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Marvin Key
My parents always lived right around Arley, Winston County. My dad, his parents migrated from Walker County. They came to Winston County and bought a lot of land and they farmed. I believe my grandparents on my dad’s side, there was about fourteen of them. In my mama's family there was about eight I guess. We were very, very poor. We were the lowest in our community. I'm in a lot better shape than my parents were. Course I went to school at Meek. I didn't get to start until I was seven years old cause it was so far to the bus. They were afraid for me to try it by myself. I was the oldest of eight children. It was so far to the bus and the bus couldn't get down there. Nothing could get in and of out there but a mule and a wagon. The road was rough and washed away. A car couldn't get in there course there wasn’t many cars around at that time. That was in ‘29 when I started to school, something like that. I was seven years old and born in ‘22 so it would be right. Well I got married when I was nineteen years old and got drafted into service in World War II. I was twenty when I went in the army and got married at nineteen. I stayed in the army about three years. In the meantime we had two children. While I was in the service I would come home .......... I came home, the older one was conceived before I left, and then the one after I came from overseas , I came home on furlough and nine months later I had another one. Well I was in the anti-aircraft and almost to Berlin. I believe it was five days before the war ended in Germany. I was in a motorcycle accident and they sent me back, all the way back to Paris and then on. It was a German motorcycle. Some of the boys got one and I was riding it. A jeep hit me and knocked me up in a German's yard and the Germans were just a hollering and carrying on. They picked me up and carried me to the hospital and all the way back to the United States. That was five days before Berlin, before we took Berlin. We had airplane attacks. We would set up ammunition dumps, little old airstrips. I remember one that was a fighter strip and it was just wires put down on the grass for landing and taking off. Something like concrete wire. Something like that. We saw a lot of them all shot up. B-29's shot all to pieces. One time a B-26 Marauder, it was raining and as they started landing, six of them crashed. Didn't any of them make it. Started out at Camp Edwards, Massachusetts. Any way, they sent us up there in January. It was cold up there. That was January of ‘42. Finished basic there and went to Tennessee. No we went to Camp Rooker, Alabama. Stayed there awhile and had maneuvers around there. Then we went to Tennessee and had maneuvers for a month or so, two or three months over in Tennessee, the mountains there. Then we went to Georgia for a while. It was about a year we hopped around, not hardly; and then we left and went overseas. Landed in Scotland, got on a train and went to Tidworth, England. That was about 80 miles out of London and stayed there until the invasion. A few days after the invasion we landed over at Utah Beach. Oh, that was awful. It wasn't on us but the people before us. It was a few days after the roughest part when we went over. We just kept following all the way through France, through Paris and on through Belgium. Charleroi, Belgium, we stayed there a few days. We were there at the Battle of the Bulge right at the tail end of that, but we got by. Then we went on over into Germany, Wessel, across the line there. I don't remember the name of any more towns between there and Berlin. We were nearly at Berlin when I got hurt. Five days later Germany surrendered. (You were about 22 or 23 years old at that time?) Yes. (Were you pretty good to ride motorcycles at that time?) I guess I thought I was. Well I was doing all right; I just started to turn left and a jeep started to pass me. One of our jeeps. I hated that so bad. Just broke my foot and they put a walking cast on me and I came home, had fun for two months. I didn't get out of the army; I didn't get discharged until three or four months later. Well I went back and I came home, took my 30 days, then I called them and asked for another 30 days. So they granted it. Then I went back and a day or two after I went back Japan surrendered. Then they decided to get rid of me. Then I went back to Atlanta and they discharged me. I got home and didn't have anything. Course I kept my uniform. I started out in logging. Skidding logs and farming a little too. I did that for a while and decided I'd go back to school and I went to school. They had a veteran’s continuation class at night and then I went to regular school in the daytime. That way after a year I started at the University of Alabama. I thought I wanted to coach. I got a degree in that and a minor in science and social studies. After I started coaching I didn’t like coaching. So, I went back and got a master’s degree in school administration. I was principal at a couple of schools, Kelly, stayed there two years and went to Dowling and from there to Crane Hill. The fifth year I was principal. Went to Kelly the first year and stayed two years there. Then went back to Dowling and stayed eleven years or something like that. I coached high school one year, high school football. I didn’t like that. Then I was principal at Kelly. Kelly is right out of Cullman on the Eva road. Then they wanted me to come to Dowling and I stayed there for several years. Ten or eleven years. |
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