CHAPTER ONE
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| Tom Watson Coker |
There is something special about a blue sky over Rockmart; a quiet humble town. When I am there, I feel as if I’ve gone back in time. I expect to see horse drawn carriages, men in straw hats and overalls sitting on the stoop talking about the weather and the crops while their wives are in the mercantile getting their flour, cornmeal and admiring the new fabrics. I can imagine children down by Euharlee Creek skipping rocks. It’s a simple place and it seems as though no one has a care in the world. Rockmart is a town where everyone knows everyone. I can imagine The Methodist Church doors opening and seeing half the town coming out in their Sunday best. If you breathe deep you can smell sweet grass and honeysuckle.
It’s one of the few places Daddy would take us when we were little. He’d take us to Dairy Queen and everybody got a burger to go. We’d take our lunch out to Hills Creek Baptist Church where a lot of Cokers are buried. The doors to the church were never locked back then and we’d go inside after lunch. Mom would play a few notes on the piano. She could almost play Amazing Grace. “I know I could learn to play if I had a piano.” She always said.
I was 43 in 2007 and Daddy was 79 and legally blind. I took him to Rockmart on Veteran’s Day. I’ll never forget the way he looked that day. He was about five six with a thick head of white hair. He was wearing dark sunglasses, a dark blue sport coat, a light blue shirt and gray slacks. The lines on his face looked more like scars than wrinkles. He had a cane but I think it was more for propping than walking.
The November 7, 2007 edition of The Rockmart Journal featured an article about the event. Lowell Vickers, the editor and publisher, wrote how one soldier was forgotten and overlooked by the system but not by his family. Pvt. Tom Watson Coker was well represented that day. Many surviving members of the family were there.
Daddy paused at the tracks and I could tell he was reminiscing. America Flags were gently waving with the cool breeze. Politicians and war veterans were in attendance. Tom’s name had finally been added to the granite memorial in the center of the plaza.
The ceremony hadn’t started so my sister and I walked with Daddy over to the memorial. We were with him when he walked up to the granite marker and touched his brother’s name. He could still see shadows and shapes. He took off his dark sunglasses and studied the carving. His old, bluish-grey eyes, welled up and he took out a handkerchief and dried them. His teeth clinched for a second. He gave a nod of approval and put his glasses back on.
There were three rows of chairs for the ceremony and all were full. We sat on the front row in the center. A southbound train sounded its horns as it passed through town. When the rumble began to fade, the ceremony began.
“On behalf of The Brown-Wright American Legion folks, we would like to thank everyone for attending our 2007 Veteran’s Day Ceremony.” Said the speaker.
He went on to apologize to The Coker Family for the mistake. It was a beautiful tribute and it seemed to bring the family some sense of closure.
I never met my Uncle Tom. But I felt as if I knew him well. I had heard a lot about him through the years. He was a practical joker with a wicked sense of humor. His brothers told me that he once nearly set the barn on fire playing with matches. When he was just ten years old, he managed to stretch a cable from the roof of the old farmhouse to a stump on the ground. He carried a big bushel basket to the roof, ran wire through the handles and hung it from the cable. He convinced his five year old brother, Ed, to get into the basket and ride it down to the ground. It was a success but his father was not impressed. Charlie Coker had a temper and Tom had riled him with his stunt. The more Charlie yelled, the harder Tom Laughed.
Tom never lost his sense of humor or his sense of adventure. In March of 1941 he was among the first trainees at Fort Custer, Michigan. He wrote:
“This leaves me feeling fine except two of my teeth are broke off. I tried to fly and couldn’t.”
He said that one of the boys had gotten a pair of ice skates and he tried them on.
“It didn’t work,” He said, “They are making me new plates now. I’d like to see Daddy with his new teeth and he should see me without mine.”
A week before this accident, Tom was hospitalized with the flu. The temperature was below zero. He put in for a transfer back down south. His sister, Mable and her husband, Roy McBride had moved to a new home in Antioch, Georgia.
“Well, you have got a new home too and that’s the place I’ve always wanted to live; So don’t move from ole Antioch for if these Japs don’t get me, I’ll soon be back.”
Antioch is a place where roads are narrow with a valley that stretches through the middle of the community and in the valley, you could restore your soul and even grow a crop. There isn’t a stop sign on the main road. The traffic flows through like a Sunday afternoon. The old farms are fenced and cross-fenced. The land is level in the valley and hilly in the distance. The churches are almost as old as the mountains in Antioch
Tom never fulfilled his dream of coming home and living in Antioch.
“He lived a full life though,” said his sister, Martha Rakestraw, “It was a short life, but it was full.”
After the Veteran’s Day ceremony, I took Daddy to Dairy Queen and got burgers to go, drove out to Hills Creek Baptist Church and ate under the pavilion where homecoming dinners have been served for decades. This was our homecoming. I didn’t know that this would be the last time we would have burgers on the grounds where the Cokers are buried, but that’s when I realized I was going to write Tom’s story. It was my story too now. It was my dad’s story. It’s the story of a war that took the boys to training camps and battlefields all over the world. My great-aunt Cora tried to console my grandmother by reminding her that five of her boys made it home alive.
“But I only had one Tom.” Said Grandma Coker
Tom would sometimes sign his letters “Just Tom”. He wasn’t Thomas or Tommy. He was Just Tom. He liked the simplicity of his name. He loved his family and he loved his country. He was ready to fight and die for either one; and on June 21, 1944, he did.
