#52stories - Week 5

Dad.

My dad was born November 4, 1919, in Stonewall Jackson Memorial Hospital in Lexington, Virginia.  The Hospital was what is now the historic Stonewall Jackson house located at 8 East Washington Street.  Here is a picture of him circa 1920 with his two brothers, Tate on the left and Jim on the right.  This is in front of their house. Under that is a photo of the hospital where he was born (found at http://www.stonewalljackson.org/birthdayclub.html).

 

He was named John Addison Alexander, Jr, after his father.  His mother's name was Janet Ingles Fultz.  He lived with his parents and brothers in the same house in which I first remember living.  Grandma Sally (his father's mother) and Uncle John (her brother) lived with them.  The house was in the South River District of Rockbridge County on a road that is now called Borden Grant Trail.  Here's a picture taken in the 1920s of the farm, but this is pretty much how it looked when I lived there 35 years later.

Dad's father died in January 1923.  Shortly afterward, his mother moved her sons into her mother's house, which is known as Cherry Grove Estate.  It is located on Rt. 11 just north of the village of Fairfield.

Dad attended elementary school through (I think) eighth grade at Fairfield High School, which included grades 1-12.  But he did not attend high school there.  He attended high school in Covington, Virginia.  His Uncle Wiley Lipscomb, who was a widower and lived in Covington, had been ill; and one of Dad's aunts who was a nurse was there taking care of him.  The story goes that it was not considered proper for his unmarried aunt (who also was Wiley's sister-in-law) to be co-habitating with a man.  So Dad served as a kind of chaperone while Wiley's son was away in college.  Dad graduated from Covington High School in 1938, where he excelled in athletics--specifically, football and basketball.   I have many pictures related to his high school years, but I'll just insert here pictures of the schools. The top one is Fairfield from the cover of a compilation of yearbooks published about 1998.  The bottom one is a copy of a post card that I own.

After high school, Dad was offered a scholarship to attend Danville Military Institute in Danville, Virginia.  So he went there until the school closed in 1939.  Then he enrolled at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (VPI, now Virginia Tech). During his stay there, World War II broke out.  His class was offered an accelerated graduation by having the students attend classes during the summer.  His graduation, scheduled for May 1943, was moved up to March 1943 and  then cancelled to further accelerate the movement of the graduates into service. Here, I'll post Dad's VPI diploma.

When dad was living in Fairfield, and when we lived there as well, the family attended Fairfield Presbyterian Church.  The church is still active today.

Dad's military career started in 1943 and lasted until 1948.  He was sent to training around the country and eventually shipped out to Italy with the US Army's 88th Infantry.  He essentially walked from Pompeii up the Po Valley through Rome to Lake Como.  After the war ended, he was deployed to occupied Japan and served in the 441st Counter Intelligence Corps.  I am fortunate to have his copies of his entire Army career.  One of the documents in May 1944 grants him 10 days of leave in May 1944.  That was when he and Mom got married.  Here is a picture of Dad in Japan in 1947.

After returning to Virginia, Dad worked in Roanoke as an agent with Minnesota Mutual Life Insurance and as a salesman for Fair Acres Farm Store.  After moving back to Fairfield, he taught science and shop at Fairfield High School at the same time that he ran a farm.  In 1961, we moved down the road a few miles to Buena Vista, Virginia, and he was a salesman for a swimming pool company.  In 1962, we moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, because he had changed jobs.  Initially, he marketed Top Value trading stamps (the yellow ones).  He spent the rest of his career as a traveling salesman representing various companies, including one that made chicken coops and one that made tung oil.

Dad died November 8, 2002, in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.  He is buried in the ARP Presbyterian Church Cemetery in Timber Ridge, Virginia.  Here's one last photo of Dad with Mom in a church directory picture that is not dated.