18 May 2024, Saturday

 18 May 2024, Saturday

Prioritized Daily Task

1:25 pm - Abbey state tournament, Track and Field 4X100

5:00 pm - BOQ at Lehi 7th Ward

Note:  In my personal history, My First Years on Earth, which I wrote in 2007 covers about 44 years.  I left out a person I want to add, Henry Austin Powell.  I started consistently keeping a daily journal in 1978 and improved as the years passed.  

Our family moved from Broad Street in Old Town in Tallapoosa, Haralson County Georgia, to Pleasant Hill Community, a distance of about 4 miles in 1953.  

Henry was born on 24 Jan 1890 and died on 14 March 1973.  He married Victoria Davis, my Grandmother Laura Smith McAlpin’s niece.  Henry and Victoria had two children, Emmett Leon who died of Polio at the age of 28, and his sister, Ora Jane, who my sister Ora was named after.  I do not know when Emmett contracted polio.  Polio paralyzes the lung muscles and the victim cannot breathe so I assume he did not live very long.  The first polio outbreak in the United States occurred in the late 1940s. The iron lung was first used in 1928 and I don't think the family would have had access to an iron lung. I do know he did at home with his family carrying for him. He was about 9 years old when Ora Jane was born.  Ora Jane was a beautiful child and young lady who married Luther Bradley.  I saw pictures of them when they were in high school.  They were a hamson couple but never had children.  Henry Powell’s farm bordered our farm and his home was east of the Pleasant Hill Baptist Church and cemetery.  Henry bought a Model T Ford new and drove and kept it in a shed in mint condition until the 1960s when the Kilgo Ford Dealership in Tallapoosa traded even with him for a new Ford pickup.  

When we moved to the farm at Pleasant Hill, I got to know the neighbors, some were relatives.  Henry, one of them, was in his mid-sixties.  He was slowing down and had time to spend with me.  He had an apple orchard and a cider press.  In the fall when I was around the age of 10 to 12, I would visit him when he was making apple cider.  I remember him telling me to go easy on the cyder and would not let me drink too much.  I did not know why then but he was looking after me.

2nd Note: Two cousins I never knew in this life, but I heard my parents talk about them.  They have made an impression in my mind.   One was Emmitt Leon Powell who died of polio at about the age of 28 in 1949.  The other was Horace Greeley Gentry who died in 1953 at the age of 12.  I think his death was caused by a virus, measles, mumps, or something similar.  I am not sure but his mother, Margaret Lorine Gladden Gentry, was a single mother trying to raise two children. Horace was the oldest, and Carolyn was the younger sister.  My life has been spared so many times beginning when I was just a baby.  My mother and I went to Smithville, Alabama when we got out of the Anniston Hospital.  We were with my mother's aunts and her mother when I got pneumonia it spread to both lungs.  The miracle drug, Penicillin, had been developed but the country doctor had none.  He had to be sent from the hospital in Anniston.  It came just in time.  I had been running a high fever for days.  My great-aunts kept the sheet, that had the yellow-stained outline of my small body for years until they died.

As a young boy the deaths of Emmitt and Horace affected me; even today I am still affected by their untimely deaths.

I slept in this morning until 10 am.  I got a poor night's sleep.  Debbie cooked breakfast for Ryan, Stepanie, and the children.  I did not go in but Debbie brought german pancakes back to the office for me.   The track committee moved up the timing of the races today and Ryan and Stephanie missed Abbie's race.  Later they came back to the house and Debbie had dinner ready.  I stayed away and had dinner in the office.  I did not want the children to catch what I have.   Debbie and I had prayer together before going to bed at 10:30 pm.