1st Picture - 1950 Etta Mae [Mom] and Bobby at our house on Hardee Street in Durham, NC
2nd Picture - 1953 Bruce, William [Dad], Bobby at our house on Goodwin Road in Durham NC
3rd Picture - 1963 Bobby at Carolina Beach NC 17 years old in August 1963. He must have thought he was "Elvis" in a straw hat.
4th Picture - 1989 Bobby and Joan with children Tommy and Carrie in June 1989
February 8th is the special day that my older brother was born into this world as the first born in our family and was named William Bobby Chambers. He was named after our Dad, "William" Bud Chambers. Now, I do know the origin of his first name William, but do not ask me the origin of Bobby, but I would just assume that it was a name that Etta Mae and William Bud liked and so that is the name given to their first son.
There are three children in our family and God bless poor Mom, they were all boys. Dad had always wanted a little girl, but instead there were three boys. Bobby was born in 1946, three years later Bruce born in 1949, and lo and behold, six years after I was born, there was a surprise, another boy, and he was named Wallace Armstead which I will tell you more about when his birthday comes around in June.
I am sure Bobby was a real lonely boy, ha ha, until I was born and then the excitement began when I was old enough to run, and Bobby could not catch me. The only way to defend yourself from an older sibling is to be able to run faster, that is, when you throw rocks or other objects that you can get your hands on when there is a squabble. Well, there were not too many of these disagreements as youngsters, because we got along really well, and I looked up to Bobby because he was able to do “big boy” things like drive the tractors and so on. Bobby was born the 1st year of the baby boomer generation in 1946, and later in 1949 I was born at our house on Hardee Street in Durham, North Carolina when Bobby was three years old. After several years my parents bought 17 acres of land and built a house at 323 Goodwin Road in Durham, NC. My Dad had someone build the house and Bobby and I were responsible to clean up the yard. We had to pick up all the rocks in the yard, used a sling blade to cut down all the weeds, and this was a big job since the yard was so large. When Dad planted grass in the yard, Bobby and I would mow the yard with a push mower which was manual, not a power mower; and wow that was a hard way to mow the lawn.
When Bobby was 14 and I was 11, we began working with our older cousin Mack Chambers [Mack was the son of my Dad’s father (Jesse's) brother Wilkes] in his tobacco fields, which comprised of many acres of land. It seemed like a million acres sometimes when we were working in the fields. We would help plant the small tobacco plants which were picked from the plant beds, and then we would hoe the tobacco plants in the fields so that they would have adequate amounts of dirt around them in order to grow to be large plants. While the plants grew larger, there were small leaves called “suckers” which would grow above each leaf at the base of the stalk. These suckers would deprive the leaf of proper nutrition, and we would manually break and remove the suckers from each leaf of the plant, and this was a really boring and tedious job. When the plants were full grown, Bobby and 2-3 others would prime the tobacco leaves from the stalks and put the leaves into a tobacco sled pulled by a mule. Then the mule would pull the sleds between two rows of tobacco until the sled were full. Then, I would drive the tractor and pull the sled to the barn where it was dropped off. A person would hand three tobacco leaves to a person [tier] that would tie the 30 leaves onto each side of a six foot stick, and each stick of tobacco would then be hung in the barn to be cured. Bobby was a really hard worker. Since I was smaller, I was only able to drive the tractor and hand leaves to the tiers. Bobby would drive us to and from work every day during the summer months, and we would eat lunch at one of the local stores if we did not eat at Mack’s house, our great uncle Wilkes house, or our cousin’s house Roy and Edna Aiken.
There are three children in our family and God bless poor Mom, they were all boys. Dad had always wanted a little girl, but instead there were three boys. Bobby was born in 1946, three years later Bruce born in 1949, and lo and behold, six years after I was born, there was a surprise, another boy, and he was named Wallace Armstead which I will tell you more about when his birthday comes around in June.
I am sure Bobby was a real lonely boy, ha ha, until I was born and then the excitement began when I was old enough to run, and Bobby could not catch me. The only way to defend yourself from an older sibling is to be able to run faster, that is, when you throw rocks or other objects that you can get your hands on when there is a squabble. Well, there were not too many of these disagreements as youngsters, because we got along really well, and I looked up to Bobby because he was able to do “big boy” things like drive the tractors and so on. Bobby was born the 1st year of the baby boomer generation in 1946, and later in 1949 I was born at our house on Hardee Street in Durham, North Carolina when Bobby was three years old. After several years my parents bought 17 acres of land and built a house at 323 Goodwin Road in Durham, NC. My Dad had someone build the house and Bobby and I were responsible to clean up the yard. We had to pick up all the rocks in the yard, used a sling blade to cut down all the weeds, and this was a big job since the yard was so large. When Dad planted grass in the yard, Bobby and I would mow the yard with a push mower which was manual, not a power mower; and wow that was a hard way to mow the lawn.
When Bobby was 14 and I was 11, we began working with our older cousin Mack Chambers [Mack was the son of my Dad’s father (Jesse's) brother Wilkes] in his tobacco fields, which comprised of many acres of land. It seemed like a million acres sometimes when we were working in the fields. We would help plant the small tobacco plants which were picked from the plant beds, and then we would hoe the tobacco plants in the fields so that they would have adequate amounts of dirt around them in order to grow to be large plants. While the plants grew larger, there were small leaves called “suckers” which would grow above each leaf at the base of the stalk. These suckers would deprive the leaf of proper nutrition, and we would manually break and remove the suckers from each leaf of the plant, and this was a really boring and tedious job. When the plants were full grown, Bobby and 2-3 others would prime the tobacco leaves from the stalks and put the leaves into a tobacco sled pulled by a mule. Then the mule would pull the sleds between two rows of tobacco until the sled were full. Then, I would drive the tractor and pull the sled to the barn where it was dropped off. A person would hand three tobacco leaves to a person [tier] that would tie the 30 leaves onto each side of a six foot stick, and each stick of tobacco would then be hung in the barn to be cured. Bobby was a really hard worker. Since I was smaller, I was only able to drive the tractor and hand leaves to the tiers. Bobby would drive us to and from work every day during the summer months, and we would eat lunch at one of the local stores if we did not eat at Mack’s house, our great uncle Wilkes house, or our cousin’s house Roy and Edna Aiken.
We had really good times working together in the tobacco fields, but when I was 13 years old, I got osteomyelitis from the chemicals that were sprayed on the tobacco. This was a very serious disease which I will tell you about in a later post.
Bobby always loved to drive cars fast, and he was always scaring me with his driving. On day at lunch, he drove the car through a 90 degree curve so fast that he went off the road and we flew went through a corn field and tore down a man’s corn stalks, and if he had not been such a good driver, he would have turned the car over. I almost messed up my pants, it scared me so bad. Well, we had some good memories together. Another time I remember; I was throwing mud and other things at him in the field; then he proceeds to throw a huge tobacco worm at me when I was laughing, and it landed right in my mouth, and I almost threw up. He thought that was so funny, and today it is funny to me, but not at the time it happened.
I was really mischievous but Bobby was also mischievous at times, and I will give you a few examples for the record. When I was around 13, he and Mark Stephens, our neighbor, locked me in a barn. Bobby had always told me that the barn was haunted and the barn only had one set of windows. He and Mark stood outside, and the louder I yelled for them to open the barn, the more silent they became. So, I decided that the only way to get out was to knock out the window. When I hit the window with the palm of my hand and as my luck would have it, my hand went through the window, and the blood flew. Bobby begged me not to tell Mom, but the two cuts on my hand and arm were so bad that I had to tell Mom so she could clean the wounds and bandage up. The cuts needed stitches but I hated Doctors and needles, so I talked Mom out of it. Guess what, I still have the scars today as proof that he was also mischievous at times; well that is, only when he could lock me up, because if I had been outside the rocks would have been hurled furiously, and I would have been able to out run him. My secret weapon was that he could not catch me since I was so fast. The other mischievous event was when Bobby and Mark ran me into a 5 foot ditch as we were riding down a hill on Goodwin Road to Sykes Lake. Needless to say, my legs were torn up, but being a young fellow, I healed quickly.
But, I loved Bobby and he took care of me; well, most of the time. When our neighbor Joe Sykes, who was a bully, hit me in the stomach after playing baseball at our house, Bobby and I held him on the ground while Bobby filled his mouth with dirt. Since Joe was older than we were, he thought he could do that to me, but Bobby would not allow him to get away with doing that to me.
You can see from the pictures that Bobby was a typical youngster, and now he has a wonderful wife, Joan, and they have two beautiful children together, Tommy and Carrie. Bobby has owned a plumbing business all of his adult life and now Tommy works with him. Poor Joan has to pick up all the pieces in the business, and answer all the crazy phone calls that seem to come in every few minutes of the day. God blessed Bobby with Joan and I am so thankful for that. There is nothing better in this world than to have a lovely woman that loves you and most of all Joan loves God with all of her heart.
Bobby had lung cancer when he was 43 years old, and after surgery to remove the upper lobe of his left lung, God brought him through it and he has been cancer free and today he is 62 years old. Wow, how time does past by so fast, and it seems like yesterday that we were playing in the sand behind our house. I am so thankful that Bobby loves the Lord and has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. It is such a comfort to know that our whole family - Mom, Dad, Bobby and Joan, Wallace and Sue, Bruce and Dianne, and all of our children have accepted Jesus into our hearts and as a result we will all be together in Heaven one day.
We only see Bobby and his family a few times each year since we live in Greenville, SC, which about 4 hours from his home in Bahama, N.C.
I was really mischievous but Bobby was also mischievous at times, and I will give you a few examples for the record. When I was around 13, he and Mark Stephens, our neighbor, locked me in a barn. Bobby had always told me that the barn was haunted and the barn only had one set of windows. He and Mark stood outside, and the louder I yelled for them to open the barn, the more silent they became. So, I decided that the only way to get out was to knock out the window. When I hit the window with the palm of my hand and as my luck would have it, my hand went through the window, and the blood flew. Bobby begged me not to tell Mom, but the two cuts on my hand and arm were so bad that I had to tell Mom so she could clean the wounds and bandage up. The cuts needed stitches but I hated Doctors and needles, so I talked Mom out of it. Guess what, I still have the scars today as proof that he was also mischievous at times; well that is, only when he could lock me up, because if I had been outside the rocks would have been hurled furiously, and I would have been able to out run him. My secret weapon was that he could not catch me since I was so fast. The other mischievous event was when Bobby and Mark ran me into a 5 foot ditch as we were riding down a hill on Goodwin Road to Sykes Lake. Needless to say, my legs were torn up, but being a young fellow, I healed quickly.
But, I loved Bobby and he took care of me; well, most of the time. When our neighbor Joe Sykes, who was a bully, hit me in the stomach after playing baseball at our house, Bobby and I held him on the ground while Bobby filled his mouth with dirt. Since Joe was older than we were, he thought he could do that to me, but Bobby would not allow him to get away with doing that to me.
You can see from the pictures that Bobby was a typical youngster, and now he has a wonderful wife, Joan, and they have two beautiful children together, Tommy and Carrie. Bobby has owned a plumbing business all of his adult life and now Tommy works with him. Poor Joan has to pick up all the pieces in the business, and answer all the crazy phone calls that seem to come in every few minutes of the day. God blessed Bobby with Joan and I am so thankful for that. There is nothing better in this world than to have a lovely woman that loves you and most of all Joan loves God with all of her heart.
Bobby had lung cancer when he was 43 years old, and after surgery to remove the upper lobe of his left lung, God brought him through it and he has been cancer free and today he is 62 years old. Wow, how time does past by so fast, and it seems like yesterday that we were playing in the sand behind our house. I am so thankful that Bobby loves the Lord and has accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. It is such a comfort to know that our whole family - Mom, Dad, Bobby and Joan, Wallace and Sue, Bruce and Dianne, and all of our children have accepted Jesus into our hearts and as a result we will all be together in Heaven one day.
We only see Bobby and his family a few times each year since we live in Greenville, SC, which about 4 hours from his home in Bahama, N.C.
In upcoming posts, I will discuss some memories about the rest of my family.
God Bless. Bruce
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