Uncle Junior

When I first started dating Cheryl in college, she did not tell me much about her family. I had introduced her to my family when we went to my home for a weekend away from school. Sometime after that I traveled the 2 hours north to Memphis to meet her family.

I was not really nervous as I always enjoyed meeting new people, plus I was already falling in love with Cheryl. Meeting her mother was a breeze. I think she loved me before we met. Her sister, Robin, was five years younger than I was, and although that is not much spread in years, when you are 18 it is a huge difference. I did not get to spend much time with her brother as he was not at home much.

At 6’3” and about 230#, her dad was a bit intimidating just in size and demeanor. But as I got to know him he was just a gentle giant.

During subsequent visits I was around more of Cheryl’s extended family. I was surprised that her cousins called her dad “Uncle Junior.” Her dad, Maurice Franklin Keathley, Jr. was the oldest of four sons. I felt awkward because I did not know what to call him. I started out calling him Mr. Keathley which is the proper southern etiquette.

Mr. Keathley played handball at an athletic club in Memphis, and occasionally Cheryl’s brother, Randy, would play with him. Randy was 17 years old, and he was a hulk. When he shook my hand it felt like my hand was in a vise.

One Saturday while I was visiting Memphis, Mr. Keathley invited me to play with him and Randy. They outfitted me with handball gloves and told me the rules and I was off playing. I played hard like I do at all games, but they slaughtered me. They chuckled at my efforts, and I did not know how to take that, but in the end, I resolved myself to getting beat up on the court every game. After all, they had massive hands and I sported small hands that were not accustomed to slamming a small hard black ball up against a wall.

During one of those handball games, Cheryl’s dad told me to stop calling him Mr. Keathley as he said that was what I should call his father, Maurice Franklin Keathley, Sr. That was a dilemma for me—what was I going to call him? Calling him Maurice just did not seem right. Finally, after being around him more and feeling more comfortable, I tried out calling him “Uncle Junior.” That stuck until we had the first grandchild in their family, and Uncle Junior became “Papaw.”

With each visit I learned more about Cheryl’s family, and I was intrigued with her grandparents who turned their home baked pies during the depression into two huge factories producing nationally branded pastries.

Like many baby boomers, I like hearing stories about World War II. Uncle Junior enlisted in the army as a second lieutenant just as the war was ending. He was assigned to Germany as an officer in the Nuremburg war crimes trials. He lived in a former Nazi officer’s home in Nuremburg during his assignment at the trials.

Uncle Junior told me fascinating stories about the prisoners. When the prisoners had a request, they had to write a message for the guards with a small piece of paper and a stubby one-inch pencil. The most commonly requested item was medication. There were three different colored pills that the prisoners were allowed to take: one for stomach problems, one for aches including head, neck, and limbs, and one was a sleep aide. All three pills were placebos.

Uncle Junior collected some of these hand-written notes, and today, Cheryl’s sister has possession of these relics. He interacted with some of the most famous of all the Nazi leaders including Hermann Göring, Reichsmarschall and Hitler’s deputy, Albert Speer, the Minister of Armaments and War Production, and Rudolf Hess, the Deputy Führer of the Nazi Party. Goring somehow hid a cyanide capsule from the guards, and he committed suicide the night before his scheduled execution by hanging.

On our trip back to the states from Burkina Faso in May 1987, we scheduled a two-week layover in Europe to meet Uncle Junior and his wife to tour a few countries. While visiting Germany, we went to Nuremburg, and after 40 years, Uncle Junior was able to take us to the house that he lived in. When we approached the main entrance of the building where the trials were held, the doors were locked. We went to a side door, and Papaw was able to get someone to come to the door. He explained to the German gentleman who understood some English that he wanted to show us the courtroom where the trials were held. The gentleman explained that the courtroom was only used for capital crimes and that it was not open to the public.

After the gentleman discovered that Papaw was one of the guards at the trials, he allowed us into the court room where Papaw gave a great history lesson to us. In the corridor outside the courtroom, Papaw found a photo of himself in one of the pictures from the trial. After that, the gentleman was extremely polite and hospitable with us and allowed us to see much more of the buildings.