September 22, 1918 -August 10, 1988


Gus Elias Wright, Jr.

1918-1988

 

 Gus was born  September 22, 1918, to Gus Elias Wright, Sr. and Callie Mary Godfrey....their second child.  His education only reached the second grade level when hard times required that he stay home to help with the farm chores.  On December 23, 1939, he married Laura Emogene Parrish.  During the early years of their marriage, he worked as machine operator for the Burlington Hosiery Mill in Dothan, Alabama, and for a short while owned and operated a gas station near the hosiery mill.  While in Dothan, he and wife Gene, as she was familiarly known, had four children, all boys.  Larry Gene, the oldest was born on August 1, 1942, shortly before Gus would be called off to World War II.  Ferris Dale came along two years later on March 28, 1944.  Billy Wayne wouldn't come until four years later, on September 24, 1947, just missing his dad's birthday.  And James Gus (Jim) would finish off the clan on November 29, 1949.

Gus and family would move to Tuscon, Arizona in 1952, for the health of Gene. While there, he worked as a bus driver for the Tuscon Bus Company. However, the move did not improve her health, and they would return to Dothan just six months later.

Back in Dothan, he returned to work with the Burlington hosiery Mill.  In 1955, Burlington transferred Gus and family to their mill in Green Cove Springs, Florida.  His brother, Raymond had transferred to the same mill the year before.  The family stayed in Green Cove Springs until the mill closed in 1962.  At that time, Gus took a job as a machinist with Central States Paper and bag company in Palatka, Florida, just 25 miles south of Green Cove Springs.

In 1968, Gus and Gene, now "empty nesters" moved back to Dothan, Alabama, into an apartment that was attached to the his sister, Bonnie's home.  This home was also the home of his parents.

In 1977, Gus and Emogene divorced.  He continued to live with his sister until 1980, when he married Ola Mae Bell.  Gus and Ola lived in her house on Westmont Drive in Dothan until his death on August 10, 1988.  He is buried next to his parents in City Cemetery, Dothan, Alabama.

 

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