My grandfather was named Willard Prockly Anderson JR. He was born in Stephenville, TX on November 11, 1918. He was born on the day and hour that WW1 ended. The story goes.... all the nurses and doctors at the hospital went out celebrating the end of the war. The next day the doctor came back and signed his birth certificate! So his whole life his birth certificate said something different then the day he celebrated. When Prock was an old man he got an award from the U.S government congratulating him on being born on the day and hour of the end of WW1. He was so proud that he received this award.

I LOVED my grandfather very much. I love telling the story that I named him. When I was a little girl my uncle and aunt tried to get me to call him papa and my grandmother me maw. I remember being very unhappy about this. I kept saying his name was Prock! I remember my uncle and aunt laughing and laughing about this. I would not even allow them to call gramme memaw around me! I kinda remember asking my grandfather his name (full name) and I kinda remember him telling me his name. I do remember once I made up my mind to call him prock...that was it. He was forever and always Prock to me. I found out years later that Prock hated being called Prock, but I guess he learned to except that was who he was.

My Grandfather loved to tell me about growing up. When he was a very little boy he would love to run in the whirlwinds....little dust tornadoes. He would laugh and run after them, until he was covered from head to toe in dirt and leaves. One day as he was running after one, he slammed into a tree. Prock started crying and ran into the house holding his head. He told his mother through his tears that he hit a tree. However, what his mother heard was he was hit by a truck. She started to panic and look him all over. Prock said it tickled him that his mother thought he got hit by the truck instead of a tree.

When Prock was a little older, he had to wear his sister's dresses when it was laundry day. His mother would call to him while he was playing with his friends and tell him to strip. He would talk off his dirty clothes and put on a dress. He HATED this. He said he flat refused to play with his friends when this happened. He would stand on the pouch the rest of the day waiting for his clothes to be dry. I could imagine a discussed little prock standing on the edge of the porch hating laundry day..lol.

When Prock was in High School he played football. He was very good. There is a picture of him and his team eating at a restaurant. I loved looking at this photo, because it showed a very proud Prock and his friends. I also enjoyed seeing the expressions on the faces of the other patrons. Each customer had a bewildered look on their faces...I guess they did not like having their pictures taken while they ate.

My grandfather was a loud, tough animated individual. He loved life and was a part of everything. In high school he was labeled in his year book "Whenever, there is an unusual commotion there is Willard." I think this is great....it sums him up wonderfully.

My grandfather was a hard worker. When he was a young man...he went to work in California covering up orange tree with tarps then another man would "bomb" the trees so bugs would not eat the fruit. I think he liked to tell this story, because he found it funny that he was working so close to chemicals and that people would never do this anymore.
Prock had an accident






He also liked to tell the story that Monrovia was once all orange fields and as far as you could look there would be rows and rows of trees. There was a trolley that would run from one end of town to the other end and he would hop one and then off when he came to his stop.