User:Cycling Pastor/Harm Wesley Snider

Harm Wesley Snider was born near Marvell in Phillips County, Arkansas on August 12, 1921 to Andrew Taylor Snider and Pearlie Canzada "Cannie" Brady. His mother, when asked what she wanted her son to be named, she said, "Harm," with the intention that he should be named after his grandfather, Hiram Jefferson Brady. He was called "Wesley" by the family and friends and "Harm" or "Snider" during his service in the infantry. Wesley was the youngest surviving child of ten. He also had a half sister from one of Andrew's previous marriages, but she was raised by her grandparents, Daniel Sellar Snider and Laura Elizabeth Brown in Sunflower County, Mississippi. Growing up on a cotton farm in eastern Arkansas before and during the Great Depression, life was hard. Andrew had received his acreage as an inheritance from his father. Cannie Brady was his third wife. The family story was that he lost his property during the Depression in an attempt to bail his younger brother out of financial difficulties. Andrew became a tenant farmer while his older brother and sister maintained successful farms on the land they had inherited. Andrew's landlords said that the Sniders would have a place so long as they lived. Andrew died in 1967 and Cannie in 1970. Wesley and his brothers hunted. Cannie gardened. And the family farmed, raising, among other things, cotton, soybeans, corns, sugar cane, watermelons, tomatoes, greens, cattle, swine, chickens, geese, mules, and cantaloupes. School and education were not as great a family priority as farming and surviving through hard work. When World War II began, Wesley and his brother Frank were both drafted into the infantry. Wesley served in the infantry in the Philippines during the war with Dick Starr (who later pitched for the New York Yankees and other major league teams) and Ed Collins who described himself as an "old Irish Catholic Yankee from Wisconsin." During one battle, Harm (Wesley) wanted to rescue some of the wounded soldiers from his unit. He approached Sergeant Collins who went to his superiors and said they needed tank cover so that Harm could drive a truck to the wounded and bring them back. The superior refused. Risking court martial, Collins approached a tank commander and secured the help. Harm Wesley drove into enemy fire, somewhat relaxed because of tank support, and rescued the wounded soldiers. Wesley received the silver star in recognition of his bravery. After returning from the War, Wesley played baseball, learned as an apprentice to become an industrial mechanic, and spent time trying to forget what he had witnessed and experienced in the war. He met Frances Ardella Strother and they were eventually married.