When his seven children were young, J. Don Brock bought them go-karts for Christmas. He gave them money, vacations. He and his first wife had portraits done of each child. As they grew older, he never hesitated to buy them a home or offer them a job at his multimillion-dollar asphalt equipment company.
The late Astec Industries CEO was a workaholic who traveled often on his private plane. Even on vacation, his family had to hide his briefcase to prevent him from working. But Sundays were for family. The business magnate would empty his mind, take his flock to New Hope Presbyterian Church, and tell his children he loved them.
This is the portrait that recent sworn depositions from five of Brock's children paint of their father before he divorced his wife of 31 years. But after a custody battle in the 1990s and marriage to his longtime secretary, Sammye Brock, he changed into an easily manipulated person, the children said.
Brock never told five of his seven children they would be disinherited, according to the depositions. They didn't know he'd written several wills over the years. But when he died in March 2015 from complications with mesothelioma cancer, the five children were surprised to receive copies of their father's final will in the mail.
And even more surprised to see their names were missing.
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The five children have contested their father's estate, claiming their stepmother, Sammye Brock, conspired with other family members to axe them from the 2013 will. The children say their two older siblings and Sammye Brock's two children are beneficiaries of the estate. They blame undue influence, fraud and civil conspiracy for their exclusion. For instance, in Brock's 1994 will, four of the five children are included.
The depositions - which the children's attorney, Jerry Summers, filed last week on their behalf - shine the most intimate light on the family's inner workings since the lawsuit emerged in September 2015.
Summers declined to comment beyond the depositions. Richard Bethea, one of the attorneys defending the Brock estate, was unavailable for comment.
When J. Don Brock adopted Melissa Sue Adcock and her four biological siblings in 1983, he wanted the children to be happy "because they had come from such a bad home and had to eat out of [Dumpsters]," her deposition states.
Melissa Sue Adcock remembered taking turns with her siblings to visit their father at work on Saturdays. Brock and his wife, Lynne, adopted seven children in all. The CEO loved taking photos with them, especially his pretty daughters, according to her deposition.
The depositions also revealed splinters in the marriage.
After Lynne Brock caught her husband in an affair with his secretary in the 1970s, she asked her husband to fire the woman multiple times. Darryl William Brock remembered his father's response: "You take care of what's at home, and I will take care of what's at the office."
Darryl Brock struggled to behave. Four years after his adoption he began drinking alcohol, an addiction he would struggle with until he found permanent sobriety in December 2010.
His father paid for him to attend private schools, but in 1993, he was kicked out of Tallulah Falls School after running away during the fall semester. It happened one month after Lynne Brock visited to tell him about the divorce.
From there, Darryl Brock drifted in and out of schools, jobs and rehab clinics. According to his deposition, Darryl Brock admitted in his 20s he was sexually abused as a young boy at Riverside Military Academy. His family never filed a lawsuit and he never received counseling, his deposition states.
Still, "despite all the disappointments, J. Don Brock had forgiven Darryl, attended his wedding, and gave him money for a down payment on a house," his deposition states.
After their father won custody of the children in the divorce, he married Sammye Brock on July 4, 1998. She brought two new children into the fold. The five children said their stepmother favored her children while subjecting them to different treatment, as Krystal Gail Brock Parker recalled in her deposition.
On a trip to Wyoming, when Krystal asked for a necklace, her father deferred to Sammye Brock about money, saying it was up to her. As the children consistently said in their depositions, Sammye Brock knew her husband's signature and often signed Christmas checks or work documents for 20 years.
On that trip, though, "Sammye would not buy the necklace," one deposition states, "but [she] did buy more expensive items for Krissy's stepsister."
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For Jennifer Rebecca Brock Turner - who worked at Astec at various times from 1995 to 1999 - the tension worsened when she moved out of the family home, her deposition states.
For a few years, she and her first husband lived in a downstairs apartment at Brock's estate. Once she left, Jennifer Turner maintained a good relationship with her father, writing him letters at home and work. But Brock told her he didn't receive all her letters and she wondered if Sammye Brock was throwing them away.
Jennifer Turner and her father had a long conversation in 2007 because he was disappointed she'd had two children as a result of her affairs. But according to her deposition, "he never said he would disinherit [her] for it and never mentioned that he was also guilty of having an affair."
Melissa Sue Adcock recalled that after his 2012 mesothelioma diagnosis her father sometimes seemed confused when she spoke to him on the phone.
"There were times that he would not be able to finish the conversation because he couldn't breathe," her deposition stated.
When Brock was receiving treatment, Sammye Brock would control - and sometimes block - the children's access to him, the depositions stated.
Walter Edward Brock, the oldest of the five adopted children, said in his deposition that after his father was hospitalized on March 7, 2015, Sammye Brock never contacted him.
Walter Edward Brock had scrapes with the law. He was arrested in 1996 and sentenced to county jail on burglary-related charges, court records show. But his father visited him three times, and Lynne Brock stopped by weekly, according to his deposition.
Despite these errors, the father purchased a trailer for his son, according to the deposition. Darryl Brock lived on Astec company property, where he also worked on and off for a company subsidiary between 1993 and 1997, the deposition states.
After J. Don Brock died on March 10, 2015, his funeral was tinged with drama, the children's depositions show.
Richard Bethea, the attorney defending Brock's estate, gave the eulogy. He talked about Brock's patents, his work, his life with Sammye Brock. Bethea never mentioned his life before Sammye Brock, or the five adopted children, the depositions state.
Later, during a post-funeral reception at the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club, two separate slide shows played.
In one, pictures rolled across the screen of J. Don Brock and Sammye Brock during their life together, smiling, hugging, posing.
In another were the photos of the businessman with his children before Sammye Brock.
Contact Zack Peterson at zpeterson@timesfree press.com or 423-757-6347 with story ideas or tips. Follow @zackpeterson918.