Daddy's Character: Lessons on Life from Survivors of the Depression

Born George O. Jones, Dad was raised up with a portable saw-mill working the wood, with his brothers, under his Father, along the Altamaha River, between Lumber City and Darian, in south east Georgia. He stood a good six foot four inches tall when I first got to know him and must have weighed in at about two hundred and ten pounds. I came along after he and mom had left south Georgia and moved to Macon, where he held the position of Blacksmith and Metal Worker in the shops of the Central of Georgia Railroad Company.

The first story that I ever heard about Dad was his riding a string of logs down the Altamaha River, some sixty or so miles then getting paid for them at Darian and walking his way back along the river. Quite a few thieves along the river or river rats as they were sometimes called, who waited on these timber men coming back up the river with the money, with the hope of relieving them of it. Dad made it through okay.

The next story from the archives of Dad was that he refused a lifetime pension from the The Central of Georgia Railroad, after having his leg nearly burned off from a hot piece of metal being swung around on a hoist out of a forge, striking him. This leg required a great deal of medical attention, which the railroad covered, however Dad insisted that if he had of paid more attention to the work some of his crew were doing at the time he wouldn't have gotten hit, therefore he refused to hold the railroad responsible. The railroad let him go because he was unable to handle his previous job.

During this time working on the railroad at Macon, Georgia, Dad had enrolled in a night school, taking up Mechanical Engineering, Drafting, and other related subjects, while having three of his children to die, and three others trying to eat him out of house and home. I was born of this man in Macon Georgia, April 22, 1926.

The next several years were very hard on Dad. What with the Depression coming on and no one hiring him due to the bad leg. AS I grew up, I remember each and every night Dad and Mom working on the bad leg. Cleaning it, changing the bandaged, and trying to keep gangrene from taking over. I look at the leg on several occasions and no way could I see him being able to hold down a job with this disability, much less even walk on it.

Not being able to obtain work and with no income, Dad came to his roots, along the Altamaha River, bringing his family with him and started working for himself, in many different kinds of make-shift shops. They tell me that his pride would not let him accept any help from the rest of the family, however I'm sure, knowing them that they found ways. The small south Georgia towns that have known Dad and his work were: Brunswick, Townsand, Ludowici, Savannah, Hinesville, and our final home while he was still alive Fitzgerald.

The next story concerns two inventions that I'm sure as his son that they actually came about, however he did not ever get any credit for them. These two inventions were the Rotary Motor and Automobile Automatic Transmission. Dad not only made drafts of the two inventions, he also made working models of them in his shops at Ludowici and Fitzgerald, Georgia. Several business men and a couple of lawyers paid Dad at least on two different trips to Washington, D.C. full pay with all expense trips for six months each, trying to get the patents for these inventions. The different men also paid our whole family's expenses during these years total time in Washington. Dad stayed at the very best hotels and was given the Grand Tour. Several of these men came back home, going on to become millionaires. Being a small boy during this time the only thing I got out of it, was in overhearing Dad tell Mom, early one morning, that we would have been rich, if he had not signed one paper too many. Dad would never talk much to us his children about these goings on at the time.

The most vivid memory that I have of Dad in defining his character was, for us, during the very hardest part of the Great Depression. Years of 1937, 1938, 1939 and 1940, we were living in Fitzgerald , and Dad was trying to get up and running with a Machine Shop. We were without any food what-so-ever and under the Federal Government a commissary was opened across the street from us giving out free lard, flour, bacon, beans, rice , sugar and other staple foods, however Dad said that he had not worked for the food, therefore our family was not allowed to ask for or receive any of this stuff. He said that he would allow himself and all his family to die before begging for the necessities of life, while he was still able to work for them. The Bible said you would work by the sweat of your brow for your living upon this earth. I think this was where he came to that conclusion.

These were only few of the things that make me so proud, when I remember that bid old man that I called Dad, and Dad if you can read any of this let me say Thank You.

Postscript: The last 15 years of my father's life was spent mostly tending his garden, reading his Bible and writing everything that he could about his life. I have reproduced one of the earliest stories he wrote from his handwritten legal pad. Dad wrote more than 2000 legal pages by hand and more than 800 typed and pages of material. I am the grandson of the man in the above story. A story that defines the character that made America a great nation and an illustration of the character that we as a people, a country and a world need to exhibit.