopal Church. There was a God that made that tree, and I live with that premise every day. And I know, my boss asked me once before he died, "I'd like to ask you one question. We've been friends all these years." He knew death was eminent; a matter of days. He said, "You've worked for me a long, long time. Wouldn't you feel better just to know that one person had been, took a peek, to come back and tell you."

Without hesitating, I said, "It might make you feel just a little bit better," but still the thing that I'll sit and look out the window, knowing I'm not too far from going there, and I know that God is in every living thing. Every leaf I touch; you can't make that leaf. You can make one that may look like it, but you can't breathe that leaf, and you didn't make that tree, and you didn't make that water move. And you didn't make that sun come up. There's a God.

There's a God. And I learned that in Milltown when I was ten years old and Dr. Hunt said to me, "One day you're going to live in a mansion, streets of gold."

And I ran home and Granddaddy took me by the hand and put it on a Chinaberry tree. And I said, "Granddaddy, he said I was going to live in a mansion, and the streets is gold. How am I going to get there?"

And he clutched my hand, and he pushed it against that tree, and he said, "Your mansion is going to be made out of timber you send up."

(End of tape two, side one. The interview continues on tape two, side two.)

Ramage: All right. Janelle, one thing that we sort of eluded all during this interview is one person that you meant a lot in his life, and he was a Tupelo native, and I know what he thought of you and what his father thought of you, and that's Elvis Presley. And one of the stories that always (inaudible) is the time that you went up to Graceland, and—well, first, how did you—you know Elvis from—

McComb: I knew him better in the later years. And on a number of occasions, I would—he called them "happies." My secretary was Cathy Cody[?], Mike Cody's wife. And if he was sick, Cathy always answered the phone, and she would come in and say, "Elvis is in Baptist Hospital. He thought you might do him a little happy." That might be a little funny card or something just to acknowledge the fact that I knew he was ill. "He Touched Me" is my favorite song, and we had had a previous discussion about—we were in Las Vegas, and we had gone upstairs, and he was remarking about so many people there.

And I made the remark, "And there are people here from all over the world. There's a British conclave."

"Really?" And it seemed to amaze him.

And I said, "You know, when you placed your talent in the hands of God, Elvis, it was enough that the whole world knows you by one word, Elvis."

He said, "Really?" Again, really humble.

So, I spoke with his father about it, and I said, "You know, I want Elvis to let me borrow one of his guitars, and I want to design what I mean by 'He Touched Me.'" So, I've got the letter that I could choose which ever guitar I wanted. So, when we went upstairs, I chose the one with the mother-of-pearl name on it.

And he laughed, and he said, "How are you going to insure that? That's a pretty valuable guitar." (Laughter.)

I said—thought for a minute, and I thought, "Well, I sure didn't have the kind of money to insure it." I said, "I tell you what. I'll just sleep with it." I said, "Roy can sleep in the other bedroom, and I'll just sleep [with it]." So he got a big laugh out of that. So, I designed the picture, and I noticed an extra strap inside the guitar case. So, when the picture was completed, and it had been shot and framed, I thought we would go back with it, and—

Ramage: So, you took it back to Graceland?

McComb: Back to Graceland, and I have a picture of Roy holding his hand. And the man on the gate whose name is an old bachelor's name, Mr. Fred. And I said, "Mr. Fred, I've come back to bring Elvis' guitar." Elvis called him the little waving man. Every time you'd go through the gate, he'd wave. So, when I went back with it, I put—I have a picture of me sitting on the couch by the lamp with the picture.

But before he even looked at that, he grabbed the guitar case, opened it, and held up that strap and said, "Look, she brought it back." And for a minute, I didn't even know what he meant. He looked around; there were others in the room. And he said, "You didn't keep it for a souvenir."

And I said, "No. It was yours." And the look on his face was worth everything. I hadn't even thought about keeping it. I thought that it belonged to him.

If he had said, "You can have it." Or, "It's yours." But even then I don't think a guitar strap would have meant as much to me as my own way of demonstrating to him what I meant by "He Touched Me." But, I came home with a feeling.

Roy said, "You know, I guess so many have done that he really thought you wouldn't come back with that strap." Well, I won't ever forget that. And it stayed in my house two weeks. I just really never thought, "I wonder why a new strap"—it was new—"was put in the guitar when the old one"—I thought, "I wonder why he's got the new strap with the old guitar." But if I had to say of a legacy to children, he was not without fault, and he was—but if I had to say a legacy that he probably would leave or his era had left, it's the fact that in those two rooms, being involved in this particular era, I have found that most great people come from humble beginnings that really are great, and they never seem to forget that. And I think—

Ramage: Did he love his birthplace?

McComb: Beg pardon?

Ramage: Did he love his birthplace?

McComb: Yes. He did.

Ramage: What did he always say about his birthplace?

McComb: Well, he would always laugh, and, you know, say, "You can take this birthplace and put it in my living room at Graceland." But I think the thing that even his daughter—I've had the privilege of her sitting in his little chair in his birthplace, and I think she is always amazed to get that feeling that, "My dad came from this." I think she senses an impossible dream, and I think that the, as I have said often, when he sang, that little secretary remembered those two rooms, and she became office manager, that intern became chief of staff, that apprentice plumber became master plumber because he gave hope and inspiration to all those born under similar circumstances that could dream that impossible dream. And I think any time you leave a legacy of hope and dreaming, you've achieved. You don't have to sing. You can be the best butcher. You can wax floors or clean doors better than anybody because you want to be the best at what you do.

Ramage: Did Elvis love Mississippi?

McComb: I think a telegram in the museum at the Park[?] demonstrated that when he says, "Dear Colonel, I want to do a benefit for the McComb victims of the tornado in the state in which I was born. I want it to be a 100 percent benefit." So, I think that says something about Mississippi.

Ramage: Elvis's home.

McComb: Elvis's hometown, Mississippi, in the state—and he goes on to say, "in the state in which I was born." And so—

Ramage: Did he ever—when you would go to concerts and you would be his guest and things, would he ever mention that he was from Mississippi or would he—

McComb: I think on one occasion. One occasion I remember particularly that we were there one night, and he said, "There are some people here from my hometown, from the state I was born in." He said, "They're going to know what I mean when I sing 'poke salad.'" (Laughter.) And I never will forget, Robert Goulet was sitting on the right of us, and that night the Carpenters were there, Karen and her brother. And when he was done, she said, "What is poke salad?"

Ramage: Now, Elvis told Liz, when y'all were out at the Park one time, (inaudible.)

McComb: He said, "Where are you from, Liz?"

She said, "Pelahatchie." (Laughter.)

Ramage: Now, where is Liz? What's her last name?

McComb: Elizabeth Hill.

Ramage: From Jackson.

McComb: From [Jackson], but she lived in Pearl and Pelahatchie. I think she was born in Pelahatchie. And he laughed, he said, "Where the heck is Pelahatchie?" But he said, "It doesn't make any difference. It's where your mother gives you birth that's important. So, I guess all in all, the bottom line, is people are people. And shake it, twist it, wind it, elevate it, illuminate it, if you ain't got it in the heart, then you never were in the right place to begin with. All the talent in the world is not going to suffice or serve any entity if it doesn't come from the heart. The mainstream of life begins in that heart, and I think that your job, you do it with your heart. You do it for your salary, but you couldn't take that salary in good faith unless you knew that you'd given your very heartstrings for that entity in which you were responsible for doing.

Ramage: Now, let me ask you something. Let me figure this out. Year 2100, and you're probably going to have great, great-grandchildren that will be listening to this tape. And what would you tell them the secret of life is? They're sitting there listening to this tape; what would you say to them? What would you want them to know?

McComb: About him or about life?

Ramage: About life.

McComb: I would say to my grandchildren—

Ramage: Or great, great.

McComb: Or great, great, great-grandchildren. (Laughter.) Life is going to always be what you make it. It was a gift given to you in love and because of God's creation. You were made and born into his image. Don't distort that image because of wooden images, but take the gift he gave to you and remember you have the same twenty-four hours a day that any other person in this world will have. Take those twenty-four hours; encourage them; illuminate them; and, light the way for another person in another era to find his way through the niche in which you've arrived.

Ramage: Amen. And I thank you. You've been wonderful.

      
December 31st 1934
      
Tom Parker shown with circus troupe.
      

[Graeme]

1935Site Date Map 8th January 1935
There's one or twenty various accounts written over the years in books and also interviews by many not there themselves, but I've chosen to use an extract from Elaine Dundy's "Elvis & Gladys".

Just exactly who was present at Elvis' birth early that frosty morn in January of 1935? Accounts are so various, we shall probably never know.
According to Vernon, in an interview for Good Housekeeping in 1977, besides himself there were J. D., Minnie Mae, the mid-wife Edna Robinson, a friend and the doctor. According to Vester there were the whole first cast plus some other neighbours. but then Faye Harris had Elvis inaccurately born in the early afternoon as she had him inaccurately born before Jesse; whereas actually he arrived at 4.35 am, a half hour after Jesse.
What amuses East Tupeloans is the Legend of the Disbelieving Doctor who has to be convinced against his will that Gladys is having twins. with many variations it has been endlessly repeated.
The late Faye Harris told Jerry Hopkins for his biography of Elvis: 'All along Gladys told everybody she was going to have twins, but the doctor wasn't having any of it. Elvis was borned... and she said she was still in labour. The doctor said he didn't think so. Gladys said, "Well, there's still the same pain." Finally a neighbour said, "Doctor, there's another baby got to come out of there."' (And out comes Jesse - in the wrong order.)
Vernon, still in Good Housekeeping: 'After what seemed to me an eternity a baby was born - dead. But then my father put his hand on my wife's stomach and announced, "Vernon, there's another baby there." At the time Elvis was born medicine hadn't advanced enough for the doctor to predict twins, so his arrival took us completey by surprise.'
It makes a good story, but: 'As if Dr hunt and Edna Robinson couldn't tell for themselves that there were twins!' says Corene smith.
The simple straightforward fact of the birth of twins is as follows: in the case of a single baby when the mother discharges the afterbirth, her uterus contracts into a hard nugget; if she is having twins, the uterus will stay swollen. Dr Hunt would have had to have been a very inexperienced, not to say incompetent, doctor - and he was neither - to have failed to notice that after Jesse's birth Gladys' uterus was still swollen.
One of Parkinson's laws should read: the accuracy with which an event is remembered varies inversely with its importance.

After Elvis 'birth - with Gladys, as we have seen, 'close to death' - they were both taken to the Tupelo hospital. Perhaps it was not only Gladys who was fighting for her life. Perhaps her frail little infant 'no bigger than a minute' who had had such a difficult passage into the world was fighting for his life too.

10th January 1935

At some point in 1935 Octavia Lavenia "Doll" Smith, Elvis' grandmother, Gladys' mother, dies. She had tuberculosis most of her life; bedridden for most of her life after delivering first child.

[Graeme]

1936Site Date Map 7th January 1936
Noah Presley, Vernon's brother, becomes Mayor of Tupelo

Noah Presley, his wife and their son, Arnold

      
8th January 1936
Elvis Aaron Presley has his first anniversary of his birthday today.
      
5th April 1936
Tornado hits Tupelo.
Death Toll Mounts
(By The Associated Press)
Tornadoes whipped across the South from Arkansas to South Carolina today leaving more than 300 dead, 1,000 injured and property damage estimated at millions of dollars.
Tupelo, Miss., and Gainesville, Georgia, were hardest hit, with menace of storm generated fire adding to the horrors of the twisters and rain.
Physicians and nurses were rushed to the stricken towns by the Red Cross and adjacent towns. A train loaded with 90 injured sped to Memphis.
The growing death toll listed Tupelo at "more than 100," Coffeeville, Miss., 13; Huntsville, Ala., 3; Columbia, Tenn., 6; LaCrosse, Ark., 1; Booneville, Miss., 4; Red Bay, Ala., 5; Fayettesville, Tenn., 1; Gainesville, Ga., 22.
At Tupelo, emergency hospitals were set up and operations performed by oil lamp light last night. The city water supply was exhausted by destruction of the water tank and communication facilities were out of commission. Many were reported missing at Tupelo and other towns and the death toll is mounting hourly.

Tupelo, Miss., April 6. -- More than 100 were known dead in Tupelo and from 150 to 200 in Mississippi alone, and an estimated five hundred persons were injured in last night's fierce tornado which ripped into Mississippi, Alabama, Tennessee, and Arkansas with its death-dealing force centered in residential Tupelo. Tupelo city officials said the dead may run between one hundred and one hundred and twenty-five.
Churches, hotels and schools were converted into hospitals. One-third of the city's houses are piled up in the streets. Most of the business district escaped damage.
The storm frist struck at LaCrosse, Ark., killing one then roared into northeast Mississippi. From there it rushed northeastwardly into Alabama, killing five persons at Red Bay, then veered into middle Tennessee where at least six were killed in Armour Mines, Harland Mines and Crossbridge, near Columbia.

	This next clip is about the Tupelo tornado of 1936
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	@ 1:09 there is an aerial photo of Tupelo. In the very distance would be where Elvis home is. The main road you can see is the Main Street and the view is looking East

For decades, the state of Mississippi led the nation in tornado-related deaths: 1,091 between 1916 and 1974. The most devastating tornado to hit northeast Mississippi struck Tupelo on April 5, 1936. Two hundred twenty-two people died in the disaster, over 300 were hospitalized, and nearly fifty city blocks were levelled.

8th May 1936
Students clear the ruins of the segregated Lee County Training School, a month after the 1936 tornado

The famous first ever photo of Elvis, the one where it's been given different times to have taken place, with logical reason it has to be said.
For me, looking at children as they grow I just cannot place this as late as three years old, this is 18 months, maybe slightly more, but not much.
So, that being the case I've placed it here:

[Graeme]

1937Site Date Map 8th January 1937
Elvis Aaron Presley has his second anniversary of his birthday today.

Vernon, Travis Smith and Lether Gable sold a hog to Orville Bean. Bean sent them a cheque made out for four dollars - an amount all three of them felt was way under the true value of the hog. One night they discussed the issue and agreed they should do something about it and that was to try and change the amount on the cheque. Whilst it was told for many years that the amount on the original cheque was altered from four to either forty or fourteen dollars it was slightly worse than that. They got a blank cheque and tried to emulate by tracing over the original cheque the new details. They felt if it came down to it that the three of them would have their word against Beans that that was the cheque he'd written.

16th November 1937

Vernon, Galdys' brother Travis, a man named Leher Gable were charged on November 16, 1937, with "uttering a forged instrument" - altering, and then cashing, a four-dollar cheque of Orville Bean's made out to Vernon to pay for a hog.

Well, they were caught. And not long after they'd done it. As arranged, they pleaded not guilty. They were nevertheless thrown into the Tupelo jailhouse. Great pressure was put on Orville Bean by the community in East Tupelo to show leniency towards the offenders. Gladys was especially active at rallying everyone from the pastor and the congregation of the First Assembly of God, to alderman, to Noah Presley, mayor of East Tupelo - anyone she could approach on Vernon's behalf. She went to Orville Bean herself, pleading extenuating circumstances in the family - their hunger and the age of their small boy.
But nothing could slake Bean's anger. His view was that he had only bought the hog from Vernon in the first place to help him out - and look what Vernon turned around and did to him! If he couldn't trust his workers, how was he going to run his farm? But behind this official view, according to Aaron Kennedy, there was another reason for Bean's pressing charges for so small a sum. It was Bean's way of getting even with Noah Presley for muscling in on what Bean considered his territory.
And then Bean was heard to call Vernon something shocking, something that was considered in those lean years to be a very grave insult. He called Vernon Long Hungry, and there were many witnesses to this. To be Long Hungry meant that you were a glutton, a hog at the trough; it meant that you were capable of taking the food out of your own family's mouths in order to gorge yourself.

These photos are circa 1937 / 1938????. If anyone has anymore accurate info that'd be great, but I believe them to be circa more like 1945:

1937_Gladys_Smith_Presley.jpg (7.28 KiB) Viewed 11822 times

[Graeme]

1938Site Date Map 4th January 1938
A bond for bail was fixed at $500 each.
Two bonds were filed this day, C. E. Biggerstaff and J. H. Gable stood as surities for Lether Gable and J. D. Presley and J. G. Brown stood as surities for Travis smith.
There was no one standing bail for Vernon, even though his father stood bail for Travis he didn't stand bail for his own son. It is assumed that Vernon therefore had to spend the next 6 months in prison awaiting trial.

8th January 1938
Elvis Aaron Presley has his third anniversary of his birthday today.

24th May 1938
Vernon, Travis Smith and Lether Gable change their plea to guilty. This date is the date in "Elvis & Gladys" by Elaine Dundy. However, Peter Guralnick quotes the following day of the 25th.

With rent due as well as interest on the loan to Orville Bean, Gladys had to vacate the two room shack Vernon had built as it went to Orville Bean by default. She and Elvis moved in with relations, her sister Lillian came to help collect Gladys belongings and Elvis' toys and take them to live with her first cousin Frank Richards and his wife Leona and their children on Maple Street in South Tupelo. Frank was the eldest son of Doll's older sister Melissa.
Many sources cite Gladys' move as a way of getting away from living next door to her father-in-law and his attitude towards his son Vernon.

[Graeme]

1939Site Date Map 8th January 1939
Elvis Aaron Presley has his fourth anniversary of his birthday today

6th February 1939
Vernon, Travis smith and Lether Gable were freed from prison today after serving nearly 9 months after a community petition was sent to the State Governor along with a letter from Orville Bean requesting sentence suspension.

      
The slip below, dated July 29th 1939, shows that Vernon was reclassified from Labourer to Carpenter, effective from August 6th 1939 pay period.

1940