WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) - The photographs, taken more than 60 years ago, sit side by side by side on a dresser in a tiny back bedroom in Howard Ayers’ home.
They’re all the same size, 5-by-8, and organized with near military precision, which is fitting because they show a family of six brothers - and one sister - who followed one another into the nation’s service right off the family farm in Surry County.
It’s easy to tell that the boys - from left to right, oldest to the youngest, Frank, Roby, Dewey, Lonnie, Reiford and Howard - are brothers and that they share the same values, belief in hard work, country and each other. It looks like a shrine because it is in a way.
But simple remembrance isn’t the reason they’re arrayed just so.
“I put them up for Reba,” Ayers said, referring to his sister, who also goes by the name Mozelle. “I moved her after she got sick. I wanted her to feel at home.”
Howard and his sister are the last two siblings left. When the brothers left home one after the other during and right after World War II, the sister stayed nearby to help their parents.
That’s the way things worked out sometimes in those days; opportunities for girls weren’t as widespread as they are today. Still, devotion to one’s family is a timeless virtue.
Ayers retired early to care for his wife during her last seven years. Irene Ayers, he said, suffered from Alzheimer’s and he “was determined not to put her in a home. This was her home.”
Irene died Oct. 3, 2014.
So when his sister suffered a severe heart attack a few years back, the decision to bring her to his tidy home on Winston-Salem’s South Side was easy.
“If you can’t count on family, you can’t count on anybody,” Ayers said. “That’s just the way I look at it.”
That devotion is what caught Clara Strickland’s attention. She grew up not too far from the Ayers family and got to know them after she and her husband bought their house in Surry County, not far from Pilot Mountain.
“After we made the purchase, we stayed in contact even though we live in Hamlet,” Strickland said. “Whenever we traveled back and forth, we’d stop and visit with Howard and his sister. That’s when we noticed all those nice photos of the brothers.”
A former teacher and an avid reader, Strickland was drawn to the history behind them. Six brothers, each of whom swore an oath to defend the country, looking dapper in their official military portraits.
“How often do you see that?” she said. “I just thought it might make for a nice story.”
She was right about that. And Howard Ayers was humbled that she thought so.
Hearing him reel off the names of his brothers and their branch of service was fun, too.
“Franklin, Army Air Force. Roby, Army Air Force. Dewey, Army. That’s Reba in the middle. Lonnie, Army. Reiford, Air Force. Howard, Air Force,” Ayers said without drawing a breath.
He knows which of the brothers were drafted, which volunteered and where they served. Frank worked on planes during World War II. Roby volunteered after initially failing a physical and served in Alaska. Dewey and Lonnie went in during the Korean War.
The youngest two, he and his brother Reiford, volunteered for the Air Force in the 1950s after it had become its own distinct branch separate from the Army.
The long line of service didn’t end with the brothers, either.
Frank had two sons in Vietnam. Roby’s daughter and son both retired from the Army. Lonnie’s son was in the reserves.
“My daughter and her husband both retired from the Air Force,” Ayers said.
“I added it up once,” he said. “More than 200 years in military time (over two generations). That’s not bad.”
The way Ayers sees things, the service was more than good to his family. Some made a career of it; each of them also learned (or improved) skills and a trade they could count on as civilians. He and Frank became mechanics, for example.
As an added bonus, the military afforded them all the chance to see parts of the planet far beyond their family farm in Surry County and meet all kinds of people. “See the world” is more than a recruiting slogan.
“I did my overseas time in Alaska and Hawaii,” Ayers aid. “They weren’t states then. You got an extra $8 a month for overseas pay. One thing I enjoyed about the service was I got to meet all kinds of people from all kinds of backgrounds.”
Ayers left the Air Force in 1964 when his children were young. Military life can be hard on a family, and “I wanted them to get to know their grandparents.”
He and Irene settled in Winston-Salem, where there were plenty of jobs and close to the family home place. Ayers is 80 now, and he spends his time tending his house and looking after his sister. His brothers - “Nos. 1 to 5” he calls them - have all died.
“It’s just me and Reba now,” he said.
He is justifiably proud of his family’s record in the military and pleased that someone cared enough to take note of it.
“Service was just an honor,” he said. “It was just the way you grew up back then. In school you said the pledge to the flag every day. (Enlisting) was just something you expected to do.”
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Information from: Winston-Salem Journal, http://www.journalnow.com
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