3. My Parents by Jim Taulman

Chapter 3

My Parents

ad was born Earl William Winger Sr. in Oil City, Pennsylvania. When he was in his early teens, his father moved to Chattanooga. Not long after the family moved, Dad was drafted into World War I. Fortunately for him he was drafted near the end of the war. He was on a transport ship traveling across the Atlantic Ocean when the armistice was signed 11 November 1918. He did not get to see battle, but he was ready for it, after having been trained as a tank driver. After Dad finished his year with the army, he came back to Chattanooga to finish his high school education. Initially, he enrolled in Central High School where he struck up a friendship with Coach Jimmy Rike who coached football and basketball. When Coach Rike was recruited as the head football coach at Baylor School in Chattanooga, he talked to Dad about moving to Baylor with him. Dad told him he couldn’t afford the tuition, so Coach worked out a scholarship plan that enabled him to go to the private, all-boys, military school. So Dad transferred, and that began a long history of Wingers at Baylor. Dad’s senior year was spent at Baylor playing both basketball and football on scholarship. He graduated from Baylor School in 1920. He then attended the University of Chattanooga. Dad and Mother lived on Willow Street near Central Presbyterian Church, then on Alta Vista Drive in the early ’30s in Brainerd near Belvoir Road. They built their home at 108 Hilldale Drive in Shepherd Hills on Missionary Ridge in 1938 or 1939, where they lived when I was born. They frequently entertained WACs (female troops of WWII) from Fort Oglethorpe in their home for Sunday dinners, and there are slides and a newspaper article of one of the visits. Dad was a squire (notary public), a justice of the peace, and a 32nd Degree Mason; president of the Rotary Club in either 1948 or 1949; a YMCA state officer; president of the Tennessee Cancer Society; and spoke frequently at schools. He was also a member of the Mountain City Club, Fairyland Club, and Chattanooga Golf and Country Club. He was an instrumental advisor in bringing the second television station to Chattanooga (WTVC, Channel 9) from Rome, Georgia, Early Life in Chattanooga

Earl William Winger Sr. in his World War I uniform

Viva Catherine Hood, ca. 1920

A radio similar to the ones Dad was building in the early 1920s

Dad’s Baylor yearbook photo Dad’s Baylor 1920 basketball team Dad’s Baylor 1919 football squad

Faith for the Mountains and the Valleys: The Charley Winger Story

although he was always disappointed it wasn’t the first television station in Chattanooga. In his teens Dad became interested in what today we would call electronics and what then was a brand-new technology called radio. Dad started building crystal radios from scratch. He opened a radio shop in 1922 to build and sell superheterodyne-type radios. Years later he taught me how to build these sets. When he started building and selling these new innovations, business was slow. He needed something to create a demand for his crystal sets. That was when he hit on the idea of starting a radio station to create that demand. The radio station was a secondary goal; creating a market for his crystal sets was the primary purpose. However, he ended up founding the first radio station in Chattanooga, WDOD, which stands for Wonderful Dynamo of Dixie. WDOD initially had 50 watts, then 500, then 5,000. The antenna for WDOD was on the campus of the Baylor School. Dad was in radio from 1925 until sometime in the mid-fifties when he sold the station. Dad had one sister and one brother. His sister, Virginia Rose, married Richard Taylor. She had one child, Richard Jr. Mom and Dad later moved into a condominium in Chattanooga. Not long after they moved into the condo, Mom passed away. Virginia came to stay with Dad and took care of him for several years. Since both were of Pennsylvania Dutch background, the two had some testy times. I think she finally got disgusted and went back to Tulsa. That’s when we had to put Dad in a nursing home in Chattanooga. Virginia and Richard are the only other two members of the family that I remember. Dad’s brother Francis passed away prematurely of a heart attack in 1969 after serving in World War II. He was in his early sixties. I vaguely remember meeting him a time or two—not often at all. Both Mom and Dad along with Francis are buried in Forest Hills Cemetery at the foot of Lookout Mountain in St. Elmo. Dad met Mom in Chattanooga. She was born Viva Catherine Hood in Gadsden, Alabama. I don’t know how she got from Gadsden to Chattanooga, but she was at City High School while Dad was at Central. They were married in 1922. Since Mother’s maiden name was Hood and she grew up in that area of Alabama, we have long speculated that she may be a distant relative of John Bell Hood, who was one of the famous Civil War generals. That was a popular name in Alabama at the time. We have recently confirmed that he was a distant relative. Mother had four brothers (Raymond E., Guy Clifford, Dee P., and C. Woodrow [Woody]) and two sisters (Ruby M. and Marjorie). Neither of my parents’ families was that close to our own. They pretty much went their separate ways. Francis was a career military man. Even Dad didn’t see much of him. Nor did he see that much of Virginia. What their relationship was like growing up, I don’t know. My perception was that they were a happy family. On mother’s side, I’m almost totally ignorant of her siblings and their relationships. I do remember Mom’s two sisters, Marjorie and Ruby. Early Life in Chattanooga

Dad 1969

Mom 1969

Dad with Ruby and Liz Ramsey

Dad was 100 percent involved in his job at WDOD. I saw little of him growing up since he was rarely home during the day. Even on the weekends, he was always busy doing something. He didn’t spend that much time with Alan and me. As soon as he sold the radio station in 1955 or ’56, he had more time on his hands, and he took an active interest in both of our lives. I wrestled in high school and Dad accompanied the coach and one other father on our out of town trips. He came to nearly all my wrestling matches. The amount of time he spent with the family prior to his retirement and after was as different as night and day. We ended up having a happy relationship. Prior to this time, I didn’t feel like I knew Dad that well. When I went to Margaret Wilson Elementary School in downtown Chattanooga, I would walk to the YMCA after school and spend an hour or two at the Y and then ride home with him in his car. Sometimes if Dad was not available, I would take the city bus home alone. My parents were comfortable financially. Dad didn’t make a lot of money in radio, but what he made he managed extremely well. He accumulated most of his wealth after he retired, interestingly. He was a savvy investor. He got some investment advice from a stockbroker or two in Chattanooga, but he always made up his own mind. He didn’t take the broker’s recommendation at face value; he did his own research. He would then make his own buy and sell decisions. He probably had four or five stocks he was “big time” right on in his purchase decisions. He made quite a bit of money the last twenty years of his life in the stock market—far more money than he made all the years he was in radio. Not that many people are that successful in the stock market over a period of time.

Mom in her red dress and Dad Mementos from Dad’s life Winger headstone

Faith for the Mountains and the Valleys: The Charley Winger Story

Stock charts similar to what Dad kept

Dad’s success in the stock market influenced me tremendously. I watched him through the years become more and more successful in stocks. He would even make charts of stock patterns going back over many years. For example he could look back to see what IBM did five years ago on a particular day. He would plot the price action of each stock on a day-to-day basis so he could keep up with whether it was doing well or doing poorly. I watched him do that and started realizing he was making some very successful investments, and it intrigued me. I started following the stock market personally after I got into college. I didn’t have much money to invest to begin with, but it was my introduction to the stock market. One of my first picks was ASA Mining, a gold stock that I think did fairly well. I also bought stock in Northwest, Flying Tiger, and KLM Airlines, and in Control Data. I didn’t make a lot of money, but it was my first foray into the market, and I enjoyed doing it. In graduate school in a class on investments, we had to set up a paper portfolio. The project called for us to pick several stocks in which we were to invest a hundred thousand hypothetical dollars. We had to construct a portfolio and then track the stocks over the course of the semester. The stocks I picked did well over the time period in which we did the project: Coca-Cola Company, Minnesota Mining, and Johnson and Johnson were three of the five stocks I picked. I think IBM was the fourth, and I’m not sure what the fifth was. It was a good start into the field I would eventually go into. I wish I had that portfolio with real money today. After Dad retired, he stayed active in several business ventures. He owned Clemons Brothers Furniture Company and Bunny Bread Bakery in Chattanooga. He bought a Dr. Pepper plant, I think in Jacksonville, Florida. He would often go out of town and travel to make sure it was being operated properly. All of the various and sundry businesses that he was involved in as well as WDOD took most of his time. After WDOD sold, he was a consultant for a while with one of the local television stations when they first started organizing it. I saw little of Dad until he Early Life in Chattanooga

Baylor Play Camp patch and ribbons Baylor Play Camp rifle patch and targets

got rid of all those businesses, and he started to spend more time with the family. Since Dad was out of the picture most of the time, Mother assumed the role of disciplinarian. He was either working hard at WDOD, or he was out of town on business trips. So Mother had to dish out the discipline. I can remember Mom saying after I’d committed a transgression, “Well, you know the routine. Go on out in the yard and pick your own switch.” Alan and/or I were sent out into the yard to pick a switch, bring it back into the house, and she would give us a few licks across the legs. Only on a serious transgression did she say, “Wait until your Father gets home.” Then it was Katy bar the door! They did not spare the rod or belt with me. And thank goodness. I could really have gotten out of line quickly, but I still did some things I shouldn’t have done. They did their best to keep me on the straight and narrow. Mother was active in a lot of outside activities. She was involved in garden clubs, the women’s group at church, and numerous charities. Frankly she was away from home a fair amount of time as well, even though she was not working full-time like Dad was. Before my first marriage broke up, we went to several sessions of marriage counseling. The counselor wanted a little private time with us individually before we got into the marital situation. I talked a little about my childhood. One of the things I recollect from his quick analysis

Mom and Dad’s marriage certificate Hilldale Drive, Chattanooga

Faith for the Mountains and the Valleys: The Charley Winger Story

was, “Well, you lived at Baylor Play Camp every summer during your elementary school years. You walked to the YMCA after school where you spent many afternoons.” Several other aspects of my life led him to say, “Frankly, these activities were a glorified baby-sitting service for you, weren’t they?” I sat back and thought about it and said, “You know, you’ve got a good point there.” Both of my parents were somewhat removed from me in my early years. However, this was not something that we children ever talked about. It was well after the fact that I looked back on it reflectively and realized what the situation was. I think my sister Ginny was the real caregiver and a surrogate mother. We have a lot of pictures of Alan’s and my childhood, and invariably Ginny was in the background to one extent or another. She was there all the time; Mother rarely was. Especially with two children four and a half years apart, she could have spent more time with us. And in my case, I was getting into trouble now and then. However, it wasn’t an unhappy background at all. I was a happy child. It’s not clear when or why Mother’s family moved to Chattanooga, but she attended and graduated from City High School. There she met Virginia Rose Winger, went to her house to sleep over, met Virginia’s brother Earl, and “thought he was most handsome!” I do not know much about their courtship and marriage or how long they went together before they married. According to the family Bible, they were married 22 October 1922 in the home of Dr. Tom McCallie. He was the founder of McCallie School, perennial rival of Baylor School. Mother and Dad were close to the McCallie family. They were also members of Central Presbyterian Church. My parents did not move much. I grew up in the house at 108 Hilldale Drive in Shepherd Hills. For Mom and Dad at their stage in life at the time they built, it was a nice house. It is still a very nice neighborhood even though the homes now are some sixty or seventy years old. They built the house two years prior to my birth—around 1938. I remember Ginny and Betty, my older sisters, talking about the move and how much it meant to all of them and how excited they were.

Stephenson Terrace, Lookout Mountain

Early Life in Chattanooga

Mom’s Bible and Devotional Book

Prior to Shepherd Hills, they lived in a small home on Alta Vista Drive that I used to drive by and look at. It was a modest but nice house. The house on Hilldale Drive had two stories with an unfinished basement. However, the basement was well kept with painted floors and walls. That was where Alan and I often played. The house had three bedrooms, two and a half baths; it was a very comfortable house. I shared a bedroom with my older brother, Bill, as a small child. By the time I got to be six or seven, he’d moved out and married early— right after finishing Baylor. He wasn’t in the picture long. At that point I shared my bedroom with Alan. I never had my own bedroom until my sister Ginny moved out and I took over hers. It wasn’t until then that Alan and I were able to have separate bedrooms. When I was a freshman at Vanderbilt, my parents moved for the first time since I had been born. They built a house on Lookout Mountain and lived there for more than twenty years before they sold their home and moved into the Continental, a condominium in North Chattanooga. The stock market crash in October 1929 made a lasting impression on my parents. I don’t think Dad had accumulated enough wealth to have anything invested in the market, so I don’t recall him being hurt financially. If anything the crash may have helped Dad, because people would have been thirsty for news. Of course they had the news on WDOD, and radio was a primary form of communication. When Dad had the radio station up and going, his first radio broadcast outside a studio was with First Baptist Church in Chattanooga. He had a long-standing relationship with First Baptist. He continued to broadcast their services until he sold the radio station in the mid-fifties. Much later in life, I became a portfolio manager managing investments, pensions, and profit sharing plans for corporations. First Baptist Church, Chattanooga, was one of my primary accounts. I would go to Chattanooga four times a year, to meet with the church board on their investments, and manage their foundation as well as their retirement plan. They were a wonderful group of people, and I have fond memories of working with them. Religion was extremely important to our family. We attended Central Presbyterian Church in Chattanooga on McCallie Avenue. My earliest church memories were going to children’s worship and Sunday School every Sunday. I imagine I stayed in the nursery prior to that. Dad served as a deacon at Central Presbyterian, and Mother was active in church affairs as well but not in any particular elected positions I can recall. Generally speaking, I always thought Dad was outwardly more religious than Mother. After Mother died I found some indications that she was religious as well. She just wasn’t as overt about it as was Dad. We found some notes she had made in her Bible that she had taken perhaps in a Sunday School setting or women’s church group. She was more religious than I had recognized at the time. It was only looking back in hindsight that I saw this. They both saw that we all attended church and Sunday School on a regular basis, as well as Wednesday night supper and Bible study occasionally.

Faith for the Mountains and the Valleys: The Charley Winger Story