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FEATURE FOR
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2004
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Wallace and Lois Brazie |
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From left to right top:
Wally & Lois early in their relationship; the day of
their marriage, taking their grandchildren Jessica &
Tara on their first airplane ride, and in Hawaii with
Sid and Sharon Ray after renewing their wedding vows.
Wally and Lois Brazie of McKenzie declare, with glowing
smiles, when asked where their births fall in the
timeline of American history, "We're a young 70."
Wallace was born in the small farming village of Clare,
Michigan on October 4, 1932 while Lois was born almost
a year later in the heart of Chicago on September 28.
While their backgrounds contrast sharply, both grew up
with an uncommonly strong work ethic and zest for life
that has made them ideal companions.
"We didn't know it was cold," says Wally concerning the
Michigan winters of his childhood, where snow is a
staple rather than a novelty. "As kids the biggest
thing in the world was to get out and play in the
snow," he continues, recalling snowfalls that covered
houses and cars, making his front door barely
discernable.
He was the oldest of four children, with a brother and
two sisters, growing up in a town about the size of
McKenzie in an age when "parents felt confident just
letting you do what you wanted to do."
Wally says he explored every inch of the town, becoming
so familiar with its nooks and crannies that when he
was eight or nine years old he drew a map of all the
streets; a project that turned into a lasting
fascination and a "billion maps" in his collection.
"I've always been interested in maps, where I am on the
map and where everything else is in relation to it," he
explains.
He attended school with children he'd known all his
life, for the most part farm children from the dairy
and pork establishments that predominated the
livelihood of the area. Wally himself took on the
chores of farming at an early age, from the eighth
grade spending his summers in the hayfields of a big
dairy farm operated by a local judge.
"They call us Michigan hillbillies," he grins, happy to
shed light on his misunderstood northern roots.
Since he's maintained contact over the years with close
friends and family, he neglected class reunions for
many years. "When they had the 35th I decided to go. We
went and it was just one of those amazing things; I
wondered why I hadn't gone to the others.
"Very few people recognized me," grins Wally, who was
voted the person with the least amount of hair. He
hasn't missed an event since then, in fact, in addition
to the periodic reunions of his own class he's attended
several of the "all-class" reunions held each year that
go all the way back to the class of 1927, his mother's
graduating class. "I got to talk to a couple of women
who knew my mother," he smiles.
It was thanks to his mother's instruction in cooking
that after graduating in 1950 he was afforded a job
cooking in a hotel under the tutelage of an "old time
Polish chef."
He still practices his cooking skills with a Sunday
morning brunch each week, an endeavor Lois declares,
rolling her eyes, is accompanied by "the biggest mess
you've ever seen."
Nine months into his first adult employment Wally saw
many young men were joining the military as the Korean
Conflict began. Deciding there could be opportunity in
the armed forces, he sought to join the Air Force and
Navy but found the branches closed to new enlistments.
"I ended up in the 82nd Airborne," he tells, describing
adventures that took him everywhere except into combat,
though his unit was quarantined three times in 40-hour
call-blocks, ready to serve on an instant's notice.
"They called us elite troops; all we did was train." In
three years the troops spent nine months in the
barracks; the rest of the time took them to the
Adirondacks in northern New York for arctic training,
to the tropical forests of Panama for jungle training
and to the sands of Texas for desert training.
Part of that training, he grins, instructed hungry
soldiers concerning what foliage and fauna - including
bugs - were edible. "They weren't good but if you're
hungry you'll eat them."
They jumped into the jungle from new, double-decker
C-124 Globemaster aircraft that was capable, for the
first time, of transporting 200 fully packed troops.
Also new were parachutes redesigned to prevent the
abrupt opening of old-style chutes.
"The old ones would just about tear your head off!"
exclaims Wally who had lost both rifle and pack to the
violence of the force. "If you didn't feel the shock
you started worrying!" he declares.
The new parachutes, packed to enable the "risers" to
fully extended before the chute opened, eased the big
"riser burns" that continually abraded his shoulders.
With jobs scarce after leaving the Army, Wally made use
of his G.I. Bill benefits at DeVry Technical College in
Chicago, where he studied electronics and married for
the first time.
He went to work with Stewart Warner Electric in 1957
helping produce and test radio systems for the
government contractor. For two years he "hounded"
management until they assigned him to the engineering
department, where he became involved in research and
development for the rest of his ten-year employment
with the company.
His ten-year marriage ended in divorce in 1964. A
couple of years later he decided to take on a second
full-time job in order to meet all his obligations.
"That's actually how I met Lois," he relates. It was
also how the couple wound up in West Tennessee, as
Wally began working with the W.F. Hall Printing Company
in Chicago. Lois was the owner of a tavern and
restaurant just around the corner from Halls.
"It was a bar and grill basically," explains Lois of
the establishment where customers from Hall's Printing
or other factories came in for "a quick lunch or quick
shots after work."
"It was a meeting place for people in the neighborhood
to relax, play pool, and listen to music," she explains
further.
At 34 years old Lois was still unmarried: "I was having
too much fun and working two or three jobs; I didn't
have time to get married."
After her January 1952 graduation from high school,
Lois took over the support of her mother, who was
widowed when Lois was not yet two years old and her
oldest sister was 11.
"They were pretty rough, lean years back in the '30s,"
she says, tucking in her chin with a sideways tilt of
her head as she recalls, with raised eyebrows, the
effects of the Great Depression.
Like most families in Chicago, her family lived in an
apartment building in the city.
Until Roosevelt's "New Deal" emergency relief programs,
there were no government subsidies for families in
need; families depended instead upon each other,
relatives, friends and Catholic and other charities to
get through hard times. Hand-me-downs were a way of
life for Lois as the youngest of four girls.
She recalls her brother went to work at the age of 12,
never stopping until five years before his death at the
age of 71.
"It was a way of life," she says, "We didn't think we
were deprived, it's just the way it had to be."
Each child in turn supported the family, so, Lois
relates, after she graduated, with the rest of her
sisters and her brother all married, "it was just
normal to take over the responsibility of my mother."
She went to work at Union Tankard in January, working
until 4:30 weekdays. In August, she took a second job
at Walgreens from 5:00 until 11:00 p.m. Later, she also
worked weekends as a cocktail waitress, starting at
11:30 on Friday evening and 8:00 p.m. on Saturdays
until 4:00 a.m. both mornings.
"But I had fun working with people at Walgreens as a
cosmetician and, as a cocktail waitress, meeting
different people and making decent money," insists Lois
who characterizes herself as a "people person."
In 1962, Lois' weekend employer offered her the chance
of owning her own business for only $100 in
out-of-pocket expenses. She quit her three jobs in
order to focus on the success of her own bar and grill.
"It was still a lot of hours and a lot of
responsibility," says Lois who worked from 7:00 a.m.
until 2:00 the next morning after opening the business
in May 1962, the month before her mother died of
cancer.
When Wally joined the W.F. Hall Printing Company crew
at the tavern in October 1966, he quickly became
popular with the ladies.
"He had a BMW motorcycle and all the girls were crazy
about him," Lois says wryly, declaring she didn't even
like him at first.
"Why else did I buy it?" grins Wally about the cycle
that in fact became the couple's first avenue of fun in
a list of many enjoyable pastimes over the years.
"He won me over," Lois continues in playful sarcasm.
The two began dating in the late fall of 1967. He
reminds her of a cold, romantic night after work when
the two rode to the lakeside where they sat on the big
rocks, covered in a blanket, watching the stars.
With the Stewart Warner Company losing the mainstay of
their government contracts, Wally said, he had decided
to leave that job and remain only with Halls. But he
soon began helping at the tavern, stopping by after
work, then coming back in the wee hours to help clean,
or staying after work while Lois went home to get some
sleep. Especially on weekends he would tend bar while
Lois cooked.
The couple made their partnership permanent when they
married on November 25, 1968.
In 1971, W.F. Halls Printing Company built a new plant
in Dresden and was actively recruiting people to staff
the facility. Wally, working as an engineer in the
corporate office, felt he would eventually be asked to
join the Tennessee team. At the same time, he was eager
to leave Chicago, which had grown by leaps and bounds
until the traffic alone was reason enough to go.
"I'd been there for 20 years and that was enough," he
says.
Though she is still "definitely a city girl," Lois
doesn't deny the increase in traffic, stating that in
1955 at 6 or 7:00 in the evening there might be a mile
with no cars but that now the highways are either
"packed or extremely packed."
Feeling certain he would be asked soon to make a
decision on the move, Wally spent his lunch period one
day in a reflective walk during which he made up his
mind. Back at the office, a half hour later, he was
called in and asked if he would consider a new position
at the Dresden plant.
"Yeah, I think I'd like to give it a try," Wally
hedged, negotiating for pay and other concessions in
case the move proved disastrous.
He came to Dresden in 1973, taking over the electrical
shop at the plant. He searched within a 25-mile radius
for a place to call home, choosing McKenzie in which to
settle with Kathy, his daughter from his previous
marriage.
Lois remained behind for two years, spending two weeks
in Chicago and two weeks in Tennessee while Wally and
Kathy visited Chicago during her "away" weekends.
When the plant engineer decided to leave his position,
Wally says, he was asked to fill in until a replacement
was found. He filled the position for three years, a
time period during which, the couple maintains, he was
continually "putting out fires."
"He would go to work at 8:00 in the morning and come
home at 5:00, then he'd be called at 8:00 and stay
until 3:00 the next morning," Lois relates. "Then he
would go in at 8:00 the next day."
"I was under the gun a little while," Wally agrees. But
as more people were added to the engineering
department, he wound up with the title of project
engineer in the area of environmental conservation.
"I kept the plant in compliance with thousands and
thousands of environmental rules, making sure all the
departments were in compliance," he explains, as well
as keeping track of all the chemicals in the plant.
The company went through a series of buy-outs -
including its 1985 sale to Ringier who mounted a joint
venture with Krueger to form Krueger-Ringier before
becoming Ringier America. It was then sold in 1996 to
World Color Press, which in 1999 merged with Quebecor,
a Canadian company.
During the process, Wally says, "I got laid off like
everybody else."
Following his July 18, 1998 forced retirement, he says,
"At first my brain was kind of like jelly for a long
time. I didn't think I would miss it that much, but I
did."
He was astounded he would be let go after all the time
he had given the company. "I was past retirement age,
but I didn't buy that; I had that work ethic in me," he
says, his hand resting upon his chest over his heart.
"I though they took my life away," he continues, "but
it wasn't too long 'til I thought, "You know, they
really did me a favor."
Lois was working in the E.W. James Deli Department at
the time, after having undergone her own small-town
evolution since 1975, when she placed her tavern up for
sale and moved to Tennessee.
"She was a city girl plunked down in the country; she
was not happy," grins Wally.
"I'm still a city girl, trust me," she says
sardonically.
Lois learned by trial and error her own road to
happiness, deciding at first to retire. "I read,
watched T.V. and sewed quilts," she laughs. A year or
so later she decided to go back to work, trying out her
first factory job at Kellwoods, where she stayed for
six months before retiring again.
"I am not a sewer (seamstress), not on a machine," she
says, shaking her head.
Six months later she started working at Gaines
Manufacturing Company as an inspector, where she
remained from 1978 until 1985, when she began working
in the office of Southern Biological Company (now
Southern Scientific) in McKenzie.
That opportunity arose from her relationship with the
company's president, Sybil King, who was a fellow
volunteer at McKenzie Memorial Hospital.
Lois discovered the value of volunteering in 1983 when
she spotted an ad in The McKenzie Banner that the
hospital was going to start an auxiliary.
"I don't have family here and, being a newcomer, I just
decided to get involved with the community and meet
people. I thought it would be a good way to get
involved with people here and find out more about the
area and different things important to people down
here," she says reasonably. "I met JoAnn (Gibson), Gina
(Manner), Sybil (King), Lola (Alexander) and all the
others, so many other people."
Besides being a charter member of the hospital
auxiliary, she began volunteering with the American
Heart Association, the American Cancer Society and the
Red Cross, becoming well known for many years of
raising the most money for an individual for both the
American Heart Association and the Cancer Society,
raising up to $5,000 on her own for each event. Since
the late 1980s she has donated over three gallons of
blood to the Red Cross.
In addition to raising money, Lois has chaired and
co-chaired both Heart Association and Cancer Society
events including the planning of entertainment and
coordination of survivor activities. This year she is
chairing the survivor committee for Relay for Life in
addition to volunteering weekly at the hospital as well
as being an active member of the Morning Glory Garden
Club. The couple attends church services at the Holy
Cross Catholic Church in Huntingdon.
She left Southern Biological in 1992 with the intention
of retiring once more, but was hired in 1994 to work as
assistant manager at the Eagle convenience store. When
she read E.W. James planned to add a deli and bakery in
their new store the same year, she applied for the
position and was hired. There she met many other new
people during the four years she worked in the deli.
After Wally was laid off, she waited until her birthday
in September, then stayed on until December before
retiring again.
"And I haven't worked since," she says, laughing.
Instead, the couple has done "a lot more traveling and
relaxing" as well as having more time for what she
calls "nonsensical activities" like her huge beanie
babies collection, his camera collection and
fascination with computers and much more.
Travel was always a happy pastime for the couple who,
in 1978, purchased their own aircraft, a Piper Cherokee
180D 4-seater. The airplane allowed them to take
weekend trips to places like Chicago, Michigan and
Florida and the big Brownsville, Texas air show that
features some 2,000 World War II airplanes that, Wally
relates eagerly, "are all up in the air at the same
time." They flew to other air shows in Missouri and
Oklahoma.
Flying, he says, is "a euphoria that can't be had
anywhere."
"All my life I've been thrilled with airplanes," says
the pilot who earned his wings in 1969 shortly after
his first solo.
His first plane ride was when he was seven or eight
years old in the bi-wing airplane that belonged to a
friend of his father.
Alas, his flying days ended due to his own honesty in
reporting health problems after having a blocked
carotid artery repaired, then five bypasses in 1997. He
describes the August 1998 sale of the plane "a very
sorrowful parting."
"Even when we were both working 40 hours a week, on the
weekend there was always something fun to do: sailing,
flying, or cycling," the couple says, though they
agree, "Now it gets to the point a trip to Jackson
wears us out."
Other memorable trips have taken them up the Michigan
coast to St. Ignace, their 17-foot sailboat in tow,
stopping at state parks along the way to go sailing.
Another year took them down the interior coast of
Florida to Fort Myers, stopping to sail at various
ports, while the next year a similar trip took them
down the opposite coast to Melbourne Florida.
Since their retirement, the couple has traveled to
exotic and exciting locales like the Cayman Islands,
the Bahamas (three times), Paris (twice), London,
Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Aruba (twice) and Caracas,
Venezuela, plus Hawaii, Curacao, and the San Blas
Islands, Mexico, the Panama Canal, Costa Rica, and
Guatemala, where they viewed first hand Inca ruins amid
the jungle landscape.
"Our next trip is Italy," Lois announces. Wally voiced
plans to travel to Canada sometime this summer in
search of the genealogical roots of his mother's
ancestry, having already explored his father's lineage
back to 1780.
No matter what the couple decides to do next, their
years together have certainly been filled with both the
giving and taking of many blessings and, despite Lois'
accent that has never wavered in its intensity, she
truly is a city girl, a lady from the City of McKenzie. |
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2004
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2003
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2002
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2001
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Phone (731) 352-3323 or
Fax (731) 352-3322
washburn@mckenziebanner.com
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