My father's people were hearty mountain folk. They helped settle areas around Pelser and Ben Hur, Ark.

When I was a child, once or twice a year, we would go back to Pelser and visit with Great Uncle Elmer and Aunt Tiny.

Tiny would always cook fresh backstrap, chocolate gravy and homemade biscuits.

I can remember Uncle Elmer kept a team of mules and would use his jenny to plow up the garden patch.

Elmer had an easygoing personality, gentle and well-mannered, but underneath that gentle exterior, was a will-of-iron.

I think like most mountain, rural folks, he was hard-working, kind, proud and fiercely independent.

The boys in the family only attended school three months out of the year. They graduated in the 8th grade.

They spent the majority of their time helping with farm work, chores and hunting and fishing, which was a necessity to help feed the family.

As an adult, Uncle Elmer worked as a lumberman.

When he was 33 years old he was drafted into the War. He left behind a wife and four children.

He served two years before he was captured by the Germans at Battle of the Bulge.

Elmer was a prisoner of war for five months.

When it was clear the American Army was getting nearer, the Germans shoved up to 75 men per freight car, without food, water or a way to use the bathroom and shipped them deeper into Germany.

Uncle Elmer spent three days in the freight car.

American fighter pilots attacked and blew up the train engine.

The railroad cars had been disconnected and large POW letters were placed on top of the railroad cars.

Leaving the train, the Germans then marched the prisoners across the country as the Army continued to advance.

Finally, exhausted and out of supplies, the Germans gave up and held up a white flag of surrender.

Uncle Elmer, normally a 180 pound man, weighed about 120 pounds when he was liberated.

He spent 45 days in a hospital in France before he was able to be shipped home.

If you asked him about his experience, he would say he lived off of potatoes and cabbage.

Uncle Elmer said when it came to food, the Germans soldiers fared just about as bad as the prisoners.

Often, Uncle Elmer said it was his rural mountain upbringing that helped him to survive.

He told us about each morning getting up, taking off his clothes and trying to pick all the lice off the best he could and about one Christmas, when each prisoner received a raw turnip for their meal.

When Uncle Elmer came back home to the mountains, he went back to farming and then went to work for the Forest Service.

He made the paper once for running into a burning building to save someone.

He fought forest fires, built roads, raised his family and kept his jenny for gardening for many years.