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By Travis Gupton

The Selma Times-Journal

Autaugaville native James Ray Brown brought the story of his father Junior Brown to Dallas County last Saturday in a self-published book entitled, “Junior Brown a man and his family” 

Brown said the story is about his father’s journey through this life and how despite losing his leg he continued to work hard until he passed away.

“He was a farmboy, Brown said. “He was the fourth son of four sons. He was the eighth of 10 children. Like a lot of men and women who came along during his time frame being born in 1923, he couldn’t get off the farm fast enough.”

His father’s brother went to the Civilian Conservation Core that FDR instituted which was a work program instead of following in his brother’s footsteps Brown’s father decided to enlist in the army in August of 1940. In March 1944, he was discharged after his 21st birthday.

In Italy, he got wounded after a mortar exploded in a tank he was in. After being in a hospital for 30-60 unconscious he lost his leg but otherwise survived.

After losing his leg, Brown said his father learned how to work with metal and could make what he needed out of anything that was around him.

“Money was not what drove him,” Brown said. “His interest was in having something to do that he enjoyed. He was a go-getter. I know individuals that have called him a mechanical genius which he was. Daddy was good at taking what he had and making it into what he needed.”

Brown’s mother and his father met in 1958. After courting for three years they got married. The marriage lasted 40 years before his father passed away.

Brown said that book goes beyond the story of his father it is to show the value of hard work.

“He did not let losing that leg back him up,” Brown said. “In this book, there are interviews of family members, interviews of former co-workers, people that worked with him, people that he worked for, you name it it’s in there.”

After publishing “Junior Brown a man and his family” Brown turned his focus to his newest book “The J. Patrick Allen Story”  which he also was signing at Daves on Saturday.

“This book is about what we have been through as well as a story of faith,” Brown said. “You read in the prolog you will see what we are addressing in this book and that is our purpose. Our purpose on this earth as human beings is to glorify God and to evangelize. We are made for him, by him, and of him. That’s why we are here.”