Who the Heck Is Corky

When Wheeler came home from work the next day, Lucille informed him that she had named the son Wheeler Neil Junior. Wheeler quickly informed her that he had promised his employer, Johnny McDade that the new son would be named John after him. So I became John Wheeler (Neil) Daut and also missed being a junior -- by one day.

In a place far away, about the same time, on May 2, 1928 a cartoonist named Scancarell introduced a new character to the popular comic strip, "Gasoline Alley." The new character, named Corky, was the first child and son of Walt and Phyllis Wallet, the stars of the strip at that time. They did already have an adopted son named Skeezix he was left on their doorstep in a basket in February of 1921.

Corky's most recognizable features were a long gown that covered his feet and a cowlick in his hair. On the spur of the moment, one morning, mother decided that we should drive down to Pine Island to visit her mother. When she carried me into the house in my long gown with my cowlick sticking up, my uncle "Buster" Milam looked up and said, "That's Corky." From that day on, I have been know as and called Corky by almost everyone in Pine Island.

At the Milam Family reunion in Waller on October 5, 1986, I was elected to the office of Milam Family Historian. The title suggested to me that I should combine two of my hobbies, genealogy and the computer to create a written Milam history. Through various marriages over the past 90 years the Milam history project seemed to include about half the families in Pine Island, so a logical extension of the research seemed to be a history of the community.