George Wallace - Early Life

Early Life

The first of four children, Wallace was born in Clio in Barbour County in southeastern Alabama, to George Corley Wallace, Sr., and the former Mozell Smith. He was the third of four generations to bear the name "George Wallace," but as neither parent liked the designation "Junior", he was called "George C." to distinguish him from his father, George, and his grandfather, a physician. Wallace's father had left college to pursue a life of farming when prices were high during World War I; Mozell had to sell their farmland to pay existing mortgages when George, Sr., died in 1937. Like his parents, Wallace was a Methodist.

From the age of ten, Wallace was fascinated with politics. In 1935, he won a contest to serve as a page in the Alabama Senate and confidently predicted that he would one day be governor. Wallace became a regionally successful boxer in high school, then went directly to law school in 1937 at the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa. He was a member of the Delta Chi Fraternity. After receiving a LL.B. degree in 1942, he entered pilot cadet training in the United States Army Air Corps. He washed out, became a staff sergeant and flew B-29 combat missions over Japan in 1945. He served with the XX Bomber Command under General Curtis LeMay, who would be his running mate in the 1968 presidential race. While in the service, Wallace nearly died of spinal meningitis, but prompt medical attention with sulfa drugs saved him. Left with partial hearing loss and nerve damage, he was medically discharged with a disability pension.