Elwood Payne, of Smithton, was 20 and helping his family on the farm. He never thought he would be the only one of five brothers to be drafted during World War II. He was told to go to the induction center in Fort Leavenworth, Kan. The problem was his family didn’t have a car and they lived in rural Otterville.
His only option was to walk through the woods to his nearest neighbors, the Gertrude Potter family. Her husband, Farold Clark, picked him up and took him to the bus stop in Versailles. He traveled to Kansas and was inducted on Feb. 8, 1943.
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