Archie Love, Page Four

More from son, Paul Love:

"The house we moved to in 1941 had a porch that went across the front and down the left side. It was about eight or ten feet out. The front steps were eight or ten feet wide, and about seven or eight steps high. We did not have power tools; we only had hammers, a hand saw, a brace and bit for drilling holes, and a hand plane for smoothing lumber. At times Daddy would get someone to watch his store, and he would come home. With my older two brothers and me, we replaced the tongue and groove flooring that had rotted out, rebuilt the steps, constructed screen doors, and made screens for the windows."

"He knew the man that owned a wholesale business in Chester. He called him and got it fixed up for us to buy boxes of candy at wholesale prices. He could have given us 80 cents and not even missed it, but instead he loaned us the 80 cents to buy the first box of candy, and he forbid us to eat any of it. A 24-bar box at five cents a bar brought back $1.20. We would buy another box and sell it and make 40 cents more, so we finally made enough to go into business for ourselves. We had to give him back the 80 cents that he loaned us. Now we could eat a bar once in a while if we wanted to."

"I worked in a department store three hours a day, four days a week, after school, and eight hours on Saturday. I earned $10 a week and had to give Mama $5.00 room and board. I didn't really like doing it, but Daddy was teaching me a valuable lesson, to earn my own way and not to expect a free living. My parents were both just good down-to-earth people. When I was growing up, we were not just sent to church, we were taken to church."

"I got married in 1961 and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, about 50 miles from Chester. We would come home every Sunday to see our families. One time, I was driving an old 1951 Chevy. We broke down just as we came through Pineville, about 10 miles out of Charlotte. Everything was closed. I walked to a closed service station and used the outside pay phone and called my Daddy and told him how the car was acting. He said he would be there soon."

"Daddy called the man at home that owned the junk yard, and he told my daddy to go on and he would meet him there. Daddy met the man a few minutes later and found the parts we needed, loaded up his tools and a couple cement blocks, and brought them to where we were stranded."

"Daddy was a big man, and he was somewhat crippled. He couldn't get up and down too good. I jacked the car up and put the cement blocks under the wheels. My wife stood under a shade tree. My daddy sat on the passenger side with the door open and his feet on the ground and shouted instructions to me on what to do. A short time later, it was fixed."

"Once something happened to one of the lights in their house. My brother and I thought we could fix it, so we went up in the attic, where the electrical boxes were, and went to work. We made the biggest mess you could imagine. You would turn the light switch on in one room, and the light in another room would come on. You could turn on another switch, and the doorbell would ring. We called Daddy, and he came home and put his chair just inside the closet. That's where the opening was to the attic. He sent us back up there, and he sat right in that chair and directed our every move, without seeing what we were doing. When we finished, everything worked just fine."

"Daddy could not stand a liar or a thief. When I was about 11 or 12, he whipped me one night for my continual lying about where I had been. He whipped me five times. Every time I would tell another lie, he would whip me again. After the fifth time and I told him the truth, he put the belt down and shook his finger at me and said, 'Don't lie to me again.' I had a bad habit of slipping off and going down to the rail yard and hitching rides on the slow moving freight cars. Another time, he whipped me for stealing an old quarter from his coin collection and spending it. He gave me a quarter to take back to the store and get his old quarter back, and when I got back home with it, he whipped me again. Back then, I called him every name I could think of (under my breath, of course). I'll soon be 73 years old, and I still appreciate the values he instilled in me back then."

"My Daddy was a wonderful man. He was gullible, and too good for his own good, but I'm proud to say he was my father, and I find comfort in knowing where he and my mother are right now, and knowing I will see them again someday."

Archie Love died in Chester on October 2, 1973. He was 78 years old. His wife Alice died five years later.

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