Information from his son, Jesse Floyd:

He work in the grocery business most of his life. After his mother diedin 1938, he went to live with his Uncle George and Aunt Nan (Easterwood)Sanders to take care of his aunt and helped in the Sanders' store.That's where he met my mother. After he and my mother married, he boughta store and house close to Parchment Prison just north of Drew,Mississippi.

He was born near Mantee, Mississippi in the hills of Mississippi. Hetold me stories about going coon hunting and how he loved to hear thebaying of the hounds chasing the coons from one hollow to the next. Healso loved mules even though he didn't enjoy plowing. He often talkedabout looking at the south end of a northbound mule.

He loved boiled custard at Christmas and it was one of the few things hetreated himself. He hated the character of Scrooge and wouldn't watch"A Christmas Carol" or "How the Grinch Stole
Christmas." His favorite song was "Shenandoah."

Drew is in the "Mississippi Delta" which is flat and treeless for themost part. Just farms, not much else. Dad would talk about the "delta"and the "hills." I thought that the delta had to be close to the riverand didn't realize for a long time how much of Mississippi that itincluded. The hills are totally different. On a visit there in June'98,' we went to two cemeteries in Webster County. After driving on aflat road for a while we started into "the hills." They're not real highbut what struck me was that suddenly, there they were. Two totallydifferent worlds almost.

He and my mother moved to Kentucky so my mother could be close to herfamily and went to work for the Kroger Grocery Store chain. He was incharge of the Dairy Dept. and loved confrontations with his manager. Amember of the Retail Clerks Union, he was pro-union and for a time,served as union steward.

He believed that there were two ways to do things, his way and the wrongway. He also believed that family was more important than friends, oneof many points we argued about. He was also a firm disciplinarian andcould do things with his belt that I didn't think possible. And what atemper. He suffered from emphysema, heart disease, and high bloodpressure.

Dad loved his grandchildren very much. When Roxie was born, he and mombought a new car so they would be sure to be able to come and see her.When Roxie was little, I would tickle her and she would yell for Poppyand he would come save her.

He moved to Elizabethtown in late 1991 to live with my family and I.Kelsey was three then and loved her Poppie very much. She would sneak upon him by crawling under his bed. Most of the time, he knew she wasthere and would pretend that he hadn't heard her. For being hard ofhearing, it was amazing what he could hear. Kelsey would kiss Poppie byeevery morning and how his face would light up when she walked into theroom. Before Kelsey was born, Dad was convinced that she was going tobe a boy and referred to her as "Big Jim."

He was told that he was a twelve pound baby. Dad had black wavy hair andbrown eyes. He and Uncle Curtis had darker features and took after theEasterwoods and Uncles Turner and Ardell had lighter features and tookafter the Floyds. He was 6 ft. tall with a slim build, the tallest ofthe four boys. Dad told Peggy that we were "Black Irish." I don't knowwhich side of his family this came from. Black Irish are thought to bedescendents of Spanish survivors and from the sea battle when the SpanishArmada was defeated by the English fleet and Irish women that cared forthem once they made the Irish coast.

He would amaze me with how fast he could add figures. He could add acolumn of numbers faster than it would take you to put them into acalculator.

The surname Floyd has two countries of origin, Wales and Ireland. InWales it is normally used as a variant for Lloyd, the Welsh Ll beingpronounced Hl which became Fl. In Ireland (Ulster), it is sometimes usedas a synonym of Flood. Floyd is not a numerous name, mainly found inMunster. It was derived from the Welsh word llwyd meaning green or greydepending on where you look. According to the Surname Origins Web site,Floyd originated in County Kilkenny, Ireland.

The book, "Irish Families," by Edward MacLysaght connects the surnameFlood to the Clan MacAtilla or Tully. "Tully is a fairly common inCounties Galway and Cavan but rare else where (except in the city ofDublin where, of course, names from all parts of Ireland are to befound). It was formerly MacTully, and the form MacAtilla is used todayin some places which suggests that the name in Irish was MacTuilr or Maca'tuile, meaning son of the flood; and this it is a fact that thesurnames Tully and Flood were at one time interchangeable and that whathas been termed a mistranslation may indeed be a translation

In the Elizabeth Fiants we find Dionysius Flood alias Donogh O'Multilly.O'Multilly, spelt O'Moltolle in another case, is O Maoltuile in Irish.It has been stated by usually reliable authorities that MacTuile is acorruption of O Maoltile and that the latter is the real name of thecelebrated medical family, but the form Mac Tuile appears in a seventhcentury manuscript which is a copy by a well-known scribe of a thirteenthcentury manuscript. The original, written by an eye witness of theinauguration of Cathal O'Connor, last King of Connacht, describesMacTully ( Mac Tuile) who was present as O'Connor's physician. TheMacTullys were in fact hereditary physicians not only to the O'Connorsbut also to the O"Reillys of Breffny. This Accounts for the moderndistribution of the name as given above. The place-name Tullystown nearGranard is associated with the Breffny branch of the family. The Tullyslisted in the 1691 attainders are all of County Galway and the leadingfamily whose arms are illustrated on Plate XXVII are of that county. thesame arms are used by the Floods of County Kilkenny.

The most noteworthy of the Tullys was Father Fiacre Tully, O.F.M., who inthe years 1625-1631 was extremely active in Rome in the Irish interest.The Floods of County Kilkenny are said to be of English extraction. Tothis family belonged two notable politicians: Sir Frederick Flood(1741-1824) and Henry Flood (1732-1791), both prominent as Volunteers andopponents of the union, the latter one of the outstanding personalitiesof eighteenth century Ireland. The distinguished Rev. Dr. Peter Flood(d. 1803), President of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, on the otherhand gave that measure of support. William Henry Gratton Flood(1867-1928), author of the "History of Irish Music" was a noted composerof liturgical music.

Tully, alias Tally, is also the Anglicized form of the Irish surname OTaithligh borne by a Sept located near Omagh, County Tyrone, of whichhowever, little trace remains today."
I believe that his first name came from his great-grandfather JesseWofford. He told me that his mother saw Olee in a magazine. I havesince found that Olee is an Irish surname affiliated with Clan MacAlee.

"Lee is a fairly widespread name in Ireland, but it is also very commonindigenous surname to England, so it is impossible to say in the absenceof a pedigree, or at least a well-established tradition, whether a familyof the name in Ireland is Gaelic in origin or of planter stock. Thelatter were well established in County Tipperary and elsewhere at thebeginning of the seventeenth century. Confining our attention to theformer it may first be abated there are four distinct septs to beconsidered, two O' and two Macs, so that in English we find Olees andMaclees side by side with the simple form of Lee. O'Laidhigh is theConnacht form, centered in County Galway. O'Laoidhigh the Munster,chiefly associated with Counties Cork and Limerick. MacLaoidhigh belongsto Leix and is written Lea in the census of 1659 and Mac an Leagha toUlster, Anglicized as Lee, MacAlee, and Maclea. Laoidhigh is thegenitive case of Laoidhigh the adjective from laoidh (a poem).

The most important of these septs were the O' Lees of West Connacht, bestknown as a medical family, not only chiefs in their own right but alsohereditary physicians to the powerful Sept of O'Flaherty. The Lees,indeed, were traditionally doctors by profession, for in addition to thefamily mentioned, a number of medieval treatises in Irish and Latin werewritten by Maclees. The form Malee was sometimes used by the O' Lees ofConnacht, who were also erenaghs of Annaghdown, among the manyecclesiastics of this Sept was John O' Lee, notable Dominican Bishop ofKillala from 1253 to 1275. Another Father John Lee, b. abt. 1560, was anIrish priest prominent in the educational sphere in Paris. He came froma leading family in Waterford, of which city another member of it wasSheriff from 1575 to 1580. Andrew Lee, 1650-1734, colonel successivelyof Clare's and Mountcastle's Regiments, was one of the greatest soldiersever to fight for France in the Irish Brigade."

Olee Floyd served in the U.S. Army during World War II and was assignedto the Quartermaster Corp. His M.O.S. (Military Occupation Specialty)was a truck driver. He was the youngest member of his family and the onlyone to get drafted, a fact that he was not happy about. I remember himtalking about the train ride from basic training to California. Healways wanted to ride a train again but never did. He also talked aboutbeing on a troop ship and going under the Golden Gate Bridge. On thetrip to Hawaii, the ship zig-zagged to prevent them from being sunk by anenemy submarine and he didn't get sea-sick. The war was over when hecame home so the ship took a straight coarse and was sick almost all theway home.

He was part of an honor guard for a meeting between President FranklinDelinor Roosevelt, General Douglas MacArthur, and Admiral ChesterNimitz. This could have been the meeting shown in the movie "MacArthur."He said he didn't see anything because they were facing away from theroad.

He was inducted February 12, 1942 at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Hedeparted for Hawaii, May 22, 1942 and arrived there May 27, 1942. He wasa private first class. Or a buck private in the rear ranks as he toldhis daughter Peggy. He returned to the mainland on June 10, 1945 and wasdischarged October 9, 1945 at Camp Lee, Virginia. He saw no action andreceived the Good Conduct Medal, May 4, 1943 and the Asiatic-PacificService Ribbon.

He had one, at least that's all I heard about, good friend while he wasin the Army, a man named Flanagan. I don't remember him ever mentioninghim by his first name.

To be discharged from the Army, dad had to earn "points." When he hadenough points, by his figuring, he went to the office that dealt withthat and was told that he hadn't earned enough. Well, after arguingabout it and realizing that he wasn't going to win, he went back to thatoffice everyday and worried them to death. I think they gave him theneeded points to get rid of him. He was carrying two duffel bags on theway to the ship and stopped by some palm trees to rest. He decided thathe didn't need the things in the second bag and left it there. Dad saidhe got several strange looks when he boarded the ship with one bag andeveryone else had two.

He was assigned to the motor pool and worked as a driver. He talkedabout driving a truck to a depot in one of the surrounding mountains onenight and almost driving off the edge because they weren't allowed to usetheir truck lights out of fear of attack.

Part of his duties included guarding an ammunition dump until he madefriends with a general who used him as his driver.

More About JESSIE OLEE FLOYD:
Burial: Green Hills Memorial Gardens, Hopkinsville, Kentucky