An Unsung Hero

This is the story of Jimmy Ray Lewis as told to William M Forsysthe. As a young boy growing up in the small West Texas Town of Childress, he and his family experienced firsthand two of the greatest catastrophes to hit America - the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl.

Despite his father working as a gambler and bootlegger to feed the family and his Uncles losing their family farms, his childhood was happy with memories of Tom Walkers and rubber gun fights, when doors were left unlocked and neighbors helped neighbors in need.

At age 14, a bad reaction to a Tuberculosis patch test led to seven months isolation in a San Angelo TB sanatorium, the ostracism of Jimmy and his family, and a move to a new town - Wichita Falls - to escape the social rejection. During a WWII draft physical, he discovered his x-rays showed no evidence of the dreaded disease. Was it a miracle or a misdiagnosis four years previously?

This is the first book in a series titled A Greatest Generation Account chronicling the life of a member of one of the Greatest Generation, an unsung hero who met difficulties head-on, made no excuses, and did the best he could do in trying and dangerous circumstances.