Bluestocking

AuthorHouse

Contents

AUTHOR'S NOTE...............................................................XIWHO IS I....................................................................XIIntroduction Of The Main Characters.........................................XXIIITHE WILLIS CLAN.............................................................XXVILove In Bluestocking Hollow.................................................XXXIIIPART I - THE DEPRESSION ERA.................................................1NUMBER ONE SON, HORACE......................................................3THE INTERVENTION............................................................7EARLY MEMORIES..............................................................12FINDING OUR WAY.............................................................21MARTHA......................................................................23THE PAN AM..................................................................25THE MARSHALL THEATER........................................................34TURNING POINTS..............................................................43EAST LINCOLN STREET.........................................................49ANN.........................................................................53HANK WILLIAMS...............................................................57TODAY SHOW GREEN ROOM.......................................................60PART II - THE FIFTIES ERA...................................................63THE HAPPY DAYS..............................................................65GROWING UP ON A SHOESTRING..................................................67DONKEY SOFTBALL GAMES.......................................................74TOMMY.......................................................................76THE DAIRY DIP...............................................................80AEDC, THE SPACE AGE.........................................................84NEED FOR ENGINEERS..........................................................85MAMA MEETS THE PRESIDENT....................................................86TRUMAN AND MACARTHUR........................................................87HORACE GETS MARRIED.........................................................96SELLING PAPERS..............................................................103SNOW........................................................................106SARA GOES TO NURSING SCHOOL.................................................109TRIAL AND ERROR.............................................................112BUDDY TAKES HIS TURN AT BAT.................................................121INFLATION...................................................................125GRUNDY STREET...............................................................131TYKIE.......................................................................153MORRIS KING.................................................................157GROWTH OF AEDC..............................................................164HORSE SENSE.................................................................166CHRISTMAS FIRE..............................................................169BEAU........................................................................172PIONEERING THE WORLD'S FIRST TURBINE POWERED HELICOPTER.....................177BOO RADLEY..................................................................180LINDA.......................................................................182DALE ROBERTSON'S SECRETS OF PUBLIC SPEAKING.................................187FINAL CHAPTER...............................................................191THANKS FOR THE RIDE.........................................................194MAMA GETS SICK..............................................................204THE PROPER THING............................................................207Epilogue....................................................................223HISTORICAL OUTTAKES.........................................................223Acknowlegements.............................................................233FIFTY YEAR REUNION SPEECH...................................................235

Chapter One

All great things are accomplished under adverse circumstances. Nick Saban

Number One Son, Horace

If the oldest child in the family is supposed to be the leader, Mama's fist-born did not disappoint. He carried our banner high and turned out to be our go-to-guy in almost every emergency situation. He was the closest thing we had to 911. If one of the little ones cut themselves on a broken milk bottle, Horace knew how to make a butterfly bandage so that it wouldn't need stitches or leave a scar. In the absence of a responsible father who normally would have done that sort of thing, Horace was exemplary. Where he learned it, I have no clue.

As a young boy, and the first child, he would have had the greatest exposure to both sides of our family tree in those early years. Horace was probably the only one of Margaret's children that might have actually remembered very much about the Dryden home in Bluestocking, or would have spent any meaningful time with Pete's family in Marshall County. He would also be the most likely one to know the names of some of the places where Pete had to move his family in order to find work during those Depression-era years, because he would have been dragged along to every one of them. But Pete finally settled his family in Tullahoma, Tennessee, a little town full of remarkable people who eventually would help raise his family in his absence. Tullahoma is smack dab in the middle of the 600-mile-long state of Tennessee, 72 miles southeast of Nashville and 60 miles north of Huntsville, Alabama. It is still, today, one of the friendliest places you will ever find.

Tullahoma was a sleepy little railroad town until WWII, when it received a huge economic boost as an indirect result of a letter that Albert Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt in 1939. American scientists had information that the Germans were attempting to build an extremely destructive bomb out of Uranium 235. FDR created the Manhattan Project in an attempt to beat them to the punch. The secret plan involved using small rural areas that weren't obvious military targets. Tennessee had plenty of small rural towns as well as strong Congressional clout, and Oak Ridge was selected as the cornerstone of this well-funded, government science project, the Atom Bomb.

A couple of years later, rural Tullahoma was selected as the site for a massive Army training camp called Camp Forrest. A large wooded area was quickly converted into an 85,000 acre military fortress that would train hundreds of thousands of troops. The recently completed Tennessee Valley Authority provided plenty of water and electricity and all the ingredients came together. The population of Tullahoma exploded from 6,500 to over 75,000 during this war-time period and it was considered somewhat of a boom- town as well as a vacation destination. More than 25,000 POW's were also housed there during WWII.

After 1945, Tullahoma changed dramatically. The buildings at Camp Forrest were auctioned off, and dismantled right down to the foundations of the buildings. The only things left were the concrete foundation slabs and a few stone chimneys. When all the soldiers moved out, the town returned to normal ... no more boom-town. Camp...