THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608020167
SECTION: PORTSMOUTH CURRENTS PAGE: 02 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Guest Column
SOURCE: BY SAM L. CALLIS
LENGTH: 63 lines
In 1940, in about the same month I got a job at Norfolk Naval Shipyard, I met a farm girl named Jessie Hoggard. She grew up between Cofield and Ahoskie, N.C., and was working one day a week, for $1.35 per day, at a 5-and-10 cent store.
I had grown up near Harrellsville. I was 22, with no trade and wondering what I would do. The Navy yard job changed things. I started at 45 cents per hour. In a few months, I got into welding.
I continued to see this girl and, after a few months, I had decided I wanted to spend a lot of time with her. So we planned to marry about May 1941. I got a day off, and she agreed to get married May 5.
We caught a train in Ahoskie to Norfolk for a blood test. Then we went to South Mills to get married. Jessie was 19 years old. A friend took us to get married that night.
We came back to Portsmouth to a one-room place to live, sharing a bath with another couple. After a few weeks, we moved to a two-room apartment, sharing one bath with three couples. People were coming to Tidewater, hungry for jobs. Living places were hard to find, but some were being built.
In November, after six months of poor living conditions, we got a new, four-room apartment, complete except heat, for $36 per month. The heat was a coal or wood stove. We stayed there about seven years, and three of our four boys were born while we were there. We had agreed that Jessie would stay home with the kids, and I would make the living. She seemed to like that. I know I did.
Later on, we bought a small brick home in Portsmouth Heights, a good place to live, with good neighbors. Some are still there. Our fourth boy was born while we were there.
After 10 years, we bought a small farm in Nansemond County, which is Suffolk now. The boys grew up here. They did right much hunting and fishing, and a lot of farm work. That may have helped keep them out of trouble.
We all worked hard. I worked two jobs many years, as Jessie and I hoped to never return to the conditions we grew up in - no inside toilets, no running water, no electricity and very little money. So far so good.
I retired in 1980 to the farm where I still am. The boys were all gone by 1975. They still live close by. For years Jessie and I did a lot of fishing on boats and piers. She loved to fish and was good at it.
After a few years of declining health, Jessie died quietly on April 26 this year. We had been together 54 years, 11 months and 21 days. We never did separate. Of course, we would argue, but she usually fixed the next meal.
On April 29, after a great sermon by Jessie's favorite preacher, Robert Bennett, and the Moose ladies, Jessie was laid to rest in Meadowbrook Cemetery. As I left the grave site, it dawned on me that I had left over half my life there.
My family and I received tremendous help - food and sympathy from many people and organizations. We are real thankful.
Now my children and their wives and my grandchildren are helping me as I try to shake it off. I have phone calls that help also.
I now have to look for a barber shop. Jessie cut my hair for 50 years. A lady asked me recently if I'd do it again. ``Would you marry Jessie again?'' I told her yes! MEMO: Mr. Callis, who lives on Sleepy Hole Road in Suffolk, is a
government watchdog and avid newspaper reader. He often speaks at City
Council and other government meetings, and he frequently writes letters
to the editor. by CNB