>> This is James Newberry,
and I'm here with Reuben Griffin at Sturgis Library at
Kennesaw State University on Friday April 29, 2016.
And Mr. Griffin, do you agree to this interview?
>> I sure do.
>> Thank you. Well,
we'll start at the very beginning.
Could you please state your full name?
>> John Reuben Griffin.
>> And when and where were you born?
>> In South Georgia August 2, 1923.
>> So tell me about your family?
>> Well, when you mention my family,
then we could talk all day about
them because I have a large family.
Actually, going back before my parents,
there were 11 brothers and sisters in my dad's family,
and there were seven brothers
and sisters in my mother's family.
So we have a very large family.
Some 45, I think,
first cousins in the family.
So I had a wonderful early life.
>> And what were your parents' names?
>> Bera. Actually, she called
herself Bera B. Bobby Beatrice Lanier Griffin,
but her actual name was Bera Griffin.
>> And your father's name?
>> John Eldridge Griffin.
>> And describe their personalities for me?
>> My personal or my parents?
>> Your parents' personalities.
>> Well, to say they were
great would be an understatement.
I guess, they were parents that anybody
would love to have because my mother was a barrel of fun.
And as far as my dad was concerned,
I was his little man,
and you know how that made me feel growing
up. It was wonderful.
>> And you were the only boy, right?
>> I was the only boy.
Yes, there were four girls,
eventually, and I was the only son.
>> Did they reserve
special treatment at all for
you because you were the only boy?
>> Well, all the girls claimed they did,
and I guess in a way I was something
special to them with just having girls all around.
>> And what did your parents do for a living?
>> Farmers. They were part of an inheritance of
a large part of land that their great granddaddy
had lived long enough that
the government gave him the land.
And so we had 30 acres and a mule when we started.
And so my people were
farmers just plain old dirt farmers
and really happy at it.
>> Well, tell me about moving to Florida.
>> Well, when I was about two years old,
it was just the beginning of
what was to be a great big depression.
And you know what that means.
So my daddy found out that he could make
$10 a day if we could move to Sarasota, Florida.
And so that's what he did.
He rented the 30 acres out to a friend of his.
And we moved to Sarasota and he started making
$10 a day and my mother we would rent out rooms.
We had a large house they had
rented and we would rent out rooms and
each day she would
make lunch for all the men that were living in the house.
And so it was a real good time and I
can remember as that little two-year-old.
My dad being a carpenter,
each day would bring nails home.
And the doorsteps we had in
that house must have had a million nails in
them that as a little boy I'd stand and pound
those nails [LAUGHTER] day after day.
And so it really become a part
of my lifestyle to hit nails.
And so I enjoyed it.
>> And besides hammering those nails,
what are some of your other earliest memories?
>> Now, some
of my people say that I don't remember this,
but I simply do remember
when we moved to Sarasota being two years old,
the Ringling Brothers Circus
each year would come in and winter.
That is they'd bring all the stuff in there in Sarasota.
And the first memory that I actually have,
they carried me to a little circus, actually,
it wasn't a real circus,
but they went around two or three blocks and
showed all the elephants and animals and so forth.
And I remember a little car
coming by and I was sitting on
my dad's shoulder and I looked in that car.
And there was a monkey driving that car,
and I will never forget that.
Now I'm sure they must
have had a man somewhere down in that motor,
but a little monkey was driving
that car and it was a real fond memory of mine,
and I enjoyed it very much.
>> Did you have any childhood friends?
>> Well, I guess at that age,
I had a buddy.
And my buddy's name was Harold Dillinger.
He was a cripple and had
to ride around and push himself in the cart.
And the two of us became real close friends and
I guess I could say I loved him because he
was helpless and yet I could help him.
I could run around and do things for him.
So Hart and I just had a wonderful time together.
That was my main buddy.
Now, the renters in the house.
I guess I'd have to say they were next
because when they would come home each day from work,
boy, each one of them was my buddies,
so I had a big time with all the people
who were renting from my mother.
>> What jobs were those renters doing?
>> It was mostly construction jobs at that time
or working on ships and things of that nature.
I was not close to that fam but I
knew that's what they were doing because see,
we live there for three years.
So I got to know pretty
well what they would be doing and they would
either be working in the ship industry
or boat industry or building industry.
And that's basically what they were doing.
>> Tell me about Martha Cole.
>> Martha Cole.
I guess I could talk a long time about Martha.
We loved Martha.
Back then, if somebody had a child that
they either didn't want or didn't care for,
or we would just take them in.
Now, today, you'd call adopting them and going
through all the papers back in that time,
we would just take them in and Martha Cole was
such a person her daddy had left her mother
and her mother was trying to eke out
a living and didn't have
the facilities to take care
of her or the money or anything.
So Martha became a part of
our family and so even up until her death,
almost 75 or 80 years later.
She's remained a part of our family,
and we would have any reunion
or any get together or anything like that.
She would be present
and we loved them right up until her death.
>> So you returned to
Georgia and why did you return to Georgia?
>> Excuse me. We returned to
Georgia about I went down and I was about two.
We returned to Georgia when I was about five years old.
Now, the depression, you might say was getting in
full swing and that $10
a day job that my daddy had vanished.
Well, we still had this farm that
we had held onto while we were in Florida.
So we moved back back to Georgia back on that farm that's
where we live for most of
my early life back on the form in Georgia.
>> Tell me about the community of Pats.
>> Well, I tell you about the community of Patmos,
I could talk about it for an hour.
Or I can just tell you briefly.
Within a mile of Patmos,
they were practically all of my relatives.
So it was a real happy time.
There was one little store,
and my aunt Arline ran that store,
and we would go down each week with
whatever money we had.
Most of the time,
we'd have to put it on the book.
Now, you probably don't know
what putting it on the book means.
She would have a big book there,
and when you bought something,
she would write it down on this little book.
And hopefully she could get
her money that fall when the crop was sold.
Now, I'm afraid to say sometimes
some of us failed to make those payments.
But Aunt Arline was just a great person there,
and she ran the store.
It was the only little store we had and it
was right next to a small church.
And as I said,
I had my father had 11 brothers and sisters and my mother
had seven brothers and sisters and they
all they all made up
this big community in that area there.
>> Describe the house that you lived in there in Dallas.
>> Well, I'd have to
describe the house about three different
times because as children would come along,
we'd have to add to it
and I wound up on a little sleeping porch on
one side of the house because we became crowded there.
And this house was built by my dad.
Now when I say built by my dad,
he would take each plank and smooth one side of
that plank in the hopes and
splinters and things of that nature would
not interfere with the kids
running through and things of that nature.
He would what we call plane plane and I can see him now
standing out planning each board
and once he'd get the board,
planed would it would go in shape.
And so the house became a house with shingles on it.
James, what they would do was rive shingles?
You probably are not familiar with that word, are you?
They would have a round block.
And they would have an axe and they would take
those that axe and they would
chop straight down and it would it
would shave off a shingle maybe about an inch thick.
Now, that became the roof of the house.
So the planks came from
the pine trees and a little old saw mill that was about
there and the roof of that house
became these arrived shingles.
And they were placed on one at
a time and most times they were
pretty good as far
as keeping the house from leaking and so forth.
>> How many rooms?
>> Well, we started out.
Let's see, 1, 2, 3,
three rooms to start with.
Now, as time went by,
we had to add two more rooms to the back of the house.
And then when I came along,
we had to add a little sleeping porch off
the side of the house it really wasn't close.
I just had a screen around it and in the wintertime,
if I got too cold,
in the early years,
I'd run in then get one of
my warm sisters in her bed or something like that.
And so it really had six rooms
together and it had a pump outside the house.
There was no bathroom fixtures in the house.
Out about I guess 50 yards from the house.
That was our famous tool hole with
a robots catalog so we enjoyed that.
And so you could go
down there and get away from everything
and and that was our bathroom at that time.
>> Did you have pots in the house?
[LAUGHTER]
>> I was hoping you wasn't going to ask me that question.
Yes, I'm just going to
use the words that we used back then.
We referred to them as slop jars.
Each bed, maybe not every bed,
there would be part of slop jar.
And at night, that was the facility that you had to use.
And so in the morning
when those had been used overnight there,
it became part of my job to take
those slop jars and carry them down in back of the barn,
because that's where our garden was.
And that was very good fertilized.
Very good fertilizer.
>> So was the home electrified?
>> Originally, no.
There was just oil lamps.
And these oil lamps had a little burner room,
and that's all we had.
Now, as times progressed and things got a little better,
my dad came home one day with what he referred
to at that time as an Aladdin lamp.
This lamp had a wick on it,
just about two or
three inches tall about not quite as big as your fist.
And that Aladdin lamp made about twice or
three times as much light
as a regular little oil old lamp.
And but unfortunately, with burn out.
So that that was our lamp.
Now, after, well, I guess,
when Roosevelt became president,
I think I've got my timing right.
At about that time, REA rural electrification.
I think I'm remembering that right.
David, it came in,
and you had one cord in the middle of house,
it would hang down with a bulb on it.
So each room had one light hanging down from the ceiling.
And so we thought
that was a great thing because otherwise,
we either had to read or study books by the light of
the heater or some other facility there.
You would stove or something that had some light to it.
And so this electricity help us a lot.
>> And how many acres did your father own?
>> Originally, 30.
Now, I think I
mentioned earlier in the comments here that,
his great great granddaddy had lived on this land
long enough for the government
allowed him to own the land.
And then when he had 11 brothers and sisters,
each one of them when they married,
their daddy would give them 30 acres and a mule.
And so consequently, they had to
take that 30 acres and take their mule,
and make a living on that 30 acres mule.
So originally, 30 acres.
Now, as the years went by,
my dad bought some
of the land from the other brothers and sisters.
And so our farm grew a little larger than that,
I'd say maybe 50, 60,
70 acres as time went by.
>> What crops did you grow?
>> Mostly peanuts and cotton.
Now, we courts, we had corn there mainly for the to feed
the horses and mules and stalk and so forth.
That was most of what we did.
>> How much time did you spend doing work in the field?
>> Well, as I said, from the time,
just after I came back from Florida,
I was daddy's little ma'am.
And so as years went by,
now I'm up like eight and nine and 10 years old,
and like any other kid,
you wanted to learn what your daddy did.
And so my dad taught me how to plough a mule.
When I was six and seven years old and eight years old,
I would have to plough and hold the handle up this way.
I wasn't tall enough to hold the handle that way,
but I would plough and hold the handles up there.
And as far as the time,
unless school was in,
I was in there all the time.
I spent all of my time either farming or carrying water
to the men that was out there farming or
doing something on the farm,
connected with the farm.
Now, admittedly, I played a lot too.
I had a lot of fun playing with my buddies.
>> So you were talking about
taking water to the men out there.
Did your father hire people to help,
in both outside and inside the house?
>> Inside the house, yes.
We had one lady.
We payed her $1 a week plus snuff.
Now, that was her salary,
and she lived in
a little small bungalow across the road from us,
and we loved Arti.
That was her name.
And Arti did all the house chore.
She was a part of the household.
And she was very helpful,
and it helped my mother,
especially in washing and things of that nature.
Now we had about three or four people
that lived on little spots.
We just build a little house like 10 or 15 feet,
and then 15*15 feet,
put a roof on it, and the house.
And then these people would help.
They were what you call sharecroppers with my daddy.
They would have a certain plot of land,
and if they formed it,
then my daddy would get a share of it,
and they would get the rest of it.
That's what we're referred to as sharecroppers.
And so that basically made
up my early life there on the farm.
>> Tell me about curve market.
>> Curve market. I guess in
a way I could say that saved us during the depression.
The farmer's market that we attended,
it's a place in Albany that was
about 30 miles from where we lived.
And by this time,
the depression was getting over,
and we were doing a little bit better.
And so we developed
a large place there to develop vegetables,
and all type of vegetables and so forth.
Now, during the day,
we would go out and gather corn,
we would gather peas, butter beans,
and all the things that went for
crops that people would eat.
And also, incidentally,
we would add a lot of chickens,
because this time had gotten big enough to drive a car,
and I was driving when I was 11,12 years old.
And I'd go around and buy chickens from
people and bring those chickens back home and dress them.
And the next day,
we'd carry them to farmer's market with us.
Well, getting back to
that question each morning, about 3:30,
we would get up after selling
the peas or gathering the corn or doing this and that,
we would get up and drive this 30,
35 miles to Albany, Georgia,
and there they had area there that
the farmers bringing in
this fresh produce could display it.
And we would take it out,
and display our produce,
and people would come by and buy it.
And so we were able to first thing,
we bought a new car,
and we carry this produce up there,
and we would clear 30 and $40 a day sometimes.
And that was unheard of back in that time.
It was good.
So it started,
we did that and first thing you know of,
my daddy's brother started doing the same thing,
and my daddy step brothers started doing the same thing.
So it got us through the depression, and so forth.
>> Well, was there a point at which
you recognized that there were
people with more money or less money than your family?
>> Not really.
We were all poor,
but we were all happy.
And other than those women in Albany 30 miles away,
they would come in their cars and
they buy stuff and pay us the price for it.
All the community that I lived in,
we were all poor and we were all happy.
And if we had something extra, we would share it.
So it was just really a happy life.
>> So tell me about the church.
>> The church. Well,
I can tell you how I fit in.
The church was right here.
One hundred yards from that church was my house.
So my job as a youngster coming up,
when it was summertime,
it was my job each Sunday
morning to go down to
the church and open those wooden windows.
Now, they didn't have glass windows back then,
just open those wooden windows
so the air would circulate through
that church and people
would be a little cooler when they got there.
Now, in the wintertime, that church,
I would have to go down and
this is probably is not a word in your vocabulary,
but a pot belly stove was in that church,
and I had to go down and
put wood in that pot belly stove,
and set it to fire so that people
would be warm by the time they got there.
Close the windows and light the pot belly stove.
And by the time people began to gather for church,
10:00 or 10:30, something like that, it was wonderful.
I'll have to say this.
Greatest difference, I guess,
between church then and church
now was when the sermon was over,
or the preacher was through preaching.
Incidentally, he just came once a month,
and we still have church here Sunday,
but just had a preacher once a month.
When that was over,
people would stand around outside and talk for hours.
And of course, all the kids,
we would run and play and just had
a ball and Sunday to us was a good day.
And we love that little church, Patmos Church,
and it stands today
incidentally and I was there just a year or two ago.
So it was a wonderful church.
>> So tell me where you went to school.
>> I went to school straight
across the street from where we lived;
straight across the street.
When I say street, now, remember,
there wasn't a paved road
in the whole county that we lived.
So straight across the dirt road,
there was a small three room school.
And the unusual part of that school
was that we would go to
that three room school during the day.
And at nighttime, the doors and all were left open.
And the goats would all
come and spend the night in the school.
Of course, the first thing the next morning was sweep
out time before we started school.
And those three room schools and Ms. Lodi B Smith,
who was my teacher back in those early times.
She was hard on me, I thought.
But anyway, that we did not have
any restrooms in the school at that time.
And so anybody had to be excused themselves.
Girls would go this way and the boys would go this
way in the woods back of the school.
And so that was
our restrooms and we didn't think about it.
That was just the way it was.
>> What kind of student were you?
>> I wanted the best. I loved to play.
I was kind of a play.
[LAUGHTER]
I wasn't the best.
Now, I passed my grades and all.
And I did a little bluffing along, I guess,
but I was able to make my grades,
and we just had a time,
Ori Thompson, my main buddy.
And we regretfully got in a little trouble,
but we would get
in a little trouble every once in a while.
>> And where did you graduate from high school?
>> I graduated 12 miles from where I just described.
A little town called Arlington, Georgia.
Now, that's where I graduated.
Actually, during the last two years of
my grade school up there,
I drove a school bus.
And when I say I drove a school bus,
what it was was a pickup truck with a body made over it,
that I would go by and pick up
about seven or eight people that were
all going to that school in Arlington.
I would drive about eight miles
up the road to a certain spot.
The bus could come to that spot
and I'd leave my little truck
there and we would get on the bus.
Then we'd go on to Arlington,
spend the day, come back,
bus would drop us off.
We'd get back on the little bus
and I came all around to houses around the house.
So they would usually pay us about $2 a month,
something like that for transportation.
I'd take care of the gas,
and that was about all we were interested in.
>> So what year did you graduate from high school?
>> I graduated from high school when I was 16 years old.
Now you've got to keep in mind that
I came back from Florida.
And I started school just after I was five years old.
And then I graduated when I was 16,
because we only had 11 grades back at that time.
So when I was 16,
I graduated from high school.
Now, I don't know how I did it,
but I was not fellow Victorian.
I was [inaudible] .
And I think looked [inaudible] that really.
>> How many students were in the graduating class?
>> I believe there was about 25.
I can see us right now around that circle [inaudible]
>> Well, at that time, what were your hopes
for the future? What were your plans?
>> Well, at that time,
I was simply planning on being a farmer.
That's all you.
That's all my dad had done,
it's all my family had done,
and I planned to be a farmer the rest of my life.
Now here I am 16 years old. What do you do?
Now, my mother fortunately was
a school teacher in her younger years.
So she was rather insistent
that we further our education.
And so I did go to some college after,
if you're interested in that.
I went to Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College,
which is the college farm
and teaching you how to farm better.
So I went to that school for two years.
And I fully intended
to go ahead and get further education.
But unfortunately, something came along.
I fell in love with
a little girl that was walking down the hall one day.
And so well, you didn't ask about.
That's all. [LAUGHTER]
I'll tell you later.
But anyway, we got married when I was just 19 years old.
So after the two years I'd gone to college,
then we got married.
And now I'm 19 years old.
So what do I do now?
[LAUGHTER]
>> So I want to ask quickly here,
did you have a sense that war was on the horizon?
>> Yes, I did. I was going to mention that.
I was a little underage at the time war first started.
But for that reason I didn't go in immediately,
but when war started 1945,
we all rushed to join.
There was a number of us
and I guess that as luck would have
it that were not accepted because we were on the form.
And back then they needed the food worse than they
needed the manpower to feed
the soldiers after the war started.
And so for a time there,
I felt like that there would not be a problem about
me going in service or it wouldn't started things,
so I went and bought them.
Now, I'm just 19 years old.
I went and bought me a Ford tractor.
I rented 60 acres of land and bought
some seed peanuts and Sarah and I got married.
And I was going to be a big farmer.
But Uncle Sam had something different in mind for me.
I moved from one county to another county.
This county that I moved to was having
trouble meeting its allotment
for men to go in the service.
So instead of me being deferred there,
I don't know if you've ever seen him,
you remember the sign you've probably
seen some the country
needs you or something this man
pointing and I can see it right now.
And so I was drafted in the new county.
>> Let's pause for one second.
Do you want to pull
those up so you can put your feet on the floor?
Let's do that. You want to take a sip of water.
>> No. I'm fine.
>> So I want to just go back quickly and sort of
get a direct response on Pearl Harbor.
Is that a distinct memory for you?
>> Yes.
>> Well, tell me about hearing the news.
>> Well, I heard the news.
It happened so I was hitchhiking and a man picked me
up and told me about it because back then,
people if they wanted to go
anywhere and didn't have a car,
they just thumb a ride somewhere.
And so I heard about it,
but it didn't hit somewhere or other since I
had been told that I was going to I had to perform,
I didn't think that it would necessarily affect me.
Now, it was a horrible thing living in the country,
away from a city,
away from a lot of hullabaloo and everything.
I guess I wouldn't have been
affected quite as much as some of
those that were more draft age,
a year or two early older than I was and so forth.
But I remember it and I can remember Roosevelt on
the old radio talking about, I can't remember.
I can't recall the full speech,
but I can remember his voice as he came on there.
The world will remember
infamy and they use some big words
like that the things that will
happen and so it was it was quite a.
>> How did your family feel about President Roosevelt?
>> They thought he was god.
They thought he was god at that time because he had put
through he had basically but us out of the depression.
See, back then, there was people going
around digging ditches all over there to keep
mosquitoes from giving you
malaria and things like that and certain building things.
So they they really thought he was god.
Roosevelt was will form.
>> So who told you or how did you learn
that you wouldn't be
drafted or you wouldn't have to
enlist because you were a farmer?
How did you get that knowledge?
>> Well, a little town of Newton,
Georgia, that's the county that I lived in.
And so they informed me that I would not.
And so I just accepted it as such.
And that's the reason I bought the tractor
and peanuts and rented some land.
And I was going to farm and feed.
But instead, when I moved to
a different county, Dougherty County,
that's when they decided that they needed me worse in
the war than they needed me to raise peanuts for them.
>> So if you'd stayed in Baker County?
>> Yes.
>> Would you have not been drafted, do you think?
>> I think it would have.
I think it would have probably a little later in the war,
I would have been drafted.
And I had gone there a time or
two hoping that we of course back then,
I wasn't an exception.
All of us wanted to go, we wanted to go.
But since I had married,
that changed a little of my thinking.
And so I thought,
well, now, I sure won't have to go,
but that wasn't the case.
>> Well, let's talk about meeting your wife.
>> Okay.
>> Tell me about her. How did you meet her?
>> Well, like most boys, 14, 15, 16 years old,
the new school year comes along.
And I like most of them was
standing where you entered
the restroom watching the girls go by.
And there was a new school that
had been added to our school.
And so the pupils from
that school were having to come to our school.
So that was a new set of girls.
So I had to see how they looked.
And so as they came by,
I never will forget my wife. She came by.
She had on a little old skirt that was was red,
white, striped, and I just thought,
well, I'm going to marry that girl.
And so that was,
I can't say feeling love,
but I was infatuated at that time, you know.
>> And this was still in high school?
>> Yes. You in high school.
>> Yeah. So she was from the area?
>> Yeah. Yeah. She was just about four miles from there.
>> And what was her name?
>> Sarah.
>> And her last name?
>> Emanuel. E-M-A-N-U-E-L, Emanuel.
>> So how long did you court?
>> Well, see, I went on to college after I met her.
I went on those two years college
that I mentioned to you a while ago.
And then after college
and thinking I was going into service immediately,
we made a decision.
Basically, it was on Saturday night.
We said, let's go get married.
So we went and got married
and we were going to keep it a secret.
But the next week,
the Baker County News came out and it was in
the papers so we couldn't do anything about that secret.
So anyway, we went then
and that's that's when we got married now.
>> And do you remember the date of your wedding?
>> I believe it was November.
You got it?
>> It was 42.
>> Forty two.
>> I know the year.
>> I believe it was November or something.
I'm just not certain.
See, I've got a new wife now,
so I'm thinking about new wife.
>> We'll get to her.
>> Okay.
>> So you got married.
And tell me about getting
that small farm still in Baker County.
>> As I told you, I had rented a tractor.
I've had that small farm one year I farmed,
which is what I was supposed to do to stay on.
And this is before it was drafted.
And then when I moved to a different county,
then they said you've got to be drafted,
so I lost the farm and I had to give up.
I lost tractor,
I lost the seed peanuts,
I lost the rent, I lost everything.
And so at that point in time, I was drafted.
>> Tell me about moving to Albany.
>> Well, my parents moved to Albany.
Originally, I told you that was
about 30 miles from where we lived all my life.
They rented a large colonial home,
and this colonial home had rooms.
It had five or six or seven rooms in this home.
So they rented us two of the rooms,
and Sarah and I moved into these two rooms.
And that's where we lived and
that's where I left her when I went in service.
>> Do you remember what street that home was on?
>> Yes, it was on South Slappy Drive
and it didn't have a bit of payment.
But yes, it was Sloppy Drive.
>> So what did you do for a living in Albany?
>> Well, once I farmed,
then went in the service.
Now, I had not gone
into anything other than the farming,
so if you were talking about my career,
my career didn't start really
until I got back from the service.
>> So you hadn't rented
another tract of land once you got to Albany?
>> No.
>> I lost my tract of land and everything
and when they drafted me I went to Fort Knox,
Kentucky for my original training there.
>> So when you were still at home
in Albany before you were drafted,
did you get a ration card at that time?
>> No.
>> Did you buy any war bonds?
>> No. Man,
I didn't have any money.
I couldn't buy any war bonds.
>> Were you keeping up with news of the war at that time?
>> Oh, yeah. Very interested in news war.
>> How did you get your news?
>> Well, my dad and mother took the paper.
I'd read that paper in
the morning when they get through that.
>> And did you expect to fight?
Did you expect to be
drafted while you were still there in Albany?
>> No, I didn't concern myself too much,
but I was aware that the draft
was needing men and that I was off the age now,
19 going on 20s.
So I was of the age and I was married
and what would I do with my wife?
You were concerned about things like that.
And so I was concerned and sure enough I got that notice.
>> How did you receive the notice?
>> You received it from the draft board.
The draft board drafted me and says,
we need you and we want you to report to Fort Knox,
Kentucky for your for your training.
So anyway, I got on a bus there in Newton.
The bus left from Newton
and we headed Fort Knox, Kentucky.
And I left my wife there with
an old piece of car and incidentally,
you haven't mentioned anything about my baby,
but anyway we'll get to that.
>> So tell me about leaving your wife.
What was that parting like?
>> Well, that was a sad thing for me.
When I left my wife at that time,
I'm not sure which leaving you are talking about.
Because when I went to Fort Knox,
Kentucky, she went with me.
Now, leaving my wife later on
is the sad thing that I was fixing to mention to you.
>> So you go to Fort Knox once you've been called?
>> Yes.
>> And she goes with you.
>> And she goes with me.
>> Why did she go with you?
>> She goes with me and she works in
a PX there to help us pay off
the money that I had lost on
that land and the tractor and so forth.
Because I lost every bit of that.
And so she worked in a PX and I was
making $100 a month there in service at that time.
Now, remember, I was just a PFC at that time,
and so you don't make much money there now.
>> And where did you live there at Fort Knox?
>> Well, the person that was running
the PX had an extra room
and my wife rented that room from him.
And that's where she lived.
I was in the barracks with all the other enlisted men.
>> And so tell me about boot camp.
Tell me about your arrival at boot camp.
>> Well, I'm not sure except for one of
the interesting things that
happened the first night I got there.
Freezing cold and somebody stole my blanket.
And I got up over and I
tried to steal somebody else's blanket.
So we had a big time there.
She was there at Fort Knox.
And by that time we were just settling in.
And as I say, I have to go to barracks every afternoon,
she goes home to her one room apartment there.
>> What kind of training did you undergo?
>> Fort Knox, Kentucky,
they train you there how to tank.
I said, this time,
they have made the right decision.
I had a tractor,
had to have a tractor.
Now I'm going into a tank outfit.
And so I thought, well, boy,
they have really hit the nail on the head.
But unfortunately, I stayed there
and took my basic training the whole time,
and I never got inside of a tank.
I was a radio operator on a personnel carrier.
Now, I don't know if you're personnel characters like
a tank people and you
have to learn how to learn the Morse code.
And so I was taught that.
And so that's what I did there.
Now, remember, you only in basic training for 90 days.
So that's the 90 days that we spent there.
>> And how were you assigned to a branch of the military?
>> When I was finishing basic training there,
they sent you around some type of form.
I cannot see it now,
but I can't remember all the questions on it.
But you answered all the questions,
including your school,
and your past history, what you did.
And for some reason,
I was selected for officers training.
So after basic training in Fort Knox, Kentucky,
I was selected for officers training.
So that's good.
>> How did you feel about it?
>> Well, I was
happy because I was going to get a big raising,
I think I'd get about $10 more a
month if I went to a basic training.
So I had a decision to make.
I either can stay at Fort Knox and become
a tank outfit or I can go to Aberdeen, Maryland,
and that's firearms training,
or I could go to
Fort Wayne and that's where the infantry is trained.
So what did I do? Well, while you haven't mentioned it,
Sarah now is pregnant with our first baby.
And so we go home,
we get a week's leave before you go to that training.
So anyway, I selected Camp Blanding because it's
just 90 miles from Albany where my wife would be staying.
>> You're talking about Fort Benning?
>> Excuse me, I selected Fort Benning because
it's just 90 miles from Albany.
So going on home,
we thought she just had the flu.
But when we got Fort Benning,
we found out different,
she was pregnant with the baby.
So anyway, the next assignment I get
is Fort Benning for officer training.
So I went to Fort Benning,
here again, 90 days.
Now by this time,
it's getting near the time
that in Europe it's getting close to that time,
but not quite yet.
So anyway, I went to Fort Benning,
went through officers training,
and I found out that you could get an extra $100 a
month if you could join the paratroopers.
So you're talking about needing money,
I really needed the money bad.
So I got on a bus one day
and they carried me up to Fort Benning,
which was the headquarters.
And when I got to the headquarters,
they carry you up to the top of a thing,
looked to me it was halfway to the sky.
I got up there and I looked back down and I was
supposed to catch this rope
and slide down somewhere or other.
I'm not just sure what because I never did do it.
I turned around and I said,
as bad as I need money,
I don't need this $100 a month that bad.
So I came back to Fort Benning,
finished my officers training,
and at that point in time,
became a SAC lieutenant.
>> Well, tell me about Fort Benning,
what did it look like in those days?
>> Soldiers. Night training,
day training, morning training,
training of every kind.
Everywhere you looked was nothing but soldiers.
See, this is just before VE Day in Europe.
So everybody was training for
the final invasion hopefully and winding
that war because they didn't know at
that point in time that Europe would give up.
So it was totally 100% sold.
>> Did you have a sense of how important Fort Benning
was in training certain units?
>> Yes, I did.
You were trained in weaponry,
well, we had to do a lot of night training.
You had to train with all types of weapons.
And I can remember,
I could seem like they take a weapon and
just use it and
can't think of the other guns
I was trying to think of that.
But all type of weaponry,
you were trained for the use in case of combat.
>> What did your barracks look like there?
>> I can tell you exactly what it looked like.
It was 20 by 50,
20 feet wide, 50 feet long.
Now the reason I know that I later bought one.
So I know what the size of that bag.
And when you walked in the barracks,
there was nothing but cots not beds.
There were just cots on both sides down and a
few of the barracks had second floor in them.
So it was nothing but soldiers
and spreads and brown blankets
on top of the cot and so this was my life at that time.
>> What time did you get up in the morning?
>> About 3, 4, 5:00.
Between four and 5:00 really.
>> And where was the latrin?
>> It was in the end of the barracks.
>> What about the mess hall, the cafeteria?
>> Well, you had to the time you got the cafeteria is
about 5:30-6:00 and it was all separate.
It was not a part of the barracks.
It was a separate place where you went to.
>> What was the food like?
>> Well, if you were in the service,
you called it slop.
But basically, we were all healthy from it.
So I guess it was all right there.
But it was just a bunch of slop
as far as we were concerned at that time.
>> Were there any women
working on the base? Did you see any women?
>> Very few. They would be to
secretarial jobs and things of that nature and nurses.
Weren't women in service as
such like we were at that point in time.
>> So did you have
time to visit your wife while you were at Fort Benning?
>> No. She was back in Albany by
this time when we came back from Fort Knox,
Kentucky, she was in Albany.
And I may have gone home one weekend out of the 13 weeks.
I believe I mentioned that that training there is
13 weeks and I may have hitchhike home one weekend,
hitchhike back because that's what
you did basically that time.
And most everybody would pick you up, man.
If you had on the uniform,
they would pick you up and so.
>> Did she visit Fort Benning?
>> She did when I graduated from
Fort Benning with my SAC Lieutenant bars.
She came up with my dad and mother
and came up to Fort Benning for my graduation.
>> So where were you
transferred from Fort Benning? Where did you go?
>> Now, this is a quickie thing,
and I think I can get it straight.
When I graduated from Fort Benning,
they sent us to Camp Blanding, Florida.
Now, while I did not know it at that time, looking back,
I know what it was,
they were preparing us for the invasion of Japan.
So anyway, when I went Camp Blanding,
Florida, and stayed there about two months.
And then we were given a one week leave.
And the one week's leave,
of course, looking back now,
then you were heading for the invasion of Japan.
Now, I'm sure you remember that Germany or
VE day they gave
up about two months before Japanese surrendered.
But we were making
all our facilities available for the invasion of Japan.
So we went to Camp Blanding,
and incidentally,
our baby was born when I was in Camp Blanding.
>> Tell me that whole story.
>> I told you Sayer was pregnant when we
left the original basic training there.
And so the night
we were out on what we referred to as bivouac.
I don't know if you're aware of that terminology,
but you go out like you were in battle,
and you carry your tent with you,
and you get in the tent and you sleep,
and you do whatever you have to that night.
So we were out on bivouac,
and I being as tall as I am, of course,
my feet is taken out at the end of the tent cold weather.
But anyway, about 12 o'clock,
I suddenly, for some reason,
I don't know why, I knew I had to do something.
So I got up and I felt that
my baby was going to be born that night.
Now, here I'm in Camp Blanding,
Florida, about 250 miles from Albany.
And my wife is in Albany,
I'm in Camp Blanding, home be aware.
So I went to the commanding officer.
Now remember, at this time,
I'm just a second lieutenant.
I'm not the commanding officer.
And I said, I have got to go to Albany.
He says, "Lieutenant,
you can't do that.
We won't be whacked. You don't get it."
I said, sir, I've got to go to Albany.
I'm going tonight somewhere or another,
if I have to be arrested, I'll be going.
So he realized that I was serious about it.
So he got one of the Jeeps,
carried me to the bus station.
They are in Jacksonville.
You see, Camp Blanding is just out from Jacksonville.
Carried me to the bus station.
I got on the bus,
and drove that bus all night long and about daylight,
I got to Albany.
And I got to the hospital,
and the baby was born about two hours before I got there.
So that was the part you from.
I was glad to see you baby at that time, Cheryl.
And of course, I thank you know, Cheryl.
So she's a precious daughter
at that time, little fat thing.
I was happy to see her there.
>> How long could you stay with them?
>> That's a sad part.
I called back from there,
after I'd been there day.
>> Let's pause on there. This is James Newberry.
I'm still here with Reuben Griffin,
and I want to ask,
how long did you have to stay with your new baby?
>> One week. That was all they would give us,
knowing that we had to,
and at that point in time,
it was definitely planned on overseas situation.
So we stayed there one week,
and there's a little scene there that,
I guess, I'll never forget.
Some things you never forget.
This time on plane that I was on,
my mother and Sarah and
the baby came out to the airport to see me off.
God knows where.
And so I got
on the plane and I'll have to
admit with tears in my eyes,
and the plane circled.
And gun, I won't forget that plane, taken off.
And I don't know whether it was in
his flight plan or what.
But anyway, when it got off the ground, of course,
my wife with the baby in
her arms and my mother standing there,
we waved at them as we rolled by,
and so the plane as it got in the air,
it made a perfect circle
and came right back over where they were standing.
And I can see that scene today just as clear as I can.
My wife standing there with the baby.
And of course, my wife and holding
up that little old baby's arms,
and it was a love scene right there.
I sure was. I never forget it.
>> So you went on to California.
>> Went on to California there.
And really, it was just in transit.
We stayed there some location.
At Camp Roberts, California.
I think we stayed there for about two weeks,
and from Camp Roberts,
California, we went on to
San Francisco, and San Francisco.
Now, at this point that we're talking about right now,
VE Day had occurred in Europe,
but VJ Day had not occurred.
They were determined to still fight on.
So what was happening at that time?
I didn't know it at the time it was happening,
but what was happening at that time was the troops were
being assembled in all of
the islands around Japan that were there.
And we were coming from the states there.
And so we got on a,
it wasn't actually a troopship,
but it was being used as a troopship,
to haul as many people as they could for
the purpose of invasion of Japan.
So I got on the General Heintzelman.
That was the name of the ship.
And James, here's another scene that I'll never forget.
Here's, I guess maybe four or
5,000 men around that ship there,
we of maybe 50 feet above the deck down here.
And they had a little orchestra there to wave us goodbye.
And it was about six or seven men
and they were all waving.
All thousands of us,
how many thousand it was,
we were standing up there crying.
I mean literally shedding tears,
when we were going at that point in time.
And this little orchestra, of all things,
guess what song they
selected to sing as our goodbye song.
Go to take a sentimental journey.
So I never will forget that.
And it was something there that at that time,
I didn't even think to mean,
but later on when I found out,
one of the singers there was
Frank Sinatra in that little orchestra
, just starting out.
He was not famous at that time,
but Frank Sinatra, he was with that little orchestra.
So this is about August the 2nd,
something like that, August 2nd, 3rd.
And we take off sad face.
We know where we're going this time.
We don't know that we are
rendezvousing with all the troops for the islands,
I mean, we wouldn't know that.
But anyway, we take off,
and as we leave, everything's sad.
We just wait until the time when we
land in Japan for the invasion.
And I don't know if you're familiar with Japan itself.
It's basically Honshu and Ocado.
Two big islands mainly makes up Japan.
And the population of Japan are basically between,
here's the ocean, here's the ocean.
Well, the land comes up like this,
and here's the people living down in the center of this.
To have going in there for an invasion of Japan,
would have been a terrible thing
because you're going up of the mountains,
trying to get down to where people were.
But anyway, we took off,
and we had been at sea I guess four,
five, six days at that time,
that'd be about August 6th or 7th, something like that.
I know it's a little later in August.
Anyway, all of a sudden, one night,
it seemed like to me everything on
that ship lighted up, blewing,
horns blowing, everything on there was,
we did not know at that point in time what it was.
But the [inaudible] had been dropped on
Japan and we didn't know it at that time.
So that's the reason, when you hear me tell the story,
I am the luckiest person that ever lived because I got
there about two or three days
after the [inaudible] was dropped.
And the other one,
that the second time,
I got there two or three days after it was dropped
instead of two or three days before it was dropped.
So anyway, we went on.
[inaudible] kept on. Of course,
we thought at that point in time
we were just going to turn around and come back home.
But that isn't the way it was.
They had to have somebody there for the invasion of
Japan and to occupy the land.
And so we went on and landed in
Yokohama two or three days
after the atomic bombs were dropped.
And so that was an experience.
So now we are there in Japan.
And most of us who were already officers,
most of us were
given Japanese offices, former headquarters.
We were given small houses and
things like that where they had formerly lived.
>> So you were on a Japanese military base?
>> Yes. We were on a Japanese.
Yokohama. They carried us to
a Japanese military base and we
were housed in former Japanese offices.
>> What did your quarters look like?
>> Well, not too unlike ours,
but everything was messed up for
obvious reasons because they were disappointed and
having surrendered because by this time,
they surrendered two or three days after that.
And so it wasn't a whole lot of difference there.
It was all cheap.
Now, everything there was cheap,
the bamboo and things of that nature was
what they usually used for building supplies.
>> What were your duties?
>> To make a long story short,
let me tell it this way.
When we got there,
you were assigned anything that was available.
Now, to make a long story short for
about I guess five or six months of my time there,
I was trial judge advocate
and was investigating two black men
who had killed some people.
>> Tell me about that, please.
>> Well, one of them was named
Hart and one of them was named Hoyas.
I just will never forget those two names.
Now, as far as I was concerned,
Hart was the one that killed the person.
See, I don't know all about
this because I wasn't in all of it,
but I was in this initial investigation.
But Hoyas was the one that
eventually served time for having done so.
So it was my duty at
that time to go out and
investigate and I was no investigator.
I was just a soldier,
but I went out and I
investigated where the murder took place
and who I felt was guilty
and I came back and made my recommendation that Hart.
>> So Hart and Hoyas were a black soldier?
>> Two black soldiers that had committed a murder.
>> And who had been murdered?
>> I don't know at this time.
I don't really know because I was taken off the case.
You can see why because I didn't know.
Not really, but I don't
remember who the murder was committed on.
>> You don't know if it was
another soldier or a Japanese?
>> No. It was another soldier.
It was another soldier there.
They had gotten him. And I
can't recall that soldier's name.
>> And how did you get
the assignment to be this advocate?
>> Well, I was just there.
I don't say that I had the education for it,
but I had more than a lot
of the people there who were doing that.
And so I just was assigned that duty.
That's the reason I say when we got there,
the occupation forces, you just did what was available.
Six months after that,
I was a supply officer and so that's that's where it was.
>> How did you go about investigating?
>> Well, I took men with me,
which is I never read a book, how you investigated,
but I took certain men with me
that could get fingerprints and things of that nature,
carried them, got the fingerprints,
carried in the information I got.
And it only took me about three days to do what I did.
>> Was it a court martial?
>> Later on it was.
It was after I left there that the court martial came up.
>> And why were you taken off of it?
>> Well, our field moved on the up the islands there.
We went on up to Honjura.
>> And were you on another Japanese military base there?
>> Yes. Was.
>> And what was your assignment there?
>> I was a supply officer.
You let me tell you that little story about that?
I said it was a very unusual thing.
I always felt a little guilty about this.
I was a supply officer there.
And one day,
my commanding officer received the message that there was
an uprising of some Japanese
at a certain location about 15 miles from where we were.
And he asked me to take
a tank and take the tank loaded with men, supplies,
and try to locate where this uprising war
was because that early after giving up,
there was a lot of this
going on around in different places
where men were they were
not satisfied with having surrendered.
So we took off with the tank and
about 15 miles up and
the snow was that thick at that time,
that deep, about 15 miles up there,
we came to a location where we
thought our information had
indicated where the problem was.
And when we stopped to investigate,
I couldn't locate anything,
but there was a small train station
over here on one side and I said,
well, maybe I can go over here and talk to the girl.
And I wanted to
call back to my headquarters to see what to do next,
see what I needed to do and if I needed.
And so I got over there
and I couldn't communicate with the girl.
I tried every way in the world I knew to make her try
to understand that I needed some information.
Of course, she was Japanese and I was American.
And we could not communicate.
So I stood there for ten or 15 minutes arguing with
her and not really arguing, trying to communicate.
And my tank, I had left them out I guess
100 yards because the snow was so thick and all
that it wasn't appropriate to bring the tank down there.
And so I turned
around when I turned around to go
back out to where my tank was.
This was the only time
that I know that I was really scared.
There were about I would say 10 or
15 Japanese surrounding me.
They had just gotten right behind me.
I hadn't even noticed because I was here
talking to the girl and I hadn't noticed that.
Well, what do you do?
Well, my tank, I can't notify them out there.
I can't get any help.
So I did the only thing that you could do and it
was part of training that you
had over the last couple of years.
I had two 45s on my hip,
one on each side,
and I just reached down and flipped that snap that thing.
And I didn't take them out.
I just held my hands down and turned
around and started walking toward that tank.
They slowly parted.
Now, you get the funniest feeling in your back
you ever get when you walked through that.
So I walked on through
that throw that outfit and nothing really ever happened.
So anyway, that was looking and incidentally,
I never did find where anybody was trying to do anything,
and so apparently, it was just
somebody called in or something.
>> And what was the name of the town
again where you were posted when you
were in the supply unit?
>> Sindia. S-I-N-D-I-A,
I believe it is the way you spell it. Sindia
>> And tell me about becoming a typist.
>> I should have never told you [LAUGHTER].
>> I want a full story.
>> As you know, Douglas MacArthur,
was the main general.
He had a general by the name of
Kleeberga If you read your history look at looking
at General Kleeberga he was one of MacArthur's men.
So Kleeberga was my immediate commanding officer.
And so General Kleeberga needed some typing done.
When I had finished school,
I used to could type.
I got up to where I could type.
I had a little yellow hens she used
to lay behind the door or something,
but I could type 60 words a minute.
So I was doing a little typing for him.
I had been in Japan
exactly one year at that point in time.
So back at that time,
if you've been on duty and you
have served and you got everything qualified,
you are eligible for promotion.
So I was a second lieutenant.
You remember I told you at
camp Fort Benning I got my second lieutenant.
So anyway, I was eligible and it came through.
It was laying on the desk.
And I was eligible to be promoted to first lieutenant,
which was about $50 a month pay raise.
So I took it
up and he had a stack of stuff
he had to sign about that big.
Well, I took it and stuck it right in
the middle of that stack of things.
And that night, I was the first lieutenant.
So I qualified for
first lieutenant that night I cheated a little bit,
but anyway, it all
worked out all right and he and I were good friends.
In fact, the general and I
laughed about it a time or two after that. Sure did.
>> So how long a total were you in Japan?
>> About 16 months.
>> And did you have
any communication with folks at home at that time?
>> Yeah. We would get you know letters.
See, now, Japan gave up after the bombs were dropped,
and so it was just like you were somewhere else.
>> And what kind of news were you getting from home?
>> They were hoping that we'd be
able to come home it at some point in
time and it was looking
like and what I
don't know if you're familiar with this or not.
But you were assigned certain number of points
if you were in the service and then so
many double that amount if you were overseas.
And so my time came.
And I had enough points
having served over there to come home.
>> Did you also get points because
you had a wife and child?
>> Yes I got points because you had
a wife and child and you got points
because you were overseas and there
were two or three other little small things.
>> And how were you alerted, were you following along,
I'm getting more points or did you
suddenly hear you're eligible to go?
>> No, you kept up with your points.
You kept up with those points and you were pretty
familiar exactly when your time would come there.
>> Was there anything to do for
fun while you were in Japan? The entertained?
>> Yeah. We we had a good time.
Actually, we had a pretty good life over there.
Lieutenant Freeman and I had a cabin or house,
a former Japanese officer's home.
And we had Tomoko, T-O-M-O-K-O.
Tomoko. She was our made.
And she kept that place perfect
and of course we ate at the company,
mess hall, but the she kept our thing fine.
So we had a good life.
>> So you did have some interactions
then with the Japanese?
>> So we did and obviously,
we became friends with them after a period of time there.
>> That's my question. It seems like
that would have been a period of adjustment if
you'd been fighting these people who were viewed
as never going to surrender type fighters.
>> Yes. And no because see,
the people that we were with
mostly there were not the fighters.
They were just the mamas and daddies
and sisters and brothers and things like that.
They were exceptions to that statement,
but normally they were just everyday people.
>> So tell me about departing.
Where did you ship out from
and tell me about that day at that time?
>> When the time came you were
notified it's your time to come home and I mean,
you've got enough points now.
So you are to meet at a certain location, certain day.
And when you get that then in my case,
we came home on a small,
I don't know if you're familiar with this,
but they made a lot of ships back at that time.
They call them Webster victory.
I'll never forget I was on the Webster victory ship,
and we loaded up on,
got over got everything in there.
Incidentally, during this time,
you accumulate money from different things there.
So I left a large water money
to Tomoko so she is probably queen over there now.
The different things that I sold rifle,
I sent rifle home to my wife.
Actually, I sent three rifles home before I came.
And so anyway, we get on
Webster victory ship we out for San Francisco.
>> Tell me about life aboard ship.
This is not only for this trip but the trip over.
What was life like onboard these ships?
>> If you've ever eaten a few hard boiled eggs,
that's about the only thing that will keep you
from getting real sick.
And you are only sleeping mainly on one of
those transport things or on not a cut but a swing.
What you call them. I can't
think of what you call them right now.
But that you just cramped up.
You just cramped up. And but it's a happy time.
>> You Was there a commissary?
Someplace to buy things?
>> No. I don't remember any commissary.
If I didn't go to one there.
All I would go to was a mess hall,
get sick, throw up,
go back to my thing and lay.
That's coming home there.
There was an interesting
little thing that happened after I
got off the Webster victory there in San Francisco.
We we got on troop train heading for Sam Houston,
Texas, where we were to be discharged.
And when we got on this troop train,
they made me in charge of that.
I swelled up a little bit.
I thought that was some real being
recognized but you don't want to ever want that job.
I didn't know what I was taking there
because every time that train would stop somewhere.
Now, here you are with a train full of soldiers.
Let's say you got a couple of thousand on that train.
They haven't had a beer.
They haven't had a drink.
They haven't seen a girl in a year or two.
And every time that train stops,
you lose about 25 or 30 of them.
They get off and take
off and you don't know where they are.
I realize I'm stretching it out here,
but make a long story short,
when I finally got the troop train
back to Sam Houston, Texas,
I was scared to death because I had lost
about 130 people from
the time I left San Francisco to Sam Houston,
Texas, and I knew I was going to be court martialed.
And I got in, just signed the thing.
And the captain in there,
"Congratulations, Lieutenant Griffin.
This is the best we've had in a long time."
[LAUGHTER] I couldn't believe it,
but I'll never forget that
because I was really scared about that.
I was afraid they would
court marshal me for losing all those troops.
>> So it wasn't
where you were going out trying to find people.
>> Well, you'd try to,
but the train had to take off.
It was on schedule. It had to take off.
And on top of that,
they would come dragging them in
sometimes in wheelbarrows and everything else.
So they got off, got drunk,
so it was not
an assignment you want. Let's put it that way.
>> So where did
you finally get off the train and what base?
>> Sam Houston, Texas.
I got off, and I signed in,
got a release on that,
and went and caught a plane from Sam Houston,
Texas to Albany.
And I landed in
Albany about 4:00 o'clock in the morning.
And unbeknowing to me,
my wife had taught my girl,
I'd seen her one week.
Now she's a year and not quite a half years old.
And she was the fattest little thing I've ever seen.
This is Cheryl.
She was a fat little thing there,
and she had taught her how to walk.
And I'll never forget coming around that house and
looked in there and there was my baby girl Cheryl.
And the only thing that I
could say about that, my whole experience,
especially in war time is I hope that the good Lord will
never expose us to that type of war.
And whenever he calls me home,
I'll look back down and say,
thank you for what you took care of me.
I sure will.
>> I'm not going to let you stop yet.
But I got a couple more questions.
>> All right.
>> So you were discharged in Texas,
or did your discharge come later?
>> It came later. I'd say it took about 30 days.
Best I remember, and it comes through the mail.
>> So did you immediately go to look for work?
>> Yes.
>> And tell me about going to apply for jobs?
>> In fact, I still had on my uniform.
The next day I was down looking for a job.
And I had originally
had some experience with
Life and Casualty Insurance Company.
And I said, I'll go to Life and Casualty.
I went upstairs there in
an office in Albany to Life and Casualty.
And they offered me a job, $35 a week.
So I turned around and started back
down those steps that I had just gone up to.
And my uncle happened to see
me because he worked in an insurance company over here.
And he said, "Hey,
boy, when did you get home?"
"Well, I just got home yesterday."
He said, "Come on and go to work with us".
I said, I just signed up
with Life and Casualty over here.
He said, "What do they pay you?"
I said $35 a week.
He said "We'll pay you 50."
I said that's $15 a week extra.
And after all, I fully intended to go back and get
my college education finished
since I had it already paid for by Uncle Sam.
So I said whoever I'm going to work
for I'm going to be dipping them a little bit.
So I'd rather dip them $15 than $35.
So I turned around and went
and told the man over there that I had
changed my mind and I went to work for
Interstate Life and Accident Insurance Company.
>> And what policies were you doing at that point?
>> At that point I was selling
little nickel and dime policies
to the lower income clientele.
The job itself, you drove about 125 miles a week.
And you would go by and I'd sell you a policy,
and you'd pay 25 cents for it.
Then I'd go by every week and you'd give me a quarter,
or 50 cents, or something small like that.
And so that was the type of
insurance that I was selling at that time.
>> And you mentioned that it was
mostly people in the Black community.
>> Yes. Mostly.
>> So were these people who had just
not had life insurance policies before?
>> Most of them had not had life insurance and it
was mostly burial type of insurance.
>> Tell me how your career progressed from there.
>> Actually, I always have
told my wife and I tell Carmen now,
I've always had what I refer to as a lucky career.
I was on that route that we call a debit,
when you go around and collect from people.
I was on that debit for one year almost to the day.
And I was promoted to sales manager.
That means that I had five men under me.
And so almost a year to the day,
the manager asked me to be his assistant.
Our district was so big,
had so many men,
so now instead of supervising five men,
I'm co-supervising 25 men.
In about a year-and-a-half from then,
now I've been there four or five years,
the home office called me and asked me if I would be
what we referred to as a field trainer.
And a field trainer meant that you traveled
wherever you were needed within the company's operation,
which was 13 states.
So they gave me an automobile,
and if we had a real bad trouble spot in Montgomery,
Alabama, I'd be in Montgomery Monday morning.
If we had a trouble spot in
Panama City I'd be in
Panama City the next Monday morning.
So I was what they referred to as a field trainer.
This is a little side story
that I don't think I've ever told you,
but I went to Montgomery, Alabama,
and this agent by the name
of Farmer had quit.
I went there, you have to go
around what they call making that final.
Check the books and all,
you go around with him.
So his father had died,
and so I told him just get me his book,
and I'd never been to Montgomery,
Alabama in my life,
at that point in time.
I said just give me the book
and you drop me off at the first place.
And they did.
They gave me the book. The manager's name was Brown.
He dropped me off at the first place
in the morning about 6:30.
I said, you pick me up tonight at this last address.
The book had the address on. So he did.
So that particular day I was so lucky.
I sold more insurance than I've ever seen.
I was just walking from house to house to house,
collecting up all the premiums
that were back and everything.
So that night when I came in about 10:00 o'clock,
this agent Farmer who had resigned,
came and sat down with me
to go through the book to see how we did.
And when he saw what we had done that day,
he changed his mind and says,
"Listen, will you accept
my [inaudible] ?"
I said, yeah.
And he stayed with us for years
and did a great job after that.
Now, that particular week
that particular thing happened.
And as a result of it,
and this is where I say the look comes in.
The next week, the manager in Pensacola,
Florida, resigned manager now.
He resigned and was going to come to Macon,
Georgia, and they needed
somebody in Pensacola who could run a complete district.
So I went to Pensacola, Florida.
I was promoted to district manager in Pensacola, Florida.
And in Pensacola, Florida,
I stayed there for a year and a half and
we won every award throughout the entire company.
And this was recognized.
Now, that was about 3,000 agents at that time.
>> And you ascended to vice president?
>> No. At that point in time,
I'm in Pensacola, Florida.
Now then during that year,
we won the award throughout the entire territory.
So vice president, we had built this new home.
We were going to stay there forever.
You break home right on the water where you could yell in
your boat and go out in the ocean and my wife,
Sarah at that time,
we were just so happy.
And that Sunday before moving in that house on Monday,
the plane came down from Chattanooga,
Griff we need you in Chattanooga, home office.
Here was old lucky Griff again,
being in the right place at the right time.
So they flew me to Chattanooga and at that time,
I became regional vice president.
[NOISE] And of course,
as luck would have it,
about two years, I was vice president.
>> And what year was that that you moved to Chattanooga?
>> Let's see. You got it.
>> Or the approximate time.
1955?
>> I guess that would be about right.
>> And you've been there ever since?
>> Yes. I've been there.
Well, I've had another couple
of promotions at the time till senior vice president.
So now, senior vice president.
Now the last five years you may not be aware of this,
but I spent in Jacksonville,
Florida when the companies merged.
It was either go to Jacksonville or
retire at age about 50 something at that point in time.
So I didn't want to retire and I wasn't ready to retire,
but I went to Jacksonville
and I was to go to Jacksonville.
My assignment was to go to
Jacksonville and
run interstate life and accident insurance company.
That was my assignment.
The man down there in Jacksonville,
he was to run the Guff Life end
of the insurance business.
So I flew to Jacksonville to date and the next morning,
I walked in the office.
The man that was going to run
the Gulf Life Insurance company had resigned.
Griff, can you run both companies?
[LAUGHTER] And I said, yes.
And so that's where I retired.
>> And do you remember the year you retired?
>> Yes. So I retired in 1985.
>> And you retired to Chattanooga?
>> Chattanooga.
>> Okay.
>> 1985.
>> So I'm just going to ask you two more questions.
One, I want to ask you about your mother her last years.
Talk to me a little bit about visiting
her and about her sort of legacy.
>> My mother was
probably one of the greatest women I've ever known.
She was fun all the time.
She was an excellent business woman.
She was I just don't know how you
could describe a mother
being more of a mother than you could my mother.
See my daddy just had a fourth grade education.
Now, she was a school teacher,
even though she didn't ever go to
college back when she was teaching,
she could just get some type of
certificate and they would let you teach.
I don't know how to tell you how great she was.
She lived to be 100 and the
last just like a few months being 100.
The last time I saw my mother,
she was standing in the door of a little block house.
That she had lived in for a long time.
She wouldn't go anywhere else.
My sister lived next to her and they were together.
And so she was happy in there.
And so I saw her standing in that door waving
at me bye bye as I traveled on a business trip.
And so she was great.
She kept up with
all the finances she worked day and night.
She was a champion,
P Shaw and she could do it all.
She was quite a while.
>> Do you plan to live as long as she did?
>> Well, I'm trying.
And if Carmen would be good to me.
[LAUGHTER] I might try to make it.
>> And when did you meet your wife, Carmen?
>> That would be a little over four years ago.
I was sitting at the house.
I should have broke the point, shouldn't I?
>> I wish you had.
>> [LAUGHTER] I touched your head.
I was sitting at the house.
Sarah had been dead now for 2.5 years,
not quite that long.
And by yourself in a big house and I said,
I think I'm going to ride down to the center and
I had heard of the senior center.
I didn't know what the senior center was.
I just knew it was older people that got
together and had a good time what I heard.
So I went down and senior center.
And now, by this time,
my problem with my back had developed
where my legs are crippled in the way.
But I could still get around pretty good.
And when I would see a pretty girl,
I could walk even better.
[LAUGHTER] So anyway, I went down to
senior center and she was a line dancer.
Now, are you familiar with lion dancing?
>> A little bit.
>> A little bit, okay. Well, she was a lion dancer
and I'll just notice how she did it a
little bit better than the others
did as far as I was concerned.
And so I sat there and watched it.
So when it was over,
we all know it was over and we all walked out in
the hall together and she happened to
be walking beside me there.
And we talked hello and I didn't know her name.
And so we walked along and to make a long story short,
the first thing I said, well,
let's go over here and eat lunch at High Hope.
So we went over and we ate lunch at
High Hope from there until now,
it's been a real great life, sure is.
>> Well, is there anything else you'd like to add?
>> No, except she has got a family, a daughter,
particular and a son in
law that I have become very attached to.
And as far as I'm concerned right now,
I am the father of four daughters,
and I love every one of them.
I sure do. They're great.
>> Wonderful. Well, thank you,
Reuben Griffin for agreeing to this interview,
and we will end there.