My grandfather [John S.] Gibson could read and write and all of his children went to school except one. That one was my father [Doctor Franklin Gibson]. He did not want to go to school. He wanted to work, and so they let him work instead of going to school with his brothers and sisters. When he was about fifteen years old he made fifty cents a day. At the end of the week he would take the $3.00 that he had made back home for family use. They had a big family and it took a lot of food for them, but they managed to raise most of it themselves.
When my father was eighteen years old he married my mother, Minnie Lee Williams, who was fifteen. At the time they married he could not read or write, but she taught him how to write and how to read. He also went to night school and took lessons in arithmetic. When he got through with that he could figure out anything in fractions. It was just amazing to me and my brothers how he did that. He could figure exactly how much a bale of cotton would bring at seven and seven-eighths cents a pound. My father had very good sense and was a hard working man. He loved his family and he gave us good advice. All of my brothers and sisters were sent to college."
From I Remember When, by Dr. Edward Lee Gibson.