Pete,

The following is a story taken from my Dad’s and Mom’s WWII letters (and my memory) about the events that occurred in their and our lives from the time that they married in 1936 until the fifties. Although the exact timeline and nature of the transfer of the house that Dad built for his bride to Uncle Buck, the exact timeline of Uncle Buck’s transfer of this house to Bunny Bishop in a trade for his place east of the church, and Dad’s purchase of his Dad’s place in west Coal Fire from the family is largely unknown, as, I’m sure, much of it took place very informally by word of mouth, I have reconstructed it from my own memory of the event and from Mom’s and Dad’s WWII wartime letters in a posting on Facebook that occurs on my Facebook page and which is re-printed below.

Errol

Dad and Mom were married on July 4, 1936 at a Justice of the Peace in Scooba, MS. Mom became pregnant with Cecil in August of ’36. She stayed with her Mom and Dad in Birmingham in the house on Jefferson Avenue in West End while she was pregnant with Cecil while Dad was in Coal Fire building the house just west of the Coal Fire School, which was soon to become Coal Fire Baptist Church. Cecil was born in Birmingham on April 29, 1937. By this time Dad had practically finished the house, which included a store in the front room, for his bride. Mom and Cecil moved to Coal Fire into their new house in the spring of ’37. In addition to operating the general store in Coal Fire, Dad also owned and operated the pool hall in Reform. When he was drafted into the army in August of 1943, Granddaddy Bonner, whom Mom called “Mr. Bonner”, operated the pool hall for Dad while he was in the Army. From Kolbe, Japan in 1945, Dad gave instructions in a letter to his Dad to sale the pool hall, which he did. I don’t have the letter that he wrote to his Dad, but I have the letter that he wrote to my Mom in which he mentions it where he wrote to her to tell his Dad to proceed with the sale. The fact and condition of the sale is recorded in this letter which occurs in Dad’s WWII letters. I was born in the house that Dad built for his bride on June 17, 1941. I remember nothing about that period until Cecil and I made a trip to Gainesville, FL with Uncle Buck. Aunt Jaunita, Norma, and Elaine to see Dad finish up his basic training in the Infantry at Camp Blanding, Florida (near Gainesville). Mom was already there, She had gone earlier by bus. Cecil and I had been staying in the house in Coal Fire with Hortense and Sherry (Doss was in the Navy somewhere overseas at the time). As a young tyke of slightly more than two years, I have only two memories of that auto trip to Florida. I remember stopping at a roadside park somewhere along the way and eating watermelon (my favorite food), and I remember standing across the street in Gainesville from the hotel and seeing my Dad in front of the hotel. I remember running across the street and jumping into my Dad’s arms. I remember him lifting me onto his shoulders and carrying me into the hotel and climbing, at least, two flights of stairs to my Mom’s hotel room, and I remember looking out the window down at the street and seeing those tiny cars and little people down on the street. This is the total of my memory of that entire trip as I was only about three or so years old
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Dad got out of the Army in August of 1945. His general store in Coal Fire had been closed before he was drafted in ’43 because of his inability to stock it because of wartime rationing. The kids of the neighborhood used it mostly as a rainy day playhouse. I remember the pool table in the store that had been retained when the pool hall in Reform was sold, and I remember watching Dad and Mom shoot pool on this table many times. I also remember Cecil, Pete, Donald, and perhaps Charles shooting pool on it also. This is where Cecil first learned how to shoot pool and became fairly good at it. As for me, I remember only stretching my short legs to peep over the rim of the table to see these big, hard balls rolling around and eventually falling into a pocket, wandering how they made them do that with those long, skinny Que sticks, as they certainly did not so behave when I tried to poke a Que Stick at one. After his Dad died at the church next door in ’46, Dad hatched up a deal with the siblings of the Bonner clan and Uncle Buck to sale our house to Uncle Buck and to buy his Dad’s place in west Coal Fire from the siblings. In late ’46 and ’47, Dad tore down his Dad’s old house on that place and built the house with the mostly virgin lumber that was in it that is currently standing as a temporary house for his family. He intended to build a better one later but was never able to do so. We moved into it in the summer of ’48. Uncle Buck moved his family into our vacated house by the church in the fall of ’48. Uncle Buck almost immediately arranged to trade it with Bunny Bishop for his house east of the church along with the chicken house and Bunny’s old shop building at the front of the house. Uncle Buck moved into this house in late ’48 or early ’49. In the meantime, Virginia was graduating from high school in the Spring of ’49. She married Robert Earl Hall that summer and became pregnant with Danny. Also that summer, she and Robert moved into Bunny Bishop’s old shop building, which Uncle Buck had converted into a rental home. This was the house in which Danny was born in 1950. Bunny Bishop’s old shop building and the house near Mel Rose are the only two houses that Robert and Virginia lived before he was killed in the car accident in Ethylsville around ’56, Danny’s very young, ripe age of five or six. I remember spending the night with Gent and Robert when they were renting Uncle Buck’s house in Coal Fire. I loved those times because Gent was a very good cook, and she treated me as if I was her own kid. I also remember walking over to their house near Mel Rose later to watch the Republican Convention and the Democratic Convention on Gent’s and Robert’s black and white TV in the summer of 1956 to see President Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson nominated for the second time. This was my first time to become interested in politics and the workings of our government. Robert Earl must have died later that summer in the car accident shortly after that. So, Pete, you are mistaken. It was Bunny Bishop’s shop building that Uncle Buck had converted to liveable quarters that you rocked the baby, Danny, not the house that my Dad built for his bride west of the church. Most of these facts were obtained from my Mom’s and Dad’s WWII letters.

I remember the story that you told on Facebook about throwing rocks up in front of vehicles on the highway and misjudging and breaking the windshield of a truck. I was young at the time, but I remember the incident, not as a participant, but more as an observer. I remember Cecil’s story to the truck driver was pretty much as you told it. I also remember the high speed car accident that happened on 82 highway early one morning where the car ran off the road in front of our house and clipped off the power pole almost at the ground leaving the live power lines hanging precariously in front of our house. I remember being told not to go out the front door that morning. Although I hadn’t started to school at that time, I remember that Cecil did make it to school, but I don’t remember how or how late he was. I do remember that Alabama Power had the line completely repaired and power restored by the time the school bus ran that afternoon. I also remember the night that I was following you and Cecil towards the church and the grave yard when you started walking (or running) faster than I could run, and I remember balling and running back towards our house because I didn’t want to be left alone anywhere near that graveyard. I have so many memories of that house and the surrounding yard, including playing ball using Raymond Davidson’s cigar sign as a boundary and goal post and his mad rants if we should inadvertently hit his precious sign. I remember watching movies on Saturday night in the Coal Fire Theater that was run by Donald Bishop in the old school bus body in Miss Annie’s backyard. Marina has me on Prevagen which is bringing back even more memories to that period. I remember staying many nights with Gent and Robert in Bunny Bishop’s old shop building that Uncle Buck had converted to a rental house. I remember you rocking little Danny in Gent’s rocking chair in her kitchen in this house, and I remember Robert Earl sitting in the shade of this house many times in the evening after he got off from work. I spent many nights with them as a young tyke, and I loved every moment as Virginia was a very good cook, and Robert appeared to me to be a lot nicer guy than his brother Charles ever did later. I guess Robert just had a better personality than Charles. I remember the outdoor toilet in the back of Dad’s house besides the church, and I even remember using it a time or two, but I was usually afraid because I was very small, and the hole seemed so big, and it was so far down to the excrement below. I never used it at night. No way! It was too dark for me to go out there at night. After all, the grave yard was just down the road. I remember Mom’s and Dad’s garden behind the house, and I remember Raymond Davidson plowing the garden for her with his mule when Dad was away in the Army. I remember Dad’s corn crib in the back of the house; and, most especially, I remember that old chicken snake that attacked me just as I had reached for the latch to open the door of the crib to get some corn to feed the chickens. Poor snake! He was just as scared as I was. I fed no chickens that day. Mother went down to the crib and looked all around for the snake, but she never found it. I realize that you have wrote about romping over Coal Fire and the entire area, as well as most of Reform; but, at this time, my entire world consisted only of this one house and its immediate surroundings and being afraid that if I wondered very far away, I would simply fall of what I thought was a flat earth. I do remember the time when I followed Cecil down to Big Mam’s house to get a gallon of buttermilk, and I remember begging Cecil to let me carry it home because I thought I could; and I remember dropping it directly in front of the store with a lot of people around. I still see the cold buttermilk going everywhere, all over me as well as the graveled drive in front of Otis’ store. I don’t remember Dad’s store ever being an operating store, and it couldn’t have been one for very long. because the house was not completed until early ’37, and it was closed shortly after the War began in late ’41 because rationing came, which prevent it from being stocked. The only piece of merchandise on the shelves that I remember was a large box of Black Draught, which was used as a medication in those days. I remember we used it as merchandise as we played store. Kenneth, Gene, and I had lots of fun in that old store, particularly on rainy, cold days. Cecil and I had lots of fun in it to, particularly at Christmas time playing with the few toys that we managed to get during the war years. I remember particularly the fun that we had in playing with a tractor that Cecil had made from one of Mother’s empty thread spools and a rubber band. He was talented when he was young as he was later in life. I particularly remember him shooting pool on the pool table when I could barely see over the top of it.

Marina and I are planning a vacation in Santa Fe this December from December 17 until December 24. We hope to spend a day or two of it in Albuquerque, so I can see the few old friends that are still left there and to see my old stomping grounds in southeast Albuquerque and KARB once again, including the Albuquerque Old Town and the Tram. We will be flying to Albuquerque, and we will be staying the week at the Otra vez en Santa Fe resort on Galisteo Street in Santa Fe. I hope we can get together at least for a meal while we are in Albuquerque to discuss some of these memories, both of Coal Fire and of my time at KAFB. We had hoped to come last June 3rd during the Airshow, but we were unable to exchange our timeshare. Besides Marina really wants to see Santa Fe during the Christmas season. We visited it during our honeymoon, but that was in late June. How is Helen doing? We hope that her health is such that we can see her too.

‎Pete Hester‎ to Coalfire! Where’s Coalfire?
February 11 ·

Remember when Coalfire had two stores….Yep, that’s right…two stores, and both sold gasoline. Otis Burgess and Woodrow Bonner (Uncle Dee) both operated stores for a while. A lot of you know about that and remember where house that the Bunny Bishop family lived as being the other store. And I don’t remember now just who all called that store home for a while. Uncle Dee lived there and I think Uncle Buck. Sister Virginia lived in the front when Danny boy was born as I remember trying to rock the little fussing rascal to sleep, but that may have been my singing, I don’t know. Then I think the Bishops may have moved in. I do not know about today and who lives there. Some of you can fill me in. But what I wanted to tell you this morning was about me getting in trouble up there, again. A bunch of us would wait on the bus to school there and U. S. Highway 82 ran right out in front of the store and it was a busy highway with a lot of truck traffic. I got the bright idea one morning to wait until an approaching truck was close, then I would throw a rock up in the air and let the truck run under it. Well, I misjudged one of them and the rock got a windshield. The old truck driver geared down and pulled into the Coalfire Church parking lot or driveway as I don’t remember now because my little butt went and hid under Uncle Dee’s house. The driver came back and asked Cecil who threw the rock and Cecil was honest and told him it was Pete. He asked where Pete was. Cecil said, “the last time I saw him he was running through that pasture” pointing to the pasture behind the house. I was listening and peeping out from under the house and was not about to show myself. The truck driver told Cecil all the problems and expense caused by Pete’s careless actions and Cecil told him he would sure tell me all about it. Luckily the driver left before the school bus ran and I did get to go to school. It scared me and I never played that game again. I was sure glad my buddy Cecil covered for me so well. Confession is good for the soul and so now I have confessed…Reckon that truck driver will read this…Ok, if he does…….I’m sorry sir. It will not happen again…..OK?

Thanks Pete! We will call you sometime after we get settled in our resort in Santa Fe in December and make arrangements then. I knew that the store in Coal Fire was an operating store for a while, but I know that it couldn’t have been one for more than two or three years because the building was completed in ’38, and the nation was at war with Germany in ’42 (after the Pearl Harbor attack). Dad was drafted in ’43. Mom may have spent ’42 until ’44 just selling off the stock because wartime rationing would have prevented her from re-stocking. The very earliest of my memories of it that began around ’44 or ’45 showed the selves of the store empty except for the Black Draught, which we had lots of fun with. I do remember the gasoline pump in the front, but I don’t remember any gasoline in it, probably because of wartime rationing of gas. I certainly don’t remember anyone buying gas although, at my age, I probably didn’t know what gas was or what it was used for. I do remember Cecil showing me his big feat when he pulled me around the corner of the store and showed me the smudges on the white walls near the chimney and, saying, that someone had been trying to burn down our house. It frightened me at the time, and it was only after I was grown that I realized that my own brother, Cecil, was the culprit. The smudges were simply the result of his newly found game of playing with matches. As a kid, I practically worshiped the ground on which Cecil walked. It never crossed my mind at the time that he would try to burn down our house with matches that he wasn’t supposed to have. I have other memories also during the period when Dad was away at the war. I remember being told to go to bed in Cecil’s and my cold, dark bedroom where there was a fireplace, but I don’t remember ever a fire in it. The room was so cold and dark, and Cecil was still doing his home work for school. This is when I first began to really wish that I was old enough to go to school, so I would have home work too. Shortly after Dad returned home from the war, I remember the entire family sitting around the dining room table and eating a formal meal (probably a Sunday meal), as we seldom ate regular meals in that room. I don’t remember Hortense and Sherry ever staying with us while Dad was away, but I’ve been told by several people that they did spend a lot of the time with us in Coal Fire after Dad was drafted, particularly when Mother made those bus trips to Florida to see Dad and after Doss joined the Navy. These were some very fond memories for a young kid in which to grow up. I couldn’t have had a better childhood, even if my father had been as rich as Donald Trump.