Eighty years ago, Junior Brown of Elmore County was in a hospital recovering from injuries incurred in World War II. The war in Europe had officially ended in April 1945, and the war in Japan was about to end in August.
There’s an old Alabama saying, “You can’t keep a good man down.” That saying applied to Junior Brown. The wounded vet quickly became mobile, but not completely well. That didn’t keep him down. Resilience.
As Hitler’s armed forces had advanced through Europe and into North Africa, nearly 30 million men and women enlisted or were drafted into the Allied cause. Some of those came onboard prior to the United States declaring war on December 8, 1941, a day after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.
One of those who enlisted in August of 1940 was a 17-year-old farm boy from Elmore County. Junior Brown was the eighth of ten children and the fourth of four sons born to subsistence Alabama red clay farmers.
Like a lot of young men and women, Junior Brown fudged a little on the enlistment papers he had his momma sign. All those years ago, with that Call to Arms as those young men and women left home for places unknown, they had no idea who among them would return. Wounds and all, Junior Brown returned, ready or not. Resilience.
Most of those who did return then married and raised families, but the close of the Second World War had not put an end to life’s struggles and hardships, especially in rural Alabama.
Once our farm boy settled down and married, he moved his first wife, Mary Louise Jackson, to the old Cherry Place just north of Billingsley, the same place where he had his mother sign the enlistment papers. Junior and Louise soon moved to County Road 165, four miles from Autaugaville. The Junior Brown story then became an Autauga County story. On 1,069 acres, these two were raising their eleven- and eight-year-old sons, John and Larry, when, one morning in 1957, while pregnant with their third child, Junior Brown’s young wife fell to the floor. Both sets of grandparents were there around the kitchen table the morning she died. Junior Brown was shocked and devastated, but worked on. He had two young sons to support and raise. Resilience.
A year later, Junior Brown began the three-year courtship of Virginia Manning that led to their 40-year marriage that ended the day after Veterans Day, 2001, with his own passing.
The book, "Junior Brown: A Man and His Family," is the story of Junior Brown’s life told by his youngest son, James Ray Brown. There are words from the author’s father, eyewitness accounts, interviews with family members across three generations, coworkers, employees, friends and another veteran of the Second World War.
This book of 107,000 words begins in 1966 with the loss of Junior Brown’s left leg at American Colloid in Sandy Ridge when a WABCO Earthmover jackknifed, crushing his leg from his body. From the strip mine, those on the site carried Junior Brown and his severed limb to Greenville, where Dr. Vernon Stabler and staff managed to pull him through, minus a leg to the hip.
Junior Brown continued his work ethic without letup, despite having only one leg. Resilience.
Junior Brown was offered a large monetary settlement due to the on-the-job injury. Instead, he accepted a lifetime employment contract.
Junior Brown could have applied for disability. He kept working to the end.
Resilience.
A list of locations where the book can be bought is available at: [email protected].
Jim ‘Zig’ Zeigler’s beat is the colorful and positive about Alabama -- her people, places, events, groups and prominent deaths. He is a former Alabama Public Service Commissioner and State Auditor. You can reach him for comments at [email protected].
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