Wms mother died in 1964 having her 9th child, when he was 16 yrs. old. This was the only baby she gave birth to in the hospital. All the other children were born at home. She was the glue that held the family together so after she died life was extremely difficult for all the kids. After he lost his mother, it was a hard time for him and his brothers and sisters. His father had a problem with alcohol so he was no support when their Mom died as he couldn't deal with the loss either. So relatives helped out for awhile and the older siblings took over. Wm worked various jobs after he left school. When Wm was in his teens, he and one of his brothers installed security fence around the home of Otis Redding in Macon. When we lived there in 1972, he drove to the house and showed me the house and fence. He worked in an orange factory, and was so broke he had to live off the oranges for some time so ever since I knew him he just hated oranges. He worked cotton mills, a chicken farm and various other odd jobs. He ended up in jail a couple of times because of minor offenses and while incarcerated, many inmates were put to work in the community. One of Wm's jobs was on a garbage truck, which he said he couldn't deal with because of the gross things they had to pick up and clean up so he escaped one day only to have the law find him and put him in Georgia State Penitentiary. His record kept him out of going into the Army, which he wanted to do.