MY EARLY LIFE

By Oliver Williams

By the time I came along there wasn't much reason to rejoice over another birth in the family. I always enjoyed hearing Margaret tell about her reaction to my arrival. It was on a snowy day in February, apparently much like one I encountered 22 years later while on bivouac at Fort Jackson, South Carolina. A low pressure system from the Gulf collides with freezing temperatures and causes one of those rare snow storms in eastern Carolina. I was born at home, and the family was living then at the farm known as Aunt Lizanne's place. It was about two miles from Rocky Mount beside the railroad to Tarboro. Access to the house by road was down a long path that led to Highway 43. Both the storm and I came during the day, after Margaret and the others had left for school. Since so much snow had accumulated, daddy met the schoolchildren at the bus stop on Highway 43 and told them they would have a baby brother waiting at home. To which Margaret replied, "We do not need another baby." She declares that she took only one look, at daddy's insistence, and then when outside in the snow to cry.

Later, I learned again how inauspicious the seventh child can be. When I was old enough to read, I had illusions that my name had come from Oliver Cromwell or, at least, Oliver Twist. But mother said no, she hadn't any important persons in mind when she named me. She was only looking for a name that hadn't been used in the Williams family and had heard of Oliver from someone by that name in the neighborhood. Years later she couldn't remember who that person might have been. Despite the initial reactions to my arrival, I later came to feel that I was a special child to my parents and older brothers and sisters. Perhaps this was because I was a sickly and handicapped child and needed special caring until I had corrective surgery at age 10. Much of this early baby-sitting was done my Margaret, and she became more than a sister, and much like a mother to me.

Unlike Margaret who seems to remember so vividly when I was born, I really don't remember the arrival of any of my younger brothers and sisters, except Don who was born the year that I was a freshman at East Carolina University. But I do have many fond memories of growing up with Phillip, Glenn, Aaron and Milton. Many of these early years were spent in the Brake community near West Edgecombe. It was here that we attended elementary school and where Phillip and I attended high school. Actually, I don't recall many memorable events from those early school days, but the summers were most enjoyable. One of my favorite ventures was going fishing. Mother (sometime after Pa's death, the younger children, which I always contended started with me, began to refer to her as mother) would prepare a picnic lunch, which usually included a quart jar of mashed potatoes, and we would talk and ride our bikes for miles through a wooded area to a pond near West Edgecombe. A real special outing was a trip to Rocky Mount by train. There was still a station at Brake and the train would stop if someone (never I) would stand on the track and wave a handkerchief. We would ride the train for a few miles to South Rocky Mount, where the train waited for quite a while for servicing, before heading for the downtown passenger station. A day in Rocky Mount included cartoon movies at the Center Theater.

We would take turns visiting Cleo or Margaret, both of whom were married and living in Rocky Mount, and it was a special event to spend the night. Cleo lived on South Church Street, and this was before the U.S. 30l Bypass had been constructed. Church Street was still a major north-south highway, and we liked to sit on the sidewalk and keep a count of how many different states were represented on the cars that came by during an hour. One summer afternoon, I was counting cars when Cleo came out and said I would not be going home that night. She said our brother Aaron had been in an accident and we were going to the hospital. I wasn't old enough to know how serious this matter was, but when I saw the other family members at the hospital, I knew it would be very sad. No one told me, but I understood when we left the hospital that Aaron would not live. It was my first experience with grief and the singular event that caused me to think about living and dying and the meaning of existence. It also impressed upon me the special bond that exists within a family, especially a large family.

In those years, too, I remember mama, as we called our Grandmother Taylor. She lived with several of her sons on Arlington Street Extension. Occasionally, I would take the school bus that went by her house and spend a night with her. You could sense that mama genuinely liked children. She would spend time talking with you. She liked to tell about her childhood which must have been quite happy. She, too, came from a large family. Mama also read a great deal, and she seemed especially interested in seeing us study. As much as anyone, it was from her that I acquired a love of learning and decided early in life that I would get all of the education that was possible. I'll always remember how proud she was to attend my graduation at East Carolina University. It was not long before she died. It was a tiring trip for her, but she was known as "Maggie Go" Taylor and I'm sure she would have been disappointed to have missed this trip. Glenn, Milton and I were all in the military when she died, but we were all able to come home to serve as pallbearers at her funeral which was conducted at Upper Town Creek Church where she and mother attended.

Before my high school graduation, I started working at Belk-Tyler's Department Store. I was impressed with the students from East Carolina College who were also working there on Friday nights and Saturdays. They were all studying to be teachers, and I decided that I, too, wanted to be a teacher. I was chosen to introduce the commencement speaker at West Edgecombe. He was Dr. Leo Jenkins, the president of East Carolina. He offered me a small scholarship and made it possible for me to attend East Carolina that Fall.

At East Carolina, I became interested in writing and journalism, and following graduation I returned to Rocky Mount to work as a reporter for the Evening Telegram. For three years, I enjoyed living at home again. Cleo was also working at the Telegram, and I came especially close to her during those years. We enjoyed Friday night pizza parties at her house--pizzas that we prepared ourselves from the packaged mixes. Often we would invite friends to join us, and the Friday night pizza parties became special affairs.

During these years, too, I enjoyed a special closeness with C.T. He had always been a special "big brother". Some years earlier, he had taught me to drive a car. Actually, I never did learn to drive very well, but C.T. taught me as much as he could and persisted until I got my driving licenses. Now, we were serving together in the Army Reserve, and he was teaching me how to fire a weapon and other army skills, which like driving, did not come easy to me. Part of the problem was the lack of foresight on the part of the Army in not making weapons for left handed people. I'm not sure what the problem was with cars.

After several years, I came to realize that a phase of my life was coming to an end. I was ready to leave Rocky Mount. In 1962, I accepted a job as a reporter for the News and Observer and headed for Raleigh. I knew I would never come home again. Oh, I have enjoyed the trips back to see the family, the family dinners and family reunions. But home was never where I had left it. What was left were many fond memories of growing up in a large family. But it was more than just a large family; it was a family where each one of us loved the others, shared every sorrow and rejoiced in the happiness and accomplishments of each.