Terry M. Slaton's Website

I was born in Marshall County, Alabama one cold February Saturday back in 1947 at my grandmother's home. It was a country home; typical of the time and had a living room holding a large pot belly stove sitting in one corner that had to be continually stoked with coal.. The stove produced a blazing heat in that room while the other rooms were maintained at vastly colder temperatures. My grandparents had electricity which was not as common a one would think in a rural area of that era, with no indoor plumbing. Rural life in Alabama was tough for a lot of people during that time.

When I was born, my parents had a farm and had built a new house just a quarter of a mile from my birthplace but the road did not have power lines so our home had neither electricity nor indoor plumbing, but I grew to really love the place. We lived there and my dad farmed until 1953 when he opened a Standard Oil, now Chevron, service station in Guntersville, AL, located where the Marathon station currently exists across from the Burger King. We moved to Guntersville, living in three different homes which my dad rented until he bought a home for us on O'Brig Avenue, directly behind his service station. This was very convenient for me, allowing me to be able to visit my dad at work whenever I wanted. It was at this time in my live that I began helping him at the service station, thus beginning my working life at the ripe old age of seven.

Life was good and I developed many very great friends while living in Guntersville... many of whom are still my best friends to this day; even though I never lived in Guntersville after high school graduation.

I have had a long and likely uninteresting life in many respects, but my goal is to someday write a book chronicling my personal history so my children know the other aspects of my life that I have never shared with them. Just a goal and may never happen but one I desire to accomplish some day.