Joseph David Stewart Jr. was dark blond, blue-eyed and relatively short for a man--5'6, and a heavy weight all his life. Joe loved to hunt and fish. He loved fiddle music and often reminisced how well his daddy could fiddle, playing any song he he ard from memory. He loved to go "honky-tonking" and dance.

From his own accounts, Joe's youth was hard, growing up alone with his father, living in a tent alongside some river they happened to be passing by. They fished and sold their catch in town for pocket money, or chopped cedar. He was taught to steal anything from anybody that was left lying around, and sell the items for cash. He left school after the 6th grade, mainly because of his increasing awareness of being "different", and because his father saw no importance in "higher" education. At some point in his early teenage years, he came to live with a family named Tom and Abby Hale, farmers somewhere in central Texas. He remembered this family with great fondness and many years later took his wife, Dorothy and daughter to visit them. Since he wasn't one to write letters often, he had lost touch with the Hales. When he attempted to visit again a few years later, their farm home was deserted and neighbors said they had moved to be closer to their children, maybe California . Joe was as sad that day as if he had lost his own parents. He said they were the first ones to show him what a family was really like and he learned a lot of life's lessons from them.

At another point in his youth, he worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps in Burnet County. His crew worked on the Longhorn Cavern site, building the road and cleaning out some of the passages.

He enlisted in the U.S. Army 24 Aug 1940. He gave his home address at enlistment as Lometa, Lampasas County, Texas, and entered the Army at Fort Sam Houston, San Antonio, Texas. It was there that he met Dorothy Daniels, at the home of her brother, Mefford Daniels. They married on 7 Jan 1942, because after the Pearl Harbor attack in Dec 1941, they knew he was going to have to go overseas soon. In May 1942 he was at Ft Crockett, Texas, where he was admitted to the hospital for nasopharyngitis, acute, and returned to duty 2 June 1942. By 1 July 1942, he was on a ship going to England to a staging area; then he saw action in Algeria-French Morocco, Oran, North Africa; Tunisia, Sicily, Naples-Foggia, and finally Rome-Arno. He was a truck driver and learned the skill of general auto mechanic in the army. Although his highest rank held during the war was Tech 4, he was discharged as a Private, on 23 June 1945, receiving AME Campaign Medal with 5 Bronze Stars, Good Conduct Medal, and the American Defense Service Medal. His organization at discharge was 330th Ordnance Depot Company.

Upon his return from the war, he first went to Richland Springs, TX, where his sister, Norine lived with her family. His father also lived in Richland Springs at that time. He opened a small mechanic's garage and was moderately successful. However, the income was not dependable for a family man, so he closed the shop and joined a construction road crew. This was the basis of his occupation for the rest of his life, progressing from "grease monkey" -- an oiler for heavy machinery, to dragline operator, to owner of his own sand and gravel business.

Most of his jobs were of short duration, seldom lasting a year in one place. His family moved with him, frequently living on the job site itself. Their home was a series of trailers he pulled from place to place with his pickup, starting with a 16 foot one with no bathroom and no hot water. As the years went by and income increased, they upgraded their trailers, eventually moving into a 35 foot one with a tiny bathroom. Finally, in 1957, he decided to buy a house in Grapevine, TX so that his daughter could attend one high school and stop moving every year.

In the 1970s he ventured once again in owning his own business. He bought a used dump truck and hauled gravel and asphalt for others. Successful with that old truck, he bought a new truck at his wife’s urging and encouragement. He leased land outside of Grapevine that had sand on it and bought an old dragline and a front-end loader. He was very successful loading and hauling his own sand to builders in the local area.

Always “frugal” except when it came to guns, boats, and whiskey, he managed to save almost everything he earned with the sandpit. His equipment was paid for and he could work when he wanted to, or when someone called for a load of sand.

He lived in Grapevine with his wife until retirement in 1982. They found a 30-acre tract in Burnet, which they bought for cash. They sold the Grapevine house and bought a mobile home for cash. The Burnet property was fenced, had a well, a septic tank, and a herd of goats. They camped out in a storage shed until the mobile home was set up. He bought a small tractor and enjoyed puttering around the property and tending the goats.

He was a hard drinker, preferring whisky. He also smoked cigarettes, rolling his own for many years on a rolling machine at home. Later he used Pall Mall brand. In his middle 50s he began to have a problem with drinking. His habit grew from a shot of whiskey occasionally to one every night, then several a day, and then a whole bottle a day. When his health began to deteriorate around 1975, he saw a doctor, who evidently told him the alcohol and tobacco were killing him. He immediately quit both alcohol and tobacco cold turkey and never went back to them. He had severe withdrawals from the alcohol, but stubbornly held to his promise to himself to quit. It may have helped extend his life somewhat; however, he died of throat cancer in 1984 at the age of 66.

Joseph D Stewart