Arnold Tolliver

Interview of Mr. Arnold Tolliver, Resident of Apalachicola Hills.

Arnold Tolliver [00:00:03] My name is Arnold Tolliver, T-O-L-L-I-V-E-R, born Arnold Robert Garrette, G-A-R-R-E-T-T-E. My grandmother’s name was Willie Mae Garrette. My mother’s name was also Ocille Wynn Garrette. I was born in Apalachicola, Florida December 17, 1947, raised by my mother, which we always called Ocie May and then I was raised by my grandmother Mae Garrette. We always called mama. Anyways, Nona Rose and Chester Rose was about paternal, not paternal. But anyway, they raised me and brought me up to life in a working attitude. I went to Holy Family Catholic School, then on to a Quinn High, which I want to stay one year while I was transferred to Lafayette, Louisiana in Holy Rose Institute.  I’m the oldest of nine sibilings I had the one brothers pass away, Vann Wynn.  I was raised here in Apalachicola, and I always have worked all my life doing things I wanted to do, as I wanted to do them, until those strict attitudes came in on me.  Anyway, I left there with the Holy Rose Institute in Lafayette, Louisiana, I graduated from there as a, “Most Likely To Succeed.”  And there I went on to join the United States Marine Corps, which a graduate out of boot camp with the a stripe as a private first class.  From there I went to Vietnam, twice on the U.S.S. Long Beach nuclear power crusier ship. There, I came back to Apalachicola, married Rose Tolliver then married my wife Billy Jean, and then now I’m married again. Anyways, I have had a good life in Apalachicola. Apalachicola has been a very, very gracious town, matter of fact, I’ve ate dinners and we had good times with the Dr. Fred Humphries, Ramona Humphries, Tim Humphries always, all raised here in Apalachicola together. And I have had a good successful life, my oldest sister (Camerts sp) has been a primary in my life. I don’t get along with none of them no way anyway. So that’s me.

Other Speaker [00:03:17] Tell them about the Marine Corps.

Arnold Tolliver [00:03:18] I told him about the Marine Corps. I went to the Marine Corps and I had a good successful life with that in the Marine Corps and I love the Marine Corps, or I came back to Apalachicola made Apalachicola my home, and there’s always going to be my home and that’s me.

Interviewer [00:03:38] Thank you so much.