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John Wayne Found An Old Foreman Fired In Tennessee 1957 — Then He Walked To The Pay Phone

by Bien Tap Vien•

John Wayne Found An Old Foreman Fired In Tennessee 1957 — Then He Walked To The Pay Phone

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April 1957 The Cumberland Mountains of East Tennessee a small sawmill in Morgan County The accountant arrives from Cincinnati at 8:00 in the morning. He hands Wendell Pruitt a piece of paper. 38 years on the mill floor end in 12 minutes. The pension is gone. The grandson’s tuition is gone. The old man stands in the yard holding his dinner pail and his college acceptance letter in the same hand.

Here is the story. Wendell Pruitt started at Cumberland Lumber on a Monday in October 1919. He was 17 years old. He carried boards from the rip saw to the stacking yard for 36 cents an hour. By 1932, he was running the planing mill. That spring, a piece of green oak kicked off the planer head and took his left eye.

He was back at his post in 3 weeks. He never asked for a thing. His boy, James Pruitt, born in 1953, grew up in the mill yard. He learned to set chokers at 13. He learned to grade lumber at 16. He left for the army in 1942 and was killed at Omaha Beach on the 6th of June 1944. A telegram came to the mill office because that was the only address the army had on file.

The mill superintendent walked it out to the planing shed himself. Wendell read it standing up. He folded it once, put it in his shirt pocket, and finished his shift. James left behind a wife who died of polio in 1946 and a son. The boy’s name was Robert. He was 3 years old. Wendell took him in.

He sold his late wife’s wedding ring to buy the boy a winter coat. He never replaced the ring. For 11 years, Wendell raised that boy alone on a foreman’s pay in a four-room house at the end of a gravel road. He cooked the boy’s breakfast in the dark before his shift. He walked him to the schoolhouse in Wartburg in his work boots and walked himself the 4 miles back to the mill before the first whistle.

He sewed the buttons back on the boy’s coat. He learned to braid hair the year the boy’s cousin came to stay one summer. Robert grew up sweeping the planing shed on Saturdays. He read every book the library at Wartburg would lend him. He read by kerosene light because the house had no power until 1953.

In March of 1957, he sat for the entrance examinations at Tennessee Polytechnic Institute in Cookeville. He scored in the top three of his class. The letter came on the 8th of April. Engineering school, September start, $300 a quarter for tuition. The boy had never asked his grandfather for a dollar in his life.

Wendell carried that letter in his shirt pocket for 2 days. Then the accountant came. The new owners are a holding company in Cincinnati. Nobody at the mill has ever seen them. They bought Cumberland Lumber over the winter in a paper transaction with a name like Atlantic Forest Products. The accountant has driven down from Ohio in a brown company sedan.

He has a clipboard with [music] carbon paper forms and a list of names. Wendell Pruitt is the third name on the list. The accountant calls him into the mill office at 8:15. The office is one room with a calendar from a feed store and a black telephone on the wall. The accountant sits behind the foreman’s desk like it belongs to him.

He does not stand up. He explains, in a voice trained for explaining, that the company has performed a review of long-tenured employees. Mr. Pruitt’s employment contract from 1919 was verbal. The Cincinnati legal department has determined that no verbal contract carries forward through ownership change. The previous owner’s pension promise is not, the accountant says, an obligation of the new owner.

He is sorry. He says this twice. He uses the word unfortunately. He hands across a single sheet of paper. A severance offer. Two weeks of pay. $112. Wendell Pruitt does not sit down. He stands in his work clothes with the lunch pail in his left hand and his grandson’s college letter still in his shirt pocket.

The corner of it just showing. The folded yellow paper. “38 years.” He says. That is all he says. “Yes, sir.” The accountant says, pleasant. “And the company appreciates that.” “Two weeks pay is more than the law requires. We’re trying to be generous.” He slides the form across the desk. He clicks his pen open. He waits. Across the road in the front window of a small concrete block diner with a hand-painted sign that says Tate’s John Wayne is finishing a second cup of coffee.

He is 49 years old. He has been driving for three days. He flew into Nashville on a Sunday to visit the Hermitage, Andrew Jackson’s home, because his mother’s family came out of country like this two generations back. And at his age, a man starts thinking about where he came from. He spent a morning at the Hermitage.

Then he rented a long blue Buick and drove east into the foothills, alone, with no schedule and no studio knowing where he was. He has been stopping in small towns and looking at the country. He stopped at Tate’s because the parking lot was crushed gravel and the sign was hand-painted and he was hungry. Earline Tate poured his coffee without recognizing him.

He likes that. He kept his hat low. Through the front window, he can see the mill office across the road. He can see the open door. He can see Wendell Pruitt’s back. He can see the accountant behind the desk talking with his hands. Where are you watching from? Drop your state in the comments. I want to see how far this story reaches.

Wendell Pruitt walks out of that office at 8:24. He does not sign the form. He does not say another word. He walks across the mill yard and across the county road and into Tate’s and sits down at the counter two stools from the stranger in the brown jacket. He puts the lunch pail on the counter. He pulls the folded yellow paper out of his shirt pocket and sets it down beside the pail.

He looks at the paper. He does not touch his coffee. Arlene comes down the counter. She has known him 30 years. “Wendell,” she says soft, “what did they do?” He does not answer her. He cannot. The stranger at the next stool, the big man in the dark brown jacket, sets his cup down. He does not look at Wendell.

He looks straight ahead at the pie case, the way you do when you are listening hard but not staring. “Arlene,” Wendell finally says, “they took the pension.” “Verbal contract,” the man says. “38 years.” He picks up the folded yellow paper. He opens it. He smooths it flat on the counter between his two scarred hands.

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