The Great Depression & WW II
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Read about how one Nashville family found out about their son's death.
One woman from Nashville, Lois Riggins, remembers being out in her front yard in 1943 when a military car pulled in front of her neighbor’s house. Two uniformed men got out of the car and walked up the sidewalk.
The neighbor, Mrs. Verna Goldsby, came out to her front porch to meet them. Mrs. Goldsby listened to them and then fell on her knees and started crying out her son’s name. Another woman ran out of the house, and then sat down, put her head in her hands, and started crying.
“It scared me, so I ran up to my father and asked him, ‘Why is Mrs. Goldsby crying and carrying on like that?’ Ms. Riggins said. "He stood for a moment and then picked me. ‘Honey, Mrs. Goldsby just found out that she’s lost her baby boy. You’re my baby and if I lost you, I would cry and carry on too.’”
Nearly 50 years later in 1991, Ruth Dale Goldsby Brown, who had been 17 years old when her brother died, got tears in her eyes remembering that terrible day. Her brother, Lt. Lawrence Goldsby, had died in an airplane accident while in training. He was 22 years old. Mrs. Brown said simply, “My mother never got over his death.”
Picture Credits:
- Air Cadet Larry Goldsby standing beside his sister, Ruth Goldsby, while at home in Nashville on leave. Goldsby later died in an airplane crash in 1943. Courtesy of Ruth Dale Brown. Tennessee State Museum Collection
- Larry Goldsby as an air cadet in his flight suit. Courtesy of Ruth Dale Brown. Tennessee State Museum Collection
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