1940's

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Graeme
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1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 9:50 am

1940Site Date Map       
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Tupelo Hardware under construction.
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Not long after opening
In addition to the paragraph below it appears this may have been 1939 and not 1940. See 1939 for more info, but it has a WPA slip that reclassifies Vernon's status from "Labourer" to "Carpenter" and is dated July 29th 1939.
Vernon worked at a shipyard circa May 1940 under a WPA project but seems they only stayed there about 8 months before returning to East Tupelo. They went down there with Sales Presley and his wife Annie. Sales and Annie had had enough after 8 months and said they were leaving. Vernon and Gladys made their mind up about an hour later and caught up with them in the car. Some sources say 6 months some say the following month after arriving.

3rd November 1940
Vernon is granted an indefinite suspension of his sentence.

6th November 1940
The Presley's are now living in a rented house at 510 1/2 Maple Street in East Tupelo.

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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 9:53 am

1941Site Date Map       
Photograph of Elvis riding at the back with his cousin Kenneth up front.
The photo was alleged to have been taken during a street carnival procession - but I don't see anyone else out in the street nor do I see any evidence of any procession behind them.
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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 9:54 am

1942Site Date Map       
"The year before Elvis took his first active steps into the world of WELO was 1942. The United States had entered World War II. Vernon with his family entirely dependant on him was not drafted. Instead he went back to prison. Not - it must be quickly interpolated - to be incarcerated therein but, ironically to build one. Under the WPA, a prisoner-of-war Camp was being constructed in Como, Mississippi, 173 miles from Tupelo by J. A. Jones Construction Co. Inc. It was called Jap Town although, as it turned out, it held only German prisoners."
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Elvis circa 1942
Tupelo Childhood Classmates at Lawhon Junior High School in 1942.
Left: Elvis Presley, top: Evon Farrar (now Mrs. Bobby Richey), James Farrar (Fourth District Justice of the Peace).
Front row left: Guy Harris, captain with the Tupelo Police. Photo courtesy of Guy Harris and Wanda Powell Heagy.

The two images below are from the EPE archives. They are referred to as circa 1942 and circa 1943 respectively.
I'm of the opinion they were taken on the same day, never mind a different year. Elvis' clothes, the angle of the shadow cast and the building behind do suggest that they were taken moments apart. I believe the year to be 1942 and possibly looking at a very sullen Elvis amongst his happy friends they were taken just before they upped and moved to Memphis for the first time whilst Vernon had work during the war at the munitions factory.
Then look at the building above with the classmates and again at the clothes Elvis is wearing and that's why I'm grouping them together, I think they were taken quite closely in Elvis' timeline. Either way a person with a camera was present and this was on the school grounds, the building behind being one of the schools classrooms, though other sources say it was Elvis' uncles house.
Vernon, very smartly dressed in his leather jacket, slacks and polished shoes. Was this dress sense one which was afforded by Vernon's new well paid job in Memphis? Was this one of Vernons' trips back to Tupelo at weekends one of his last? Was the photo opportunity one for relatives and Elvis to remember before they headed off for a period of time as yet unknown?
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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:04 am

1943Site Date Map       
J D Presley, Vernon's father moved out of Tupelo this year which fits in with Minnie Mae going to live in Memphis.
This cutting from the 70's after his death mentions it:
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"Shortly before Jap Towns completion in May 1943, Vernon went up to his friend and fellow-worker, Bill Parham, and said he'd been given his dismissal slip and wanted to know if Bill had too. No, said Bill, he hadn't. There it was again: Vernon always the first to be let go. 'Well,' said Vernon to Bill, 'I guess I'll be going up to Memphis now to look for work.'
In the war boom, Vernon found factory work in Memphis. There he stayed receiving higher wages during this period than he ever had in his life and returning home only on weekends until the war was over and the factories were closed down."
Guralnick's Last Train To Memphis also adds that the factory Vernon worked at in Memphis was a munitions factory.
Evidence of the date for this is around May 5th 1943. Vernon was handed an introductory card to present to a future employer from the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners:
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I've moved things around in the various years for the 1940's.
Some things seemed odd, out of place and sometimes downright wrong. It wasn't until the WELO entry got moved forward 4 years from 1942 to 1946 that things started to make sense.
1942 saw the Presleys move to Memphis, hang on in there a sec, yes I know they moved in 1948 and they did but they had a stint there somewhere in between 1942 and 1944 as well.

They lived at 800 block Adams Street, not sure if that's North or South.

The plan here at some point is to try and get some documentation to post.
Gladys found work in a tyre factory whilst they were there. Minnie Mae had already been living in Memphis prior to Vernon seeking work there.
An example of things being contradictory can be found (but by no means limited to!) the following excerpt from John Micklos, Jr's book, "I Just Want To Entertain People" where it says they didn't go and live with Vernon in Memphis and that Elvis started singing on WELO in 1941 five years before it started its Saturday afternoon Jamboree to anyone who wanted to perform:
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Vernon, allegedly saying he looked for a single room - well he must have already had that - where else did he stay during the week? Maybe he was staying with his mother, Minnie Mae.

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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:05 am

1944Site Date Map       
The following tax return shows that Vernon was in Tupelo in 1943 after his work building the prisoner of war camp.
He drove a delivery truck for McCarty's, a Tupelo wholesale grocer, delivering grocery items to stores throughout northeast of Mississippi.
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Vernon had found work, very well paid work for him, in a munitions factory during the war. It was in Memphis.
Sources say Vernon worked during the week returning home to Tupelo for the weekend. I don't think that lasted too long as Vernon would get drunk Friday nights and get slung in a cell to dry out. Gladys and Elvis had already discovered what it was like for Vernon not to be around when he got sent to prison and so it seems Gladys and Elvis moved to Memphis to be with Vernon, Gladys even got herself a job at a tyre factory and they resided at 800 block on Adams Street.
"Why Elvis Left the Building" by Heart Lanier Shapr says that this is the first time the family as a whole moved to Memphis.
This is re-writing history here, I say re-writing it but no one has really looked into this period of Elvis' life this far before, but, EPE have never mentioned it in their timeline of Elvis' life either.
'Why Elvis Left the Building' by Heart Lanier Shapr wrote:If a person checked the Memphis City Directory they'd find out that Gladys Presley worked at a tyre factory from 1942-1944 while Vernon couldn't hold down a job very long due to his public drinking and arrests. He did labour at a local Army Depot on Jackson Avenue but every weekend he was arrested for his drinking.
12th June 1944

Vernon takes out a loan for $150, to be paid back in 3 monthly instalments of $50 each
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15th August 1944
      
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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:05 am

1945Site Date Map       
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Elvis, Gladys and their "neighbours" Hubert and Tina Tipton.
Hubert was related to the Presleys via Gladys. His wife Tina's two sisters had married Gladys' two brothers, Travis and Johnny Smith.
      
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Vernon swaps places with Elvis and Elvis takes a not so well framed photo.
No leaves on the trees suggests either end of the year but Elvis is very smartly dressed, so going to church maybe - or maybe it's someone's birthday and it was around or on Jan 8th. Elvis is not yet wearing the spectacles we see him wearing at the fair.
'Why Elvis Left the Building' by Heart Lanier Shapr wrote:I watched Elvis grow up. I first met him in Tupelo. I lived in Shannon which is about five miles south of Tupelo. My wife's two sisters had married Elvis' mother's two brothers whose names were Travis and Johnny Smith. therefore, my relationship to Elvis was rather like an uncle though I was not actually related by blood.
"That first time I met Elvis was when he was just a small kid. Vernon and Gladys had bought him with them when they had come down to Shannon where we had a small farm. He bought with him his Gene Autry guitar that his mama had bought him but he didn't know much about playing it. At that time, I was trying to teach his Uncle Johnny the guitar. Of course, Elvis just watched and picked up what he could. Later on I showed Elvis a few chords on his guitar.
This little excerpt throws quite a bit of light on things. Looking at Elvis in the photo above he looks more older than I'd expect from the little lad shown coming fifth at the Dairy Show in allegedly the same year. If, however, the year is wrong and it refers to 1946 then Elvis looks the right size it could also be the same occasion Hubert refers to first meeting Elvis and the photo was taken near their farm in Shannon. Elvis got a guitar for his 11th birthday in 1946 (not at his 12th in 1947 as is often told.)
The two slight flaws are that Hubert says 'I first met him in Tupelo. I lived in Shannon....' and 'The first time I met Elvis..... they had come down to Shannon.' This can be explained by referring to Tupelo as a whole incorporating all towns around as opposed to referring to specifically just Tupelo in the other instance. Also, when Hubert refers to, 'I watched Elvis grow up." He must have meant that he watched him grow up from the age of 11 onwards as opposed to from birth.



18th August 1945,
Vernon purchases a new four room house in Berry Street, East Tupelo from Orvile Bean. The price is $2000, with a down payment of $200 and monthly installments of $30 plus 6% interest.



Entering fifth grade, Elvis along with the rest of the class, hoped that of all the homeroom teachers, they wouldn't get Mrs Oleta Grimes (Orville Bean's daughter).
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Mrs Grimes and her husband (Date unknown)
She had the reputation for being hard, the one you couldn't get away with anything - but Mrs Grimes was the one they got. At the beginning of that school term Mrs Grimes asked her pupils if any of them would like to say a prayer. Elvis got up and said one and then went straight into his rendition of 'Old Shep'. Mrs Grimes was highly impressed. 'He sang it so sweetly', she told Elaine Dundy. She took him to the school Principal, Mr Cole, and again Elvis sang 'Old Shep'. Mr Cole was similarly impressed. This was a few weeks before the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show, held in Tupelo. Elvis was promptly entered.
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3rd October 1945,
It is children's day at the annual Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show at the Fairgrounds in the middle of town. Ten-year-old Elvis stands on a chair at a microphone and sings 'Old Shep' in the youth talent contest. The talent show is broadcast over WELO Radio.
'Elvis & Gladys' by Elaine Dundy wrote:But back in 1945 on that day of the Mississippi-Alabama fair, who won first prize?
As with many other important events in Elvis' life, a certain amount of confusion surrounds it.
In 1977 an article in the Tupelo Daily Journal, which was later reprinted in many other publications, had a Becky Harris of Bissell, aged six, winning with 'Sentimental Journey'. The only trouble is that she won it in 1946, a year later. When Shirley (Jones) Gallentine read the article, she called the journalist who wrote it and asked for a correction. It was she who had won first prize at the 1945 contest. A year younger than Elvis and also a pupil at East Tupelo Consolidated School, she had ridden over to the fair in the school bus with Elvis. She wore an off-the-shoulder white dress her mother had made for her and sang 'My Dreams are Getting Better All The time' and won first prize of a $25 war bond.
In school assemblies for the rest of the year she and Elvis often sang duets together: 'Deep in the Heart of Texas', 'Blue Moon Over My Shoulder', 'My Blue Heaven' and a lot of other Gene Austin songs.

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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:05 am

1946Site Date Map       
7th January 1946, Monday
'Elvis & Gladys' by Elaine Dundy wrote:Elvis' eleventh year got off - literally - to a shrieking, screaming start. On the day before his birthday, Monday, 7 January 1946 at 5am, a tornado ripped northeastwards through Lee County. This one, small and freakishly out-of-season, wreaked nothing like the damage the big one had in 1936, only touching the edge of Tupelo at Clayton Avenue. Still, there again was that frightening sound, the sound of a hundred freight cars crashing into each other and a hundred train whistles going off together, to send terror through the hearts of the inhabitants and speed their feet towards the storm shelters.
8th January 1946, Tuesday
'Elvis & Gladys' by Elaine Dundy wrote:According to F. L. Bobo - the same Mr Bobo who used to drive Gladys and Elvis to visit Vernon in Parchman - it was for Elvis' ninth or tenth birthday that he received his first real guitar.
Mr Bobo, who ran the hardware store where it was bought describes the event:
Elvis and his mother came in one morning. He was anxious to buy a rifle, his mother was trying to persuade him to buy a guitar. I showed him the rifle first and then I took him and showed him his guitar and I sat him down behind the counter on a shell box and he enjoyed that too. He told his mother hi didn't have enough money to buy the guitar so she said 'I'll pay up for you, but I can't pay up if it's to buy you a rifle. You're liable to kill all your little playmates.' So elvis convinced himself about the guitar. The papers always said it was $12 but it wasn't - you got a real good guitar back in those days for $12 - but this was only $7.75, I believe. Of course, we had a 2c sales tax.

Two things stand out in this narrative: first, that Elvis himself had saved up his own money towards his birthday present (by doing yard work for other people and accepting empty Coke bottles in payment which he cashed in) and second, with 'you're liable to kill all your little playmates' Gladys vividly reveals that recurringly apprehensive state of mind.
This video also tells the story, and at 1:25 you can pause and read a letter Forrest L Bobo had written to author Bill Williams which is almost worded the same as he told Elaine Dundy.
The guitar pictured in the video has never been proven to be Elvis' guitar. It's never been exactly disproven either, but the consensus of many guitar historians is that it is more likely not than is.
James V Roys site scottymoore.net has more info: http://www.scottymoore.net/ep46kay.html

"From around the age of eight [sic eleven], Elvis would spend many Saturday afternoons at the Tupelo Courthouse where WELO broadcast it's Saturday Jamboree, an amateur program which started at 1pm and went through till 4.30pm. It had live audiences of up to a hundred and fifty people. Anyone could sing or play on the program and many times Elvis did. 'Old Shep' being just one of the many songs he sung."

So, the "history books" say it was around when Elvis was 8 ears old he started to sing on WELO..... well, he probably didn't. Those interesting "facts" one comes across seem to gain weight simply because they are then repeated around the interweb a few thousand times until they become accepted without must notice to the contrary.
Elvis was 11 years of age, not 8. WELO did not start broadcasting it's Saturday program until 1946.
This also explains and makes other previously confusing things make more sense.
Elvis Presley grew up listening to WELO. In 1945 at age 10, he performed live on the station in a youth talent contest. Elvis came in second place and won $5.00 and free admission to the Mississippi-Alabama Fair and Dairy Show. He would later appear on WELO as part of the weekly music jamborees hosted by Mississippi Slim.
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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:05 am

1947Site Date Map
      
10th April 1947
      
Change in location to North Green Street on an existing insurance policy.
      
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1947, Shake Rag, Tupelo MS.
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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:07 am

1948Site Date Map
Most probably in January, if not the 8th itself, Elvis with his Firestone Pilot Classic bicycle.
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28th March 1948,
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1st April 1948
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May / June (end of that school year?)
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11th September 1948,
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From an interview with Magdalene 'Maggie' Morgan conducted by Bill E Burk he wrote: 'I guess my infatuation with Elvis started in that little (Assembly of God) church up in East Tupelo', says Magdalene, known as Maggie in school because people, including Elvis, never got around to learning how to spell her name correctly. 'He sang and picked the guitar. I sang and played piano'.

'I was the church pianist when I wasn't but eight or nine. 'We were always in Christmas plays together up at the church. I always played opposite Elvis, which really thrilled me a lot. One time, I remember, he was one of the wise men and I was one of the angels. Another time, he was Joseph and I was Mary.

'He was just my ideal guy. He was very pleasant, very polite. He didn't talk a whole lot. Elvis was kind of embarrassed a lot. He did not like crowds. He would talk to me a lot if we were by ourselves, like when my mother and I would visit the Presley home, which we did often because Gladys was my mom's best friend'.

Magdalene said she attended a couple of birthday parties for Elvis in his home.

'He and I would sing. We would hold hands and talk. We would go for walks in the woods out behind his house and he would talk about what he wanted to be when he grew up. He always talked about wanting to be a singer and he would marry someone who would have to be a lot like his mama. This was when we were ten, eleven, on up in there. He was just my little guy, you know'.

'At that time I was very young. I didn't expect my life to end or go anywhere without Elvis because he was my man. I was right there with him when he sang his very first song on WELO Radio. I was so proud of him!'

The station was downtown, she believes on Spring Street. Not above the Black & White store, as has been written so often. 'That's incorrect', says Magdalene. 'There was a restaurant on that same street. Nanny's Cafe. Owned by my uncle. My mom and I worked there. Well, Mom worked and I piddled. The radio station was upstairs over the restaurant. The disc jockey would call down and order his food and I would carry it up to him. That's where Elvis sang his first song on the radio. I can't remember the DJ's name. It wasn't Mississippi Slim and it wasn't Roy Miller. Mississippi Slim had his own program and Nubin Payne sang with him on his show. Elvis did sing on Slim's program a couple of times, but that was later'.

Back to the birthday parties. 'They were at that little house on Old Saltillo Road. There would be Elvis and his family; me and my family. We were very poor. We managed to have the usual meal-beans, potatoes and meat. And then some birthday cake. Gladys made the cake and the frosting. And sometimes she made the ice cream in one of those old-time ice cream freezers. We had to take turns cranking.

It was a good old party for people back then when people were poor and salaries weren't very much'.

For birthday gifts, Elvis would receive a shirt, sometimes a hand-made one made out of flour sack material.

'Gladys was very good at sewing', Magdalene remembers. 'She worked in a sewing factory. He'd wind up getting the shin, maybe a bar of candy. Those were the good ol' times, something we will always remember'.

'One of his favourite candies back then was Milky Way'. 'I know one time we were at this Christmas play at the church. His Uncle Sales (Vernon's brother) was calling out the names of kids for presents.

I had wanted a bicycle for a very, very long time'.

'Sales called out my name. 'Magdalene'. 'Elvis and I were talking at the time and I had not heard my name called out. Elvis' dad drove a truck then and he delivered candy and cigarettes. His employer had donated this big canon of Milky Ways and I won this gigantic case of Milky Way candy bars.

That was more candy than I had ever seen in my life!'

'Well, Elvis and I went back to talking again and once more Sales kept saying, 'Magdalene. Magdalene'. Finally, he said, 'If you don't want this bicycle, I'll give it to someone else'. We stopped talking right away. I ran up there and got my bicycle. That was the highlight of my day! Of my life!' One small problem. The Morgans lived about eight miles from the church. How to get that shiny new bicycle from the church to her house?

'There I was, in a long white satin evening gown that I had worn during the Christmas play', she recalls. 'No way to get my bicycle home and I didn't dare leave it at the church!'

'So Vernon and Gladys and Mom and Elvis got in their car I got a big safety pin and I pinned this satin gown up between my legs. Up the hill we went all the way to Martin Hill. Vernon was driving about three miles per hour right behind me'. 'I rode my bike home. They had my candy in the car, so I was happy. Very happy'.

Oft-times, while the mothers visited in the Presley house, Elvis and Magdalene would take strolls through the woods in the hills behind the house. There, they would talk, dream aloud and once, Elvis even got up the nerve to kiss his girlfriend for the first time! 'We were just like any of the other kids while together', she said. 'We would talk about school, church, singing He always wanted to be a singer Always!

That was his greatest ambition, to be a singer'.

'At the time, we had planned to go through this together. (Laughs.) But it changed. We were so close at that time I just thought we would always be together - in life, singing, everything'.

'Back then, there was nothing but woods behind the house. One day he took a knife and he carved a heart on a tree trunk and in it he put my initials and his initials And then he carved 'Love Forever' underneath the heart'.

'Later, he would carve the same thing into the lumber near the back of his house. He carved that one very lightly, then took a pencil and outlined it. After I moved to California and came back, I went out there and looked for those hearts. The tree was gone and the heart carved into the house was gone. I was disappointed. I guess I had expected to find everything as it was when we left'.

Though they were 'sweethearts' from the end of the filth grade until Elvis moved to Memphis in the beginning of the seventh grade, their kisses were few and far between.

'Just twice in three years. No, make that three', she beamed, as if the smacky lips had happened only yesterday. 'I remember them all. The first time was just after he had carved that heart in the tree. The second time, we were sitting in the swing on his front porch one night while our parents were talking inside. He slowly eased his arm around me, like he didn't know if this were the thing to do or not at this stage. And then he just sort of leaned over and kissed me. The third time, he sneaked a kiss in the back seat of the car while we were going to a (church) rally. I mean, that was a real sneaky. Just a little quick kiss'.

What type of kisses were they? The steamy, sensuous types flashed on movie screens around the world?

'Heavens, no!' Magdalene shouted. 'No! We were too young for that.

Our parents would have killed us if we had kissed like that!'

They attended school together at Lawhon. 'He really tried his very best, but he didn't make the best of grades', she remembered. 'He was always very well-mannered in school. He never had to go to the principal's office or stand in the corner. I'm sure his mother and father helped him at times with his homework, but I never did. He was always bringing his guitar to school and at lunch time he would go sit out under a tree and pick and sing.

Not just to me, to anyone who happened to be listening'.

'He mostly wore overalls or coveralls; at times a flour sack shirt. He did have a few better shirts. He was always neat and clean. His clothes were always pressed Once in a while he would wear jeans, but he never liked wearing jeans. Said he wasn't comfortable in them'.

'And he didn't wear tennis shoes. He wore those high top shoes-brogans? You could buy them for $3 a pair then. Today, kids wear them and they pay $100 a pair'. 'Once in awhile we would go across the highway to Johnnie's and drink a Coke. Always, his mother was with us'.

Elvis' habit of stammering while talking in public was evident even in elementary school days.

'To me, Elvis always seemed nervous', said Magdalene. 'He never could sit still. He stuttered. Not to the point you couldn't understand him. It was 'Ah ... ah ...' Like he did in later life, after he got famous. He was kind of fidgety, especially in crowds. He had a habit of tapping his pencil when he talked.

It was a sign of nervousness'.

Their relationship was not confined to the classroom or the school ground. 'We didn't go to the movies', she said. 'No money. In our little church we had a group for young people called Christ Ambassadors. They had CA rallies all over this area and whichever church brought the most members to a rally got a CA banner. They could take it to their church and keep it until some other CA group did better'.

'Elvis and I were always together at those CA rallies.

We would go to different towns-Saltillo, Corinth, Priceville. Most times we would go there on the church buses. Once or twice we rode with Aaron Kennedy, the song leader at our church'.

She remembers the Presleys as a close-knit, loving family.

'He idolized his parents and they idolized him', she said. 'He held a high respect for his mother and father. If they said 'no', that meant 'no'. I know I'm prejudiced, but Elvis was just a well mannered boy to be an only child. I'm an only child and I was spoiled rotten and I know it. Elvis was brought up like kids should be today, from the old school, with a lot of respect, no talking back, no sassing'.

In the church, Magdalene, on piano, would accompany Elvis as he sang from behind the pulpit - gospel songs like 'Amazing Grace', 'The Old Rugged Cross', and some of the older, better-known hymns.

'After they moved the radio station out on the levee, on Sunday afternoons I would go there and play the piano while Doris Presley, Elvis' second cousin, Sales and Annie's daughter, would sing. Elvis, Vernon and Gladys were there many times to give us support, but Elvis never sang on those Sunday sessions. Just like I would go with him to the Saturday jamborees and he would sing on the radio and I never did'.

There were times Magdalene and her mother would spend the night with the Presleys. 'After we would eat supper, they would make Elvis a little pallet on the front floor. Me and mama would sleep on a pallet in the kitchen. They would move the table over to make room for us.

I don't think our parents ever worried that the two of us were getting too close'.

'He never proposed marriage to me. Nothing like that. We were much too young to be thinking things like that in those days. Oh, he would say 'When we grow up, we are going to do this, do that'. At that time, if you just held hands it was very serious. And we did hold hands a lot. It was very serious (between us)'.

'I remember that night on his front porch swing, when he slipped his arm around me while Mama, Gladys and Vernon were inside. I thought, 'My goodness, we're practically engaged!' You know how children were then? Of course, it's a lot different now'. 'It was just a very sweet relationship. Very clean. Very sweet'.

And then came the heartbreaker. The Presleys announced they were moving to Memphis.

'When I heard they were moving to Memphis, I cried a good while', said Magdalene. 'I missed him. I kept missing him even after I got married and had children. I loved Elvis. I will always love Elvis. There will always be a spot in my heart and Elvis will always be there'.

After Elvis left town, their paths drifted apart. They would see each other again only once And they almost made contact by telephone in Hollywood once. Almost.

'The last time I saw Elvis, I was working with my mother in the Depot Cafe in Tupelo', said Magdalene, a touch of sorrow in her voice. 'Everything about him had changed. His looks. His mannerisms. But deep down, he was still the same guy. When he walked into the cafe, I was taking a break. My mom brought him to my table and said, 'Maggie, do you know who this is?' 'And I said, 'Sure, It's Elvis'.

'He sat down at my table and we talked for awhile, He went over some of the music he was getting ready to sing. Said he had been down on Beale Street in Memphis and had been singing with some black people. And he now had a guitar with all the strings on it. He was real excited about what was beginning to happen in his life'.

'I would like to think he had come back to Tupelo specifically to see me. We never wrote letters. (Elvis remained notorious for not writing letters throughout his life.) Not long after he moved, I became engaged, I didn't wait for him. I figured I was never going to move to Memphis. I figured he would just go his way; I would go mine, I told my husband all about Elvis. He didn't appreciate it. He was jealous'.

After getting married, Magdalene found herself working in a restaurant in Hollywood. A friend of her husband's was working on a movie set where Elvis was filming. On hearing that Magdalene and Elvis were once 'an item' in Tupelo long ago, he suggested she telephone the studio and try to talk with Elvis'.

'He gave me the telephone number', she said.

'I called. They tried to give me the brush-off He was getting a lot of calls because he had a lot of fans. I explained to them Elvis and I had attended school and church together in Tupelo. Finally, I convinced them I was legitimate; that I was not some starry-eyed teenager; that I was grown up and had children'.

'The man said he would have him call me during a break in the shooting. I was on a break myself, working split-shift at the Firebird. I had to go back to work. I was very disappointed Elvis had not called me.

'Then, after retuning to work, I called this (movie) man's home and he said Elvis had called for me not thirty minutes after I had called him. I never got to talk to him'.

In 1992, a marriage certificate, supposedly uniting Elvis and Magdalene, popped out of the woodwork. Some thought it authentic because it was clearly Elvis' signature on the official document, which also included the date of 'marriage' and the Justice of the Peace's signature. Others thought it was just Elvis joking again.

On seeing the marriage license, Magdalene shouted, 'My Lord! Where did this come from?! I never saw it before!' Scanning it more closely, she noted, first, the signature was not in her handwriting; besides, her name was even misspelled. (As said above, Elvis, never got around to learning how to spell her name correctly.) Then she noted the date on the license Just hours before Elvis and his parents were moving to Memphis. Perhaps this was his feelings about the girl he left behind. Given that thought, tears formed in the eyes of Magdalene Morgan.
1948_Magdalene_Morgan_Elvis.jpg



6th November 1948,
When Elvis was in the 8th grade, the Presley's moved to Memphis, Tennessee, about 80 miles northwest of Tupelo.
memphis_1948.jpg



Anyone have any accurate date / timeline for these two?
1948_circa.png
Photo taken circa 1948, but I've no additional accurate info to place it better (end of year school photo?)
1948_later_in_year_question.jpg
Not much differene in the timeline between this photo and the one to the left

Graeme
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Re: 1940's

Post by Graeme » Fri Oct 28, 2016 10:07 am

1949Site Date Map The image below looks more 1949 to me but could easily be 1948, if anyone has any other suggestions or can place it better in the timeline just holler:
1949_question.jpg



8th January 1949,
Elvis' 14th anniversary of his birthday.
Vernon Presley gives Elvis a paperback book of cartoons by George Price with the inscription: "May your birthday be sprinkled through 'n through with joy and love and good times too. Daddy". The book travelled with him to Germany in 1958 and was left behind in his rented house at 14 Goethestrasse.



17th February 1949,
Vernon Presley found full-time employment at the United Paint Company, located at 446 Concord Avenue in North Memphis, just a few blocks away from the rooming house on Poplar Avenue. It was a tough job requiring him to handle hundreds of cases of paint each day. Vernon Presley's job was the hardest he'd ever had, but he kept it to prove that he could work full-time. One person referred to the United Paint Company as a place for "mule work". It required an extraordinary amount of physical stamina, and the working conditions were primitive.



5th May 1949,
Vernon Presley pay with overtime comes to $51.88, and the next day he pays his $12.11 bill at Williams Grocery.



1949_Humes_Library_Crew.jpg



17th June 1949,
As a follow-up to Vernon's application for public housing, Jane Richardson, a home service adviser for the Memphis Housing Authority, visits Gladys Presley and Elvis in the Presley family's rented room at 572 Poplar while Vernon is at work. She notes that they share a bathroom with the other residents and cook on a hot plate. They pay $9.50 a week in rent. Miss Richardson's report indicates that their application has merit and that they could use housing, preferably near Mr. Presley's work. The son, she notes, is a ''nice boy'', and both Mrs. Presley and the boy seem ''very nice and deserving''. Vernon salary is listed as $40.38 per week at 85 cents per hours.





3rd July 1949,
Elvis got his 8th grade report card from Humes High
1949_jul_03_01.jpg



572_poplar.jpg
572 Poplar, boarded up prior to demolision



Elvis posing with the same Firestone Pilot Classic bicycle we see at aged 13 in 1948.
This photo was taken between June and September 1949 outside S&S Drug Store at 548 Poplar Avenue, when the Presley's lived at 572 Poplar Avenue in East Memphis.
1949.jpg
A young Elvis posing on his bike in front of the S&S Drug Store in 1949
It could be earlier than June though when the Presley's lived on Washington with ran adjacent to Poplar.
Here's a map of way back then and Googles view of the area now:
1949_map.jpg
1958_map_poplar_washington.jpg
1958 Aerial Photo Washington and Poplar
1949_area_today.jpg



In Elaine Dundy's book Elvis and Gladys, chapter 10, "Memphis" her opening paragraph is inaccurate and also contradictory to what she'd written earlier:
It took the Presleys a while to get their bearings in the city, which except for visits to the zoo in Uncle Noah's school bus, Elvis had never seen before.
Yet for 1942 she'd cited the evidence that all the Presleys moved to Memphis when this was the only place Vernon could get a job along with Gladys working there as well.



20th September 1949,
According to Jane Richardson, Elvis Presley and his family moved into Apartment 328 of the Lauderdale Courts, a public housing project located at 185 Winchester Street. Interestingly, Guralnick says this move occurred first on September 20, after Elvis had already started his freshman year at Humes High.

All in all, it was a happy move: the apartment was not only much cleaner than the one on Poplar Street, but it had a living room, two bedrooms, a kitchen, and a private bathroom. Rent was $35 a month; low enough that Vernon could easily meet it. The day after the Presley's moved into the Lauderdale Courts, the telephone company installed a desk phone in the front room. Their telephone number was 37-4185.

Elvis Presley quickly memorized the telephone number and urged everyone that he knew to call him. The Presleys lived in the Courts for three and a half years. Roughly a year later Minnie Mae came to live with them. This caused over-crowding in the apartment, leaving Vernon and Gladys with no privacy and creating tensions within the family. Mrs. Presley was more popular than Mr. Presley in the Courts; everyone spoke of her warmth and liveliness. Still, the Presleys kept mostly to themselves. They were like a family set apart, almost sealed off from the people around them. And the absolute focus on Elvis, their only child, sometimes led even family members to feel like outsiders.



memphis_city_directory.jpg
After September when the Presleys moved to Lauderdale Courts they left Minnie Mae staying at Poplar Avenue as listed in the 1950 Memphis city Directory



15th October 1949,
The edition of the Memphis Housing Appeal, the Housing Authority's newspaper, lists the Presleys as one of seventeen new families who have recently moved into the Lauderdale Courts. Quietly, without going out of his way to call attention to himself, Elvis Presley starts to make new friends, playing guitar with a group of older boys under the leafy trees of Market Mall, the path that bisects the neatly kept housing development. He remains in the background for the most part, singing the gospel numbers and popular ballads that he loves and learning all that he can from these more experienced teenage musicians.
lauderdale_housing_assoc_oct_1949.jpg
And who moved in the same time? A Mrs Elvis Barbee.

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Re: 1940's

Post by Private Presley » Tue Oct 19, 2021 11:15 am

1949
1949 Elvis and Betty Ann McMahan.jpg
14-year-old Elvis and his girlfriend Betty Ann McMahan sitting on the curb on Winchester Street across Lauderdale Courts in Memphis, TN was taken by neighbor Margaret Cranfield in 1949. Gladys Presley knew Betty Ann's mother and worked with her in the same company. Gladys introduced Elvis to Betty Ann. Elvis is wearing a cap from the United Paint Company where his dad worked.

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