Sgt._York

Sgt. York Alvin Cullum York was born on December 13, 1887, in Pall Mall, Valley of the Three Folk of the Wolf, Tennessee. Born into poverty and a family of eleven children, his father was hard working and his mother was deeply religious. He was not very educated school wise, having only a proper education up to the third grade. His father died when York was only 28, so he started working in order to support his family. He took a job helping at the family farm and being a Blacksmith. He took any job he could get, including working at a lumber camp. While there, he picked up many distressing habits, such as smoking, drinking, gambling and barroom brawling. That York was heading toward self destruction, until, as he put it, the intervention of “God and Miss Gracie.” York was getting drunk one night with his friends at a town get-together when he saw a teenage girl he had known since she was a baby, he was twelve years older than she was. As soon as he saw the older Gracie Williams, he never drank, fought, swore, smoked or gambled again. He later explained to everybody that, “Miss Gracie wouldn’t let me come york, cooper, york’s, gracie, germans, war, said, back, after, one, officer, movie, life, tennessee, set, lasky, film, bible, people, officers, made, ground, family, even, been, battle, americans, years, while, tried, told, sgt, school, minutes, machine, hero