ME - DOWNINGTOWN THE FIRST TIME - CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 14 (1947)

 My mother’s notes say dad received his honorable discharge from the Navy in January 1946. According to her, he got an emergency leave in November 1945 because his mother was dying of cancer. She died January 19, 1946. This indicates they gave him a leave of two to three months, and then simply converted it to an early discharge about the time she died. This is certainly a possibility. My father entered the Navy in March 1943. The enlistment length at that time during World War II was “for the duration of the war, plus six months”. World War II ended on August 15, 1945. This would place the expected discharge date in March 1946. The Navy may have felt with the war over and the circumstances of his mother’s death there was no need to force him back for another two months.

 Mother’s notes also say dad got the job in Glenloch driving milk tankers
after he left the military. This does not fit my timeline. Dad’s discharged coming in 1947 would have fit better, but I know for a fact it was in January 6, 1946, because I have his discharge papers and that is the date they all contain. 

I also know for a fact that it wasn’t until September of 1947, when I was a couple of months past my sixth birthday that I began to attend East Ward Elementary School. 

 This leaves me with a year I can’t fill. Other than his discharge records, I have no other paperwork listing my dad between January 1946 and September

1947. There exist only a few photographs within this period that would prove my dad was there in 1946. These were all obviously taken on the same day, for everyone is wearing the same clothes in each pose. The setting is the same as well, in the backyard of 424 Washington Avenue. Besides my direct family, the

only others shown are the Lukens, Bill, Mary, their son Bobby and a friend of their’s named Peg. I remember the Lukens. Bill Lukens served with my dad in the South Pacific and they remained  friends in civilian life. I remember them visiting us at our home and we visiting them, and I remember playing with Bobby, their son, on those occasions; however, I don’t remember the specific event in the photographs.  I guess they were taken in the Spring of 1946; therefore, this may have been a get-together right after Bill Lukens got his Navy discharge. Still, there is no data in my memory bank about my dad being home during my Kindergarten years. My first memory of dad being back in my life was that milk  tanker job and the consequences of both on my life after December 1947.

However this raises a question.

Where the heck was my father the next year and a half?

In June of 1947 I turned six.

 East Ward Elementary School (pictured) allowed me to enter First Grade that September. My First teacher was Mrs. Mary L. Warren. She was a tall woman with broad shoulders, who sported heavy shoes and a stern face. She took no brook with misbehavior or inattention. She stalked about the classroom and if she thought you a slacker or caught you talking, chewing gum or goofing off, would grab your hair and yank.

I never had my hair pulled by her. I knew my alphabet and could read well in advance of coming to First Grade and I was never a discipline problem. My final grades for the two marking periods I was in her class were 4 As, 2 Bs and an S. The S was Satisfactory in Health. The As were in Reading, Spelling (surprisingly), Arithmetic and Art; the Bs for Penmanship and Music.

I was absent two and a half days in the first

marking period. I don’t know why. I had two of the dreaded children’s diseases in those early years, Chicken Pox and a Mump, but I can’t place a date on when. Yes, I did say Mump rather than mumps. I only had it on one side. Either disease would have kept me out of school more than a couple days. The school nurse probably sent me home for a virus, which would account for the half day. 

Although I never suffered a hair pulling by Mrs. Warren, I observed a number who did in my time there. It wasn’t a gentle tug either. It was a real yank that got the victim’s full attention. Her physical punishments were not limited to hair abuse. My friend Ronald Tipton fell pray to her corrective measures. Ronald (pictured right) was not yet my friend. He was just another face in the crowd even if he was tall enough his face showed above the rest of us.

Ronald had a problem then. He stuttered. When he stuttered, Mrs. Warren would come up behind him and slap the back of his head.

“See D…D…Dick r…r…”

Whamp!

Now through all the years Ronald and I were friends I didn’t hear him stutter. The Mrs. Warren slap cure must have worked.

The approach to education was different in the 1940s from today. Educators forced my  wife to write with her right hand because she was left-handed. Unlike the cure for Ronald’s stutter, this cure didn’t take.

There is a mystery concerning my First Grade report card. I did not return to East Ward Elementary after the 1946 Christmas Break. Despite this, my Downingtown Public School First Grade Report Card contains marks for the last two marking periods and the final exam. These are in a different handwriting than the first periods. The attendance record for the second half of the school year is blank, yet my mother signed as my parent for all these periods on the back of the card. The back of the card also says, “The pupil is hereby promoted to Grade 2”. M. Wallace, Principal approved the report card. Mrs. Yost was the East Ward Principal.

I assume that when I transferred to my new school for the remainder of the year, my Report Card transferred too. It appears that the West Whiteland school used my Downingtown Report rather than issue a new one. I don’t know the reasons for the attendance left blank.

If this last half on the Report is correct, my marks dropped with the transfer. I maintained straight As in Reading, but everything else slid to Bs. Spelling and Music are no longer even  subjects.

And here the mysteries collide. What was my dad doing in 1946 after the service and why is my Downingtown East Ward Report Card complete?

These are the facts I know.

My father did come home from the war early in the year 1946. I was not happy about it. I resented his arrival back on the scene. I had my mother to myself and now he came home and stole her away from me. I was jealous and angry with that. I resented his presence and we were at odds the rest of my childhood. It was partly my fault and partly his. 

My dad did get a job driving Milk Tankers at a company in Glenloch, Pennsylvania called Hines. This is my dad’s account:

“When I got outta the Navy I didn’t want to go back to what I use to do. I wanted something different where I had some freedom to get about. I had a friend workin’ at Hines out in Glenloch told me they were hirin’. He said, ‘Don’t tell Old Man Hines you know mechanics or you’ll never get out of the garage.’  So I told Old Man Hines I was a trucker and he hired me at $50 a month plus the house.” 

Yes, plus the house.

The photo of me on the pony was taken in 1947 obviously ar 424 Washington Avenue. I recognize the background.I lived in Glenloch at that time, so this must have been a weekend I stayed at my grandparents. A man came around with the pony and the chaps and cowboy hat. He must have traveled from state to state. When I worked at Wilmington Trust several of us brought in our photos on that pony wearing the very same outfits.

When this photo was taken I was living in a different place, in the gift house and in a swamp.