Jennifer Reed and Edward Wood III

00:02 Hi, I'm Jennifer Reed, and I'm 54 years old. And I'm doing this interview with my father and would in Tallahassee, Florida on Saturday, December 4th, 2021.

00:15 Edward.

00:17 80 years of age. I'm doing an interview this afternoon with my daughter. Jennifer. I'm in Tallahassee.

00:31 So, where did you grow up?

00:35 I was born in Montgomery, Alabama, but we left there when I was very young and I lived in Chipley, Florida or all of my young life. After I graduated from high school and went to college on a settled in Tallahassee and I worked in Tallahassee for state government.

00:58 And then you move back to Chipley.

01:01 Yes, and 19 volt 1999. I moved back to Shipley as a result with my mother and father's illnesses. And an eventual deaths are commuted to Tallahassee every day for about six or seven years. It was a long drive, but the population in Tallahassee, a grown quite a bit. And so, we were at that time. I was working in there, what they call The Coppertop building, right on the edge of town and

01:39 I got to work.

01:41 Faster than a lot of people on the other side of Tallahassee and they are always amazed at that. Why? How I could get there faster than them?

01:51 So what are your parents names and Mary Herring woods and your dad had a nickname for a traveling salesman who spent time in my great-grandmother's boarding house in Cairo, Georgia and your family is from Cairo, a large part of them are, and you spent a lot of your time there with your aunt's, when you were growing up, growing up on a lot of Somersworth and now ironically you've moved back to Cairo.

02:44 Yes, we were fairly recently moved to Cairo from Chipley and

02:51 I've enjoyed being there and

02:54 Then I thought about Community. What's your what's your best memory of growing up in Chipley?

03:01 Growing up in Chipley.

03:05 All kind of great memories. There is a wonderful place to grow up a small town, but I'm very friendly. One of my special memories was when I was a very small boy. My dad was in the gas and oil business among many other things and

03:27 I was he had a black man work for him, named Buster mirror. And one of Buster's children named Edward. After my father was was.

03:43 At the station at the gas station one day and he and I were playing, we played for a lot a lot together when he came with his dad and

03:57 My dad came out and asked me to come inside for a minute. I walked inside my dad said,

04:04 I'd rather you not play with him. And I said, why? And he said, well, somebody was in the station and they were complaining that you were playing with a black Shaw and I said, but Dad, he's my friend.

04:19 Why do I have to not play with him? And he looked at me, and he said, you're absolutely right. Don't worry about it. Go play. I'll take care of any problems.

04:31 That says a lot about who he was.

04:35 What was, what was a great memory about your mom?

04:43 She was really special person.

04:46 She was a very special person. She when I graduated from high school and went to college. She went to college. She did not, and she's not been in college before that. But she went to call finished AA degree at Chipola. Junior College in Marianna, Florida. And then

05:07 Just her bachelor's degree at Troy State University in Alabama.

05:17 Tree burn our guidance counselor for a great number of years at in Chipley and very well respected and thought of their people who are the right age to have been at Rowlett, middle school and that she was our guidance counselor, still make people here from Chipley and I said, that was my password. She was the best. It's really kind of need. So many lives. What other jobs did your dad have in Chipley?

05:52 He was a gas station as I said, but he also became a distributor for Texaco and

06:03 And then I switch from Texarkana to Conoco, and was a distributor number of gas stations and

06:16 In addition to that, he was so heavily invested in The Orwells, over around the Pensacola area and got very involved in that. He also was a feed store.

06:34 I'm sorry a hardware store at one time and

06:42 Was it in the real estate quite a bit? And he was on the city council?

06:48 Later on later on, in life was on the city council. Who was the mayor of Chipley? He ran for mayor and was elected surface and are for a number of years. And then, when I was a child, he created his own store. He he he he had a store in Chipley where he sold Antiques and guns on the lamps and everything else that he had collected. Over time. He had a huge Arrowhead collection. He retired, he was my mother was still got us down for her and teaching and

07:31 He essentially became operating became an operator of a, of a swap and trade store at the house. Drove my mother crazy and she came home, one afternoon and said you need to clean up this, as you're going to, you're going to have to have my dining room table refinished and get the scratches off. And she said, go downtown and find a storefront, and open your own store, down there, and it when she did the same very well known for that.

08:10 Hey, you are.

08:12 Did all kind of trading and swapping antiques guns. You name it?

08:24 Woodstock, Woodstock.

08:30 My fondest memory of your parents is your mother telling me.

08:37 When he was, he had Alzheimer's for several, several years. And she took care of him at home, and it was very hard on her. And one of the things she told me was it, she wouldn't have changed anything that she loved him so much.

08:55 But she would have kept going as long as he was alive. There were very deeply in love.

09:05 I don't think I ever I ever had them to cross word to each other when I was around.

09:14 What were your memories of World War II?

09:18 And what did your father and mother do during that time?

09:24 My mother, or my father spent most of world war trying to get into the service but because of some health issues that he had, which really didn't affect his his ability to function, but he kept getting refused. He kept getting turned down and he was very frustrated by that. My mother was a stay-at-home mom during that time was very involved with her parent, teacher association their PTA and

10:02 I know, one memory, I had of that was she was elected. She went to a convention and was elected as the president of the state parent Teachers Association. She came home. I was out in the, I was out in the backyard playing with the lady who stayed with us while she was gone. And

10:27 My mother.

10:30 I guess she became frustrated with the fact that I was having more fun with this lady who were staying with us in and was not concerned about her being goings and that night, she called and resigned the office at that time, but your dad did a lot of stuff for the war effort.

10:51 Your dad did a lot of stuff for the war effort. A lot of years did to like what?

11:03 I love her. Very busy, and in town supported, you know, any efforts to

11:12 To support the war effort. And so we're very busy with that. And who are your siblings, siblings? Are I have a younger sister named Mary, Delaney would, and then I have a brother named Scott Herring wood.

11:34 And where do they live? Where do they live now? They're both in California. My sister lives in San Rafael, California on the north side of the San Francisco Bay and my brother lives in Central Park.

11:56 California.

11:58 Midlow Park Menlo Park, he's on the faculty at Stanford and is in private medical practice as well. Tell the story about the Brahma Bulls.

12:15 Your dad brought home in a trade.

12:21 3 Brahma, Bulls, I'm sorry.

12:26 Well, my dad was always in the livestock. Both cattle and and other other farm animals.

12:37 Rihanna.

12:39 For interest, I think Hannah.

12:42 Operation, downtown, stable type operation. And he had three.

12:50 3, cows, that were there. He was feeding them.

12:56 Getting them out to for, Florida.

13:00 My sister and I went down town a lot cuz it's small town. We could walk from my house to the to there, but we would go down and visit the cattle. Visit the thousand and feed them in their stalls.

13:19 And,

13:20 Which I'm quite attached to him.

13:24 And then they were finally killed and slaughtered and

13:30 Not long. After that we had, we were having a dinner and

13:38 During the dinner conversation. I innocently asked, I wonder which one this is.

13:47 My mother was not happy with me at all and my sister cried got up from the table and ran to her room and my brother was stunned.

13:59 I was just asking a simple question.

14:03 Was it one of them?

14:07 But I didn't get an answer to my question.

14:15 How far did you live from your school?

14:18 From our school.

14:21 Two blocks. So when we were growing up you would tell us that you were you had a difficult childhood that you would walk to school and from school or walk to school every morning walk home every afternoon. It was you know, whether it was raining or snowing or support or sunny. It doesn't matter.

14:44 But actually, your mother told me that if it was raining that she would go pick you up.

14:51 Well, I think she did that because she do that when she didn't trust me a lot, because a lot of days I did, I was not a fan of school when I was very young. And so I would go in that she would take me to school on occasion and how to go in one door and go out the back door of the schooling, and I would be home before she got there, and she got very frustrated with that.

15:14 But you turned out to be a pretty good student.

15:17 I was an excellent student. Yes, I really was.

15:25 What was your first job after you graduated from college from college?

15:34 Hours of school teacher in Bay, County, Florida, Panama City, Florida history.

15:46 So you did, you did become a pretty good student.

15:50 And later on, you went back and got your Master's in Panama City for a couple of years and then I moved back to Chipley and education there. And

16:11 At that point, I decided I wanted to go back and get my Master's Degree and get more involved in education. And so I did.

16:21 And so, where did you get your Masters Masters at Florida State University, who was getting their masters? At the same time you were

16:33 Oh, my mother was here. She came. She came back in and went back to school and got her a bath with sugar as well and got us and you'll live together. An apartment here with your father. It was, it was fun. It was a unique relationship. And then what did you do after you got your masters?

17:05 Well, I have a job offer and down in Central Florida and as an assistant principal and

17:16 Before I took that job, officially took it a friend of mine who was in graduate school with me calling.

17:27 Ask me if I was interested in working for state government. And I said well, I don't know. I hadn't thought about that and he said well, I know what you were doing and cotton in your classes in college. She said, it'd be really interested in this job. The state is starting a new program of planning for the State of Florida and link to the budget process. And he said, I think you do a great job. And so I went down and interviewed and they offered me the job on the spot.

18:03 And it was the same starting salary as assistant principal job done in Central, Florida. I thought, well, I like Tallahassee. A I won't have to move. So I just take that and that's what I did. And how long did you work for state government?

18:18 The rest of my career was with state government. I work from the governor's office of planning and budgeting until about 1990 and in 1990 moved from there to the state Lamb's office.

18:36 Which part of the EPA Department arrived? Part of the department will not tell me my teaching time is about 38 and 38 years ago. How many hours did you work for?

18:57 Can't remember the exact number, but I think it was six or seven 6, I believe. And I was also an appointee of the governor, when I was with State lands, right?

19:11 This may be a loaded question. But who was your favorite governor?

19:15 Oh, that's why you see my favorite girl in a Barbie G. I thought he was really a solid person who had the interest of the state.

19:26 Always, and

19:29 You respected him a lot. Yes, I do as a person and as a governor, as a person and as a governor.

19:42 So, after you left, a few retired, you got into genealogy quite heavily. And so, to call my Volvo and genealogy. When I was about 7th grade, something like that 6 or so far.

20:05 Oh goodness, Earliest is probably 1602.

20:12 1600.

20:15 And you can go out but other quite a few and you've taken us back to the Revolutionary War 1 was John Morton, who is representative from, from Pennsylvania and

20:36 Invite John Morton on the eights great-grandfather was cast, the deciding vote for Independence and signed and signed. The Declaration of Independence was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. And what is the deciding vote for the country of the United States? What became of the United States?

21:01 And so, how many signers do we have in our family tree? Do we have?

21:08 Father, spiders, just the one that I know. Okay, and then how many in the Revolutionary War?

21:16 I don't remember off hand, but there's a there's a number of them and have one that was always thought was kind of interesting. He was from North Carolina and he

21:29 Was a butler.

21:31 And hey, join the American forces in North Carolina.

21:41 As soon as he signed up, he marched he had to march from, North Carolina.

21:48 All the way up, to Pennsylvania, to place called Valley Forge and he

21:56 Winter at Valley Forge.

22:02 Ford trucks with specially cold and cruel. Winter.

22:07 It's amazing. And then we had family in the Civil War as well. Of course, on both sides. Tell the story about dr. Wood.

22:21 Doctor would that's was in Tennessee in a in a small town called, Woodbury, Tennessee.

22:31 It was my uncle.

22:35 I'm going to go catch a relationship, but he was well-known. He served in the in the Tennessee legislature at one time. And

22:45 But was very famous and well-known, as a doctor there.

22:51 And then he treated there was a battle nearby.

22:56 Yes, wherever several battles nearby there, but one in particular and in fact the night before the battle of the Southern general in charge.

23:12 8 header came to my grandparents Farmhouse there and that's where they had dinner that night.

23:22 And then he treated he treated patients from both sides. Was he the one that had two sons that fought on each side or is that another relative?

23:42 No, that was

23:47 Are the $5 towards Valley?

23:52 Note 8, grandmother.

23:59 She has a brother.

24:02 Who was a general in the northern Army and

24:12 I guess I can say that there was information Cheryl occasionally when it was necessary to protect. Our family is a good. It's a good example of how families were divided on how family is just because of a align in the, in the sand, you were on one side or the other.

24:44 What's a story that you want to tell?

24:50 Cuz we thought we talked about.

24:52 About doing this.

24:56 What are you proud of stuff in your life?

25:04 Not sure.

25:10 How has your life been different than what? You'd imagined totally different?

25:19 I thought I would probably just going to college and play play ball and

25:26 Just doing a routine thing routine kind of a job, but I've been blessed by having some great experiences. And and I really enjoyed what I've done and felt like a fader a positive contribution.

25:47 And so now I can retired also, you found a mission group.

25:55 Yes.

25:57 Your wife Linda and you founded a group called here. Am I? And we started, we started?

26:13 About three or four weeks. Before I retired, I had already planned my retirement, but I'm planning my retirement, but

26:23 My wife Linda had been attending a college in Graceville like a Christian Bible College, and they were planning on going on a field. Trip a mission trip to China.

26:44 About three weeks before I retired, I came home last night from working.

26:50 I'm sorry to tell she was not happy and I said, what's what's the matter? And she said they're canceling. The mission trip because we have eight people in our class and we have to have eight in order to go on the trip. But one of the young man has had to drop out of school without some parent problems in his home state of Iowa.

27:10 And so,

27:12 She said, we're not going to go on the trip. She was very excited about going.

27:17 And I said, what what's the date of the trip when it? When are you leaving? Remind me of that. And she told me, and I said,

27:26 When you go to class tomorrow, I asked the professor who I knew. I said, ask the professor if I sign up for the class.

27:39 Would I be without giving enough people to go? And we can still get, you can still go and I said, but tell him that I won't take any exams. And I'm not going to read any books or anything. And she said, are you serious? And I said, yeah, I said it'd be a great trip. So she did the next day and she told him, when she went out walked into the classroom. She told him what I said and he said, wait just a minute. Y'all just be still a minute. So she left in a few minutes. We came back and handed her, some O'Shea for papers, and he said have had fill these out to, we're going to China.

28:24 So,

28:26 Who is the head of the Sun for a couple of weeks along with an incredible Trail? We flew from New York from Atlanta to New York?

28:35 Over the North Pole which was quite an experience just to be able to look down and see where the North Pole is when we crossed it. And then we came down from the North End, side of China and flew all the way across China into Hong Kong.

28:55 From there. We took a boat up the gang up there up, the river from Hong Kong to Attalla City. Small city of about 3 million people named Guangzhou. From one Joe. We took Vans and we went deep into the mountains of central China and work with her a group of people called the loud.

29:28 We are.

29:30 We're not able to to actively aggressively witness, but we could pray and that's what we did. Most of the time, we just what we call prayer walking. And we prayed and walked through the mountains and just has a different towns there and stayed with one family. And their daughter was a graduating senior that year in high school. She and she acted as our interpreter wherever we went and just as it was just a wonderful experience. One of my favorite Recollections from, that was one morning. We had walked up the mountain, trail up there up above the river where they live, and we were at, we stopped andropause and resting and looking back down the mountain down the river and

30:28 I turned to her and just without thinking, I said, what do you, what do you think as a graduating high school senior?

30:38 Everything that goes on in the world and how things are going. What are you thinking about? And she looked at me and she said,

30:50 I just wish that we could learn to love one another.

30:55 We have accepted Christ and become a Christian, and it was very active in the church there.

31:15 And from there, you went to the other side of the world from there. We decided we really wanted to do some mission trips. We're both basically retired then. And so we wanted to get involved. We went to church one, Sunday, and there was a missionary couple they're from, who'd been in Kenya Africa, East Africa and

31:40 We talked to them afterwards. We asked him to go to lunch with us and they did and stayed for a week. We talked to them about some mission that we wanted to do. We wanted to do a medical Mission. My wife Linda had completed her degree it by then and was a nurse my registered nurse.

32:04 And so they said they really weren't interested in doing that that they thought about it, but they were, we're not interested. So we said, well, if you change your mind, let us know, and so they left and about three or four months later. We got

32:25 Communication from Brown and they said they thought about it. And there's a group of people in Kenya that they thought could be reached with a medical Mission. And they were very interested in that. Would we put together a team? And we did since that time, we've been back to Kenya numerous times about eight times. I think eight or nine times.

32:52 You went on one of those strips at least two, two of them strips with us. And so I know you enjoyed it and 2010 decision to hire a missionary couple or Kenyan missionary couple full-time. We formed an organization of private nonprofit called here. Am I Incorporated? And since then we've been operating that and we've been continuing to do our mission work, and we've also extended that been to the Navajo tribe in New Mexico and Arizona.

33:34 Spell quite a bit of time out there in the Summers.

33:39 One particular particular incident was, I took one of my grand my granddaughters to the Navajo reservation, for a very rough.

33:53 Sequel. Occupation vaccinating, livestock when we got back her mother, we were walking through the car to the airport. And let her mother asked her how she liked her trip with her Grandad and she stopped and looked through the mother.

34:16 And she said, Mama.

34:19 Who's the best week of my entire life?

34:23 So, what was quite a thrill?

34:28 That's my niece, Savannah.

34:35 What's your favorite memory of Africa?

34:42 There's so many wonderful memories there.

34:48 Can I tell you my favorite story? So we were after our medical missions were over? We went out into ended up for photographic Safari driver who had a broken car, but we didn't know it and he didn't have brakes. This is the one that had to slow down and said, something was wrong with his car. We realized it was because he didn't have brakes and then the car broke down and I say broke down and quotes we found out later. He ran out of gas. And so we were said, we were out in the middle of the Masai, Mara, and it was getting dark and you're not supposed to be out there after dark. We were waiting on David or contact David. Corrado to come. Pick us up to come, get us and he had to come find this out in the middle tomorrow, but we are up on the rise and all of a sudden, the driver said we need to go back to the car and the car was a few feet away from us and we kind of looked up, he said lions.

35:45 And we turned and coming out of a bush, or was a male lion coming in about twenty feet behind him? Was another one in about 20 feet behind him. Was another one in about twenty feet behind him. Was another one of these five male lions came out of a ravine where they have been sleeping and we're going off to hunt, and it was just amazing. We sat there and watched over, they were probably.

36:09 A couple hundred feet away from us. It was frightening and awesome at the same time and we just kind of stood there real quietly in a few minutes later. David came and got us and and we end up going back, but that was just really neat, something that was bad, you know, in terms of getting a stuck there turned out to be amazing and I, that was a really neat thing in a lot of things that happened in Kenya work. Those kind of things. You know, when we were in the big Lori and I couldn't go down the mountain safely in the mud, and we had to walk. We ended up walking around through beautiful countryside, and, you know, it was, those kind of things that that, you remember, you know, you remember that the children is, well, the children were just amazingly sweet. And, and the people are amazingly grateful for us being there, doing this medical mission trip, but I'm more great.

37:09 Tell them that they are for us because it just changed your life. There was an awesome experience. Each one of them, the medical Mission said we've done, we served over two thousand people in each one. So

37:27 You made me the pharmacist pharmacist in one in the dental assistant on the other and I have a background in neither.

37:36 But people say, why were you the pharmacist and I said, because I could speak more Swahili than anybody else on the team.

37:42 But not very good.

37:49 Tell me about.

37:53 What are you? Are we good?

38:01 No, I think you've covered just about everything, I think.