Vernon Coltrane's early life.

Vernon Eugene Coltrane was a pack rat. Today, we would call his behavior hoarding; he kept everything he might need or use, and he was extremely meticulous. That meticulousness now serves me well in that I inherited all that remained of his personal papers when the dust of his estate settled, not because I asked for them but because I wouldn't let them disappear. 

My grandfather Vernon grew up on a dairy farm, the fourth of eight children born between 1911 and 1925 to Pearl and Lee Coltrane. Lee was a dairy farmer, and the family home was located near the current intersection of Rehobeth Church Road and Vandalia Drive in Greensboro. Lee's last home was at 4000 Galway Drive in the Shannon Hills neighborhood. Vernon's home, built around 1965, was at 4006, down the street at the corner of Killarney Drive. 

When Vernon was a boy, that neighborhood was his father's farm or those of neighbors who were probably kin, near or distant. The world Vernon was born into on November 7, 1916, included his parents, Lee and Pearl, and older siblings; eldest brother, Bill, age 5, Lala (pronounced lay-la), whose fourth birthday came three days later, and another older brother, Solly, who'd just reached two years old.

Before Vernon's ninth birthday in 1925, he'd become an older brother to four more siblings; sister Edna and brothers Max, Lois, and Jesse Lee. According to statements on Vernon's military induction medical report, he had a tonsillectomy in 1921, the year Max was born, and suffered bouts of pneumonia in 1925 and Scarlet Fever in 1929, around 12 or 13 years of age.

Vernon graduated from Sumner School in 1933 and matriculated with a bachelor of arts degree in economics from Guilford College in the class of 1937. 

His senior thesis was a study of the then-new federal housing agencies and banking-related agencies. This work may have guided his decisions to invest in housing over the decades following his service during World War II. Vernon had access to or owned a car when he began his studies at Guilford, so he commuted to school from his father's home. 

After graduation, Vernon held a position with Duke Power Company as a clerk/bookkeeper between July 1937 and February. 1939.

During his time as a student at Guilford, Vernon met Trudy Cochran. How and when they first met is lost to history, but he fell hopelessly in love with the short-haired Pennsylvania girl with an impish grin.  By the time they married in June of 1938, they'd become inseparable. Thereafter, only war, illness, or death ever kept them apart.

War had been brewing in Europe for several years by the time Vernon and Trudy embarked on married, so on October 16, 1940, Vernon did his duty and registered for the draft. 

By then, Vernon was working for Pilot Life Insurance Company but in September of 1941 he began working as a letter carrier for the US Post Office in Greensboro. This decision played an important part in the next few years of his life.

On November 4, 1942, Vernon and Trudy welcomed a daughter, who they named Brenda Sue, but their joy was dampened by news that soon followed: Vernon was called to serve less than a month after the birth of his first child. He was inducted into the United States Army with the rank of Private on December 10, 1942. 

Brenda was just 36 days old.

Vernon's collection of military records is revealing in that fully one-third or more of the documents are receipts and correspondence regarding a clerical problem with one or more life insurance policies he obtained upon being drafted in late 1942. 

He probably understood the value of life insurance better than most people his age, 26, thanks to his time working for Pilot Life.

Vernon Coltrane was inducted into the Army at Fort Bragg (now Fort Liberty) near Fayetteville, NC; however, his 'Report of Physical Examination,' dated February 18, 1943, places Pvt. Coltrane at Camp Wallace, Texas, probably for basic training. 

We next find Pvt. Coltrane in North Carolina, stationed at Camp Davis for officer candidate and anti-aircraft artillery schools between March 27 and December 31, 1943. 

On July 22, 1943, he was commissioned 2nd Lt., the rank he would hold for the remainder of his time in uniform.

On January 10, 1944, Vernon received orders to report to Hampton Roads Port of Entry near Newport News, Virginia, by the 18th of that month.

Here, the trail gets murky, but I have several more folders of unsorted primary documents yet to unpack.

While stationed at Camp Davis, apparently Trudy and Brenda lived nearby or visited for an a few weeks, and whether they traveled with Vernon to his Newport News assignment isn't clear. 

I believe they remained at the home of Trudy's mother for most of the duration of Vernon's service, perhaps after an attempt to stay together during his first assignment in North Carolina proved too strenuous for the young family.

At some point during the next year, Vernon formally requested to be transferred from his artillery unit into the military postal system, and somehow, it worked. 

Vernon Coltrane escaped being sent to an active, frontline warzone because he was educated and had worked in the postal system before the war, at least long enough for it to count.

But there was a price to be paid for that relatively safe posting: it was on the other side if the world, in India.