Biographical Note

Born March 11, 1949 in Hoboken, Georgia, Ralph Wilkerson was raised on a turpentine camp owned and operated by Frank Dukes. A childhood friend of Willie “Coon” White, Jr., Wilkerson was also a member of the “Little Boys’ Squad.” By the time he was 12 years old, he had learned the ways of the woods while dipping gum with his peers and watching his father and other elders work through the long, hot days among the pines.

The first 17 years of Wilkerson’s life were spent in the turpentine quarters. At 17, he left the woods and entered the job corps before working in a machine shop, on the railroad, and finally for an asphalt plant in Florida. He returned to Georgia as a 25-year-old eager to go back into the turpentine business. He was hired at the Varn Turpentine Still in Hoboken, where it was his job to unload the heavy barrels of gum from the trucks and roll them to the kettle for cooking. When the still followed the turpentine industry’s demise, Varn was hired on to work in the sawmill at Varn Wood Products in Hoboken.

He works at the sawmill with Willie White still today, and he lives with his wife in Waycross.

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