My brother Ray's Story continued

One of my favorite pictures of Ray

After a stellar high school career and serving in the United States Navy during WWII, Ray came home in 1945. He found work, as he did in high school, in a couple of companies in Albany, GA and he contributed most of his income to the family. 

While in the military he endured a surgery in which he was given a spinal block as anesthesia. Because of that, he suffered severe constant pain and the military doctors said he should have back surgery at Emory Hospital in Atlanta. The government paid for the operation.

 

I remember Mother's extreme worry and concern for her son. She had children at home two hundred miles from Atlanta and could not be there with him. I was with her when she made a trip to visit him. I was under ten years old, I think, and was devastated when I saw my beloved brother who had to lie on his stomach day and night after the back surgery. It hurt my mother so much to leave him.  I felt her pain even though I didn't understand at the time what was really happening. I know she wanted to stay by his side and be sure he had everything he needed. I think knowing the pain he suffered throughout his life made him even more dear to her. My brothers claimed that Ray was her favorite. I don't doubt it. 

I don't know how many days he had to lie there face down, unable to sit up, to read, to eat normally, but Mother said it was a long time. The awful thing about this ordeal was that his pain did not improve after the surgery. In fact, he lived with chronic pain for the rest of his life. I will never know how he accomplished so much while fighting the pain that he endured without medications. He refused to take anything that would interfere with his thinking and his ability to function well.

I was not privy to the conversations that were held after he came home, but I think that was when Ray had to make some big decisions and his father had to accept that Ray would not be working on the farm anymore. With his disability, he could not physically do farm work like his brothers. 

Still wanting to contribute financially to the family, Ray attended Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College in Tifton Georgia and studied the latest farming methods. Because he was a veteran, his education was paid for under the GI Bill of Rights. He learned the newer methods of farming and, although Ray could see ways to improve the family farm, my father was a stubborn man and refused to make any changes in his own methods which he had learned from his brother Charlie and other older men.

My daddy finally agreed to let Ray use some acreage to try out the knowledge he had gained in school. 

He said, "Ray, if your land produces more than mine, I will agree to plant the rest of the farm your way next year."

My brother Max said that Ray's crops out-produced Daddy's fields. From then on Ray's advice was heeded.

Ray became a teacher and for two years he taught agricultural studies at Albany High School. In the summertime, he attended the University of Georgia in Athens where he majored in mathematics. 

in 1954, after he had earned his bachelor's degree, Ray and I both started school at the brand-new Albany High on Residence Avenue. He drove his little Karman Ghia automobile and Mother often insisted he give me a ride, so I didn't have to catch the bus. Having my brother on the faculty made me feel different from other kids. I kept a low profile, telling no one he was my brother, but everyone seemed to know.

My algebra teacher was one of his friends and I detested the woman. She was snarky and seemed to enjoy humiliating shy kids like me by sending us to the board to work on a problem in front of the class. The minute she called my name my mind quit working. I stood at the front of the class with all those eyes on me and anxiety overtook me. I never completed a problem before she told me to sit down. I felt like such a failure.

I heard from other students how much they loved Ray Council as their math teacher. He amazed me with his knowledge of math. He could add a long column of three-digit numbers in his head while I was still trying to add one column on paper.  I often wondered how he would treat me if I were in his class. He certainly didn't have patience with me at home. When Mother asked him to help me with my homework, he did not try to suppress his irritation.

Maybe he was embarrassed to have a sister who was dumb in math. Perhaps his friend, miss math teacher, told him how pathetic I was when she called on me.

All of us siblings who followed Ray in high school had to live with the comparison to Ray by his teachers. Some of my brothers resented this because none of them were really great students. Max said he thought following Ray in school was good for him. But he was only two and one-half years younger than Ray and enjoyed having his big brother look out for him. 

He said, "When teachers found out Ray was my brother, I got lots of attention from them."

In the 1940s, before I was born, my family lived in Lakeside, a residential area in west Albany near Lake Worth. The three older brothers walked to school together. At times groups of boys would try to pick fights with them. I assume boys have a pecking order and some resented Ray's achievements. 

Max said, "Ray was the oldest and our leader, but he was not physically a big boy. So, we would agree to fight one in their group, but we would have Hal do our fighting. He was bigger and a better fighter than Ray or me."

Ray's innate intelligence and practical ideas as well as his college education gained the respect of his family and led to his running the family business even though my father was still living. 

While still in his twenties, Ray applied for a loan to purchase the farm next to our place when Mr. Womble could no longer make his payments. Another neighbor applied to take over the loan but did not qualify. Young Ray did and the second piece of land on Fleming Road was added to the Council name. The three-bedroom one bath farmhouse Mr. Womble had built eventually housed two of my brothers and their new wives. While brothers who had always lived together did not mind that arrangement, the two women did not care for it.

Sometime in the 1950s, Max suggested they change to dairy farming as the crop farming was not earning enough for them to live on. My father held out for a while, refusing to change, but eventually gave in and got up at 4:30 AM to do his part.

When the boys who had worked and helped to build the farm began to marry, it was obvious that C.L. Council and Sons had to expand. They formed a unique business type in which all income earned was deposited into one account and each brother and my father drew the same amount in salary each month.

I was in high school when three of my brothers married. I was a bridesmaid in Rex and Mary's wedding in Sylvester, GA. Hal left the family business for a time striking out on his own, and Rex found part time work off the farm. Max stayed on and ran the dairy with Rex and Daddy. Farming was in his blood just as it was in my father's.

While teaching high school math, Ray met and married a teacher, a sweet girl named Betty. We all liked her, and they were very happy together for a number of years until she finally said enough to his business arrangement with his family. And who could blame her? They remained friends right up to the end of his life.

Unlike his brothers, Ray never lived on the farm. Neither Betty nor his second wife liked that idea. But he loved that farm and managed it as long as he lived. 

As each brother married and began families of their own, Ray and Hal began new businesses including the Battery Mart in Albany and Amco Transmissions. While in high school and in college I worked for them after school and on Saturdays. Ray taught me how to balance a checkbook and post transactions in a ledger. Gay and I helped Hal in the office of the Battery Mart. 

When I married at the first Methodist Church in Albany, GA, my sweet brother, Ray walked me down the aisle. He was always a father figure in my life. When my mother became too ill to manage my parents' affairs in 1975, Ray and I worked together to care for them. He made sure they would always have financial security. 

This is the second part of Ray's story. If you want me to tell you more, let me know.