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In his 86 years Bill Justis has witnessed the slow disappearance of earlier Appalachian ways and the growth of technology.

During his younger years it was common to find people living on family farms, while today it’s possible for a single person with advanced machinery and technology to tend hundreds of acres with more production than in earlier times.

Bill’s seen electricity come into our homes and our bathrooms being moved indoors.

Affordable electric power has brought in advanced industries which have brought in people from across the country and the world.

With the blending of so many people, Bill has seen the distinct characteristics of Southern Appalachians become diluted and mingled with those of the newcomers.

He has witnessed much change and has adjusted to that change, while fondly recalling his earlier times.

His story is a preview of what we might experience if we are blessed with a long life.

We recently visited with Bill and his son Jerry along with their neighbor, retired nurse Janice Dean, in their comfortable Morristown home filled with photos and momentos.

Janice sometimes brings over breakfast for Bill as well as keeping a check on him.

A piece of my Texas daddy’s simple advice came to me upon our first meeting and that was to look at a man’s fingers to judge his strength and work ethic.

Even while in a wheelchair from an earlier stroke, Bill’s large fingers and broad shoulders were a sign that Bill had been quite a man in his day. Son Jerry’s care for his dad showed that Bill had well-handled his earlier fathering responsibilities.

Bill Justis was born in 1936 at the Cross Anchor community that set 5 miles out of Greeneville, the middle son of two sisters and two brothers of James “Bud” and Mary Hulse Justis.

Bill’s family would be living in a rental house near the front of Tusculum College when young Bill was at a store ran by Mr. Dobson, where he witnessed his first telephone.

He recalled that the store’s ring signal was 3 long and a short rings. As a growing boy, Bill recalled hearing the news of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the beginning of World War II.

During the war young Bill would remember ration stamps being used for gasoline, oil, tires, shoes, butter and sugar, and other commodities.

The family operated a small farm while Bud drove a bus to carry workers to the Holston Ordnance and Kingsport Eastman companies. while mother Mary worked at the Magnavox factory.

Bud would get extra rations because of his job at the defense plants.

After retiring from trucking, Bud would continue working as a security guard at Lear Siegler. Bill would begin his education at the Cross Anchor School, and still has a beautiful New Testament gifted and signed by his teacher Mrs. Pickering.

At first carrying his lunch to school, neighboring ladies would soon be volunteering to fix simple meals for the children. He would move on to the Ottway School for his junior high years.

During his 9th grade year, Bill and his dad would travel to Florida to get Bill some relief from asthma.

With his asthma controlled, Bill entered the Army in 1955, where he would do his basic training at Ft. Jackson before being sent to Ft. Monmoth for microwave radio school.

Much of his Army duty would be spent at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona, where then working as a military policeman, he would be attached to the border and customs patrols to work on the Mexican border. “It was bad back then”, he recalled.

He would be discharged from the Army in 1957.

Reentering civilian life, Bill would head to northern Illinois for a seasonal job with the Delmonte Company, where he would drive a lift truck to load trucks with the company’s products.

While in Illinois, Bill would treat himself to an Indian motorcycle.

A standout day for Bill would be when he would go along with some buddies to visit a friend who lived two blocks from Bill’s Dekalb workplace where he would meet Eva Gentry.

Now single, Eva had two young sons to raise, and the pair would strike up a relationship. Bill and Eva would be married in 1960 and Bill would raise the two boys as his own children, while he and Eva would add Dennie Dewayne and Mary Elizabeth (Karl) Southern to their family, which would eventually grow to 7 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.

After 58 years of marriage, Bill would lose his beloved Eva in 2018.

The call to return to Tennessee would find Bill and Eva back to Greeneville, where Bill would go to work with the Jeffery Manufacturing Company and where the family would buy a home. Eva had relatives, George and Ethel Gentry and their family, who lived just across the line at Spring Creek, North Carolina, where the family would pay regular visits.

For Bill, the experience with the Gentry’s would be almost a step back into an earlier time, when a large family could live well on a family farm.

The Gentry’s were raising their 12 children, including a 3 year-old who had tragically died when her clothing caught fire.

A close and loving family, each child learned a work ethic early by being responsible for particular farm chores.

Bill was especially impressed by mother Ethel leaving the family in the fields an hour early to prepare a filling and tasty dinner (lunch in today’s jargon), and again in the evening to fix a filling supper for the hungry young working folks.

Bill enjoyed many meals with the Gentry’s and commented: “They never went hungry, and if you got up from their table still hungry, it was your fault. Every Sunday morning and night, and on Wednesday nights, you’d find their family in church.”

A phone call to one of the Gentry children, the now grown and friendly Kathy Frisbee confirmed Bill’s story. In 1968 Bill would take another job at the Lear Sigler factory in Morristown. Soon promoted to foreman, he would tell that the position “Got me to where I couldn’t get along with myself!”

With workers being brought in, Bill found himself laid off from that job.

A large and strong man, he would soon find work as a deputy sheriff under Sheriff Gale Jarnigan, where he would work on the midnight shift.

Following Jarnigan’s term, Bill McMahan would become sheriff, and Bill would continue as a deputy under the new sheriff.

He recalled that in 1992, McMahan, a former businessman, would be the only independent to ever win a sheriff’s election.

Pulling out the pistol that he had carried as during his time as a deputy, he would tell: “I never had to fire my weapon, but I’ve been shot at.”

After leaving law enforcement, Bill would drive a truck for the Harold Meade Company and later with Bobby Noe at Lakeway Trucking.

In 2002 he would experience an aneurysm, where after his recovery he would drive short trips before beginning a weekly trip to Nevada.

His trucking career would end after a stroke in 2006 that would damage the left side of his body.

A positive and friendly fellow, Bill gets help from his son Jerry, along with Janice and other neighbors as well constant attention from his family.

Bill’s in a happy place.