Elvis - Tupelo Birplace 1 - Project Idea

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Elvis - Tupelo Birplace 1

Elvis was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, which was a dirt-poor town in the deep South. The Presley's were poor as any white Southerners could be. Vernon Presley, Elvis' father, worked as a sharecropper, his mother, Gladys Presley, at the Tupelo Garment Co as a machine operator. Vernon was not an ambitious man, considered lazy, and for a time spent 18 months at Parchman Penitentiary for check forgery.

Gladys gave birth to identical twin boys, Elvis Aaron and Jessie Garon but Jessie died at birth. This led Elvis to comment throughout his life that he always felt emptiness in his life where his brother should have been. This trauma bonded Elvis and Gladys. Mother and son were devoted to each another to the extreme.

Elvis' father, Vernon, with the help from his father, Jessie (Elvis' grandfather) and his brother, Vester, (Elvis' uncle) built this home in 1934 with $180.00 that Vernon borrowed from his employer. It was in this humble, two-room house lit by a single light bulb in each room that Elvis Aaron Presley was born on January 8, 1935.

Financially, times were hard on Vernon and Gladys and they had to move out of the home where Elvis was born when he was two and a half years old for lack of payment. Vernon and Gladys worked various jobs while in Tupelo and moved several different times during the thirteen years they resided in Mississippi.

In 1957 Elvis performed at a concert at the Tupelo Fairground and donated the proceeds from that concert to the City of Tupelo to purchase his birthplace and childhood home and the surrounding property. It was Elvis' desire that a park be built around the home where the neighborhood children could play.

The home stands in its original location and has been restored to its original condition and decorated with period furniture.