William Kennon

WILLIAM R. (Hoss) KENNON December 23, 1925 - May 2, 2014. of Old Hickory, Tennessee. Formerly of Memphis and Paris, Tennessee. After nineteen months in military hospitals, the Navy sent Hoss Kennon home to die. The Navy and Army doctors who had been treating him finally admitted that they couldn't keep him alive any longer, and wanted him to be at home when the inevitable happened. The farm boy, who three summers earlier, could jump into the saddle of a galloping horse without touching the stirrups, wasn't supposed to live another month. His mother, Minnie Kennon, who already had her other three sons home safely from WWII, told them they were wrong. "I'm not about to lose my baby now." So, the story goes, with the newspapers and the phone that she had available in April of 1945, she convinced a Navy doctor to tell a U.S. Senator to persuade a Navy Admiral to put a case of penicillin on an airplane and fly it from Washington, D.C. to Paris, TN. That penicillin, the first penicillin in Tennessee, and his mother's determination, saved Hoss's life. His recovery would still take another year. He would finish high school, marry the former LaRue Montgomery of McKenzie, TN; go back to work for the Department of Defense; raise two sons and make sure they got through college, and graduate school. Then, he would watch as his three grandchildren were born. He retired from the Department of Defense after thirty-one years, volunteered as a driver for the Crippled and Burned Unit of the Shriners Hospitals; carrying hundreds of children to the Shriner's burn unit in Galveston, TX and the Crippled Children's Hospital in Louisville, KY for the next fifteen years. He also volunteered with the Shelby County Sheriff's Department at the Agricultural Center. So, for 70 years, his mother would be right. In later years, her fight would be carried on by Hoss's son, the Doctor, who was just as determined to keep Hoss alive. Today, Hoss joined the 1.3 million Americans who have died from war-related deaths since the Revolutionary War. He is preceded in death by his parents, Hampton Kennon and Minnie Kennon, of Paris, TN; LaRue Montgomery Kennon, of Memphis, formerly of McKenzie, TN; as well as his brothers Allen, Wade, and Johnny Kennon of Paris, TN. He is survived by his sister, Winnie Kennon Perkins of Paris, TN; his two sons, Roy Stanley Kennon, M.D. of Nashville, TN and Jerry Alan Kennon, of Old Hickory, TN; his three grandchildren, Isabel, Will, and Cole, as well as many nieces, nephews, great-nieces and nephews and dear friends. A brief memorial service will be held on Monday, the 5th of May at 3:45 p.m. at McKendree Chapel, followed by visitation in Memphis, TN at Memorial Park on Tuesday night May 6th from 5 -7 p.m.; as well as visitation at noon on Wednesday May 7th and burial at 1 p.m. in Memorial Park in Memphis, TN, with the Bro. Benny Jackson, a dear, long-time friend, presiding. The family requests, in lieu of flowers, any gifts be sent to the Shriner 's Hospital Unit, Al Chymia Shrine, 5770 Shelby Oaks Drive, Memphis, TN.