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| Category: Biography |
(requires Adobe Reader)
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| About the Book | |
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THROUGH THICK AND THIN begins with two young people, a boy and girl, growing up in Gulfport, Mississippi during the 1920s, neither one knowing the other. In 1936 Floyd Martin meets Christine Mosley. They fall in love and get married. Floyd works as a service station mechanic. His salary is only twelve dollars a week, but they manage to live on it, barely making ends meet.The young couple rent a cabin for eight dollars a month. Times are hard, but the newlyweds take it in their stride, for they seem no worse off than their friends or neighbors. Over the next few years a son and daughter are added to their family, and Floyd's employment also changes. He briefly tries his hand at selling insurance, but finds only disappointment and disillusionment in that endeavor. In 1941 he accepts a job with City Lines in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and is soon driving a bus on the streets of that city. This is his employment when Pearl Harbor is attacked and our country is ushered into a world war. An influx of army personnel begin to populate nearby Camp Shelby. Many of the soldiers are from northern states, and a large percentage of them are black. They are unfamiliar with the racial segregation laws of the South, and tensions inevitably arise. These tensions soon extend to the black civilian population. As racial tensions mount, the city bus drivers are caught in the middle. While Floyd is having his share of tense experiences on the streets of Hattiesburg, Christine gives birth to a third child, a son. Several months later Floyd is elated to be transferred to Gulfport as a bus driver in more familiar territory. Floyd and Christine purchase a two-room house in a sparsely populated part of town for five hundred dollars. For the first time the Martins will actually own the house they live in. In 1944 a fourth child, another son, is born. Floyd continues to collect memorable stories while driving a bus in Gulfport - some humorous and some not so much so. In 1950, toward the end of this volume relating Floyd's and Christine's life story, twin daughters are born, thus bringing the total of the offspring to six. In the closing pages of the story there are moments of sadness, but there is also joy, and Floyd and Christine both know that the love they have for one another is more than enough to sustain them. They understand there are ups and downs - thick and thin - in every life, but if they stick together through love and faith, in the end there is triumph.
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| About the Author | |
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Born on March 16, 1942 in Hattiesburg, Mississippi,William Neil Martin spent his childhood in the coastal town of Gulfport. In 1960 he moved to Southern California. Following a career in the criminal justice field, Mr. Martin is now retired and he and his wife, Marie, live in Missouri. |