The thing Oline Bateman likes best about his home
on Tennessee Street in McKenzie is the back yard,
easily visible through the wide, patio doors.
"That's my castle back there," he says of the square
of ground located adjacent to the road leading from
the back of the middle school to the football field
where middle school, high school and Bethel College
football teams currently meet their rivals.
When his own children, Charlie and Terry, were members
of the McKenzie Rebel football team, it wasn't the
middle school at all that approximated his property,
it was the three-story tall McKenzie High School
building that was torn down and replaced in 1975, a
couple of years after younger son, Terry, graduated.
Years later, the high school moved to its new building
on Highway 22, although the team, for now, still plays
at the old field.
"The kids like to play in the backyard," continues
Oline with his characteristically pleasant smile below
a becoming shock of thick white hair. These days, with
Charlie's hair every bit as white as his father's,
it's the grandchildren who grace the yard with
laughter from time to time, though none now live in
Tennessee.
Oline's life began in Huntingdon "many moons ago," he
says, on November 11, 1923. He was the fifth of ten
children - six boys and four girls - in the Charles
and Lula Bateman family, in which all except three of
the names began with "O": Otis, Odell, Odellion, Ollie
Lee, Oline, O.C., Charles, Jr., and the twins, whose
names rhyme, Irene and Katherine.
"It was always a lot of excitement, fights and all
that sort of thing," says Oline. "We had a lot of fun;
we had to entertain ourselves coming up in the
Depression, we didn't have toys."
Instead, they crafted their own homemade "cars" of
wooden wheels and made games like "wheels and guides"
created from metal, wagon wheel hub rings. These were
rolled with sticks of wood to the bottom of which the
children had attached cross paddles as an aid for
steering.
"We'd have a trail with logs across ditches," Oline
explains, "and we'd all start out and see who could
get back the fastest without falling down... Money was
scarce, that Depression was rough, rough, rough," he
says, shaking his head.
He was never able to enjoy his own athletic prowess -
an inheritance evident in his sons -as his formal
schooling ended after the eighth grade. His education
started in a little country schoolhouse in Rosser.
When the family moved to Trezevant, he finished out
the year in Rosser, walking four miles to the school,
then started the next year in Trezevant's school.
Later, after World War II ended, he took
correspondence courses to complete his education.
In the meantime, after he'd completed the eighth
grade, the family moved to McKenzie. Oline worked with
his father, who was a contractor, for a time, before
starting at the McKenzie Theater as a machine
operator, showing movies to audiences.
"I worked there 'til I was drafted," he says. "In
World War II they drafted nearly everybody that was
able to go."
The "old saying" at the time, Oline grins, was that
when men showed up for their medical examinations
prior to induction, "one doctor would look at one end
and another at the other end and, if they couldn't see
each other, you were in."
He was the first of three boys in his family to serve
in the war. Oline was drafted into the Air Force in
January, 1943, a little more than a year after
Japanese warplanes bombed Pearl Harbor. O.C. followed
mid-war and, toward the end of the war, Charles, Jr.
was also called.
Japan surrendered September 2, 1945, following the May
7 surrender of Germany to Allied forces. But Oline
remained in the Air Force for four and a half years
all told, serving during the war at an air transport
base in Scotland. He was then transferred to Orly Air
Field in Paris during the last few months of his first
tour of duty.
With most troops being sent home at the war's end,
Oline had an opportunity to sign up for an additional
18 months of overseas service of which three months
would be spent at home on leave. Allowed even to
choose his assignment, he decided to stay in Paris,
the leave center of the European theater.
"Everybody came there on leave," Oline says. He and
other airmen provided entertainment services at the
air base, which had a small nightclub and theater.
Since his personnel file indicated he had experience
in the field, when the airman operating the theater
went home, Oline, by then a staff sergeant, was given
the responsibility.
"We let all the service people worldwide come," says
Oline, allowing that movies were only 25 cents -
"pretty cheap for Paris."
But the light duty had its drawbacks when he returned
to Tennessee.
"When he got home he'd seen every show," says his
wife, Dot. "For long time we couldn't go to a movie."
Oline had met the Greenfield country-girl during his
three-month leave before returning to Paris. Four
years younger than he, she was raised with eight
brothers and sisters in the Crawley store community.
"We went out one time," says Oline, telling how old
friends of his had met Dot through her employment at
Milan Arsenal, then arranged a blind date for the two
while he was home.
"We went to the Club Royal, a nice place in
Huntingdon, and did a little jitterbugging," he grins.
"I'm glad my daddy's not living to hear that," says
Dot, whose father, Jim Dunning, was a Baptist
preacher, "he would have a fit."
But when Oline came home as a member of the reserves
after opting to leave the regular Air Force in 1947,
she didn't recognize him when they met on the street.
"She had to think awhile," grins Oline.
What's more, his own mother hadn't recognized him when
he knocked on the door upon arriving home.
"What do you want?" she'd demanded.
"Don't you know who I am?" he replied.
"No, I don't know you, who are you?" she asked.
The difference was in the amount of time he'd spent on
the beach at Eglin Field in Panama City, Florida,
where he was sent a month or so before his enlistment
ran out; a deep tan he's since paid for in the removal
of three skin cancers.
Oline had remained in the reserves in order to
maintain his rank should he decide to return to active
duty, but, citing Dot's "appealing personality" the
two resumed dating and, he says, "First thing you
know, we tied the knot."
That settled the issue of whether he would return to
the military.
Dot was working for the McKenzie Banking Company and
Oline went to work at the Milan Arsenal, where he was
employed for 43 years, until his retirement, as craft
foreman over the paint department in the maintenance
division.
He received his discharge from the reserves in June,
1950, some two weeks before the onset of the Korean
War. His boss at the arsenal, who was also in the Air
Force reserves, wasn't as lucky and was called to go.
Dot worked at the arsenal three times: first during
World War II, then after Korean War until she became
pregnant with her second son, and again after his
birth. She worked at the bank several times, as well,
filling in for people who were out. But the employment
she is, perhaps, most remembered for was her work as a
secretary and bookkeeper at McKenzie High School.
Because both she and Oline came from large families in
an era when, he says, children were "cheaper by the
dozen," Dot declares, "I think we were determined not
to have that many."
Terry was born almost seven years after Charlie. Both
boys, say their parents, were natural athletes,
playing baseball, football and basketball all the way
through school.
"I don't think we ever missed a game," says Oline
proudly. "We didn't miss many," adds Dot.
And the family always went on vacation at least once a
year, and sometimes twice.
"We might not have enough money to buy groceries when
we got home but we went," laughs Dot.
Oline recalls a special trip when Charlie was three or
four years old when the family set forth on a week's
journey into Canada to see Niagara Falls, then back
down to Lake Erie, through Cincinnati and Louisville
on the way home. The last night on the road, Oline and
Dot recall, they had enough money to fill the tank and
eat supper.
"We didn't have a dime after that all the way home,
but you know, we had a good time," Oline laughs,
recalling that, as he drove through Canada, he would
sing the first part of the song, "Sound off", after
which Charlie would pick up the second part. "We
really had a good time," he says again, also recalling
fun family vacations to the Smoky Mountains in Maggie
Valley, North Carolina.
The Batemans have now vacationed in all but two of the
United States: Iowa and Wisconsin. Oline recalls their
best trip was a retirement gift from Terry: a first
class flight for the couple to Seattle, Washington,
where they rented a car and drove down the coast to
San Francisco, across to Sacramento and Lake Tahoe
near Reno, Nevada, then up through Wyoming to Denver
where they turned in the car and flew home to Memphis.
"It's the best one we ever made," he says, recalling
spending time in a big vineyard before sightseeing the
next day in San Francisco.
"About two weeks later they had that earthquake," he
and Dot recall, wide-eyed. "We'd been home about a
week when it happened; it scared us to death."
These days, the couple laughs upon declaring eating is
a favorite pastime.
"We go out to eat at a lot of different restaurants,"
Oline says. They enjoy getting together with a
dwindling group of older adults of First Baptist
Church in McKenzie, where Dot was attending when they
met in 1948.
"She started dragging me up there," he jokes, and she
counters, "I didn't have any trouble; he was ready to
go."
He consents she is right, recalling that in Scotland
he had begun attending the Presbyterian Church off
base with friends.
Oline and Dot joined First Baptist together in 1951.
They also enjoy attending the Senior Citizens Center
in McKenzie where she enjoys playing canasta and he
plays pool.
Oldest son Charlie now lives in Marietta, Georgia with
his Virginia-born wife, Janet. Of their three
children, Christopher and his three children live in
Michigan, Jonathan lives in Georgia and Julia in
Florida.
Terry married Jill Moody, his high school sweetheart
from McKenzie. Long based in Nashville, they now live
near Washington, D.C. with their 15-year-old twin
daughters, Annie and Claire. Their son, Will, 19, is a
freshman at Clemson University.
Oline and Dot still enjoy traveling, although now,
they say, despite terrorists concerns, "We fly instead
of driving; when you want to see those children you
take a lot of chances."
The couple is looking forward to Thanksgiving this
year when Charlie and his family will be coming home
for the holidays.
