My Dad is Carl J. McKeever. The J. doesn’t stand for anything. He was born April 13, 1912, to 17-year-old Bessie and 19-year-old George McKeever. They would have 11 more children, with the last, Georgelle, arriving some months after George’s death in the 1930s as a result of a heart attack. George and his brothers were coal miners in tiny, rural Alabama “push mines,” which means they were not electrified or automated, but lit by carbide lamps and the coal cars moved by mules. It was a punishing way to earn a living.
Carl dropped out of school after the 7th grade and took a job carrying water to road workers to help put food on the table for a large family. Two years later, at 14, he began work inside the mines, laboring alongside his father and uncles. As a teenager, he did the work of a man. Every dime he made was turned over to Grandma Bessie.
At 18, Carl and the brother just younger, Marion, forever called “Gip,” were looking for a little social activity on a Saturday night when someone told them that a singing was going on at Possum Trot. New Oak Grove Free Will Baptist Church, a couple of miles in the country out from Nauvoo, Alabama, was colloquially known then as Possum Trot for some reason. That night, Carl and Gip walked in on a group of 20 or 30 teenagers conducting their own singalong. Fourteen-year-old Lois Kilgore and her big sister Ruby, 18, were in front singing a duet when the guys entered. Carl said, “I’ll take the one on the left.” He did. As of last March 3, Carl and Lois have been married for 71 years.
