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New Beginnings for Ted and Evelyn Coleman

 

Ted retires in August 2003 after 42 1/2 years of service to State Farm Insurance customers.

He was joined in his boyish pursuits by best friend Moran Barker. "He and I were real close; we did things like that together," Ted shares.

The boys read Don Winslow comic books - tales of the adventures of Naval Officers Don Winslow and Red Pennington - and dreamed of the day they, too, could join the Navy.

"We looked at the river and asked what life was about," says Ted. When they learned the Obion River flowed into the Mississippi, and the Mississippi into the Gulf, and then into the Atlantic Ocean, they dreamed some more.

"We just looked forward to the day we could see that," he says.

When Ted was born to Mort D. and Julia King Coleman on March 15, 1932 the family already included his two older sisters, Rachel and Mary (now Rachel Akins of Trezevant and Mary Coats of Jackson.)

The family farm was rife with animals of all kinds: dogs, cattle, horses, rabbits, goats and bantam hens and roosters. Ted went to school in Trezevant by bus. "Part of the time we had a cookie or bread truck for a bus," Ted laughs.

Moran was a year older than his buddy, and when he graduated he didn't wait but went straightaway into the Navy. By the time Ted graduated, the Navy wasn't taking new recruits. He joined the reserves while working as an agent-operator for the L&N Railroad.

About a year later, Moran was killed in Korea just before Ted was called to active duty.

As a member of the ship's company, Ted says, he "chipped paint, dropped anchor, and swabbed decks" as the ship escorted boats back and forth across the ocean.

"I came home on leave and met this girl in Jackson who was going to beauty school and decided not to stay in the Navy," he grins.

"It was a semi-blind date," he begins, but is interrupted by his wife who declares, "It was blind!"

Ted chuckles upon recalling the movie playing at the theatre that evening was "A Girl in Every Port."

Nevertheless, he grins, "I guess it worked out; we've been married 50 years in December."

The date had been arranged by a friend of Ted's who was dating a girl who attended M'Lady Beauty School in Jackson. Her roommate, also a student at M'Lady, was Martha Evelyn Tate.

Evelyn had grown up in the Gann community and attended school in Atwood and Milan, graduating from Milan High School. The couple's first date fell right around her 18th birthday, which is November 9. Ted was 20.

"We both knew the same people; we had the same friends in Atwood and Trezevant, we just didn't know each other," Ted marvels.

He paid a visit to her home on Sunday before shipping out for six months of sea duty, with letters serving to further acquaint the pair until he was able to come home on leave in October 1953.

Ted and Evelyn waited until he was out of the Navy before marrying December 6 that year.

"We didn't know that the good Lord had a long range plan for our life," Evelyn shares, "though looking back we know what it was."

Evelyn's early school years took place in the two-room Flippen schoolhouse. The mile long route she walked as a first grader crossed a big ditch. When rains would wash the bridge out, she says, "Daddy would come and throw a log across the ditch and carry us across."

As she grew older, she lay on the porch in the evenings, singing songs out of a church songbook. "I developed a love for music and singing," she says.

Her parents, Clarence and Mary Bell Tate, ran Gann's Store for 35 years. When Evelyn wasn't in school she helped run the store and in the summertime ran it by herself while her dad was trading cows. She grew up with two older brothers - Virgil, who now lives in Madison, and James who is deceased - and little brother Jesse who lives in Brentwood.

After their marriage, Ted tried his hand at farming while Evelyn worked at Arnold's Beauty Shop in Milan.

"Farming was about all he had done," explains Evelyn, "but it didn't last but a year."

"That was a real dry year," Ted guffaws.

The couple moved to Jackson in 1955 after Ted began working with his sister and her husband, constructing homes in Jackson.

Five years later, Ted relates, "I was building a house for a gentleman and he mentioned to me that he was looking for a State Farm (insurance) agent in McKenzie. So, I applied for it and was accepted."

The couple moved back to Carroll County in February 1961.

"I was somewhat known in McKenzie," he says, fidgeting a bit upon recalling his tough start in the insurance business. "I had always been in town off and on. Going to school in Trezevant, we'd come to McKenzie Saturday night to go to the show for 12 cents."

McKenzie's streets in those days "would be full Saturday evening and Saturday night" he recalls.

Evelyn recalls, "When Ted started with State Farm, he was handed an apple box with 125 policies in folders and told 'this is your agency'.

"We were young and didn't know to be afraid," she continues, "We didn't know we might not succeed, we just dived in and went to work."

Ted conducted business out of his home on Paris Street and then on North Main, doing office work in the mornings and making calls evenings and nights.

Evelyn - with two young children by this time - was wife, mom, housekeeper, secretary, "the whole works," Ted says.

Evenings after the children were in bed, she would make phone calls to customers. Often, the following day, they would come into "the office".

"We kept our office at home for six years, and all the time our business was growing," Ted recalls.

The business moved first to a small office at the corner of Main and Cedar streets next to the theatre, then to the offices located beneath the McKenzie Banner.

Ted put his carpentry skills to work paneling the office and finishing the windows and trim, after first tearing out the foot-thick wall with the help of sons Bruce and Dale.

In 1977, the office moved to its current location on Cedar Street. In the meantime, Evelyn had retired from her role in the business after ten years, when on November 8, 1971 the couple were blessed with a baby girl, Sharon, when Bruce was 16 and Dale, 13.

Ted had been a Little League coach during the boys' early years and was also a member of the Jaycees for a time.

Though he insists he "never was as civic minded as he could have been," he reflects with fondness at the Little League years. "It's good to look back and know I had a part in a lot of little boys' growing up to be young men," he says.

Where Evelyn had once participated in Cub Scouts for the boys, she busied herself with music and dance recitals for young Sharon.

"All three children played in the McKenzie band," she shares, relating that Bruce played trumpet, Dale drums and Sharon played several instruments.

Evelyn smiles as she shares the period when Sharon's love of music and inquisitive nature overlapped with her father's continuing love for farming.

"Even while we lived on Main Street he had two or three cows," she says, "He's always had cows; the dirt never got out from under his feet since childhood. He likes digging around in the dirt; we used to have huge gardens. During the lean years we raised almost everything we ate: raised and canned and froze food, made preserves and jelly and all the good things."

Sharon wanted to learn how the beautiful, dark red Limousin cattle would respond to classical music as calves. "They would follow her around in circles," Evelyn marvels, recalling the calves lying around her, contentedly chewing their cuds.

"They really loved it," Evelyn says, "They're so responsive to music."

Ted sold all the cows but two or three following a heart attack five years ago. "He got along real good but decided to slow down a little bit," shares his wife who said tending 50 cattle that like to jump fences 1:00 in the morning got to be a bit much.

Over the years, the Coleman family enjoyed many opportunities to travel thanks to Ted's affiliation with State Farm Insurance.

"I missed the first national convention in 1962 by not quite knowing how to do it, but since then I haven't missed one yet," says Ted, who has been invited to attend the convention this October in Las Vegas.

The family-oriented conventions took place every two or three years in places like Miami, Atlanta, New York, Dallas, and Montreal.

Other interesting trips made possible by State Farm Insurance Company took the family to Paris, France; Spain; Rome; Vienna; the Caribbean; Monte Carlo - 24 trips in all.

"None of it would have been possible without my wonderful customers, for which I am very grateful and I hope I have pleased them most of the time," Ted says in humble sincerity.

The couple's favorite trip was a visit to Rome, where son Dale, his wife Gaye Lynn, both missionaries studying in France at the time, and their two children joined them for several days.

"There were so many people that Dale had known over the years in other travels," Ted says, explaining the fun of the trip that was multiplied by those with whom it was shared.

Ted and Evelyn had joined the First Baptist Church in McKenzie in 1961 and raised their children there, where Ted served for many years as a deacon and both he and Evelyn taught Sunday School. All three children were married at the church as well.

Ted and Evelyn weren't surprised when Bruce announced he was going into the ministry. He served as a pastor for over 20 years before joining the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University team as a church program coordinator. Bruce married the former Patti Mosley of McKenzie, with whom he has four daughters: Elizabeth, Sarah, Hannah and Abigail. Patti is a pediatric nurse besides providing home schooling for the children.

Second son Dale married Gaye Lynn Hickman of McKenzie, who was a grade ahead of him during their school years. As teens, Dale journeyed to Brazil as a part of a missionary effort while Gaye Lynn, who attended a mission trip to Jamaica, had felt as a young girl a calling to the mission field. After college, together they became missionaries in Togo West Africa, when their children, Rebekah and Jacob, were 12 and eight years old.

Now grown, Rebekah is married to Travis Wales and works for the Baptist Reflector and Women's Missionary Union in Nashville while Jacob lives next door to his grandparents and attends the University of Tennessee at Martin.

Sharon married Doug Dunn from Henry, who is employed with State Farm Insurance after working with Ted for six years. They have a seven-year-old son and four-year-old daughter, Dakota and Julia.

"Sharon is a homemaker and music teacher (piano and voice) who now leads the music in her church," Evelyn says with evident pride, "She and Doug do a wonderful job with the children, they are so good with them. Being able to see God's long range plan materialize, what he had in mind for us when we met and loved each other, is really great."

These days, Ted and Evelyn enjoy singing in the choir and taking part in special musical events.

"We enjoy working with our new director, Brother John Paschal, his wife Jennifer and their two children - they're great to work with," says Evelyn.

The couple recently spent a day clearing out Ted's office in preparation for his retirement. The honey-colored walls of homey paneling surrounding the fireplace were covered in awards that reflected over 42 years of service to his customers. Ted's honors include qualification for the State Farm Legion of Honor, Crystal Excellence, Millionaire Club, National Convention, and Honor Agent and membership in the National Association of Life Underwriters.

He is one of five men whose picture hangs in the Murfreesboro South Central State Farm office's Hall of Fame. His 20 consecutive years of membership in the Legion of Honor earned a reward of a beautiful Waterford lead crystal bowl, one of only three or four awarded in Tennessee.

"I have been blessed with a wonderful staff ever since I started, I really have," Ted says warmly, "I can't say how many and can't say who," he continues, hesitant to name the crew lest he inadvertently omit a name, "but they've been a good group, and it's been very enjoyable working with them."

He has had three agency field executives over him since the retirement of Gordon Parkinson, the man who hired him many years ago and who remained his manager for 32 years.

"When I was able to help someone it was good, I felt like I had accomplished a little," he shares, reflecting his belief in the company's "good neighbor" policy.

The couple has no concrete plans for the future: "Fish some, travel some, might be of some help to somebody some way, some time," says Ted.

"We're just wanting to do what the Lord wants us to, still looking, looking forward to see the rest of his plan," says Evelyn, who wonders what the future has in store for her grandchildren. "If we're looking for His leadership, we'll surely find the right way."

A "Customer Appreciation and Retirement Reception" will be held August 29 from 2:00 until 5:00 p.m. at the Ted Coleman State Farm Office at 1966 East Cedar Street in McKenzie.

Ted and Evelyn extend a personal invitation to "everyone who has had a part in the building of our wonderful lives and the people that we worked with through the years."

"Most of all," they say, "we thank the Lord for making it all possible."

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