MY GRANDFATHER MARCELLUS F. BROWN

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Granddaddy with my cousin Alton

 My grandfather Marcellus Fain Brown was born in 1889 and died in 1968 when I was 18. For many years we were not that close because he was nearly deaf from his years of working in the Tennessee Central blacksmith shop. Being deaf you are socially cut off from people. He was one of the hardest working men I ever knew. Granddaddy was a carpenter, plumber and iron worker. He had hands of steel. He built my mother a mailbox out of channel iron and chain that he welded together. One story about him was that he once had a piece of hot iron fly into his ear and he spit it out of his mouth after it burned through his eardrum. My grandfather was a binge drinker in his younger days. I never saw him drunk but family told me that after getting paid sometimes he would go on a binge and they would find him passed out somewhere downtown and bring him home. On one occasion he was passed out on his bed when the house caught on fire. Family tried to rouse him but he just continued lying there saying over and over let it burn. Luckily the fire department was able to put out the fire. We became close after my parents and grandmother died. He had to do the cooking and housework. I would cup my hands over his ear and talk to him that way in a loud voice. He told me many stories about the family and I learned a lot from him. Grandaddy died of cancer in July 1968 just a couple of weeks after Debbie and I were married. Fortunately she also got to know him before he died.

My grandfathers marbles that he played with as a child

My grandfathers baby spoon

When my grandfather was a streetcar conductor in Detroit


Before television granddaddy love to listen to baseball and wrestling




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