Today is the anniversary of my brother Ernest’s birthday. You may remember that Ronald and Danny both wrote wonderful tributes to Ernest about a year ago. If you can, I encourage you to read them again. They are outstanding. With the following thoughts, I would like to honor my brother, too. If you knew Ernest, you cannot help but miss him now that he is gone I miss his laughter. I miss his stories. I miss his energy and happy presence in our gatherings. He was a wonderful brother.
When Ernest was a little boy, Alline says, he already loved to sing. She says you could hear Ernest singing as he came down the ridge from school, and you could hear him singing out in the fields. Clarice said when she was in the “big room” at Ragged Ridge School that she could hear Ernest’s voice when the younger kids sang in the “little room.” She said that Ernest’s teacher, Miss Montie, called him her “song leader.” Remember how Ernest loved to sing at Mt. Olive Church?
Ernest loved school. He went to visit when he was five years old and just wanted to keep on going. Alline and Clarice are not sure if he continued the whole year, but they are sure that he kept going as long as he was allowed.
As he got older, Alline remembers that Ernest was always good at fixing things around the house. He was not afraid of doing anything. If the girls could not get a curtain rod to hang right, Ernest would fix it for them. Unlike a lot of guys at that time, Ernest was not afriad of cooking either. If Mom was sick and our older sisters were away at school, Ernest would cook. I remember being a little bit amazed myself that a boy could cook! It was just that nothing intimidated Ernest. Whatever needed to be done, he could do it.
It is easy to see how Ernest had so many friends all his life. Jesse particularly loved Ernest. One time Jesse remarked that “Ernest would give you the shirt off his back.” It was true. Ernest extended himself to help others even when the situation was tough, like when he and Danny and Ernest’s business partner came through a snow storm to rescue me (just before Mark was born) as Danny described in his writing last year.
Garnett remembers that it was his Uncle Ernest who taught him how to shoot a bow and arrow… left-handed, of course. Practicing left-handed felt just fine to Garnett until someone pointed out to him later that he, unlike Ernest, he was not left-handed.
Garnett also remembers that when he was about five, something exciting happened at the farm. That was when Ernest first brought home a television set and an antenna. The whole neighborhood wanted to have a look. Garnett said that there were so many people who came that they would not fit in the house. They loved watching “World of Wrestling” and “The Grand Ole Opry”, although some of them had to stand on the front porch and look through the window! After the weekend was over, Ernest took the television and antenna back to U of L, as Garnett remembers.
In my opinion, you tend to remember things more persistently if the happenings are happy or sad or scary. This memory that I am about to describe is sad although I didn’t understand altogether why at the time it happened. It was the time just before Ernest went into the service. As Ronald said in his story, Frank had gone into the Navy, and Dad had had Ernest “deferred” from the draft because he was needed on the farm. But Ernest felt as though he was not doing his duty if he did not go ahead into the army. He was upset. I remember one night he could not sleep. At that time I slept on the couch in the front room of the old house, in the same room where Mom and Dad also slept; Alline and Hazel slept downstairs in the other front room; and all the boys had beds upstairs. Ernest was very restless that night. I heard him coming down the stairs over and over. He would get up, go outside, go back to bed, and then do it all over again. I could also hear Mom and Dad talking. They were very worried. But I heard Dad say that they were going to have to let him go on into the army. Although I didn’t undestand what going to war involved, I could hear Mom crying as they talked, so I felt sad, too. But my parents made their decision that night. I think Dad told Ernest the next morning that he could go on.
Several years later, Hazel said that Ernest told her that many times after he had joined the army and after he was in the thick of war, he thought about what Mom and Dad had said to hm. Ernest must have realized how much they loved him as he remembered. Probably you, like I, have heard Ernest comment about how blessed he felt that he came home safely and that all his brothers also came home safely. I know the same attribute that Ernest showed, that willingness and ability to do whatever needed to be done, made him an outstanding soldier. I have no doubt at all. Ernest wouldn’t have known how to do otherwise.
I miss you, Ernest. I would love to hear you laugh again. Thank you for all the wonderful ways you were a great brother and friend.