Remembering My Father

A year or so after his high school graduation, the Korean War was beginning, so my father and his twin brother enlisted in the US Army. My uncle was sent to Korea, and worked for the Headquarters Batallion, which directed operations. I don't remember exactly what his job there entailed, but I think it was clerical in nature.

For his military service, my father was sent to Germany, to participate in The Marshall Plan, which was rebuilding war-torn Europe after World War II. He served in the Headquarters Company of the 315th Signal Corps Construction Battalion. Their primary objective was facilitating communications, and a large portion of that task involved stringing telephone and telegraph wires across the country. My Dad's job was part of the supplies requisition and delivery team. While he was serving in Germany, he had a few days of leave and decided to rent a motorcycle and ride through the Swiss Alps.

When he returned home from military service, he decided to buy a car from the money he saved. He became frustrated with the run-around and pricing the local dealership was giving him. My grandfather worked as a Station Agent for Southern Railway, and received discount priviledges on travel. So, they bought one-way train tickets to Detroit, traveled there together, and bought a vehicle from a dealership near the factory for a fraction of what the dealership near his home was charging AND was treated better, too! My father and grandfather drove the Plymouth Cranbrook on a roundabout route home, stopping off at Niagara Falls, visited family in Rhode Island, came back through New York City, then stopped to visit more family in Virginia before returning home to Georgia.

He got a job as an Apprentice Tool and Die Maker with a local company that fabricated automobile parts.

My father met my mother through a mutual-friend of both families, and married her a year later. He always told me that the second he laid eyes on her, he knew she was "the one" for him. Throughout their 61+ years of marriage, they remained devoted and faithful to each other, through thick and thin. He told her frequently that he loved her, and always maintained that she was as beautiful to him as the day he married her.

My father moved my family from Georgia to South Carolina for a job opportunity when I was eight years old. Dad worked hard all his life and eventually became a Master at his craft. Being a child of the Great Depression, he was always frugal with his money, and even took second-jobs periodically to make ends meet. As a result we always had food and clothing, even if nothing much was left for frivolities.

As a faithful member of a church all his life, he served in a wide variety of capacities over the years from Usher to Sunday School Superintendent to Chairman of the Administrative Board. Many people have expressed respect and appreciation for the heartfelt, unpretentious way in which he prayed, when asked to offer a prayer after Sunday School and on other occasions.

Even though he was never a member of the choir, he had a beautiful voice and sang joyfully from his usual spot among the pews with other churchgoers. On lazy Sunday afternoons, he would take the family on ambling car rides through the mountains and countryside, often engaging everyone in the car to sing along with him.

He inherited his father's skills with woodworking. He built the house that was our family's first home, doing all the work with his father and two brothers assisting. He built birdhouses to cater to Mom's interest in birds (which became one of her primary fascinations during Empty Nest Syndrome days), plus numerous step-stools, storage boxes, cabinets for the kitchen and laundry room in the present home, as well as the tool shop and storage buildings that are behind the home.

After he put my brother and myself through college, he continued to scrimp and save money so that he and my mother could survive after his retirement. There was enough for them to take a few trips before he began to lose his eyesight, which left him almost totally blind. Many of these trips were to different locations where Mom could indulge her hobby of bird-watching.