Remembrances by Johnnie Bouck


My father was six feet tall, fair skin that sunburned easily 
but was "ruddy," never heavy, blue eyes, black hair that 
curled, became bald very early, didn't smoke.  He was bald 
when I was preschool.  

Sam was noticeably shorter, smoked, hair dark, but not 
black, blue eyes.  Frank was noticeably taller than my 
father, very ruddy complexion, can't recall his eye color, 
heavy set, but not obese.   Joe was about my father's height, and always 
rather slim, not as muscular as my father.  I can't recall his 
eye color or if his hair was black, but it was dark. John 
had black hair, was about my father's height or just under.
  
John's wife had black hair and their children had black hair.  
John's daughter Billie was very pretty.  
Joe's daughter Sammy had lovely red hair like Ann-Margaret 
the actress and was very pretty, too.  John's daughter 
Carmen was very pretty with black hair.  Since she was older
than me, I always thought she looked great compared to the 
others her age.  The term "sophisticated" comes to mind about her. 

Perhaps you'd be interested to know that my father and his brother 
Sam drove school buses back in the 1930s, maybe before that.  They
had a truck with a chassis.  They built homemade buses to go on 
the trucks, doors, windows, bench seats.  When the tornado hit 
Tupelo, MS, my father drove the bus there once (I was along) 
and people paid him to let them go.  He hauled his brothers
belongings from the MS delta two or three times when the MS 
river flooded them out.  I remember his truck returning completly 
loaded with furniture.  I guess they put it in our big barn or 
part of the house. I can't recall that part.  I don't recall 
where they stayed, but our house was huge and it could have 
been there.  I was preschool. 

I have only one memory of my grandmother Susie, but surely I saw 
her more.  She was ill in a dark bedroom at our house.  For years
I had a green fabric embrodiery frog that she made for me.  
I would like to have kept it, but it finally simply rotted 
into shreds.  The MS climate is terrible on things.  

All my father's brothers were kind, gentle men who loved their 
families.  Sam was the quietest, Frank the most boisterous, my 
father probably the most social.   Frank's son Orville "Mack" was 
rather short, had black hair and always wore a mustache.  He owned a barber 
shop in the "Normal" neighborhood of Memphis, TN on the then far 
east edge of Memphis.  For a while I lived with him and Inez and 
little Mack when I was in Memphis working.  Frank's son Mancle 
was tall and thin.