The Bank (and Banker!) of West Blocton, An Interesting and Touching Story

This photo of what was left of the Bank of West Blocton was taken by Mrs. Coleman Parker (Lelia Payne Turner) on July 12, 1929, the day of the fire.



The Bank of West Blocton was located in the space now occupied by the West Blocton Pharmacy, on the corner and in the same block as the West Blocton Masonic Lodge where the fire was stopped.

When Jerry was a boy working at the Manring Hotel, one of the guests was a U.S. senator there, and he gave Jerry a tip of one dollar for his superior service and attitude. Not just any old one dollar bill, but a crisp, brand new one dollar bill! Mrs. Manring told Jerry to go put that money in the bank for safekeeping, so Jerry opened an account at the bank with one dollar in it. He was about nine or ten years old at the time.

However, as luck would have it, when the fire destroyed the bank, it also destroyed Jerry's life savings at the time, his prized one dollar bill from a U.S. senator! And that deposit of one dollar was the only deposit he made in the account! Now it was gone, destroyed by the fire!

At the bank, Jerry opened his account with the president of the bank, Mr. Young, who was a very nice fellow.

A few years later, after Jerry had moved to Montgomery with Aubrey to go to high school at Sidney Lanier High School, Jerry was coming back to West Blocton for the Christmas holidays. He took the train from Montgomery to Centerville, and planned to walk the eight or so miles from Centerville to West Blocton. He was wearing his ROTC uniform, which he had received as a benefit for enrolling in the military training course in high school for the advantages it offered, including military training, discipline, teamwork and leadership opportunities. (Jerry had also joined the National Guard in high school, and was paid $7 a week, and attended weekly meetings for training in military discipline and marching.)

At any rate, it had snowed recently and the walk home that night was not easy. There was snow all around and mud with melting snow in the holes in the rough, unpaved road. And it was cold.

Jerry's shoes had holes in the soles, and he had placed cardboard in them to help keep out the cold and water, but they were quickly soaked by the snow. But there was no other way to get from Centerville to West Blocton, so Jerry walked.

He had gotten about four miles along, about halfway home, when along came a big, black car, which passed him, and then stopped and waited until he came alongside it. The man inside asked him where he was heading, and when he heard it was West Blocton, invited Jerry to ride there with him, since that was where the driver was going as well.

Jerry gratefully accepted the offer of a ride, and was even more grateful to be dropped off at his home, given the weather, and since the driver of the car lived some distance away in West End, which was where all the rich people lived in West Blocton.

And the kind man who stopped his car and gave a ride home to a cold, wet student on that snowy road that night was none other than Mr. Young, the president of the bank, who years earlier had helped nine-year old Jerry open his bank account with his one dollar deposit! What a small world, and what a coincidence! And what good fortune for Jerry to have a ride home!

Mr. Young, like all the wealthy and powerful people in West Blocton, was a Republican, and Jerry hated, then as now, all Republicans, because they had money which they used to oppress the poor people, the Democrats, of the world. (Hmm, I wonder about billionaire Democrats like Warren Buffett, George Soros, Bill Gates and John Kerry, oh, that's different...) Even so, Jerry was touched that someone who was supposed to be the enemy of the common people would do something so kind and generous for someone less fortunate. Mr. Young did not seem to remember that he had helped Jerry open his one dollar bank account years earlier, but Jerry remembered him, and was grateful that this fine man stopped by that snowy road that cold evening.