Wallace and Thelma Cox Petty

This is Wallace Petty and his wife Thelma when they were newly weds. They were both school teachers in Murray County, Georgia. Wallace went on to become a school principal and later over the Georgia Rehabilitation Department.

Thelma died in 1994 at age 85. Wallace is still living, in a nursing home, at age 96. If he lives to September the 9th he will be 97. But it is doubtful he will live to see 97. His daughter emailed me Monday saying his health is declining. He is down to under a hundred pounds.

Wallace is the last of my mother’s siblings still living. He is the last of 15 children. Three died young. He was part of the dozen that reached adulthood.

Wallace was the next to the oldest son. Once, as a child, his family moved to Gillette, Wyoming, to try to live off the land. They almost starved. They returned east in about a year. Gilette is where my mother was born, in 1918.

Their mother, the girls, and the youngest children went back east in a train. The father, Wallace, and Tom, the oldest son, went back by horse and wagon, which took months. That was quality time spent with his father that is priceless.

11:32a.m. (same morning). I just received word from my cousin Wallace died.