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Photo courtesy of Amber Bates.
The Bates family, from left: Olivia, Owen, Amber and Bron during a visit to the home of Elvis Walton, center, in the fall of 2019.
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Photo courtesy of Amber Bates.
Owen and Olivia Bates visit Elvis Walton in rehab after his hip replacement surgery and give him their hand-made cards for Veterans Day.
Elvis Walton has lived quite a life.
He served in World War II, sang in a gospel quartet for more than 50 years and also saw one of Elvis Presley’s performances before Presley became famous.
The longtime Chelsea resident, who turns 96 this month, is still making new friends. Last fall, while at Dairy Queen with his cousin and care-taker, Nancy Walton Brasher, he met Forest Oaks Elementary students Owen, 10, and Olivia Bates, 7.
“It was meant to be that we ran into each other, because we should have come straight home and instead we went to Dairy Queen for ice cream, which is out of our normal routine,” said their mom, Amber Bates. “We formed an instant friendship.”
Bates said Brasher got her attention and asked her to bring the kids over to meet Walton when they finished eating. They struck up a conversation about his age, his time in World War II and many other topics. Bates and Brasher exchanged phone numbers, because she knew her husband, Bron, would want to meet him.
“It was really cool meeting him and learning his story, and I just really liked how he fought in the war, and it really interested me to learn more about him,” Owen said. “My favorite part of getting to know Mr. Elvis is the stories he had to tell me about his life and his time in the war.”
Brasher said Walton was “amazed at their interest, questions, their behavior and how they just stood there glued to him, not paying attention to anything going on around us,” she said. “They had so many questions, and he answered them and just fell in love with them.”
Owen wanted Walton to come to his Veterans Day program at his school in November, but Walton had just had hip replacement surgery and was in a rehab center, so the Bates family went to visit him and took him cards the kids had made for him.
“The opportunity to have contact with someone who was in World War II is coming to an end,” Amber said. “Even for Bron and I to have the opportunity to talk face to face with him is an opportunity we feel really blessed to have.”
TIME IN THE PHILIPPINES
Walton was in the Air Force (called the Air Guard at that time), and moved to 11 different states during training. He went to New Guinea first and spent a week unloading the ship and setting up camp. He was a cook/baker and spent most of his time there. He spent time in the Philippines, then Tokyo before being discharged home.
He vividly remembers he and his group digging fox holes to hide in during ground strikes. Walton said he and his buddy dug their foxhole in a “L” shape so they would be able to talk to each other as they watched the airplanes battle in the sky above.
“I’ve been asked if I got scared during the war, and my answer is anybody that tells me they didn’t get scared is lying,” Walton said.
RETURNING HOME
Walton had been deployed more than 21/2 years when the armistice ending the war was signed in 1945. Walton remembers the joy and celebration when they learned that war was over. He returned home on an aircraft carrier, this trip only taking eight days.
Once his bus got into the station in Birmingham, he couldn’t wait for the reunion with his wife Hilma, who he married when they were 18. She worked at the bus station, and Walton said he will never forget the excitement when the door opened and he saw her standing there.
“She was one of the prettiest things I’ve ever seen,” he said. “Her hair was done by a beautician, and she had on new shoes and a brand new outfit. When I saw her that night, that was a night I’ll always remember ... she took my breath away. I grabbed her and held her in my arms and cried and she cried, not tears of sorrow but tears of gratitude and happiness.”
Within a month of returning home, Walton joined a singing group with some of his cousins called The Keymasters. They began touring allover the country. Walton sang bass and said he will never forget those times.
Walton also drove a street car, worked for a gas company selling stoves and water heaters door-to-door in Birmingham, and eventually worked for Miller Beauty Supply, selling supplies all over the state until he retired.
He continued singing with The Keymasters then The Rhythm Masters and in all sang close to 60 years, retiring around 2011.
MEETING A LEGEND
It was during a show where The Keymasters were opening for The Blackwood Brothers Quartet, when there was a knock on the door at the venue. There was a 14-year-old boy with a guitar who wanted to come in but didn’t have the money. J.D. Sumner, the bass singer for the Blackwood Brothers, let him in and he wound up performing. His name was Elvis Presley. He sang on stage that night, so Walton saw and heard Presley sing before he became famous.
Years later, when Presley was doing a concert in the same town where The Blackwood Brothers were performing, Sumner knocked on the back door and told the person who answered the door to tell Presley that J.D. Sumner was at the back door and Presley came and let him in. Later on, Presley hired Sumner and his Stamps quartet as his back-up singers in 1971.
CHELSEA IS HOME
Walton still lives off Shelby County 32 in Chelsea where his family has lived for five generations. He attended Union Methodist Church from the age of 8 until he was no longer able to go due to health reasons. He and Hilma were married for 70 years before she passed away in 2012.
Brasher said Walton is “doing excellent for what he’s been through” and as soon as the coronavirus crisis is over, it’s one of their first priorities to see the Bates family.
