Thomas Wheat, Jr

Thomas Allen Wheat Jr. of the Southside community in Dallas County died at his home Wednesday. He was 86. Funeral services will be held on Saturday March 6, 2009 at Elkdale Baptist Church in Selma at 10 a.m. with the Rev. Micah Gandy officiating and Lawrence Brown-Service Funeral Home directing with burial to follow at New Live Oak Cemetery Mr. Wheat was born on September 3, 1922, in Marengo County and grew up in Tuscaloosa. He graduated from Tuscaloosa High School in 1940 and soon enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He served for six years. In the months before the United States entered World War II, he was a technician on American ships escorting war supplies being sent to Great Britain. During the war, he served in the North Atlantic, the Mediterranean and the South Pacific. After the war, his ship provided support for Operation Crossroads, the atomic bomb tests at the Bikini Atoll, and he witnessed the fourth and fifth explosions of atomic bombs. In 1944, while home on leave, he married Angeline Evans of Windham Springs in Tuscaloosa County. After his discharge from the Navy, they owned a farm in Windham Springs and he worked at the BF Goodrich plant near Tuscaloosa. In 1954 he was hired as a technician for the DuPont Corporation���s Savannah River Project near Augusta, Ga., which produced materials for the American military���s production of hydrogen bombs, and his family lived in nearby Beach Island, S.C. In 1957, Mr. Wheat brought his growing family back to Alabama when he began working for the Gulf States Paper Corp. plant in Demopolis. The family lived in York and then Livingston in Sumter County. In 1967 he was hired to work at the new Hammermill Paper Co. plant at Selma. The Wheat family lived in Autaugaville from 1967-70 then moved to Tyler in Dallas County. The Wheats were active in Baptist churches where they lived. Mr. and Mrs. Wheat were members of Shiloh Baptist Church, where Mr. Wheat became a deacon, for 25 years, and were members of Elkdale Baptist Church later in their lives. Mrs. Wheat died in 2005. At Hammermill, Mr. Wheat was an official of the local International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, serving on union contract negotiating teams. After their retirement, Mr. and Mrs. Wheat were active in the Dallas County Mental Health Association and the U.S.S. Vulcan veterans��� organization. Mr. Wheat is survived by five sons: Thomas Allen Wheat III of Gainesville, the Rev. Mallory Wheat of Selma, Dr. John Wheat of Northport, Jack Wheat of Tampa, Fla., and Phillip Wheat of Selma; two daughters, Ann Gault and Susan Keith, both of Selma; four daughters-in-law, Virginia Fields Wheat of Gainesville, Dr. Patricia Hallman Wheat of Northport, Denise Williamson Wheat of Selma and Dru Ellis Wheat of Birmingham; a son-in-law, Alston Keith of Selma; a sister, Virginia Wheat McDaniel of Northport; six grandsons; eight granddaughters; one great-grandson and five great-granddaughters. Pallbearers will be his grandsons, David Wheat, Jonathan Gault, Thomas Allen Wheat IV, Jeremy Wheat, K.C. Moreland, and Cody Wheat. Honorary pallbearers will be: The Frank Earnest Sunday School Class. The family will receive friends from 6-8 p.m. on Friday March 6, 2009 at the funeral home