Individual Details

Vernon was but seventeen when he married Gladys Love Smith, four years his elder, in 1933. Like his relatives before him, Vernon worked at any odd job that came along. For a while, he and Vester, his older brother, farmed together, raising cotton, com, soybeans and a few hogs. Later, he took a job with the WPA, a federal government make-work program during the Depression. Next, he drove a delivery truck for McCarty's, a Tupelo wholesale grocer, delivering grocery items to stores throughout northeast Mississippi. These were the Presley genes, passed along from generation to generation, some of which undoubtedly were inherited by the infant born in that two-room house in the hills of East Tupelo. Gladys sister Clettes married Vester, Veron's older brother. Thus, two brothers married two sisters. Few know it, but in the beginning, their roles were reversed. Vester started out dating Gladys. Vernon, eighteen months younger, originally dated Clettes, 'Yeah', recalls Vester, 'I dated Gladys a few times and Vernon dated Clettes. Gladys didn't like my attitude much. As I have always told you, I was too wild, in those days. So, Gladys quit seeing me and we quit seeing the Smith girls for awhile. Then, Vernon started dating Gladys and soon there was only one object of his affection- Gladys.
On June 17, 1933, Gladys Smith and Vernon Presley eloped and were married in the County of Pontotoc, where Vernon was not known, both lying about their ages. Vernon gave his age as 22, Gladys 19. While Gladys was of legal age Vernon was not at age 17. Gladys would hide her real age for much of her life. In her book, Elvis and Gladys, Elaine Dundy says 'Impetuosity and impulsiveness played a large part in Gladys make up. She knew nothing of half measures, nor was there anything half-heated or self-protective about her. Elvis would inherit from Gladys his unpredictable impulses.
About the end of June 1934, Gladys knew she was pregnant. Some time around her fifth month she was sure she was having twins - she was unusually large, could feel two babies kicking and had a family history of twins on both sides of the family. Gladys was earning $2 a day at the Tupelo Garment Company, while Vernon worked at various odd jobs, including one on the dairy farm of Orville S. Bean. With $180 that he borrowed from Bean after Gladys became pregnant in the spring of 1934, Vernon set about constructing a family home, and he and Gladys moved in that December.
Elvis' birthplace was built by his father, Vernon, with help from Vernon's brother Vester and father, Jessie, whose relatively 'spacious' four-room house sat next door. Located above a highway that transported locals between Tupelo and Birmingham, Alabama, and nestled among a group of small, rough-hew homes along Old Saltillo Road. The house had no electricity (It was connected but it was not used due to the cost) or indoor plumbing, and was similar to housing constructed for mill villages around that time.
About the end of June 1934, Gladys knew she was pregnant.
Some time around her fifth month she was sure she was having twins - she was unusually large, could feel two babies kicking and had a family history of twins on both sides of the family.
January 8, 1935, not long before dawn, Elvis Aaron Presley was born. Gladys delivered a second son earlier that morning, a stillborn identical twin named Jesse Garon. Elvis would be their only child.
After the birth, Gladys was close to death and both her and Elvis were taken to Tupelo Hospital. After Gladys and Elvis returned home, it was noticed by family members and friends that she was overprotective of her new born son. Paranoid that something bad would happen to him.
Gladys' mother, 'Doll' Smith died in 1935 and was buried next to her husband Bob Smith, both in unmarked graves. So like Elvis, Gladys lost her mother at a young age. Gladys was 23, Elvis 22.
Elvis' family life was turbulent during his early years, largely due to the poverty and financial circumstances of his parents, Vernon and Gladys, however, Elvis grew up within a close-knit, working class family, consisting of his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins, who all live near one another in Tupelo. There was little money, but Vernon and Gladys did their best to provide for their son, who is the center of their lives.
However, if you look at our page on the Presley and Smith family history, you will find that Gladys did not have a strong role model in a mother, and Vernon did not have a strong bond with his father.
Both these facts would impact heavily on Elvis Presleys life.
On November 16, 1937, Vernon along with Gladys' brother, Travis Smith and a friend Lether Gable were indicted for forgery. A check that Orville Bean had made out to Vernon had been altered and the culprits stood accused by Bean. Vernon had sold Bean a hog and received for it, a check for only $4 - a sum much less than he had expected. Vernon was furious; as the hog was worth much more, and he had been counting on the money. There is no record of how the deal was arranged or for how much.
Vernon talked it over with Travis and Lether and an idea emerged, since Vernon 'had been sold short', why not make the check closer to the amount deserved? Courthouse records do not include details of how large a sum of money the check was altered to, but in her book, Elvis and Gladys, Elaine Dundy says that based on the memories of the people she talked with, it was either fourteen or forty dollars.
According to Vernon's old friend Aaron Kennedy, he thinks the check was not altered but forged by putting a blank check over Orville Bean's and tracing his writing on to it. In any case obviously none of the men had any idea of how a bank operates to prevent such fraud. Great pressure was put on Orville Bean by the community of East Tupelo to show leniency toward the offenders, to no avail.
A bond for bail was fixed at $500 each. On January 4, 1938 only two bonds were filed for Travis and Lether Gable. Oddly the records show, Vernon's father, JD Presley and JG Brown stood sureties for Travis Smith but not Vernon. At least there is no record of such so it appears that Vernon spent six months in custody awaiting trial. JD had apparently never liked Vernon. He had kicked him out of home at 16.
It was Elaine Dundy that uncovered this evidence but it is not possible to know the truth as there not finding a record does not prove Jessie did not bail his son. Elaine Dundy does conclude the worst. It should be pointed out (As Elaine Dundy does in her book) that J.D. was farming on Orville Bean's land; Orville Bean was his landlord so it may have encouraged J.D. to stay on the 'right side' of the landowner.
So it was inevitable that on May 25 1938, Vernon, Travis and Lether were sentenced to three years in the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman for forging the check.
In his book, Day By Day, Ernst Jorgensen states, 'Gladys is unable to maintain the repayment schedule on their home causing the family to lose this house, and she and Elvis are forced to move in with relatives'.
In his book, Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick states that 'During the brief time time Vernon was in prison, Gladys lost the house and moved in briefly with her in-laws next door.
Elaine Dundy in her critically acclaimed book, Elvis and Gladys, states; These are hard times for mother and son. Understandably, in view of Jesse Presley's attitude toward his son, Gladys had grown more and more uncomfortable living next door to her father in law. At some point during Vernon's prison sentence, Gladys moved out and stayed with her first cousin Frank Richards. Whatever the reason, the Presleys never return to the house Vernon built, stories differ as to the reason and how the house left their ownership.
On February 6 1939, Vernon was released from Prison with a six month suspension of their sentence, granted on condition of continued good behaviour. This leniency is the result of a 'petition of the citizens of Lee County and on a letter from Mr. O. S. Bean, the party on whom the checks were forged'. The document is signed by Governor Hugh White.
Evidently, if Vernon ever was angry with Orville Bean, he didn't seen to hold a grudge as he brought a new house from him in Tupelo in 1945.
In 1940, Vernon was granted an indefinite suspension of his sentence.
During World War II, while Vernn was away helping to build a prisoner of War camp for the WPA, Gladys was admitted to hospital. In the words of Mrs Leona Moore, now a retired nurse, who was working at the Tupelo hospital at the time, 'The truth is she had a miscarriage'. This explains why Gladys never had another child, she had tried, and unfortunately failed.
Soon after Vernon returned, his father J.D. suddenly took off again. This time for good. He left Tupelo, working his way northwards, ending up in Kentucky where he later became a night watchman at a Pepsi Cola plant in Louiseville.
The Presleys move into Tupelo, first to Commerce Street, then to Mulberry Alley, a small lane running beside the fairgrounds, just opposite the town's black neighbourhood, 'Shake Rag'.
As Gladys condition worsened Elvis insisted that she do something about it, putting his parents on a train to memphis so that Gladys can see her personal physician, Dr. Charles Clarke.
August 9, responding to an 11.30am emergency call, an ambulance transported Mrs. Presley from Graceland to Methodist Hospital, where her condition is listed as grave.
August 12, after more effort than it would take for any ordinary soldier, including calls from Gladys' Doctor to military personnel in Washington and Elvis' desperate threat to go AWAOL, Elvis was finally granted emergency leave, flying from Fort Worth to Texas and going straight to the hospital to visit his mother.
August 14, at approximately 3.15am, with her husband at her side Gladys Love Presley died at the age of 46.
Vernon died June 26, 1979 in Memphis, TN. died of cardiac arrest

Birth	10 Apr 1916	Fulton, Itawamba County, Mississippi
Marriage	17 Jun 1933	Mississippi - Gladys Love Smith
Death	26 Jun 1979	Memphis, Shelby County, Tennessee

Spouse	Gladys Love Smith (1912 - 1958)
Child	Elvis Aaron Presley (1935 - 1977)
Child	Jesse Garon Presley (1935 - 1935)

Father	Jesse D. Presley (1896 - 1973)
Mother	Minnie Mae Hood (1890 - 1980)