Joint service planned for longtime Du Quoin merchants, J W and Beulah Green
After almost 75 years of marriage and five years of waiting, Beulah and J W have been reunited.
Beulah Marjorie (Morgan) Green was born April 30, 1922 to Luther and Ruby (Brown) Morgan in Cambria, Illinois. She has one sister, Ladonna (Morgan) Jenner of Tampa, Florida, who survives.
She died on Dec. 17, 2014 after falling in her Winter Haven, Florida, home, breaking her C2 vertebrae.
J W was born July 13, 1922 to John William and Nellie Olive (Lantrip) Green in Cambria. He had one brother, Phillip of Murphysboro, and one sister, Rosenell (Green) Beasley of Carterville, both deceased.
He was named only "J W" by his mother because "she didn't want a Junior." He died of heart failure on Aug. 17, 2019, at the home of his son, Monte, in The Colony, Texas.
They were both cremated in accordance with their requests.
In 2014, Beulah's remains were buried in Blairsville Cemetery in Carterville. J W's will be buried beside hers at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 28 as the Rev. Paul (Bud) Hall of Du Quoin will officiate a dual ceremony.
Together they leave two sons, four grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and three great-great-grandchildren.
Some life highlights: After graduating from high school, Beulah received a degree in cosmetology. J W and Beulah eloped and were married at midnight Jan. 4, 1941 in Missouri by "a one-legged Justice of the Peace."
Apparently, he did a good job. They were 18 days short of celebrating their 74th anniversary when Beulah died.
J W and his father purchased and operated a neighborhood grocery on South Washington street (next to the Maid Rite) in Du Quoin, from May 1941 until August 1943.
The building on South Washington had a grocery on one side, a beauty shop on the other side, and an apartment in the rear. While J W ran the store, Beulah worked in the beauty shop and maintained the store accounts.
Throughout their marriage they always worked as a close team, Beulah usually doing the office work (plus decorating cakes, sewing, painting pictures, etc.) and J W minding the store.
During these early years, they lived in the store's apartment, which reportedly had an "undertaker's bathtub," large enough to lie down in.
From the beginning, Green's Market was known for having local farmers' produce, usually placed out front during the summer season. When the weather permitted, J W, his brother Phillip, and their dad often slept outside with the watermelons. Throughout its history, Green's Market was always a family business.
One year a large supply of pears was not selling well, so they made pear cider. That also didn't sell well for a while, then suddenly it was in high demand - especially with high school boys. As you might suspect, it had turned "hard" and eventually had to be poured out.
When Pearl Harbor was bombed in December 1941 and the U.S. officially entered the war, the Green family started preparing for J W's probable draft into service. J W, his dad and grandfather began building a second story on his dad's Jefferson Street home. Also at this time, Beulah told J W she wanted to have a child to remember him by in case he didn't return from the war.
Preparations were successful. They moved into the new upstairs of the Jefferson Street home and their first son, Monte, was born on Dec. 1, 1942, coincidentally the same day gas rationing began. Dr. B.I. Hall delivered the baby at Marshall Browning Hospital and the payment was $400 in silver dollars.
J W was inducted into the Navy on Oct. 22, 1943 and began training in Farragut, Idaho as a radio man. He would eventually be assigned to the new Liberty Ship Attack Transport USS Sarasota (APA-204) when it was commissioned on Aug. 16, 1944.
During the time J W was on shore duty waiting for the ship to be completed, Beulah rode the train alone from Du Quoin to the West Coast in order to be near him. During that time she supported herself by working in a West Coast candy factory.
However, returning to Du Quoin after her first trip, she discovered her son had bonded too much to his grandmother and wanted nothing to do with her. Her subsequent train trips to see J W always included 1-year-old Monte.
The USS Sarasota participated in multiple infantry invasions of Luzon and Okinawa until hostilities ceased in August 1945. After that the ship was used to transport occupation troops and supplies. J W was given an honorable discharge on Jan. 6, 1946 as a Radio man 3rd Class, and returned to Du Quoin. His second son, Ron, was born on Nov. 4, 1946.
Shortly thereafter, Green's Market was relocated to a larger building owned by Joe Tatum across from the Coca-Cola Bottling Plant on Highway 51, just south of Du Quoin. Their new home was built south of the intersection of Highways 51 and 14. In the early 1950s, when the Tatum building had to be relocated due to the widening of Highway 51, J W sold the store.
He spent the next few years running a wholesale produce business from his home garage, delivering to various grocers and restaurants in Tamaroa, Radom, DuBois, Pinckneyville, Vergennes and Murphysboro.
In the mid-1950s, J W purchased property near 51 and 14 and built a new Green's Market. Green's IGA was operated by him and his son, Ron, for about 20 years. During the early 1970s J W and Beulah built their "rock house" on Highway 51 near the Jackson County line. Beulah's 50th birthday party there hosted more than 100 guests.
Green's IGA burned in July 1977 and a new building was constructed a few years later - one of the first in southern Illinois to employ bar code scanners in the checkout lanes.
The store was sold in the mid-1980s. The family then operated a skating rink for a few years before J W and Beulah retired full time to their house in Winter Haven, Florida.
After Beulah's death, J W agreed to live with his sons for months at a time, flying between Texas and Florida several times a year. Every night his prayer was to be reunited with Beulah. That prayer was finally answered after almost five years of waiting.