Page 81 - The CRAIG family

In the early 1960’s, Aunt Gin and Uncle Blue made their permanent home at 3543 Bondwood Drive, Columbus, GA. They lived there for the remainder of their lives.
Daddy and Ruth and Aunt Gin and Uncle Blue visited each other as often as they could. On one of the visits when Aunt Gin and Uncle Blue came to Florida, August 28, 2004, (Daddy and Ruth’s 39th Anniversary), Aunt Gin and Daddy were sharing their stories. According to the records, Aunt Gin is telling the story and Daddy is trying to help but “Gin won’t listen because she knows everything”. (They were always bantering with each other). It is in this recording that I obtained the information about what happened after their dad died, about Aunt Gin working for $3 per week and about the date she and Uncle Blue met together with other things mentioned throughout my writing.
No one knows exactly why we called Uncle Blue “Blue”. Daddy had said one time that it was because when Dorothy was a baby, she called him Blue .... But we don’t know if that is accurate. Uncle Blue was a quiet man of few words, but he had a wonderful dry sense of humor. In one of the many stories that we overheard as kids; it was that “Blue” may be a quiet man, but you don’t want to mess with him when he is being a soldier. The way he was portrayed, I pictured him as George Patton, storming out in the middle of a battlefield with guns a blazing.
Uncle Blue (MSG (Retired) honorably served his country for over 25 years in the U.S. Army, serving in World War II, the Korean Conflict, and the Vietnam Era Conflict. (Enlisted 9/27/1940 and Retired 10/31/1969). He received two Purple Hearts from combat in Italy and Africa. He died on December 11, 2006, at the age of 86. He is buried in the Veterans Garden in Parkhill Cemetery, Columbus Georgia.
Aunt Gin died on July 14, 2008, at the age of 86. Cause of Death was abdominal cancer. (Her father Marshall died of the same illness). In Daddy’s memory journal, Ruth noted that when Mike called to tell Daddy the sad news, Daddy wept. Aunt Gin is buried at Parkhill Cemetery in Columbus, Georgia.
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