Ben Olin Teasley

On the afternoon of November 5, 2004, I attended the church funeral service of Ben Olin Teasley, a friend of many and one-fourth of our afternoon coffee club. Ben had gone to the hospital a week before with pneumonia and died early Tuesday morning. He was 89 and had had an interesting life. I occasionally asked for his account of his time in the CCC. Ben had been born in Elbert County. He found life on a cotton farm of the thirties intolerable and joined the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). Ben liked to say that the cotton prices of the time permitted him to send his father a bale of cotton ($25.00) and to live on the remainder ($5.00) of his pay in CCC every month. The CCC was well thought of in the South. The CCC functioned in a military fashion and Ben's job title "Supply Leader" (keeping up with the tools) was basis for a good job in the Georgia National Guard later. Ben moved from camp to camp and eventually returned home to join the National Guard unit in Elberton. The Guard was mobilized in November 1940 for a year, and Ben's unit was sent to Camp Stewart, then being built in Liberty County. Ben and Melba had married before mobilization, and they were together for a time during training and travel to the West Coast. Ben's AAA unit was deployed to Guadalcanal in 1942. Ben was well thought of and received frequent promotions. He said that he was "usually the one assigned to guard the battery area" during the unit's absence. As the island-hopping war eventually came to a halt an officer got Ben on a plane to start his trip home. He was discharged in 1945 and used his experience in the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Guard to get a good job in Washington, GA, in the Soil Conservation Service, although there was not much relationship. He and Melba built a house there and stayed there through daughter Donna's birth, Melba's death, and Ben's retirement. Ben thought highly of his son-in-law, Milt Miller, head football coach at Lowndes County High School, Valdosta, GA. After retirement Ben lived alone, attended church regularly, and for several years was in a small coffee club that met variouslyat Hardee's, Ingles, McDonalds, and Bi-Lo. I miss him.
posted by W T Johnson @ 4:15 PM