There is much I have left out of this story of the ways in which history impacted my father’s life and career. His journey suggests that whether we are aware of it or not, history affects us. In my own lifetime, we have been told by life coaches, self help authors and reflective celebrities that anything is possible, that there is nothing we cannot overcome and that the only barriers to success are those we impose upon ourselves.
Perhaps we should be a bit more generous and accept that our parents were products of their own times-just as we are; and, that talent, hard work and determination are only a few of many factors in a larger scheme of things. Historical events, economic upheavals and chance are also involved . History is sometimes a “social science,” a hopefully scientific explanation deduced from statistics or said to be determined by immutable and recurring patterns. But chance plays a role as well. I believe It is easier to find forgiveness and understanding when we recognize that history creates its own winners and losers. Human will, even faith, cannot always triumph over circumstances. Literature and history share the task of explaining this struggle. Often history can not reduce its explanations to a level we can understand. So, literature turns the facts into fictions to inform us through more easily understood stories, relatable truths. This gray area is where I belong and where I write.
My father’s last years, the late 1960’s and 1970’s, coincide with my eight years in college and graduate school, when I was consumed with my own struggle to find my career path and gain a footing. My family came to see me graduate from the University of Georgia where I received my Ph.D. in 1968. Dad’s feelings were mixed, I am sure. He was proud of my achievement, but was disappointed. He had hoped I would become a physician. I was married and had a little girl by then, and had just accepted a college faculty teaching position.
During that last decade or so of Dad’s life, we went fishing once, hunting once, and never corresponded or talked on the telephone. Our communication passed through my mother, Mamie. There were trips to take my new family to visit my old one, to share the joy of a young child, especially with my mother, and my younger brother and sister. Ellen, thirteen years my junior, spent weeks with us in the summer and we enrolled her in weeklong summer camps at the church’s retreat center on the coast. But my parents seldom made the trip to visit my family.
In fact, my father was working at a new job that consumed his energy and time as resident engineer, part of an enormous water treatment project in the Savannah River watershed known as the Horse Creek Project. It was the largest such project in the United States at the time, involving the grading of hundreds of acres of land and construction of a forty million dollar (about $200 million in today’s dollars) sewage processing facility to serve North Augusta, Aiken, and the enormous textile milling operations there, all on the South Carolina side of the great river. He was able to move back to Augusta and purchased a modest home, driving into South Carolina every working day.
We always felt this project took a heavy toll on Dad. With its days of exposure to stifling ninety degree heat, suffocating dust churned by the grading machines and rainy seasons that made construction sites dangerous and challenging places to work, this years-long project exhausted Dad and likely contributed to his death.
Again, alcohol was his solace. He could be hard to live with. Taking my family to visit meant unavoidable confrontations with Dad, or enduring his long discourses on how government policies and programs were ruining the country. He had come to hate the Democrats and the Kennedys. The race and antiwar demonstrations that dominated the news cycle ate at him. Yet, ironically, he was working on a major government- funded project, one not unlike his early jobs with the TVA and Department of War, construction jobs building dams with the Tennessee Valley Authority and shipping facilities for the War Department. But, whatever happened at home stayed at home. He simply never missed work and often carried his work home with him. He was what we would call today a workaholic. But at last he gave out. In 1976 he suffered abdominal pains and came down with a terrible case of influenza. Cancer would soon claim his remaining strength.
Dad passed away in 1977 at the relatively young age of 60. On his sick bed, he drew his first “welfare” check as a result of his illness. It pleased him to feel he was at last getting back some of the Social Security payments he had made over a forty year career.
It is impossible to say what produced the cancer that killed him, but it seems likely that his years of exposure to harsh working conditions played some role. Nervous energy and anxiety continued to plague him, but his doctor said he still had a very strong heart at the end. I was with him on the day before he died on November 10, 1977. Pain medication made him unresponsive. I embraced him. It was my duty as a son.
Reflecting on the times in which my father lived, it is very clear that he, his parents and his grand parents suffered during the terrible economic dislocations that affected the nation and devastated the small, rural world that had been the home of the family since the 1790’s. Cotton’s last hurrah in the World War I years created false hopes. The collapse of cotton destroyed the future of many southern families. What remained was swept away by the Great Depression.
My father was a member of what has been called the “Greatest Generation”. We often think the victory over fascism in World War II was their greatest accomplishment. The conflicts and tragedies that shaped their lives before the war must have had a profound effect. Hugh’s parents, White and Tressie, began the twenties with high hopes. The financial catastrophes they experienced must have ben especially frustrating, given the bright future they anticipated. They must at times have felt that they were born on the wrong side of history. I think my father fought hard to succeed because his own father’s hopes had been destroyed. His was a harsh legacy.
For more about “God’s Smallest Place,” Gough, Georgia’s history and stories see
I enjoyed this a d the photo! Although I knew part of the story about your father due to our occasional talks, I liked reading this and thinking about those times during the Eisenhout administration. Somehow I deleted part 2 by mistake a d want to go back and read it.
Martha,
I can send you a copy. Thanks for reading. This bio of my father has the highest number of hits in the past year. Not sure what to make of that, but I am appreciative.
Joe
I enjoyed this article. I always thought our Dad was a good but troubled man.
Amen, Sis.
Joe, you have inspired me to remember the stories of my first father Chuck and his dad Charlie and my father Ross and his pop Fred. He adopted me and my brother Tim in 1968 when he married my mom and added an older brother and younger sister to the mix. Ross was from Canada and Fred was from England originally. Worked as a senior exec for Sears, Roebuck and Company. Chuck followed his fathers footsteps and worked for Iowa Power and Electric. Ross moved us to Georgia’s Stone Mountain in 1973 and after being here so long, I tell people I wasn’t born here, but I got here as quick as I could. I have Farmers, Bankers, Veterinarians and Industrial Captains in my history.
Thanks again!