Lloyd Archie Blackmon

Lloyd Archie Blackmon or Blackman was a member of the city of Grandin, Missouri who married Laura Bell Hensen.

Childhood

3 September 1908 - Birth

On 3 September 1908 Lloyd Archie Blackmon was born in Glenwood, Arkansas.

Adulthood

7 April 1931 - Entering into the service

On 7 April 1931 Lloyd decided to enlist into the service in Arkansas, and was (probably at the time) living on 3434 N, Ninth St., St. Louis, Missouri. He entered into the US Army as a private. The unit that he was part of was L Company, 20th Infantry, 10th Division. It was later transferred to the 2nd Division. Lloyd's serial number was 6 821 422.

During Lloyd's service he received some type of service disability, causing him to be blind and therefore unable to function properly and do physical work.

6 April 1934 - Discharge from service

On 6 April Lloyd was discharged from his service in the US Army. He received a pension number C 886 908 of $140.

11 January 1936 - Mariage with wife Laura

On 11 January 1936, Lloyd married a woman by the name of Laura Bell Hensen, both of which were over the age of 21. It was signed by Frankie Booker (Deputy) and Jacob Hardcastle (Recorder of deeds). The same day, the Justice of the Peace in Doniphan in Ripley county, Missouri.

13 January 1936 - Marriage certificate recorded

2 days later, the marriage was recorded in Hardcastle's office.

Before or during 1940 - Marrying his wife, farming, disability, and service

Before around the year 1940, Lloyd was able to marry a lady named Laura Bell Hensen. The tow lived on a plot of farm land in Grandin, Missouri. Each of the farms in that area were 2-3 miles apart form one another. During this peacetime (in between the two wars), Lloyd was a peacetime Army veteran. Unfortunately due to the fact that he was blind, he couldn't do physical work, and so the farm was managed by Laura.

It was probably due to the disability that Laura needed an extra hand on the farm, and so looked for children to foster.

Around 1940 to 1946 - fostering Paul Henry Heacock and his sisters into the family

Around the year 1940, the couple decided to foster a young boy around 10-12 years old, named Paul Henry Heacock. Laura also likely found his two sisters Pauline and Edna, as the two tagged along with Paul into their care. Paul noted that Lloyd was a fairly intelligent man, unlike his own father in some respects, who was an alcoholic and veteran of WWI. Due to their fostering the three adopted the last name of "Blackmon."

16 October 1940 - Registering for the draft

On 16 October of that year, Lloyd would have gone to register for the draft which was done in Grandin. He was registered by Charles E Holland. Lloyd's serial number was 545, and the registration was order number 500. His name was spelled as LLOYD ARCHIE BLACKMAN, addressed in Grandin, Carter, Missouri. Aged 32, he was born on 3 September 1908 in Glenwood, Arkansas and is a citizen of the USA. His wife is Laura Bell Blackman, with the same address. Lloyd is self-employed in the same city.

He was also reportedly white, around 5- 7 in height, and around 117 lbs. He had brown eyes, brown hair, and light brown complexion. It was also noted that he was blind. It was then signed by Holland and Blackmon.

December 1940 - Paul's first Christmas in a long time

Since Paul (and probably his sisters) had gone into foster care, he hadn't been able to have a single Christmas. Then in this new foster family that he was in, the Blackmon family, he finally got a chance once again to have a traditional Christmas, with what would have been a Christmas tree, presents, among other things.

Back when gas was 15 cents a gallon, his foster mother told him that she was at a store (this was in early fourties, so it is possible that this happened his first Christmas at the Blackmon home or possibly not). A woman came into the store to see the store manager and asked:

I have a dime, how much candy can I buy for my children for Christmas?

Living on the farm with the foster kids

During this time the 5 lived on the farm. A typical day started for Paul at around 05:00 to 05:30 am where Paul would feed and water the horses and eat breakfast. Whether he was working outside or not depended on the weather, if you were cutting hay, grass clings together so it doesn't dry when you're spreading it out, so he'd have to wait until the dew gets absorbed into the atmosphere.

Since he was the only man on the farm that could do work, Paul was required to do almost everything on it. The horses were kept in a horse barn, and in it the horses were required to do all the planting and things like that, therefore requiring him to manage horses. He managed, drove, plowed, and other things, but didn't learn to ride it since he was afraid of them. He also had to lift 100 lbs of hay bails. With all his work on the farm he never went out and had an external job.

The Blackmons had a self-sustained farm, being able to produce their own products with the exception of stuff from South America. And they did not have to give up their products to the government. Paul himself didn't get involved in FDR's programs or have any effect on him, as he was too young for the WPA and the Young peoples who built trails, parks, and other things.

There were indeed Shanty towns around, and Paul make friends with some of the residents but not lasting ones.

Probably due at least partially from the pension, the Blackmons lived relatively well, having everything they wanted to eat, able to brew on the stove. Although fried chicken was a delicacy, they were able to normally eat potatoes, beans, and some meat. However the family wasn't able to have electricity. Despite this, Lloyd owned a radio powered by a windmill which was at the top of the house. Generally whatever was on the radio was what he wanted to listen to as the others were generally working and not inside. At night there was Fibber McGee and Molly. At the time Bob Hope and Bing Cosby were popular. Paul liked listening to the music on the radio as well, with the big bands from New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Salt Lake City, and Los Angeles, many of which the family listened to. They also probably listened to FDR's fireside chats, but nothing of note.

The family was also able to have farming equipment and a car, and every Sunday a newspaper would come by of which Paul, being the avid reader that he was, read.

There was also generally a man they had called a hired man who refurnished the house. He also had a place where he could grow garden, he'd have a cow, that sort of thing. They paid him a dollar a day, plus furnishing a home, a place to live, a a pig or two to grow up and then butcher. He did most of the heavy work.

Paul (and probably his two sisters) went to Grandin Consolidated for school. There he kept on his passion for reading, while everyone else didn't want to be there. Besides reading the Sunday paper, he would read comics to Lloyd. Besides all of that Paul read many other things, liking to read westerns a lot. Paul was able to become Validictorian of his school, yearbook editor, etc. Eventually he got into repairing radios and stuff, being inspired by a kid by the last name of McKinney, who graduated as an electrical engineer, and whose family were power brokers int he town.

Within the Geopolitical scene, the politics of Europe and Germany weren't very well known to them. However Paul had a National Geographic or some other monthly magazine showing the Pacific, so he knew that well. Paul himself didn't have political opinions at the time.

Grandin at the time, There was no place to go in a small little town that he was in, with around 240 people in it. They had a bank and a post office. The town of Grandin from 1890 to 1920, about 30 years, had 6000 people, the largest saw mill in the world, cutting old road pine trees. It had a water supply in it as well. It had the largest saw mill in the world. There was that much old ruth pine trees in Missouri and in that part of the world, that they had their own narrow gage railroad, and that there they picked it up and moved it to wherever as they could it. They loaded it on the railroad, and drove it to the sawmill, and the sawmill had a five acre pond, the logs were unloaded, never stopped, drove on to the dike. When Paul got there it was closed, but the history was explained and written up. He saw the pond and that sort of thing. As the timber was depleted, the picket up the railroad and moved probably a hundred miles, within a hundred mile radius of the saw mill.

4th of Julys

Other than reading and having been able to go to the movies before, on the farm there wasn't very much entertainment. There was however, the Fourth of July celebrations. In the county that they lived in, there was a central place in town where people came together. People would ask the question around that time to other people:

Are you going to the fourth?

This was in reference of whether they were coming to the central gathering to celebrate or not. At this central gathering there was always people there with a fifty pound solid block of ice so there were cold things to be had, people dancing, and a bit of drinking (alcohol). To Paul they were fun, as there were a lot of things a kid could do. They would bring the block of ice (or more presumably, a part of it) home and make ice cream and bake cookies, and that was about it. Those kinds of things were a delicacy at the time. One time, Paul ate too much ice cream with cookies. It was the sickest he had ever gotten. He went under a tree and fell asleep for what he thought was about three hours.

Halloweens

Due to the fact that the farms around him were spread out (each farm being around two to three miles apart) and the fact that he didn't really get involved in troublesome activities, Paul (and probably his sisters) didn't participate in Halloween. Apparently turning over one's outhouse was a thing that people would did during Halloween, among other things, but again he never participated in those activities.

7 December 1941 - The attack on Pearl Harbor and American entry into the war

Before American entry into the war, the opinion of the time generally was to stay home and not get involved in the war.

The Blackmon family heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor over the radio. As a result they weren't very fond of the Japanese people. Then afterwards everything would change.

Everyone around including Paul didn't really have a reaction to the German declaration of war on the US, as it didn't really sink in what that really meant, just that it was more groups were fighting. Despite this, they weren't confident that America could fight, as there was quite a bit of pessimism in the general area.

1941 to 1945 - Life during the war

During the war Paul in particular was able to follow along with the current events with his National Geographic map of the Pacific, and so was able to appreciate what was going on and to an extent what was going on. During the time there was a lot more information that was going around within newspapers, radio, different types of radio other than local AM stations, and others that the family had access to. Since they were in a small farming community there wasn't much propaganda that reached them, although the farmers themselves weren't able to distinguish it. The news would sometimes anger Paul in particular as to how things happened, and could have done so for Lloyd and others as well

During the war there were people in the area that did get drafted, and maybe two or three getting killed during the war.

Being that it was wartime, everything was rationed, although since they were on a farm they had more stuff (not just getting to grow their own things), all the tires, sugar, and gas they wanted, and it felt it was much better living under rationing for the Blackmon family. It seemed that even with a little income your life was better off. At this time Lloyd still had his $140 pension, and they were paying 15 cents a gallon for gas, which with $140 you could buy a lot of. Therefore throughout this time the family didn't suffer.

Despite this the others in the household worked harder on the farm. They built a hen house which produced many eggs for the war effort. They never sold off stuff to the government or military during the war though. For a while though they grew pigs to ship them off to the stock yard which may have contributed to the effort but they didn't know, and were paid according to their weight. They were also canning some things. If they had flour available they would make bread.

Eventually Germany and Japan surrendered and the war ended after the Atomic bombs in September 1945, but the treaty wasn't made until the following year, and so Paul planned to join up and use the benefits. Despite the end in hostilities no one really celebrated at the farm or nearby.

June 1946 - Paul joins the US Army

In June of '46 Paul went and joined the United States Army in order to receive those benefits.

December 1947 - Paul is discharged

In December 1947, Paul was discharged from his service and was planning to use the GI benefits to go to college.

September 1948 - Paul goes to University of Missouri

In September of the next year Paul went to the University of Missouri to study to become an electric engineer.

7 November 1949 - Death

On 7 November 1949, Lloyd passed away at the age of 41. Their residence at the time was Rte 2 - Boy 160 _ Doniphan, Missouri.

10 November 1949 - Laura's application for headstone or marker for her husband

3 days later on 10 November, Laura submitted an application for a headstone for US Military Veterans for Lloyd. He was to be buried in Doniphan.