Early Life
Graves was born in Hope Hull, Alabama, son of David and Mattie Bibb Graves and a descendant of Alabama's first governor William Wyatt Bibb. Graves' father died when he was one year old, and he was reared first by his paternal grandfather on an Alabama farm and then by an uncle in Texas. Bibb attended the University of Alabama, where he was a member of the school's inaugural football team. After graduating with a degree in civil engineering (1893), Graves earned a degree from Yale Law School (1896). Graves was elected to the Alabama legislature and later served as the city attorney in Montgomery.
As adjutant general of the Alabama National Guard, he helped organize the 1st Alabama Cavalry and served on the Mexican border in 1916. In World War I, Graves commanded as a colonel the 117th U.S. Field Artillery in France, and upon his return to Alabama, he helped organize the state section of the American Legion.
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Famous quotes related to early life:
“... goodness is of a modest nature, easily discouraged, and when much elbowed in early life by unabashed vices, is apt to retire into extreme privacy, so that it is more easily believed in by those who construct a selfish old gentleman theoretically, than by those who form the narrower judgments based on his personal acquaintance.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)