Story and photos by Gretchen McPherson
Staff Writer
Chosen by the Century Chamber of Commerce as the Outstanding Citizen of the Year for 2008-2009, 90-year-old Century resident Ernest Lloyd Barrow has been a fixture of the Century area all his life and gladly shares tales of his Army days and athletic career in the local industrial basketball and softball teams of the 1950's.
He married his sweetheart, Deanie, in 1950, after meeting her at a benefit for a friend in Atmore, the couple were married for 67 years before Deanie's death following an extended illness in 2017.
Barrow was born in 1928 in Byrneville at the home of an aunt and uncle. The family lived on the corner of Killam Road and Highway 4, where he had two brothers, one younger and one older. The three youngsters made a job of selling tea to the WPA (Works Progess Administration) workers for a nickel a pint.
“Dad was a poor fellow,” said Barrow. “He worked on the WPA, Roosevelt's plan to get the United States out of the Depression. They built roads and were working on Highway 4. We had bicycle and little red wagon. There was a basket on front, and a basket on back. We'd load that tea up in apple boxes and take it to them in pint jars, to the workers for their lunch. We would go ahead of time, put the tea down, and come back to pick up the empty jars later.”
The three boys helped their parents out with money and made about $48 a month selling the tea, which he said made more money doing that than his father did working with the WPA.
When he was a teenager, Barrow also worked in the Alger-Sullivan Commissary in Century, next to the hotel, during school in 1944 and 1945 while he was in high school.
“I worked an hour before school and then I worked on Friday afternoons and Saturdays, making orders and issuing charges for groceries on the grocery side,” he said. “There were dry goods and clothes on one side. I made 46 cents an hour sweeping. That was good money for a 14-year-old. There was a grocery delivery service back then and people would leave their doors unlocked so their groceries could be delivered.”
Barrow graduated from Century High School in 1946 and joined the Army with four of his buddies who finished school with him. He said they could not find jobs and needed experience so they went into the service.
“We were quarantined for polio when we went in the Army, in Atlanta at Fort McPherson,” said Barrow. “When we joined, we could join for 18 months and we had a good chance of staying together, or we could join for 3 years. So we joined for 18 months.”
He said when the quarantine was over at 6 weeks, they were shipped out.
“They'd take so many for an order of men, and ship them out,” he said. “We were waiting on them to call our names, they called my four buddies to go to Fort Knox, Ky., to go into the tank division. They left me sitting there and called me and another fellow with last name Barrow. I guess they figured we were brothers, and a guy named Head to Camp Lee, Va.”
Barrow ran into another fellow from home in Virginia, Robert “Red” McClane from the Century area, who hugged his neck, he was so happy to see a familiar face. The two instantly bonded and decided to stay together if they could.
“There were several jobs you could apply to do,” said Barrow. “McClane did not have a high school education but we were going to try to stay together, so we went to cook and baker school.” Barrow said. That's what the two could qualify for since McClane did not graduate high school.
The first weekend pass the two were given was good for 300 miles, but they were set on going back home, much firther than 300 miles.
“The military police on train asked us, 'Boys, ya'll are a little far out aren't you’?” said Barrow. “Yessir, we told him, we figure we can get home and stay about 8 hours and get back in time.”
The officer let the two go, but assured them he wanted to see them on that train the next Monday morning headed for Virginia. Barrow said the two stayed a week on an AWOL (Absent With Out Leave) status, he figured.
Barrow said they still had not been discovered when they headed back, and had to dodge the military police. He said the military would have locked them up if they had been caught.
“When we got back to Camp Lee,Va., we didn't know how we would get back on base,” said Barrow. “We ran into a sergeant we had had in basic training who was headed back out. He agreed, after hearing our story, to let us cover up with blankets and pretend to be drunk, passed out, which he would explain to sneak us back on base.”
Barrow said the plan worked and they got back on base without being discovered.
“Revelee was blowing to get up, I went to my bunk and sat down,” said Barrow. “I was on the bottom bunk and my bunkmate said, ‘Barrow, where have you been?' I told him I'd been home. He said, 'why didn't you tell me? I've been answering for you.' Red got caught. They nabbed him. He had to stand on a “butt can,” which was a 5-gallon bucket where cigarette butts are put out while everyone went to breakfast. He had to go out to the playground, drew off a 6X8 hole, he had to dig out a foxhole. I went out to see him, but I couldn't get too close or he'd throw dirt at me.”
Later Barrow was called three times by superiors to report, and figured he had finally been discovered.
Instead, he was asked 'Do you want to get paid this month?'
“I said, 'I sure do.' So, I made it again. They were waiting to pay me!” said Barrow.
When Barrow got discharged from the U.S. Army the first of two times, and came home and went to work at the (then St. Regis) paper mill.
“I was lucky on that,” he said. “A fellow I knew got me a job at St. Regis in Cantonment. He was a foreman over the labor gang back then, Jodie Kelly was his name. He asked me if I wanted a job; it was shift work. I really didn't want it, but I went out there. The personnel man said, 'We don't have a thing,' so I told him I had been sent down there and they called me in. We talked Army for a while, then he told Lee Graham to hire me. That's how I got the job in 1947 at the paper mill.”
Then the Korean War began in 1950. When Barrow got out of the Army the first time, he had joined the inactive reserve for three years.
“We were supposed to be the last to be called out,” said Barrow. “First thing Truman did was call the inactive reserve. Sept. 20 would have been my three years. They called me Aug. 20 to go back and take my physical. I kidded my buddies that they'd have to go before me, then Truman called us first. I had to go to Jacksonville and take my physical.”
Barrow met his wife Deanie shortly before he went back in the Army a second time, while he was at a benefit for a friend.
“We had a benefit football for Hootie Ledbetter, an outstanding ball payer for Century,” said Barrow. “He was a senior and he and Johnnie Turberville were good friends. Johnnie was going to take Hootie for a ride in a plane. They stopped at a service station and they got a coke and took the bottles with them on the promise to bring them back instead of leaving a deposit. They attempted to drop the coke bottles to return them when they flew over the service station, but the engine stalled and the plane crashed, Although the young men survived, the crash messed up Hootie's back for life. Castiloma's in Atmore decided to do a benefit for Hootie.”
Barrow was with some friends from Brewton and they asked a female friend about calling some girls who could come up to Castiloma's in Atmore. Barrow and his friends picked the girls up and went back into the dance hall and sat around a table, where he first spotted Deanie.
“I wasn't sitting with Deanie, but I danced with her,” said Barrow. “She was a good dancer and I asked a friend to set me up with her. She got Deanie and the two girls went to the bathroom. When they came back, Deanie came and sat down by me. We danced and everything went all right. That was it. She was a real good dancer and kinda cute too. I had a date the next week, I filled that one, and that was it. I never went with anybody else.”
The two got married Aug. 5, 1950 just before Barrow got called back into the military in September 1950.
He did not go in as Airborne so he had to report to Fort Jackson, S. C.
“When WW II was over, they shut down all the bases, but they opened up Fort Jackson for training,” he said. “They needed cooks and mess sergeants, and even though I was a mess sergeant, I didn't have the rank, so I went back as a first cook. We were undecided whether she wanted to go with me. We didn't have anything but our clothes as we loaded our convertible and went up there.”
Fellow soldier Melvin Godwin let Barrow have his pass so he could go stay at a local hotel off the base with Deanie and come back in the morning.
“I told her if I get shipped overseas, she could take the car and go back home, but I fortunately got stationed there as a cook for about a month,” said Barrow. “I kind of fudged so when the mess sergeant there would go home every weekend, I would fix up all the stuff he was supposed to do. Then when he got out, he recommended me for mess sergeant, so I got it.”
Barrow said he stayed there about a year and came home and went back to his job at the paper mill.
“We lived happily ever after for about 67 years,” he said.
Barrow got his second honorable discharge in 1951, a rarity in military careers.
When he and his wife came back from South Carolina, they stayed a year with Deanie's mom in Atmore, then bought a house in Century. The two lived in it a couple of years, then built the house he still lives in today on Hecker Road in Century.
In the early 1950's, Barrow played softball and basketball for the paper mill. He managed the departmental softball team, playing inner squad games.
“They were high on sports and paid a guy to oversee the league,” said Barrow. “He kept up with scores and everything and when the league was over, they gave us a big banquet. It was a moral booster for company employees.”
Industrial sports in the 1950's was a big thing, Barrow said, with national tournaments.
Barrow retired from the paper mill in 1991 after 44 years of service. He and Deanie had three sons and a daughter. Barrow joined the Lions Club in Century and had more than 40 years of perfect attendance.
He was nominated for and received the highly prestigeous Lions Melvin Jones Award in 1993. The couple had numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
“I played baseball on Century's town team,” said Barrow. “Century Lions Club played two basketball games, one against Century and one against Flomaton, and we won both of them. J.R. Jones was there too.”
Barrow has a Century town basketball jersey hanging in his garage along with much memorabilia from his career and athletic ventures, as well as military service. He said that the tornado in 2016 did some damage and he has not been able to get everything set back up the way he would like for easy viewing.
“Deanie always went to the kids and grandkids' sports, but she seldom went to mine,” he said. “She had the kids and all, but she didn't mind me playing.”
Barrow keeps all of his memorabilia covered and stored neatly in his garage these days and loves to share the pictures and memories that make up the 90 years he has been in Century.
As he gazes at an old saw painted with a green convertible and the words 'Memories Deanie & Lloyd' his children gave him for his 90th birthday, he laments at his wife's picture and smiles.
“We had a wonderful life.”
