In November 1948, a 13-year-old Elvis Presley left Tupelo, Mississippi, for the big city.
He rode to Memphis with his parents, Gladys and Vernon, in their 1937 Plymouth. His grandmother Minnie Mae came along too. They didn’t have much, and they were hoping Memphis would give them a fresh start.
For a bigger look at that trip, this video follows the family’s move from Tupelo to Memphis.
A look at the Presleys’ move from Tupelo to Memphis
Billy Smith was part of that story too. He was Elvis’s first cousin, the son of Gladys’s oldest brother, Travis Smith. He was eight years younger than Elvis. When the Presleys got to Memphis, Billy’s family was with them.
The Presleys’ first Memphis home was on Washington Street. As the Graceland blog puts it, “The family’s first address in Memphis was 370 Washington and they paid $11/week in rent.”
Years later, in January 2006, Billy sat down with Piers Beagley of the Elvis Information Network. Beagley noted that the two families lived under one roof when they first arrived, and he asked Billy what he remembered most about those early days in the city.
What was the big change?
Billy’s answer was simple.
“Well for one thing, we had inside plumbing!”
Billy was just a little boy then, and that’s what makes his answer so sweet. Grown-ups worry about rent and jobs. A small boy notices what’s new and exciting in the house.
It’s the kind of thing most of us never think twice about. For a little boy from Mississippi, it was a whole new world, and he still remembered it more than half a century later.
You can hear Billy in his own voice here, talking about Elvis with Jo Smith.
Billy and Jo Smith talk about Elvis
But Billy didn’t pretend those first months were easy.
“That was a lot different and I remember that it took a while for everyone to get jobs,” he said.
Billy’s father and Elvis’s father went looking for work, and they walked a long way doing it. “Uncle Vernon and Daddy looked for jobs and they even wore out the soles of their shoes,” Billy said.
So they made do. “I remember them cutting pasteboard to put in their shoes to cover the holes.”
Food was simple, too. Very simple.
“We had to eat turnip greens for a month,” Billy said.
Elvis was a teenager by then, old enough to have opinions about supper. And one month of the same green leaves was enough for him. “Elvis swore that he would never touch another one after that, and I don’t guess he ever did.”
It’s a funny little line. It’s also a peek at how far that family had to come.
The Presleys didn’t stay on Washington Street long. In September 1949 they moved on to Lauderdale Courts.
Still, when Billy looked back on that first Memphis home, what he talked about was his daddy and Uncle Vernon out pounding the pavement in patched-up shoes. And a cousin who had eaten all the turnip greens he ever wanted.