When they met, Raymond Jay Wright and Margie Moselle Brooks had at least one thing in common: humble beginnings. He was the son of an early twentieth-century Texas sharecropper. Her father owned a farm just outside of Midland. With the advent of World War II, they embarked together on what would become a military career, he the brave but understated soldier and she the strong but demure Army wife. Together, they found the kind of success that many long for but few attain, one produced by the combined forces of faith, patriotism, and love for family. For Posterity's Sake is a simple, heartwarming, and inspirational story contextually rich in American history and reminiscent of A Land Remembered. For decades, society has unknowingly asked for this true account to be told. Upon these pages lies its answer. For Posterity's Sake Legacy of an American Couple By Terri L. McKenzie AuthorHouse Copyright © 2016 Terri McKenzie All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-5246-0509-4 CHAPTER 1 Jay: The Formative Years "Frustrations and denials which seem to youth cruel and unfair often are important equipment for life." -- Bruce Barton "Your dad's honesty ... came from observing (our parents' example) and maybe that was just the way he was. Maybe God had a special hand on him ... We always knew that he was intelligent and ambitious, but we saw few who did as well as he did. He was always kind and knew right from wrong." -- Lorene Wright Lowe, Dad's younger sister It was Valentine's Day in the year 1919, and the weather in Lamesa, Texas was characteristically cool but dry. From behind a closed door, the cries of a healthy newborn filled the Wright household as Raymond Jay Wright made his entrance into the world. Just outside the door, Monroe Wright breathed a guarded sigh of relief while his wife, Donnie Mae, took the swaddled infant into her arms, looked at his plump, pink face, and smiled weakly, almost certainly afraid to fall too in love with her baby. Almost four years earlier, she and Monroe had buried their six-month-old son, C.W. Wright. Five years before that, Monroe Sligh Jr., their firstborn, had died 21 days after his birth; and now the memories of having loved and lost children were more vivid than they had been in a long time. Since the Wrights were a farming family, the birth of a son was a good thing both sentimentally and practically. In addition to being another child to love, he would be another son to work the farm in an effort to feed the already struggling family. Nevertheless, the Wrights embraced him with cautious optimism, knowing from painful experience that Raymond Jay could be taken from them just as quickly as he had come. My siblings and I are grateful that he wasn't. He eventually became our father. There to help welcome the baby into the family were his older brother, James "Audra" Wright, close to seven years his senior, and his sister, Mary, a little over five at the time. These two would one day become like father and mother to the boy most people came to call by his middle name, "Jay". Our father was not the last child to enter his immediate family. The Wrights would announce the births of four more babies within the next ten years. And in that same time period, mourn the deaths of three. When Dad was almost three years old, a little sister replaced him as the baby of the family. Margaret Lorene, named after her Aunt Maggie on her mother's side but called by her middle name, was born on December 9, 1921. Another little sister, Bonnie Mae Wright, followed two and a half years later, giving Lorene both a little sister and a future playmate. On September 14, 1927, Audra took the younger children to a neighbor's house while their mother labored with twins. No one knows whether Donnie Mae knew she was expecting two babies, but they arrived prematurely, as twins often do. Audra ran to the neighbor's to announce their birth. Both were boys. But if excitement surrounded their arrival, it lasted only briefly, as they both died within a week. They were never given names due to poor health at birth. The Wright family Bible lists them as "Twins Wright" and has their dates of death a week apart. Lorene, however, distinctly remembered the undertaker coming to get them both on the day they were born. They were buried in graves marked by unetched stones. It's an understatement to say that this group of Wrights knew tragedy well. But their faith and devotion to one another helped compensate for what they lacked in both wealth and health. Although Monroe Wright -- like his own father -- was a stern man who expected no argument from his children, he had a tender but solid belief in God. After the twins died, he sat the other children together and explained to them that Jesus loved them and had died on a cross for them. He then assured them that God would take care of their baby brothers in Heaven. "There was always God's care or we would have been less than we were and are. I was always aware of