In 1938, we made the move from Liddieville La. to Little Rock, Arkansas. As i had mentioned earlier my oldest brother Jack was living in Little Rock. My brother Leo was working somewhere in Nevada with the WPA. WPA was a program started by Roosevelt to provide work and some income to individuals. Bennie, Mom and myself made the move. My brother Johnnie remained in Louisiana to graduate from Ogden Hi School. I was in the 6th grade at the time and started school at Pulaski Heights Elementary. We moved to 624 Schiller St in L.R. and i attended West Side Jr. Hi. starting the 7th grade.
My brother Bennie started working at the Lafayette Hotel as a maintenance person. Our lives became much different from the previous farm life. School was much different and offered things that i had not had before. In the 7th grade we had a shop class where we could make different things. My first project was a hot plate. Later in shop it was wood work. We still have the table i made in the 8th grade, but the fondest thing in Jr Hi was the model planes we made for the Air Force. These planes were scale models of real aircraft and used by the military to train personnel in aircraft identification. My favorite was the P-51 Mustang. This program was just after the war started.
Everything went well until the war started in 1941. My bro. Johnnie was in L.R. and worked at the hotel with Bennie. In early 1942, they both were drafted into the army. Bennie stayed in the army but Johnnie was assigned to the Air Force. Jack had already been drafted and Leo was already in the army before the war started. Needless to say, this left me and my mom at home with no means of support. Next post i will go into how we made it thru the ordeal.