Eulogy for Julian Benjamin Thomas
May 2nd 1934 - May 11, 2008
His Young Life
When Jackie asked me if I would do this eulogy for Julian, my first thought was “No, I will never be able to stand up and talk about Julian’s life because I will be too emotional. But as I thought further, I realized that I am probably the person who has been with Julian the longest time, who is still living, so I must try to give you a mental picture of how and where we grew up, and what influenced our lives.
Julian was born close to the Albert Rahn crossroads near Glennville on May 2nd, 1934 to our parents, Rufus and Bertha Thomas. He was born on our father’s 22nd birthday, so they were always able to celebrate birthdays together. He was the first grand-child in the Thomas family, so he was very petted and humored according to all reports. He always had a strong will and a mind of his own. I was told that when he was about 3 yrs old, he was staying at his grandparent’s home overnight and he thought about a big tree that they had in their yard and he put in that his young uncles had to go out and cut down that tree that night right then. After a long time of dealing with this, the only way that they could get him to go to bed and forget that tree was to promise him that they would get up first thing the next morning and cut it down. But luckily he had moved on to other things by morning.
He had things pretty much as he pleased for 5 years and then I came along. I don’t think he was too excited to have a baby there and especially a girl. Julian and I were born in the 30’s, Kerry, JoAnn and Wanda were born in the 40’s and then Anita and Ronnie arrived in the early 50’s for a total of 7 children in our family. I believe Julian was married before the last 2 children arrived.
Julian was born in the great depression time and I was born just before WWII began, so times were very hard. Daddy had moved the family down near the Oak Grove church community where he bought his own small farm and begin to farm and work with turpentine. As Julian grew up, Daddy always gave him work to do around the farm, and taught him that when he was given a job he had to do it right before he quit or Daddy would make him do it all over again. He helped in the fields and around the barns, feeding the mules and other livestock, harvesting corn and etc, and one of his most despised jobs was stripping cane and killing hogs, for Daddy gave him the job of cleaning the head and feet. Daddy taught him great work ethics that he never forgot no matter what the job was.
Julian also had plenty of time to ramble in the fields and woods, and this set a pattern that he continued the rest of his life. He loved the woods and all of nature and he reminded me of a cross between Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and maybe Dennis the Menace. He was always trying out a new adventure; when he was 10 years old, he discovered that there was a big mama alligator that lived in the swampy area of one of our fields and she was fenced in that field and Julian loved to watch her. When she hatched a big bed of babies down in that swamp, Julian went in and stole those babies. The first thing he did was to bring one in the house and threw it on the bed where my mother and I were resting and Mama almost had a heart attack. She did stroke out when she heard how he had gotten all those babies out of the nest and the mother somewhere near. Julian, being the trader he was, carried those gators in a box, on the bus to school, and traded one to every boy that had something of worth to trade for; like pocket knifes, shooting marbles, toy guns or anything that little boys love to have in their pockets. When the principal heard what he was doing, he told him not to bring anymore gators to school. When he got home with all his loot, mama and daddy told him to return all of it to the boys next day, and when he got to school next morning, all the other parents had made their boys bring all the gators back to Julian.
He also had a little dog that he loved dearly; one night his dog disappeared. Julian and his friend, Gene Dawson, had been seeing tracks around the farm and they had decided that this was a wild cat, so they set a trap on the path of the cat. Sure enough, the next morning he had caught the wildcat. Julian declared that he knew that the wildcat had eaten his little dog and was determined to find out if this was true. He and Gene went out to their little dugout in the woods and sharpened up their pocket knifes and operated on that cat, and sure enough, they found out the wildcat had eaten his dog; but, when the two of them arrived back home, they were barely able to walk because they were both deathly sick and as green as grass. It took them quite a while to recover from their surgical venture and I’m sure neither of them ever considered a career as a surgeon.
Julian inherited his trait of prankster from our Mother. He was so good at it and I was so gullible that he could do or say anything to me and I would believe him, at least for a while. Being the only little girl around and Julian having several boys in the neighborhood coming around to play with him, I was naturally a pest to them. They made a dugout clubhouse in the woods near our house and wrote in big white painted letters, “No girls allowed” on the door. It had a big chain and padlock on the door and I assure you that I never saw the inside of the dugout. I wanted to be with them and see what they were doing and he was always doing something to get rid of me. I’ll tell you a few of the many rotten things he did to me:
One day while we were gathering stove wood, Julian told me if I would run around the block 3 times I’d have 2 little white calves running behind me; I said I wouldn’t and he declared I would, so I almost killed myself running in the hot summer sun for about 30 minutes or longer and then when I was totally exhausted he showed me the calves of my legs and said,” see I was right wasn’t I?
To keep me from following him somewhere, he tied me up with a rope and hung me from the ceiling joists under the boiler shelter, and my little brother, Kerry, came out and found me and ran to tell Mama. By this time, Julian was long gone.
When I was old enough to play “bob jacks” at school, mama sewed a little drawstring bag to keep my ball and jacks in when I carried it to school. One day I picked up my bag of jacks, opened it and ran my hand in to get the jacks and pulled out the biggest toad frog you ever saw. I almost passed out, it scared me so. Julian laughed about this for years. He would also slip around and put Catawba worms on my collar and then they would reach out and touch my neck and scare me to death. When Catawba worms came out on the trees in the summer, I would go into hiding.
Having said all this, he was not all mischief; he and the neighborhood boys would play with all us younger children and we would get into barrels and big truck tires and they would roll us down a long hill: we’d all go swimming in the little creek nearby. He used to hitch up the mule to a wagon and take us all riding. Kids today can’t imagine that we had no TV’s, stereo’s, phones, game boys etc; we did not even have electricity until 1949 in our community. We did have an old battery radio but it was really hard to hear anything on it for all the static. Life was so simple, but really so carefree and fun for us children.
When the war came along and Daddy went away everyday to work at Fort Stewart , Julian became the man around the farm and had to grow up really quick. We lived out in the country so far that going to town was a very rare occasion for us. Julian would work in the turpentine woods and help with dipping the tar and getting it in barrels and Daddy would take it to market mostly on Saturday. I was always jealous because Julian got to go with Daddy to the tar market all the way to Baxley.
We went to the country school at Tyson, from 1st grade thru 9th grade. Mr. John Newton Wall was the principal during the most of Julian’s school years there, and he became a tremendous influence and guidance counselor to Julian. He would depend on Julian to help him do things around the school because he was the biggest boy there. He really encouraged him to play sports and to stay in school, make good grades, and make something of his life. Then when Julian moved on to high school, Mr. Wall had also moved to Glennville High school . They were friends for the rest of their lives. Julian thoroughly enjoyed playing sports throughout high school, both football and basketball.
Julian accepted Christ and joined Oak Grove Church when a youngster and then grew up to become a good leader and example for the younger kids at the church. He began to teach Sunday school and Baptist Training Union in his high school days and was the youth leader at the church for a long time.
I’m sure there are some here today that can remember some of those trips when Julian would take Daddy’s farm truck and put some hay bales in the back and take all of the youth, including me, to St Simons to the beach or to the river or other places that we had never been before, like Jay Bird Springs. Jackie can remember them I’m sure.
Someone asked “Were we poor? Julian answered “No, we had everything that we needed, and our family circumstances were equal to the other kids at school and in the community. Everyone was in about the same place during those hard times, but we had a secure, loving home and we didn’t know it if we were poor.”
Julian was a good role model for the rest of us children. There were 7 children in our home, and we have always been a close knit family and loved to be together. I’ll always have the fondest of memories of my “big brother” who has been there for all of us when we needed him.
Julian was a Christian, foremost, and a very fair and honest human being. He always treated people with dignity and respect, no matter who they were. He loved people and I believe that people loved him.
Julian was a man of Good character, and his morals and ethics showed through in his dealings with others. He once came back home to tell Daddy and Mama how much he appreciated them for their good name and standing in the community and the church; it meant a lot to the welfare of their children.
Julian was a man of Wisdom. There is an old saying, “You can’t pay cash for Wisdom. It comes to a man on the installment plan. “Julian learned his wisdom by living and learning and his son Danny was a testament to that. When someone would tell Danny something that he wasn’t too sure about, Danny would say,” I’ll have to ask Julian about that’” He always had great faith in what his daddy said. Don’t we all want our children to look up to us and respect our words??
I could talk about him for a long time but time does not permit. I’m thankful today to know that he is with the Lord and to know that he will never again have to experience any more sickness or pain. I want to say “Thank You” to Jackie for her faithfulness and love to Julian as she has cared for him during a long and heartbreaking illness, and also to Libba and to Drew for being there for him also. I know that they will be rewarded from the Lord.
Goodbye, Big Brother, I love you and I’ll see you there.