John Parker Garrison
From Ancestry.com posting by ubiquitous22000) |
| Born: | February 26, 1918, DeLand, Florida |
| Died: | February 7, 1974, Huntsville, Alabama |
| Buried: | Maple Hill Cemetery, Huntsville, Alabama |
Notes:
• Son of Charles Parker Garrison and Mildred Ouerbacker. - AD&BI
• Listed as a "roomer" in the home of Clarde and Bernice Ward. He was 21 and single. He was employed for pay. He had worked 44 hours in the week before the census was taken. He was listed as an Engineer in the Radio Industry with an annual income of $1080. - 1940 Census
• Married Mary Elizabeth Coyle (1922-2008) September 30, 1945, Madison County, Alabama. - Ancestry.com
• In 1947 "The Club Presidents Association formed with John Garrison as President" - Record II
• "The first Y 's Mens Club in the state, formed to work with the Y.M.C.A., was also organized in 1947 with Douglass Martinson as President; James Record, Vice-President; John P. Mealing, Jr. Secretary; and Andrew L. Lanier as Treasurer. Johnson Wyatt, John P. Garrison, George S. Butler, Joe W. Cooper, Gene M. Chewning, and Roy E. Blair were Board members. During the year the Y.M.C.A. reached 2,000 members, a far cry from its 1945 membership of 350." - Record II
• "President, Alabama Broadcasters Association, 1970." - Record II
• John Garrison: "a long-time hard worker in the Lions Club sight conservation field." - Goldsmith & Fulton
• "The Lyric Theater is very much a part of my childhood memories. Anyone who went to Huntsville Junior High and was a preteen in Huntsville, Alabama, in the late 1940s or early 1950s went to the Lyric on Saturday morning. The Kiddie Club was a part of life for most of the kids I knew.
I actually started going to the Kiddie Club at the old WFUN radio station on Holmes Avenue, which is now the H.C. Blake building. My cousin Margaret Belle Mahoney Crow and I got up early on Saturday mornings and would go down to the radio station where John Garrison let us sing on the air. Our favorite song at that time was 'Nobody Likes Me, Think I'll Go Eat Worms.' Others also came to sing. That was the beginning of the now famous (or infamous) Kiddie Club.
I don't remember the date of the first Saturday that John Garrison came to the Lyric Theater, but it was the meeting place for young people. John was the MC for years, but he did not try to hold order or control any behavior in the audience. Amazingly, I can't ever remember any trouble. It cost a dime to get in and five cents for popcorn. We usually started the morning at Woolworth's five and dime to get a Sugar Daddy sucker. That cost a nickel and lasted for most of the morning. We would meet all our friends and plan our act for the morning. By now, we had graduated to a larger group and our regular song at this time was 'We've Got a Loverly Bunch of Coconuts.' No one had told me at this time that I could not carry a tune, so I sang as loud as I wanted without any fear of rejection.
There was an applause meter on the side of the stage, and prizes were given for the best act. I should clarify that by saying that a prize was given to the performance getting the largest mark on the applause meter. I remember one Saturday when Barbara Byrne Ward brought her younger sister, Judy Byrne Heacock, to sing. Judy was barely old enough to talk, but got up on the stage and sang a solo. All of Barbara's friends sat very close to the meter so that she would win, and she did." - Searcy Williams
• "On April 23 1946 a committee consisting of Dick Laughmiller, Louis Tumminello, John Garrison and Philip Brocato were selected to organize a Boy Scout Troop. They selected the author as Scoutmaster, and J. W. Smith as Assistant Scoutmaster. They then organized Boy Scout Troop One, which had previously organized in 1919 at the first full-fledged Boy Scout Troop in Madison County." - Elks
• John Garrison was named as a member of the community helpful in city development. "About this time (1947), another important organization, the Army Advisory Committee, was established by Redstone to provide critical lines of communications between the Arsenal and community leaders. Early members of the Advisory Committee included a soon-to-become familiar lineup of local leaders: Huntsville Mayor 'Spec' Searcy, George Mahoney, Roy Stone, Beirne Spragins, Rev. Harry Wade, Judge Elbert Parsons, Jimmy Walker, Dr. Harvey Nelson, Milton Cummings, John Garrison, Gene Monroe, and Jack Langhorne. - Ward
• In Taylor's book Commemorating Huntsville Sesquicentennial, many of the clubs and organizations of the times were featured. John Garrison is named or featured in the following ways:
Page 45 - Charter member of The Huntsville Amateur Radio Club
Page 197 - Huntsville Lions Club's editor of the bulletin from 1948-1953
Page 197 - Huntsville Lions Club's officer (including secretary-treasurer for the years 1951-52.
Page 207 & 208 - The Salesman's Club officer (pictured), president, drummer.
Page 270 - Radio Station W.F.U.N.
"Radio Station WFUN was one of the first radio stations in the nation to use the 'Music, News and Sports' format of programming, a system that since, has been successfully adopted by hundreds of stations throughout the country.
Under the slogan of home owned, home operated, for home folks, WFUN has enjoyed a phenomenal growth since its inauguration on November 26, 1946. WFUN subscribes to the full leased wire news service of United Press. WFUN also has one of the largest and most complete record music libraries in the south. These features ascribe to its mission of making WFUN radio station the 'Voice of the Tennessee Valley'.
The station was organized by a partnership consisting of John Garrison, Joe S. Foster and F. L. Mickle. On May 8, 1948, the interest of Foster and Mickle was acquired by J. B. Fait, Jr. The business was incorporated as the Huntsville Broadcasting Company, Inc. with Fait as President and Garrison as Secretary-Treasurer...
John Garrison is Station Manager, Chief Engineer and program director of WFUN. He was born in 1918 in DeLand, Florida and is a graduate of Port Arthur College, Port Arthur, Texas. He has been employed by Radio Station KPAC, Port Arthur, Texas for 3 years before coming to Huntsville in November, 1939 to become associated with WBHP. He has also served as consultant for WMSL, Decatur, Ala. and WJIG Tullahoma, Tenn. He planned and organized Radio Station WFUN in 1946. Garrison is an amateur radio operator and is interested in sports of all kinds. He is married to the former Elizabeth Coyle and has two children, Jean Patricia, age 9 and John Parker, Jr., age 7. He is an active member and past president of the Lions Club, Salesman's Club and Moose Lodge and is also a member of the Elks and Chamber of Commerce."
Page 337 - Publicity Vice Chairman for Sesquicentennial Organization (Pictured) and shared.
Page 198 - Mrs. John Barrison was a charter member and officer of The Huntsville Lioness Club - Taylor
• As we sought information in Ancestry.com, two different sets of dates emerged for birth and death. Some reported Jan. 28, 1913 - Sept. 1972 and the others reported Feb. 26, 1918 - Feb. 7, 1974. If our readers have definitive information to provide clarity, we are interested in hearing it. - Editor's note
Related Links:
• 1940 Census - Census viewed through an Ancestry.com paid subscription. (Originally found at http://www.ancestry.com/1940-census/usa/Alabama/John-Garrison_236fpv.)
• AD&BI - Alabama Deaths and Burials Index viewed through an Ancestry.com paid subscription. (Originally found at http://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?rank=1&new=1&MSAV=0&msT=1&gss=angs-g&gsln=Garrison&mswpn__ftp=Huntsville%2c+Madison%2c+Alabama%2c+USA&mswpn=26828&mswpn_PInfo=8-%7c0%7c1652393%7c0%7c2%7c3246%7c3%7c0%7c1851%7c26828%7c0%7c&uidh=61g&pcat=ROOT_CATEGORY&h=1825937&recoff=9+44+57&db=FSAlabamaDeath&indiv=1&ml_rpos=9.)
• Ancestry.com - Page owned by ubiquitous22000 and can be viewed only with an Ancestry.com paid subscription. (Originally found at http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/7308446/person/-1085923735.)
• Elks - Great Elks in Madison County?? You Better Believe It!! A History of Madison County, Alabama, Elkdom, by James Record, 1972 , pages 19 and 59.
• Find A Grave - Page created by Graveaddiction photo of tombstone by Susan Bennett.
• Goldsmith & Fulton - Medicine Bags and Bumpy Roads: A Heritage of Healing in Madison County, Town and Country, by Jewell S. Goldsmith and Helen D. Fulton, 1985, page 332.
• Record II - A Dream Come True: The Story of Madison County and Incidentally of Alabama and the United States, Volume II, by James Record, 1978, page 268 (two different references)
• Searcy Williams - Part of article titled " The Kiddie Club Saturdays at the Lyric Theater" by Mary Ann Searcy Williams in Historic Huntsville Quarterly, Vol. XXIV, #4, Winter, 1998, Historic Huntsville Foundation, page 7.
• Taylor - Commemorative Album, Celebrating our City's Sesquicentennial of Progress, Huntsville, Alabama, by James E. Taylor, General Chairman, 1955.
• Ward - Shaping History: The University of Alabama Huntsville Foundation, by Michael D. Ward, 2008, page 26.
• You Tube - "Celebrating 50 Years of the Huntsville Amateur Radio Club: A documentary on the club's 50th anniversary by Dick Curtis, W1TV, of Huntsville. Published on Sep 26, 2012" John Garrison was mentioned early in this fascinating video as first president.
The Following Pages Link to this Page:
• Record II
• Taylor