The first day he hung out his shingle, a teacher came to complain that the Superintendent of Education had fired him. God was smiling on Big John, and his success was immediate. The room was so small he had to climb over his desk to sit in his chair. He paid two dollars for a month’s rent and bought a desk and two chairs for three. He had an old typewriter, three law books and five dollars in his pocket. In 1939, “Big John”, as he became known, opened his one‑man, one‑room office on the town square of the booming town of Ashland (four hundred inhabitants). They agreed that after one year, if the practice did not provide a reasonable income, that they would move to New York, Orene did not want to leave Mississippi and persuaded him to open a private, one‑man firm in Ashland. After gradation, John had been offered a job in New York City. This was as close as she could get to John. In 1938, Orene was hired as a high school English teacher in Ashland, Mississippi. Orene and John could wait no longer and were secretly married. Despite his charm and wit, the Ellis family did not want Orene to marry an Italian, Catholic, Yankee boy. The courtship continued until Orene graduated. Orene, at the insistence of her parents, attended Blue Mountain College to become a teacher. Many of his classmates and friends remembered his skill and courage in the boxing ring.

He paid his way by making the boxing team, taking up laundry, and selling candy. Farese won the acceptance of his teammates and the heart of Orene.Īfter graduation from Holmes, John attended the University of Mississippi Law School in Oxford, Mississippi. He met a beautiful southern girl named Orene “Boots” Ellis from Mathiston. Five other “damn Yankees” came with John, and, after two weeks of the hot, August sun, all had left but him. Farese, a son of an Italian immigrant, left Boston, Massachusetts, and came to Holmes Junior College in Goodman, Mississippi, on a football scholarship.

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