2 Chapter 1 Tupelo

Chapter 1 Tupelo Elvis wasn't always rich. He didn't always own a mansion or a garage filled with Cadillacs. He didn't always have fancy clothes and expensive jewelry. As a boy, Elvis was poor. Very poor.

Elvis Aron Presley was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi. His mother, Gladys, was pregnant with twins, but she didn't know it. Like a lot of poor people in the South, the Presleys didn't have the money to see doctors. So Elvis's mother gave birth at home. The delivery was difficult. At around four in the morning, Gladys gave birth to a son, but sadly he was stillborn. Then Gladys realized there was another baby still inside her. About a half hour later, Elvis arrived. The family named the baby who died Jesse Garon. The healthy boy was named Elvis Aron. Gladys and Vernon Presley couldn't even afford a gravestone for little Jesse Garon. Though he never met Jesse Garon, Elvis thought about his twin all the time. He wondered what life would have been like with a brother. As a boy, he would go visit Jesse's grave. As a famous rock star, Elvis still talked about the brother he never knew.

Elvis's childhood wasn't easy. His family struggled. The Presleys lived on the poor side of town. Their house had only two rooms. Vernon hadn't finished high school. He married Gladys when he was just seventeen. Without an education, Vernon found it hard to find or keep a good job. At different times he worked on farms, painted houses, and drove trucks. A lot of people were going through hard times, just like the Presleys. Elvis was born in the middle of the Great Depression. All across the United States, people couldn't find work. They couldn't make enough money for food and clothes. People had to beg for food, or hope for free lunch at a soup kitchen. Families moved from town to town looking for work. Some people had to live in cardboard boxes.

At least the Presleys had a home. It didn't have electricity or running water. There was no indoor bathroom. Instead, Vernon built an outhouse in the backyard. An outhouse is a small, wood hut with no real toilet. Just a hole in the ground. Gladys couldn't have any more babies. So she became very nervous that Elvis might get hurt. She walked him to school every day. She gave him a whipping when he did something wrong. Elvis didn't like getting hit, but he loved his mother very much. He would hurry home after school in the afternoon to be with Mama.

The Presley family went through ups and downs. When Vernon got a good job, the family would usually buy a new house. When he lost a job, they would have to sell it and move into a smaller, rented place. One time Vernon was so desperate, he tried to cheat someone out of money. That got him in big trouble. A judge sent Vernon to jail for eight months. Gladys and Elvis were forced to move in with Vernon's family. Most weekends, they rode a bus to see Vernon in prison. It was ten hours round-trip. Elvis, who was just three, sometimes sat on the front steps of his house, crying. He didn't think his father would ever come home.

But Vernon did return, and he found a new job. The family joined a local church. It was at church that Elvis first started singing. He was so good that he sang with the choir. Right away, people could tell that his voice was special. He even won a prize at a fair for singing. Gladys always encouraged Elvis. The family couldn't afford much. However, for Elvis's eleventh birthday, Gladys gave him his first guitar.