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HOMETOWN L I V ING AT ITS BEST 75
loaned her the use of his car. “The one
thing my brothers had taught me was
how to drive. We never even thought
about getting a driver’s license. I packed
all eleven of those kids in it and took
them to town. Their parents trusted me
wholeheartedly.” She smiled. “We had
the best time.”
But Merle wasn’t at the county
school for long. “They found another
young girl for that class and the
principal asked if I would take over the
entire math department at the high
school,” she said shaking her head. “I
might have had one math class in high
school. It was something I was never
particularly interested in. So, in order
to teach geometry and advanced math
students, I had to study five hours a
night just to prepare for the next day.”
While teaching and supervising the
high school math department, Merle
continued her education with night and
summer classes at Georgia Southern
University (named Georgia Teachers
College at the time). “I discovered a love
for math that I did not realize before.”
Merle graduated from UGA with her
masters in both Language Arts and
Mathematics.
After graduating from UGA with
a degree in agriculture engineering,
J.C. enlisted in the Air Force. “He really
wanted to fly planes,” said Merle.
“But they didn't send him to flight
school because the war was winding
down.” Instead, the Air Force utilized
his talents as a plane mechanic. Years
later, his son Greg would remember his
father as “a master mechanic. He could
fix anything,” he said. (After his time in
the service, J.C. did get his pilot license
and flew his own small plane, which he
used for crop dusting.)
Merle and J. C., married on
February 9, 1944, at the First
Methodist Church in Lyons. She
would spend the following two weeks
at Moody Air Force Base, where J.C.
was stationed at the time. “We had
plans.” She smiled. “We were going
back to UGA when the war ended. They
had offered J.C. a great job in the Ag
department.” And Merle would have no
problem finding a teaching position at
one of the schools in Athens.
But plans changed, as plans often
do, when it became clear that J.C.’s
father needed help on the farm. Like
many farming families across America
at the time, it would take years to
recover from the hardships of the
Great Depression. “J. C. was the oldest
of three brothers,” said Merle. “One
brother was married and had already
moved away, and the other brother was
a senior in high school and wanted to
go to UGA.
“I think Dad was the only one of
the boys that really had any interest
in farming, anyway,” Greg added. “He
always intended to own his own farm
one day.” In fact, when the property
adjacent to his father’s land became
available, he bought it and began his
own farm.
J.C. and Merle had their first son,
John Clarence Wilkes, Jr. (known as
Larry), in 1947 and their second son
Greg the following year. The boys were
two and a half and eighteen months
old when their father lost his hand in
a farming accident. “Dad was auguring
some corn into a truck, and the tip
of the work glove on his left hand
got caught,” said Greg. “It yanked his
hand down into the augur, which is
spinning.” Dr. Aikens, the family doctor,
had no choice but to amputate J.C.’s
mangled hand.
Only a few weeks later, Merle and
RIGHT Merle with her long-time coworkers
(Victor Wolf, Vicky Moore and
Gail Edenfield) after receiving a Teacher
of the Year Award before her retirement
In May 2000.