I Remember When

My grandmother Davis was a republican….not the run-of-mill republican, but a mover and shaker in her small community. She was an organizer, a school teacher and the mother of nine children. In those days everybody practiced birth control…one birth at a time….and it is impossible to say how many miscarriages she had because no one spoke about it.

So as her children grew they became republicans and the grandchildren became republicans. I do not know why but that was the way it was, No one questioned it until my dad married Gladys Davis, and he was a democrat. I remember the spirited talks between my dad and grandma Davis. Dad, who grew up in mining towns in southern West Virginia, was an avid democrat who supported the coal miners and even fought with them in the battle of Blair mountain when they tried to organize a union in Logan county. He cut timber as a contractor for the mines.

When I was a young man I was employed by the Charleston Daily Mail as a writer. It was a republican newspaper and I felt right at home with their position and I registered as a republican. It was a part time job and I attended Morris Harvey college under the GI Bill of Rights. While in college I shared classes with Bob Byrd from Sophia. He was a democrat and expressed some puzzlement as to why I was a republican. I did not have an explanation but I also began to wonder why. Bob later ran for the US Senate and served our country well until his early nineties when he died.

I will always remember Bob as a kind and generous person who liked me well enough to offer his car whenever I wanted to take June for a Sunday drive. I had sold my car to pay for our first born and rode the bus to and from work and/or college. We were very poor and lived in Washington Manor, a low income unit.

When we moved to Florida in 1955 for a better paying job as a writer with the Lakeland Ledger I took with me the many memories I had of Bob Byrd and his thoughtfulness and I thought this may be the way democrats function…and I liked it. In fact, I registered as a democrat and hoped in some small way that I could be a better person….one who cared for others.

In Lakeland we started a new life and a new attitude. I looked for ways to help others and noted that the old Morris Memorial hospital was in sad shape. Patient were lined up in the hallways waiting for beds and it was always overcrowded. I suggested in an article that the community needed a new hospital but was told the people would not vote a tax on themselves and that I was wasting my time. I persisted and when an election was called for a general obligation bond issue it passed by a large majority. A new hospital was constructed which later became a regional medical center for Central Florida. I was convinced that people are willing to tax themselves for necessary improvements. On reflection I believe that being a democrat helped that process along.