McKenzie's children are strangers to neither
success nor hardship. From early years come tales of
town and country hewn from Indian lands; later, the
Great Depression tested a generation that proved
themselves capable of weathering the storm at home and
abroad as adversity gave way to supremacy in World War
II. In each successive age children born into meager
means have rallied by their own will and the strength
of family and community to thrive, whether they chose
to remain at home or extend their horizons in
America's vast homeland.
But few can claim to be the town's true progeny, as
can Charles Cox, who returned home recently for his
50th high school reunion.
Homeless at 16, he made McKenzie his home with many
fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers; those who
chose to help him along life's pathway. From combined
adversity and a nurturing community he rose to
tremendous financial success as a senior vice
president of the Paine Webber financial services
company, in charge of investments, and a stockbroker
registered in every state.
More telling of his rescued childhood is his success
as a family man, married for 42 years to Edith "Lea"
Pelleria Cox, father of four children (Elizabeth,
Charles Jr., Lori-Anne, and Julianna) and grandfather
of seven (plus one on the way.)
"McKenzie raised me," he says, "I have a lot of love
and affection for the city."
Charles was born in Buchanan on July 3, 1935 in the
midst of the Great Depression, a title for a financial
catastrophe that for many also described their outlook
on life as men struggled to support their families.
When Charles was nine months old, his father donned
his best suit of clothes and pulled the trigger on
life in what must have seemed to him to be a hopeless
world.
"He was a sharecropper and he wasn't expecting me,"
Charles explains, choking on his words as he accepts
the blame for what was actually a worldwide phenomenon
of misery. "He had four already; the last thing he
needed was another one with a mentally handicapped
wife."
Charles fights to regain his composure as he talks
about the painful, early years that decades of success
have failed to dim. His mother suffered from an
intellectual deficiency that made it harder for her to
cope with the stresses of parenthood. The family moved
from home to home in Henry County - "it was always a
shack," recalls Cox - and lived for a time in a house
that was part of the County Home, also known as "the
poor house".
A couple that drove up to the family's home when
Charles was around five years old were prospective
adoptive parents for brother Johnny, who was just
older than Charles. When they saw little, red-haired
Charles running along the rooftop, however, they
decided to take him instead.
"That's where they made their mistake," says Charles
with a pained expression. Unaccustomed to discipline
of any sort, he says, "I did some pretty terrible
things to be able to leave," one of which, he admits,
was frequently wetting his bed.
He also lived with Harry and Otera Toombs for six
months, another short-lived attempt at reining in the
wayward child.
By age nine he was on the streets and wiser to some of
the baser aspects of life than he should have been at
such a tender age. He had quit going to school and
made money shining the shoes of soldiers stationed at
the Camp Tyson Army facility near Paris.
During the summer, his bare feet toughened by
super-heated asphalt, he made extra money putting out
cigarettes with his toes. "They'd give me a nickel or
a dime," says Charles, who was, himself, already a
smoker.
He hung around the cab station where, he says, "they
all liked me." He spent his nights sleeping in the
taxis and his days on the streets.
Viewed as a delinquent, officials threatened to put
him and Johnny in a home for children; more a "reform
house" than foster home, says Charles. Instead,
arrangements were made for the boys to live with their
father's sister Lena and her husband, George
Barksdale.
The reprieve seemed like a prison sentence for
11-year-old Charles, who remained defiant, viewed
their teenaged daughter as a "spoiled brat", and
resented having to work on the farm that was located
near Carroll Lake.
"Everybody was miserable," says Charles, who
nevertheless returned to school, spending his fifth
through seventh grades at Hico. Concerning those who
tried to care for him in his younger years, he
declares, "I was out of control; they were all
wonderful people."
As soon as he could, says Charles, Johnny joined the
Navy. The day Charles turned 16, he packed his bags
and hitchhiked to Louisville, Kentucky where he spent
the summer sleeping at the YMCA and working at
Kroger's grocery.
"I not only got paid, I could take the dented cans,"
grins Charles as if the cans were made of gold. He
stills buys food in dented cans at a discount, one of
many thrifty traits that linger to the present. Lea
protests, shaking her head and with a humoring grin,
"You can't build in security, he'll never have it."
At summer's end he returned to school in McKenzie
where he stayed with the Joyce and Everett Currin
family for several months before they arranged for his
sleeping quarters over the old Fire Department where
he answered emergency calls throughout the night.
During his high school years he also worked at U-Tote-Em
grocery, Manning's gulf station in downtown McKenzie,
McKenzie Concrete Block Company, and ran a newspaper
route.
Each week, he changed the sign on a big billboard,
located past the railroad, where the Park Theater's
movie of the week was advertised, a chore for which he
was able to get into the movies free.
On weekends, he helped classmate Clyde Loving with his
popcorn stand that they would park on the street in
front of Williams' five and dime store. And, says
Charles, "If a carnival or circus came into town, I
got tickets by helping put up and take down tents."
One person Charles cites as influential in his life
was high school principal W.O. Warren. He also credits
teachers Ophie Everett, Polly Rucker, Arlie Berry,
Otis L. Cox and football coach Andy Settles as
instrumental in his upbringing, as well as Hico
teacher Vivian Esch who, he says, "used to tan my
butt."
He recalls, among students, Barry Brasfield who "was a
very good friend of mine; he stood up for me when most
people ignored me."
Charles was a member of the football and boxing teams
in high school and participated in the junior-senior
play. It was during rehearsals for that event that
word got around that he didn't own a sports coat, a
garment that was needed for his role in the
production.
Thus it was, Charles relates, that "Howard Freeman
gave me the first sports coat I ever owned. I wore
that coat for 20 years."
He ticks off more names of friends, their parents and
business owners who helped him.
"So many people there in McKenzie gave me
encouragement," he says in summary, "There are just so
many people, I could go on and on. Basically, all of
McKenzie raised me from 16 on. I just can't thank
those people enough, how they helped and encouraged
me."
After graduating from high school in 1954, Charles
enrolled at the University of Tennessee at Martin, a
venture that was partially funded by scholarship. He
resided in a house trailer that he purchased for $500
and was permitted to park on Frank and Maybelle
Manning's poultry farm.
While attending UTM, he represented the college in
West Tennessee Golden Gloves competition in 1955 and
1956. He was also on the drill team and the intramural
cross-country track team.
As his first year of college came to a close, Charles
made a life-impacting decision to
spend his summer selling Bibles door to door for
Southwestern Publishing Company under Ted Welch,
originally from Parsons, who is now a successful
Nashville businessman.
"I saved $6,000 the first summer," says Charles, who
worked from a motel room while selling books near
Pittsburgh the first summer and South Carolina the
following summer.
It was during the second summer that he met his
mentor, Dortch Oldham, from Nashville, owner of the
company.
"He went through school the same way, stayed with the
company and became president," relates Charles. "I
felt I had a special relationship with him and he
expected a lot of me."
He counseled Charles to "go into one of the armed
forces and get that taken care of, and find a wife."
So, after graduating with a degree in economics and
finance from UT Knoxville in 1958, to which he had
transferred after the summer of '56, he became a
communications officer in the Navy, based for two
years at Long Beach, California from which he served
aboard the U.S.S. Chemung on trips up and down the
Pacific coast, to Hong Kong and Alaska.
He was then stationed at Pearl Harbor where he met
Lea, a native of New England who was also a Navy
communications officer. She had earned her degrees
from the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston
and Bridgewater College, also in Massachusetts.
"She was only one of the nicest people I'd ever met,"
Charles says. The couple married February 11, 1962.
Although Lea had warned him she didn't want to live in
the South ("I can't take the heat," she explains) the
couple spent their first year together as civilians in
Ashland City, Tennessee, where the couple's first
child was born and where Charles worked as plant
manager of a company owned by Oldham.
"We had a miserable year," she says.
"Sure was," Charles agrees with a chuckle. "It was
cheaper to move to Boston; it was either move to
Boston or divorce."
Lea's discomfiture in the South was mirrored by
Charles' dismay as he searched for employment in
Boston. Spurred by Oldham's suggestion that he might
like to be a stockbroker since he had shown
considerable interest in the field after dabbling in
investments during his college years, Charles
interviewed with the noted financial services company,
Merrill Lynch.
He cringes in recollection of the ostentatious
interviewer who peered at him over his glasses,
pointed his finger and advised, "Son, if I were you
I'd go back down to Nashville where they can
understand you."
Wounded, Charles resolved, "I'll show you."
Four more discouraging months went by before he was
welcomed with open arms, by office manager Sidney
Parlow, into the relatively new Francis I. DuPont
company, which was later bought by Paine Webber.
"He was all smiles and I was all smiles," says
Charles. "That was one of happiest days of my life."
Charles' workaholic tendencies paid off as his efforts
met with success after success first with DuPont and
then Paine Webber.
Several years ago, Charles demonstrated his
appreciation for mentor Dortch Oldham with a donation
of $500,000 to establish the Dortch Oldham Center for
Economic Education and Entrepreneurial Studies in the
UTM School of Business. In 1998 he was awarded the
University of Tennessee’s Outstanding Alumni Award,
which recognizes exemplary professional achievement.
Lea, who was a homemaker for many years, has earned
her own success as president of Concerned Citizens for
Drug Prevention and as the Massachusetts delegate for
Drug Watch International. Often touted as illegal
drugs' most formidable opponent, she was recently
awarded the Otto and Connie Moulton Drug Fighter of
the Decade award.
Through Charles' successes, the couple has reaped
company sponsored trips to places like Hong Kong,
Greece, Italy, Austria, Puerto Rico, Canada, Mexico,
Bermuda, and Ireland.
"I just had the good fortune of spending six days in
Russia," Charles remarks. "It made me even more
thankful to be an American from the little city of
McKenzie."
"In Russia, if you're born poor you'll stay poor,"
Lea explains.
Charles smiles in appreciation of being able to work
his way past his own years of poverty. "All I can say
is it's been a wonderful experience, I have so much to
be thankful for. I've been blessed in so many ways."
