Born in Sharp county Arkansas to Enoch Dewey Schales and Ruth Octavia Bonhill Schales. He was the 5th of 11 children. In 1938, they sold the family farm to move to Missouri that taught high school for the oldest daughter. In Missouri the family picked cotton and survived by working as migrant farm labor. In 1939, at age 6, he was fired from his first job for stemming strawberries. Continued migrant farm labor in Louisiana, Missouri, Kentucky, Michigan, and Indiana until his father bought an 160 acre farm in Louisiana.
Franklin graduated