A PORTRAIT OF PAUL DUBOSE

by Paul Philip DuBose

It was 1931 when she met him. When Edna Maxine Burdett saw that DuBose boy and a girl walk through the door at a party she was attending, she told her sister, Dorothy, "I'm going to take that guy away from her." And she did, for life.

During the early days of the depression jobs were difficult to find and young Paul DuBose had gone to Pittsburgh to work in the steel mills. He had just returned to Tampa when he met the beautiful and irresistible Edna Maxine at the Baptist Church party. They were married on Christmas eve, 1931.

Work was still impossible to find and Paul had to return to Pittsburgh for employment. When he got word that his wife was pregnant, "he walked home from Pittsburgh to be with her," according to Edna'? sister, Dorothy Fuerst. I'm sure he used his thumb a lot.

Paul Philip DuBose was born December 16, 1932 at home where the newlyweds were then living with Paul's older sister, Netty Bailey. Paul did not return to Pittsburgh except for a vacation in the late forties to introduce his family to the Mayhews who had owned the rooming house where he had lived.

During the year, Paul bought a small grocery store at the corner of Hamilton Street and Florida Avenue. They lived in a one room apartment (store room) in the rear of the store separated by a curtain over the door. I can remember my mother telling me about the little portable swing she would place me in when I was about one year old. Customers would compliment her on her "cute little brother." She looked much too young to be a mother.

I don't know what happened to the grocery store business, but I do know that Paul's career in the meat business started in the shipping department at Herman Sausage Company. We had moved to a rented house one block from where Isabelle Smith lived. I was four years old and cousin Lois was the love of my life. Paul DuBose was not afraid of hard work. Determination and true grit kept him going. He had to quit school during the eighth grade to help support his large family. When Paul was about nine or ten years old, his dad, Walter DuBose, was seriously injured when the car he was driving was struck by a train. Mr. DuBose was thrown about thirty feet and landed head foremost in a ditch. The car was completely destroyed. The top was down. Had the top been up, he would have been killed immediately. Walter was confined in the hospital for fifteen weeks. Afterwards, he was unable to fully provide for his family. At Herman Sausage Co., Paul was promoted to manager of the shipping department and stayed with the company when they moved from Tampa to Brandon. He left there to work in the shipyard as a pipe fitter during the war years.

In 1946 he and his brother, Malcolm, went into the plumbing business and later bought the Pure Oil service station at Broad Street and Nebraska Avenue in Tampa. They had to sell it when Paul had to go into the hospital for a serious surgery. One day Paul got a call from Paul Tarnow who said he was going to start a package meat processing company and asked him if he would be his plant manager. Paul agreed and stayed with the company until he had to retire on disability at age 62.

He only had an eighth grade education, but he had street smarts and people smarts. He worked hard and never failed to provide for his family. His portrait, the one painted by Edna Maxine, proudly hangs in my living room.

He is my hero, my inspiration, my dad.