Early Life
A native of Rice, Virginia, Samuel Vaughan Wilson grew up on a tobacco, corn and wheat farm in Southside Virginia hard by the Saylers Creek battlefield, where on 6 April 1865, the Army of Northern Virginia fought its final battle before limping on westward to surrender three days later at Appomattox Courthouse. As a boy, Sam Wilson often rode his pony over the battlefield area looking for the footprint of two armies locked in combat. What still remained of his spare time after arduous farm chores was spent hunting, fishing, reading and pursuing his musical interests. His mother had been a public school teacher, and his father was a ruling elder in the local Presbyterian church. Both parents taught Sunday school – his mother was his first Sunday School teacher and raised the Wilson siblings in the church. Both parents were readers and deeply influenced their children to love books and enjoy reading, especially history.
Sam began his formal education in the fall of 1929, daily walking the two miles one-way to Rice High School and return to the farm. He graduated at the head of his class on 26 May 1940. Two weeks later he jogged seven miles through a rainy night from the family farm to the local National Guard armory, where he added two years to his actual age to qualify and was sworn into military service.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)