KEN'S CHILDHOOD
Willie Mae Wilkinson
enneth Paul Wilkinson was born August 2, 1938 [in the Meridian Sanatorium], to Willie Mae Edwards Wilkinson and Thomas Paul Wilkinson, who were married in 1934. He was their first child. They lived in the East End part of Meridian in a working class neighborhood called Tuxedo. They lived in his maternal grandmother's [Edwards] house. The grandmother lived in the back part, and they lived in the front rooms.
Wilkinson home, Meridian, Mississippi
They were just coming out of the great depression of the late twenties and had not bought a home of their own. He was christened in the Wesley Methodist Church as a baby and was carried regularly to the church. He was a typical little boy with lots of other neighborhood children as playmates. His closest friend at that time was a little boy named Monroe Anderson. They had one fight but never stopped being friends. Monroe now lives in Birmingham, Alabama.
Before he could talk (he was beginning to lisp a few words) his mom would hold him in her lap and they would look at pictures in the bible and she would tell him whom they were. He learned about Jesus from that.
