Taken From Email:
Date: Wed, 13 May 1998 11:06:28 EDT
From: Gamberelle
To: gambrelw@ix.netcom.com
JERRY GAMBRELL & FAMILY
Jerry was born in Brunswick, Glynn County, GA where Otto built victory ships, the very vessels that would take Dolly's father ashore in the invasion of Manila- a friend of his father's who also built Victory Ships, dropped frozen turkeys from a blimp as it went over the government housing where Jerry lived with his brother Bruce and mother Mary and father Otto.
The Otto Gambrells moved to Rock Hill, SC where they lived and "let"rooms in a huge Victorian boarding house on corner of Confederate and White Streets-- friends here included the Wallace family and the Burnses whose daughter Olivia would later be Dolly's roommate at Winthrop College and would re-introduce Dolly to Bruce Gambrell who was newly returned from Louisiana where he had worked on a oil drilling barge in the Gulf.
The family which had grown now to include Mary Gail and Robert Wade (Wade Stackhouse Gambrell on his birth certificate) returned to Otto's home in Honea Path, South Carolina-Jerry remembers having pneumonia in the little white house
across the road from Grace and "T.T."; John Milton and Mary Elizabeth have now
entered the family.
Known as "Ira" Jerry played on a SC Championship Honea Path football team in a
thoroughly enthusiastic football town with both brothers Bruce and Wade.
Jerry won the team's sportsmanship award and was offered a scholarship to
Presbyterian College.
Entering Clemson University the next fall, Jerry found he wasn't prepared for
campus life and dropped out to work a year at Monsanto or Chemstrand in
Greenwood, SC where he lived on Magnolia Street in a boarding house and
entered Clemson the next year where he shared a room with his brother Wade. He stayed with
friend Earl Belcher and Wendell Armstrong in Mrs. Clark's boarding house, and in cinder block housing with football jocks [whom Dolly found disgusting]; after graduation, Jerry found a job at the Charleston Naval
Shipyard and a home in Casa Poca- formerly a slaves quarters on Society Street
where he learned to enjoy "Bullbat time" with Miss Abbie Leland a friend of
Dolly's grandmother Margie McGillivray and Dick Gibbs Toney, a cousin of
Dolly's; Jerry was living here when he proposed to Dolly on Sullivan's Island
one night in view of the old lighthouse that had seen houseparties in the second decade of the 1900's when Margie had probably received many such
proposals. A bright October Lowcountry wedding day is remembered only in a
movie of many friends and family long since deceased- this day was a bright
omen for a sound marriage. Not an easy alliance- the marriage was more like a
"Kiss me Kate" without a soundtrack and with strong leading characters- but
founded on faithfulness to one another and in faith in God.
Before a home with children, Jerry's military obligations led to service at
Forts Gordon, Campbell, and Monmouth then Signal Corps Headquarters Co; Long
Bihn, Vietnam; with R&R by himself in Australia and with Dolly in Hawaii.
Once back at the Charleston Naval Shipyard the Jerry Gambrells bought their
first home on Royall Ave at the edge of the old village in Mt. Pleasant,
Charleston, SC.
When first child Stede Cartwright was just beyond being a toddler and Grey
was about to make his appearance, Jerry came home to announce that he wanted
to take a position as engineer in the Washington state Hanford Project- and
further that he wanted Dolly to be a "conestoga woman". Diverted from taking a
firm stand and valid position that having just gotten settled in the home of
her dreams, she couldn't see moving anywhere- and the argument that she didn't
know anyone west of Atlanta- much less have any family there, Dolly asked what
a Conestoga was!
After living in the desert of Kennewick, Benton Co., WA for
a year President Carter put an end to the Hanford project and the family moved
back east where Jerry was co-owner and co-founder of Plumber's Friend Supply
with Weston Bowen Stratton, his father-in-law, Walterboro, Colleton Co., SC
where the business could not support both the Gambrell and the Stratton
families. So it was "move North young man" and a job at Hartsville, Darlington
Co., SC with Carolina Power and Light Co and where the death of the precious
child Stede Cartwright Gambrell changed Dolly's outlook considerably; until
this point, living anywhere was all right as a home as long as she had her
children. Grey and the very much wanted baby that came the years after were
very important as always, but the attitude now was they were no longer "her"
children. Matt's baptism at the same First Presbyterian Church where Rev.
Richard Wilson had officiated at Stede's funeral was another turning point,
although there was no actual change in activities.
In subsequent years the family moved from South Carolina to North Carolina and
back; then for the first time to Virginia and the two Gambrell sons grew from
childhood to manhood. At this writing Jerry is working at the Norfolk Naval
Shipyard in Portsmouth, Virginia and Dolly works on her computer tracing
French family history and praying about her Gambrell men: Jerry is an
engineer; Stede is but a sweet memory; Grey is resting from a recent trip to
Mexico where he preached and worked with the indians and Matt is about to take drawing and design classes at Clemson University.