I want to take the opportunity this year for Veterans’ Day to recognize someone I don’t give a proportionate amount of my attention to. I’ve given plenty of attention to Papa Brewer and his service (as evidenced by writing my Master’s thesis entirely about him) but have failed to put my writing skill forward to speak of Grampa Coursey, my maternal grandfather.
Paul Bruce Coursey, Sr. enlisted in the U.S. Navy at age 25. The third of four brothers, he felt it was his responsibility to serve his country and participate in what would become the Greatest Generation. With two sons and a daughter on the way, he was exempted from the draft in the Army. Grampa went on to attempt to join the Marine Corps and Air Corps, when finally the Navy accepted him.
After enlisting, Grampa was assigned to the U.S.S. Salt Lake City (CA-25), a Pensacola-class Heavy Cruiser, based out of Alaska. Having dropped out of high school to help around the family farm during the Depression, Grampa had little in the way of formal education. After being assigned to various duties, including spending daytime hours in complete darkness so he would have better vision for night watch, the request came down for someone who could run the ship’s supply depot and snack shop. Before enlisting, Grampa worked as a delivery driver for Curtiss Candy Company (the original distributor of Baby Ruth and Butterfinger), so he alone, among his crewmates, had experience taking inventory and making orders. As a requirement of the job, the shopkeeper had to stay overnight inside the shop to protect against pilfering sailors. To put this in perspective, keep in mind that this sailor at the bottom of the rank structure had considerably less education (never finished high school) than the officers over him (college and beyond), yet he was assigned sleeping quarters larger than everyone else, including the ship’s Captain!
The fleet eventually left Alaska on what was supposed to be the invasion force for Japan, cut short by the Japanese surrender after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Upon arrival in Japan, there was an influenza outbreak, so the ship was quarantined. Having come all the way to Japan, Grampa stopped in the harbor and never set foot on land. He was sent back stateside on the U.S.S. Accomac (APB-49), an LST-542 class tank landing ship after riding over from one ship to the next on the Boatswain’s Chair.
After the war, Grampa returned to his family in Georgia, eventually producing another daughter. He and his wife Velma also lived in Mississippi and Louisiana before eventually settling down in Peachtree City, Georgia, a town with more miles of golf cart trails than actual roads. He earned his G.E.D. at 65 so that he could get his real estate license, and all four children eventually earned advanced degrees. Both sons, two sons-in-law, and two of his ten grandchildren ended up in the military as well. Grampa was an avid golfer, with a putting stroke that made professionals jealous. Paul and Velma (Grandma and Grampa, as we called them) were married over 50 years when Grampa passed away in 1994. When Grandma followed in 2007, we interred her, according to her wishes, on top of his casket.
If there’s anything Grampa’s example showed me, it’s that poverty and formal education are never a barrier to what you can accomplish if you’re dedicated to getting there. While driving the candy truck through heavily segregated, Depression-era Atlanta, Grampa noticed that some of Atlanta’s black residents had nicer houses than the white people he knew. He eventually discovered that the residents of these houses were faculty at some of Atlanta’s historically black colleges (Clark College, Atlanta University, Morehouse, Morris Brown, and Spelman). This helped him make the connection between success potential and education, and as he started taking business classes at night, where he met Velma Anderson, who would become his wife.
Grampa Coursey died when I was in 5th grade, so I barely got to know him. Unlike Papa, I haven’t had the chance to read through anything he may have written, at least not yet. But his example set a standard for the rest of us to follow, whether we enlisted or not, of what it means to serve. Grampa, thank you for setting that standard, for leading the way, and for not letting anything get in the way of your success!
Anastasis Man 