Happy Birthday A.T.

Today is A T Grady's birthday. This is his WWII picture. So, who is he you might say. For Wendy and Cindy he is the man married to Aunt Helen. You will remember going to his house to spend the night before you went to Bush Gardens. For Kat, Mandy, Christy and James you will remember him as the man driving Aunt Helen around in the Cadillac or Lincoln Town Car. They still live in Virginia in the Richmond area. He turns 86 today.

Now, for those of you that are interested in family history, AT was born and raised in the Grantham community. His GRANDMOTHER was just a child when 2 black men came in and raped her mother, then killed her mother and father. The 3 kids witnessed the crimes. Her 5 year old sister told the police that "Uncle Noah" did it. Uncle Noah was one of the black men working for the family. Right after it happened a group of black men were called in to review the case, to see if there was just cause to arrest the two black men. They agreed that there was, so the black men were arrested and tried. The trial was held, and it made national newspapers. It was even written about in the New York Times. I have a copy of that. Abby's mom and I scanned all the pages of the newspaper reports, and Abby's mom typed them up a few years ago. It is referred to as the James Worley trial. That was her (the grandmother's) father's name.

The black men were convicted and hung. I think that these were perhaps the last people that were hung in this county. Just a little bit of history for you. Now AT will probably never see this, I just wanted to let you know a little about the family.