The Sharecropper Boy Goes Back Home: A Memoir of a Personal Journey Beginning With the Great Depression

I am that "sharecropper boy" and Upstate South Carolina represents "home" to me. This memoir covers the Great Depression and its effect on the poor farm families of South Carolina as well as other cultural changes over many years. I was born in 1926 to a poor but loving family who owned a cotton farm in Cherokee County, SC. When I was age three, we lost the farm and were soon forced to begin new lives as sharecroppers. The memoir also describes the effect of World War II on my family and others. Three H. H. White family brothers served in war zones at the same time during WWII-two in the Pacific and one in Europe. My brother Frank even survived being blown out of a tank he drove for the famous General George Patton! I wrote this memoir to inspire people with little formal education or money. It describes two major factors that helped me rise from "sharecropper" to success as a professional writer and ultimately, manager of an international program at EPA. The first factor was reading as much as possible. As a youngster I read everything I could get my hands on, including the Sears Roebuck catalog. The second factor was my ability to survive "setbacks," both personally and professionally, rather than to give up. I always strived to use these "setbacks" to my advantage. Personally I've survived four instances in which I was supposed to die. The worst was Stage 4 prostate cancer in the 1970s. I was the second person in US medical history known to recover from this advanced stage of cancer. After going into remission, I became a consultant at The Department of Energy to develop a nationwide program. Then I became a consultant at Purdue University teaching people worldwide how to use a new computerized data base system. Retirement from Purdue in 1989 allowed me to restore a "falling down" old mansion in my home town of Blacksburg, SC, turning it into "The White House Inn" B& B. My final journey led me to remarrying at age 79, to the love of my life Gloria, and moving just down the road from where my story began. I hope you will enjoy my story, and the many strange and crazy twists I've experienced in my 94 years on earth. - Jim White.