Rowdy Renegade

Genealogy Matters Storyteller Tuesday Challenge

Genealogy Matters Storyteller Tuesday Challenge: ROWDY RENEGADE

Eugene, called Buddy for the span of his short life, was a thrill seeker, a trait he most certainly inherited from his father, my maternal grandfather. Buddy tended to get into trouble, though, like the time he threw his little sister into a pond before she knew how to swim.

If my mother were telling the story, it was a pond with quicksand waiting to swallow her alive until her other brother, two years younger than Buddy, pulled her out by her hair, as she was in all the way up to her neck, and plopped her onto the solid embankment. I think this other brother had to fend off a few hissing rattle snakes too if my memory serves me of mom’s retelling.

The stories of Buddy are few, and my sister says mom never talked about her brother much. I only remember sketches of what happened in his final year of life, and mom is no longer with us to fill in the missing details.

In 1941, boys were apt to enlist in the military before the age of the draft, especially after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, so when Buddy signed up in the new year, no one was surprised. Perhaps his parents thought it would keep him out of trouble, but no such luck.

At 17 years old, Buddy found himself imprisoned before he could serve for allegedly trying to steal a car, and by that summer, he was working on the chain gang down south.

Just months before his release from the grueling work in the hot Carolina sun, Buddy attempted to escape what he believed was at best, unfair treatment. And at worst, wrongful imprisonment. Cruel and unusual punishment.

Buddy was shot & killed—maybe by guards. Maybe by other miscreants in this crowd of prisoners. No one really knows the truth. No one ever did get the real story eked out before his parents clammed up as was the custom in those days.

Bury such stories right next to the gravestone and never speak of the pain of losing their first-born son again.

Macon County, NC