Rumsey Holt “Pete” Alexander was born on March 13, 1915 in the Siloam community of Trigg County, Kentucky, the son of Raymond and Madie Rhea Noel Alexander. He attended school in Trigg County and graduated from the Cadiz High School in 1934. Prior to WWII Pete and his mother operated a restaurant known as “Pete’s Café” located in downtown Cadiz at the corner of Marion and Main streets.
Pete was the first individual to be drafted from Trigg County for WWII. Although there were 30 names on the draft board rolls before his name, they were all volunteers, making Pete, who was number 31, the official first draftee.
Pete entered service at Evansville, Indiana and his military qualifications stated he was an “expert sub Mg Cal 45 Marksman M-1 Rifle 43”. He departed the US on March 23, 1944 and served in the European-African-Middle-Eastern Theater. His battles and campaigns included Normandy, Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes and Central Europe. Pete returned to the US on November 4, 1945.
On April 4, 1949, he married Virginia Dare Thomas. He and Virginia lived in Cadiz, Kentucky their entire lives. He was the owner and operator of Pete’s Service Station, a well known business in Cadiz.
**Pete’s Service Station was a downtown Cadiz icon for more than forty years. Its location at the corner of Court and Main Streets goes back to the founding of Cadiz in the 1820’s.
Pete’s Service Station was so much more than a place to purchase gasoline, get an oil change, have your car greased or to get a tire repaired. It was a throwback to an earlier time---the antithesis of the brightly lit and spotless modern service station. While most of his competitors were using modern electronic credit card processing equipment, Pete continued to fill out credit card charge slips by hand. People of all walks of life cycled in and out of Pete’s all day long to hear the latest gossip or local news. Some would make purchases but most made stopping there for a time part of their routine. During the winter, they’d gather around the old coal stove but in the summer, they’d sit on the long wooden bench outside facing the courthouse and pontificate on topics of the day.
About ten o’clock every weekday morning, a diverse group of men would gather at Pete’s to “pull Cokes.” Included were bankers and lawyers in suits, butchers in their aprons, merchants and postal workers. Beforehand, Pete had pulled out a drawer in his old rolltop desk in which each participant would drop a dollar bill and would then buy a six-ounce Coca Cola from the vending machine. One by one, each participant would announce where his Coke bottle was manufactured (in those days, it was on the bottom of each bottle.) The person with the Coke whose bottle was made the most distant from Cadiz would win the pot in the drawer. Sometimes, it would require the group to consult the U.S. map on Pete’s wall.
On February 4, 1991 forty years to the day after he opened his service station, Pete Alexander retired.
Pete died on July 18, 2001 in Hopkinsville, Kentucky and was buried in the East End Cemetery in Cadiz, along with his wife, Virginia.
**Additional information on Pete’s Service Station by Dan Thomas from the Trigg County Historical Society’s display in 2019 on Cadiz Businesses at the Trigg County Museum.
Pete Alexander Grave Marker
LINEAGE: (Pete Alexander was the husband of Virginia Dare Thomas. Virginia was the daughter of Eura Wesley and Lucy Pearl Lawrence Thomas, the granddaughter of Wesley Gunn and Eliza L. Henderson Thomas and the great-granddaughter of Stanley and Emily Ann Light Thomas. Stanley was the second child of Starkie and Mary Bridges Thomas. Starkie was the fourth child of James and Mary Standley Thomas. Mary was the seventh child of Drury and Charity Cohoon Bridges.)
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