A bit of history from the 1950's

It’s important to remember history and the way things used to be for our community. This happened just three years after I was born. The arrest of this man actually ruined his life.

As for Wally Pegelow, who denied any involvement with his 1957 accusers, the felony conviction haunted him for the rest of his life. He was forbidden to see his wife, according to his family, and told that his father-in-law had the marriage annulled.

The Army discharged him for bad conduct, a ruling he sought to have reversed in 1965 so that he could serve in Vietnam. As late as 1990, Pegelow appealed to the Army to no avail to let him serve with the National Guard in Operation Desert Storm.

“I am now 54 years old. Over the years since my discharge, I have always tried to be the best person that I could be,” wrote Pegelow, who had twice remarried and had three daughters. “All I am asking is, would you please let me hold my head up a little higher?”

Pegelow died of lung cancer in 2002, according to his third wife, who now lives in Darlington, S.C.

In the 45 years following his imprisonment for a crime against nature, widow Rita Pegelow said her husband never registered to vote, for fear of being told that he was ineligible, and never applied for a job where he had to list his felony conviction, for fear of being turned down. And after the one brief, furtive jailhouse visit arranged by his former mother-in-law, he never saw his son again. (source)