My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
My Life
in Review: Have I been Lucky or What?
That spring I re-entered the job market, applying for a position at Fillmore Central School. I did not favorably impress the Principal, Andy Haynes, at the interview. He told me that I was "overqualified" for a high school history job—an ironic, wrongheaded and disingenuous observation (there was some other reason but I never found out what it was). However, the members of the Board of Education thought differently and told him to hire me. One of them later told me that Carl Becker's recommendation was decisive. In any event in the fall of 1940 I returned home and commenced my teaching career at Fillmore only four miles away. In the meantime Jill's fine performance at Sardinia won her an appointment at Mt. Morris at a higher salary in a larger school twenty-five miles from Fillmore.
The fall of 1940 found Britain facing a grim situation and the prospect of an imminent invasion by Hitler's war machine but I was preoccupied with the pleasures of pedagogy and the prospect of imminent marriage. In September we decided on a "Franksgiving" wedding (FDR had issued an Executive Order moving Thanksgiving up a week). We bought a 1937 Oldsmobile Club Coupe for $375. (Jill paid for it; I hadn't earned any money yet.) So we were able to travel to Jamestown to make wedding preparations. They included several trips to Buffalo with Jill's mother to buy a wedding trousseau.
Despite preoccupation with the forthcoming, knot-tying event I was enjoying teaching and felt I was getting off to a good start in a congenial atmosphere. The physical environment was attractive (a brand new building); the social setting pleasant (responsive students and genial male colleagues—Bob Collins, Bill Appleford, Jim Young. and Bob Boehmler—constituting, a faculty basketball team).
I bought an engagement ring with my first paycheck, one of my few contributions to the several steps in launching us on "the sea of matrimony." The weekend before the knot-tying we had to journey to Jamestown to obtain the marriage license. An ice storm had struck the region creating dangerously slippery roads but we were not deterred. However, Dad, who was deathly afraid of icy pavements, was prompted to provide us with train tickets for the next week's honeymoon trip to Philadelphia as a wedding present.
The wedding week's weather turned out to be crisp and clear. Roger, Jill's brother, gave us the rehearsal dinner at The Apple Inn. The wedding party included Betty Jane Sturgis, Jill's suite mate at Houghton, as Maid of Honor, Carolyn Jones and Phyllis Olson, long time friends as attendants and Sally Lagerquist, daughter of Jill's cousin Albert, as flower girl. On the groom's side Walt Sheffer, a college colleague, was Best Man while Bob Luckey and Roger were ushers. After the reception I went to Walt's home in Youngsville.
November 21, 1940 dawned brightly. Our morning ceremony took place in the Lutheran Immanuel Church, Jill's home church, with Felix Hanson officiating. We were hitched without any hitch. The post-wedding luncheon, featuring chicken fricassee and lots of goodies in addition to the traditional wedding cake was held at stately Le Van's Tea Room, a former mansion, now the Sheldon House. The Carlsons provided a first-class launching of our marital voyage and I owe them my eternal gratitude.
After the reception we shuffled off to Buffalo in our merry Oldsmobile, ate supper at McDoel's restaurant. The entree? Chicken again! We were having a cackling good time. That evening we tooled out to the cavernous Buffalo Station, boarded the Philadelphia train and commenced our conjugal journey. When the train stopped in Olean someone came on board and plopped heavily down in berth "upper ten" directly above us. The next morning I ran into "Doc" Paine, our College President, in the washroom, discovering that he was the occupant of "upper ten." He helped carry our luggage to a taxi, adding his blessing to our marital venture. A couple of years later as President of the Houghton Alumni Association I was able to thank him publicly for accompanying us on our honeymoon—certainly an act of supererogation for a college president!
We stayed at the Ben Franklin Hotel, ate at Bookbinders, toured the city and attended the annual Turkey Day classic between Cornell and the University of Pennsylvania. It was an exciting game, won by the Quakers in the last minute by virtue of a heroic touchdown run by their star back, Francis Reagan. Our tickets to the game were Bob Luckey's wedding present. I was not a sufficiently zealous Cornellian to be crushed by the "Big Red's" defeat. Besides as a happy honeymooner I was in a state of euphoria as well as the State of Pennsylvania.
Since we had jobs twenty-five miles apart we didn't set up housekeeping immediately. Jill kept her room in Mt. Morris and I continued to live at home in Houghton, commuting to Mt. Morris two or three times per week. As the fall semester neared its end Jill, saddled with a superhuman load, decided to resign and we rented a second-story, furnished apartment in Fillmore. It was dark and drab with nondescript furniture, no kitchen sink and no dining area. But Jill made the most of it, providing delicious candlelight dinners in the foyer-hallway and sparking the place up with colorful knickknacks. And, as Dr. Al put it, "It was secluded." Life proceeded smoothly and happily (at least for me) except on one occasion when she fed me a whole batch of waffles, creating a somnolent condition which prevented me from participating in the weekly cleaning (this occurred while she was still teaching). However, she continued to furnish me with such sumptuous meals that I began to take on an inflated look. That spring we had belated wedding pictures taken and I presented the appearance of a groom who had been stuffed into his wedding suit.
During the spring semester Andy Haynes, the Principal, received word from Albany that each school would be expected to develop its own history syllabi and transmit them to the State Social Studies Supervisor at the State Education Department for approval. My assignment was to draft innovative syllabi for World History and for a two-year American History course. This became my summer job—without pay. I completed the task, sending the syllabi to Albany that fall. My reward came when I received the response. The letter of approval contained a glowing commentary on the quality of the work. This was in sharp contrast to their assessment of the syllabus submitted by the Junior High teacher which was rejected. One tangible result of my salaryless summer: The State Social Studies Supervisor recommended me to several principals as a person they should have on their staffs. However, I was not in a position to take advantage of any of those opportunities. My draft classification in the spring of '42 was changed to 1A and I was on the brink of military service.
That second year in Fillmore (1941-42) saw us leave our twenty dollar per month drab, second-story apartment and move into a house with a fourteen dollar monthly rental (my salary that year was fourteen hundred dollars). The house we occupied was really half a house, although it was a free standing edifice. Bob Gillette, the head custodian at Fillmore Central, had bought a large house, cut it in two and moved the structure we were to live in to an empty lot on School Street. He remodeled the interior, consulting us in regard to the kitchen arrangements and color scheme. It was a two-story edifice with a large kitchen, small but cozy living room and downstairs bathroom. The upstairs space contained two bedrooms. We furnished it with a combination of new pieces (sofa, chairs, rugs) and old (refrigerator, stove, dressers, beds) borrowed from my folks and freshly painted by Dad Carlson.
Our new abode was quite attractive on the inside but had a seedy outside appearance. It sorely needed a fresh coat of paint and was surrounded by an unseeded yard nearly hidden under a big pile of dirt. There was no basement and the pipes in the bathroom were exposed to the weather. The old floor furnace in the living room was indicative of the minimal nature of our domicile. The pilot light seemed shaky, having a tendency to flicker out. Our parents and even the local druggist, who knew about its idiosyncrasy, worried that it would go out in the night, permitting gas to seep into the living room and upstairs, asphyxiating us. We were too naive to share their concern. Furthermore, the lack of a cinder block border around and under the house allowed access by small animals. We actually heard a rat gnawing into the fabric of our Louis XVI carpet and discovered evidence that such rodent rummaging had taken place more than once. Fortunately they were never able to break through but the thought of a possible rodent invasion was a bit unsettling.
Still we had fun playing house. We entertained the Carlsons (Dad, Mother and Roger) at Christmas. We decorated that little old place to the hilt. My present for Jill was a phonograph and record albums, including the theme songs of the Big Bands. Christmas morning we danced to the swinging rhythms of Benny Goodman's "Let's Dance" and the signature songs of Tommy Dorsey, Artie Shaw and Harry James. What fun!
Nearly every evening we capped off the day with Sealtest ice cream raspberry tarts in front of our open gas-burning "fireplace." We entertained company for dinner—Bob Luckey, Walt Sheffer, Joe and Monica Cole (he was the basketball coach) as well as our parents. Friday nights we went to the Fillmore Hotel for fish fries. We enjoyed the movies at The Opera House. I was "as happy as a clam at high tide," as pleased with my situation as an affluent middle class husband living in a fine home in suburbia.
I viewed our modest quasi-dilapidated dwelling place in the "hick-town" atmosphere of Fillmore (the main street looked like a western movie set with wooden false-fronts on the few stores) through romantic lenses (several years later when Fillmore celebrated its centennial the slogans were "a century without progress" and "a century of rigor mortis"). Looking back I wonder how I could be so contented and complacent in a situation which an ambitious person would not tolerate very long. The answer, of course, is that I was happy living with Jill, her cooking and caring. I liked my job, had remarkably good students. My first star student, Lyle Brown, who earned an "A' in History A, went on to obtain a Ph.D. and a professorship at Baylor University. My ace student in American History, Warren Richardson, became a highly successful lawyer and lobbyist in Washington. So there I was living in what from a broader perspective and more sophisticated view would be regarded as a physically minimal and culturally impoverished environment which, in my state of euphoria, I regarded as idyllic. Jill knew better, had a larger perspective and a more far-sighted vision but neither needled nor nagged me about my complacency.
Soon, however, the spell of arcadian contentment was broken. My 3A draft classification was changed to 1A and in the spring of '42 I was now subject to being called into the army. I never received that official letter from the War Department which begins with the salutatory "greetings." We spent the Easter weekend in Jamestown. Jill noted an item in the Jamestown Morning Post which announced that married men were now eligible for the V-7 program, a program designed to produce Naval Officers. I checked into the Jamestown recruiting office, launched the process, passed the physical in Buffalo, was sworn in and ready for orders to Midshipman's School at the close of the school year. Jill's spotting that announcement proved to be a pivotal point in our lives. It generated a chain of events—three and a half years of service in the Navy, including nearly two years of action in the Southwest Pacific and, after the war the generous benefits of the G.I. Bill—that culminated in the completion of a Ph.D. and a career as a college professor and administrator. I've often wondered what our lives would have been like if Jill hadn't read that paper and spotted that announcement.
Commencement came, I resigned my position. Andy Haynes graciously but also shrewdly tapped Jill to take my job. (I say "shrewdly" because he knew she was an excellent teacher.) Now the waiting period for my orders began. I expected them momentarily so I just fiddled around, waited and did more fiddling since I was not eligible for gainful employment. The summer dragged on—with more Friday night fish fries—and finally evolved to fall. Jill went off to school, yours truly languished at home. I took daily trips to the post office uncomfortably aware that people were wondering how an able-bodied young man could be sitting out the war.
With my self-esteem at low ebb I was becoming difficult to live with. A couple of weeks into September I wrote the Bureau of Naval Personnel presenting the data on my enlistment and inquiring about my orders. Within a few days I received a reply, informing me that my records had been misplaced but that my reminder had triggered their recovery. Then came the orders to report to Notre Dame Midshipman's School on October 4th. The wait was over. No longer did I have to sit home and watch my wife go to work every morning. The great adventure had begun.
When I enlisted I listed 69 Benson Street as my home address so the train ticket which accompanied my orders specified Jamestown as the point of departure. I was scheduled to take Erie's New York—Chicago train at five twenty Sunday morning, October 4th. Dad Carlson took me to the station. With his penchant for punctuality we got there in plenty of time. It turned out to be a so-called "milk train," stopping at every city, town and village enroute, taking all day to reach South Bend, Indiana. The tedium of the trip was somewhat relieved by listening to the radio broadcast of the World Series between the Cardinals and the Yankees but I was an indifferent listener that day. At another time I would have been excited about the Cardinal's victory but my mind was preoccupied with speculation about my possible role in a more significant contest: The Yankees and the Brits vs. the Axis Powers.
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