PERRYVILLE — Charles Thurman Nix of Oppelo was 14 when he dropped out of school to help support his mother, a widow, and he was 17 years old when he joined the Navy during World War II.
And at 89, he’ll finally get his high school diploma.
The 2015 Perryville High School class is embracing Nix and presenting him with a diploma at 1:30 p.m. Wednesday at the high school gymnasium.
Nix said he never considered that he’d be awarded a high school diploma.
“I was kindly shocked,” he said. “I had no thought of it in my life.”
Nix lives in the Perry County Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Perryville. He moved there a few years ago with his wife, Grace Louise, who died in October. They were married 68 years and had a “wonderful marriage,” he said.
Charles Smith, a retired history teacher in the Perryville School District, is helping to coordinate the event to honor Nix.
“The seniors wanted to be a part of this honorary ceremony showing that he is a part of the class of 2015,” Smith said. “He teaches Bible classes there at the nursing home, and some of the kids play checkers with him. He is very sharp.”
Perryville High School senior Kelsie Roland, 18, said her history teacher told her about Nix “graduating” with her class.
“I think it’s awesome,” Roland said. “I think it’s wonderful — I know that’s such an honor for him to go and serve our country, and he didn’t get to finish [high school]. … He definitely deserves it.”
One of Nix’s granddaughters, Krista Thompson, works at the nursing center. She calls him Papa, so many of the other employees do, too.
Nix made his way down the hallway of the facility, using a walker, and sat on his bed. A photo of him at age 18 in his Navy uniform in 1943 hangs on the wall above the bed.
Nix said he was born in Rover and grew up in Steve, Arkansas.
“I was strictly a hillbilly,” he said. Nix was one of 10 children — No. 9 — and his father died when Nix was 5. He said he had to quit school to help support his mother. “I didn’t make it through the eighth grade,” he said. It didn’t upset him; that’s just what families did at that time, Nix said.
Most of his siblings were grown, married and out of the house, but there were four of them at home for his mother to raise.
He got a job at Jones Biscuit Co. in Little Rock as “a helper,” making deliveries and doing other tasks. “I worked there till I went into the service,” he said.
Nix said he was 17, but his mother signed for him to join the Navy; his four older brothers were in the Army. “When the war come, they all had to go,” Nix said.
“I don’t like to talk about it,” he said of his service, looking down as he rubbed his hands together. “I seen some bad things. It brings back memories, and I just quit talking about it. I try my best to completely forget it.”
Nix said he went to boot camp in San Diego, California. “They make it hard just to toughen you up,” he said.
“I was a hillbilly, and sometimes we didn’t see anybody for a couple of weeks in the hills. When I got in [the military], there was so many of us — it was different,” he said. “There was a big bunch of people, and they’re hollering at you. Everything was so strange. I got to where I liked it.
“They put me on a ship, a destroyer. I didn’t have no particular job. … We were shipping overseas. I don’t know where we went. We just got off at Pearl Harbor. I come in right after the bombing.”
The harbor had been bombed, and the USS Arizona was sunk.
“The Oklahoma wasn’t sunk,” he said. “They put us on the Oklahoma to clean it up, just getting stuff out, and they put us on Ford Island near Pearl Harbor.”
Nix was assigned to the Naval Air Corps. “I was with the Helldivers,” he said. “We did a little bit of everything.”
He said, “I was supposed to be a tail gunner,” but he never had to operate the machine gun. “I never killed nobody,” he said, adding that he was thankful for that.
Nix was hurt, but in a freak accident. “You wouldn’t believe how I got hurt,” he said. “We were working in our galley (kitchen). They brought in lamb chops — the Seabees were working on it. I said, ‘I’m going to cut me some of that lamb chop.’” Nix called the meat cutter “a band saw.” He said five or six other men asked him to cut pieces for them. “They were shooting around there close, and it jarred that [ship], and I grabbed ahold of that.” He said it nearly cut off one of his fingers, so he wrapped it up and started walking toward the medical facility.
“We walked across the field. … I passed out,” he said.
After his finger was sewn back on, Nix said, he was told he might have to
become a chauffeur for the admiral. “I had to do something one-handed,” he said. Nix took out his billfold and pulled out a laminated card — his chauffeur’s license from Feb. 21, 1944. It stated: “I am familiar with all existing traffic rules and regulations pertaining to the Naval Air Station, Pearl Harbor, and will operate vehicles accordingly.”
Nix said he didn’t become a chauffeur, however. “I started gassing up airplanes. It was kinda dangerous when they come in real hot,” he said.
When the war ended, he was a petty officer third class. Nix remembers the day it was announced over the loud speaker that the war had ended.
“We was all hollering, going on about it,” he said.tammy
“They turned us into a scouting squad after the war,” he said. “We had to scout seven islands — two planes were in the air at all times.
“I come home in ’46 and got married,” he said. Nix said he met his wife when she was 12 because she lived across the street in Little Rock from one of his sisters. “She was a city girl,” he said. They married when he was 20 and she was 16.
“There were thousands of men coming out of the service and getting married,” he said. Nix said he and his wife have three daughters and a son, multiple grandchildren and about 38 great-grandchildren. Photos of his family fill a bulletin board in his room.
He has a photo on the wall of himself in his Navy uniform, standing with his four brothers — Roy, Albert, J.B. and Earl — in their Army uniforms, in 1946 after the war. He also has a shadow box of medals, including “a good conduct medal; we’ll put it that way,” and his Navy Air Corps wings.
Nix said that after he came back to Little Rock, he took classes that were designed for veterans. He said he became an interior decorator and had his own business painting and hanging wallpaper, a job he did until he was 70.
He was also in the Navy Reserve for 10 years, and he and his wife lived in Little Rock until the 1970s, when he bought 5 acres and built their home in Oppelo.
Smith called Nix “a patriot,” and on Wednesday, Nix will become a high school graduate.
“They’re going to make a talk and present to me a diploma,” he said.
Nix said he’ll hang it on his wall with pride.
Senior writer Tammy Keith can be reached at (501) 327-0370 or tkeith@arkansas
online.com.