JD Recollections

Recollections

Shongolo to 1952

Recollections

Recollections

I am now 80 years old--no great achievement today (1997), but I believe it makes me the oldest of the male siblings of my family, and of my parents' families, that I can remember. It also makes me 73 years removed from living where I was born in Raleigh, Mississippi in Smith County.

P ART 1

Recollections

My memories of living on the farm on Shongolo Creek, four miles from Raleigh, however, are still quite vivid. Perhaps, this is due to the change to another lifestyle by our moving to what was then considered a "big" city Hattiesburg, MS in Forrest County. Shongolo farm life was by today's standard very primitive. Neighbors were distant from one another because each family owned so many acres of land. I can remember only five families within a two mile radius-- and all of them were relatives.

I was born in our home on October 10, 1916. I was delivered by a midwife, because the only doctor in that part of Smith County was ill at the time. However the midwife was a family cousin by the name of Sarah Craft. She signed and the doctor later turned in the birth record to the county and state. Years later when I needed a birth certificate, I requested one from the state and received one by return mail.

All my childhood memories of this period are happy ones They go back to at least before age four. I distinctly remember the birth of my brother James, who was born in July of 1920 at the same family home on Shongolo Creek. The older sisters had taken me to the creek to go swimming, so that we would be out of the house for my mother to give birth to her baby.

Naturally I didn't know anything about this at the time, but a signal from the house apparently had been planned, so that we would know when to come home. When we got there we found that we had a new baby brother. My mother was holding him in her arms and proudly showing him to all of us.

We were all pleased that it was a boy, because our mother had had four girls and one boy before this, but the boy had died of whooping cough at about age 1. So, now there was a second son in her family. My father had three sons and a daughter by his first wife, but they were all adults by this time and not living at home with the second set of children. I had apparently been a bit spoiled as the only boy in the family.

The time frame between 1916 and 1920 was a critical time for our country. Between the time I was born in 1916 and James' birth in 1920, Germany and its allies had waged war against the other European powers. This struggle had gradually enticed the United States of America to become involved, and many of our young men had gone to war. Many who did go had not returned. By 1920 the war was over and our country was beginning the economic struggle to return to peace.

At home on Shongolo I have no recollection of ever hearing World War I discussed. My half brothers were apparently too young to go and my father was apparently too old or had too many children to go. To my mind, the war simply had existed.

But now, in retrospect, it seems the the family "fortunes" apparently began to decline.

My grandfather Smith had died shortly before I was born. He had divided his rather large land holdings many ways. My father had inherited the family home and a substantial amount of land on Shongolo Creek. However, for some reason not now known by me, he left Mississippi and moved his family to Texas. Several of my siblings were born there. So far as I 5

know, he only farmed while in Texas. We eventually moved the family back to Shongolo several years before I was born, where my father settled down to live and farm.

I would like to have known my grandfather Ira Foster Smith.

I only recently discovered that he had been a Lt. Col. in the Confederate army, had undergone the long siege at Vicksburg, had fought in all the battles there and was hard of hearing for the rest of his life as a result of months of cannon fire at Vicksburg. I was told this by an older cousin who had known and talked to him about his experiences.

The only grandparent I ever knew was my mother's father, Joshua Jackson Dennis. He was quite old when I was born in 1916. My primary recollection of him before age is of my mother getting my father "to harness up the horse" to the buggy (there were no cars in Smith county in those days) for her and me to drive to her original home of Taylorsville, to visit her father. The distance was 20 miles over red dirt roads and it took a full day for us to make the drive. I don't remember him too favorably because he was not too talkative and seemed not to like small children. However I remember that I enjoyed the several days we were there, visiting

numerous other relatives from both sides of the family who lived in Taylorsville.

As I mentioned earlier, life was pretty primitive in Smith county in those days. However, since we had never known any other lifestyle, everything appeared normal to us. Let me give some examples. There was no electricity in all of the county. There were no paved or asphalt roads or streets. There was no ice or refrigeration except from natural causes. All buildings were of wood except a few brick and mortar public buildings. There were no means of transportation except walking, riding a horse, or wagons and buggies pulled by horses or mules.

There were no railroads, telephones, radios, or airplanes. There was no running water, or central sewer systems. Water was obtained by hand from wells. For food, people usually grew most of their own food. We even grew our own sugar cane, and my father owned a mill to grind the cane, collect the juice and make our own annual supply of molasses, as well as that of many of our neighbors. As primitive as it may seem today, I enjoyed very much those seven first years of my life on Shongolo Creek. Since it was the only world I had ever seen, and since all the neighbors and their children were relatives, and on about the same economic level as we were, I had no basis on which to judge the rest of the world.

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As a small child, I played with my cousins for many hours at a time. On other days my sisters would take me swimming in the creek, or to harvest the many fruits and berries. These included black walnuts, hickory nuts, huckleberries, dew berries, and blackberries. Many of these things were taken home to our mother to cook with or to can for later use. We also had peach trees, pear trees, and apple trees on the farm to eat, cook with, or can for later use.

In the late Fall, perhaps about November, I recall the many times that we harvested the sugar cane. All the labor was by hand! The large stalks were hand-stripped of their leaves and the tops were then cut off. The bare stalks were then cut at ground level and stacked in a wagon to be hauled to the mill, which was about two miles away.

The grinding mill was powered by one or two horses walking in a circle and hitched to the end of a long pole, which was in turn connected to a roller mill. The stalks of cane were fed by hand to the rotating steel rollers rotating against one another.

The sweet juice was squeezed from each stalk, leaving the stalk almost completely dry.

The juice was fed by pipes to a large copper evaporating "pan," about 4 feet wide and perhaps 2 feet long, which was set on top of a brick or stone oven with an open fire below the pan. The flow of juice from its entry point was carefully controlled, so that when it reached the other end of the pan enough water had evaporated to result in thick molasses. This was released through a valve into shiny new gallon steel buck-

ets. My father was the "master" molasses maker for the local area, and he would make our annual supply as well as that of other area neighbors who would haul their sugar cane to his mill.

I enjoyed this time of the year very much and have vivid memories of all the details. Nothing has ever tasted better than a glass of cold freshly squeezed juice caught directly from the mill. Although I left Smith County at age 7, I still remember several successive years of looking forward to that time of the year.

Another series of rather vivid recollections are the several Christmas holidays that I can remember at Shongolo. Everyone was poor in our area, but I can remember that my mother and father always tried to make Christmas something that we would remember. Each of us always had a box or basket of our own filled with things that were treats for us, such things as fresh fruits and nuts, candy, clothes and at least one toy. At this age I sincerely believed in Santa Claus. My parents and sisters would suggest that I leave something for him, since he would get tired and hungry from his many trips down peoples' chimneys. Of course James and I and Pauline would leave him some sort of treat, which would always be gone the next morning when we jumped from our beds to see what had happened, and what he had left for us. Of course this "proved," beyond any doubt, that he had actually been there during the night.

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When I was 5 years old I started to school--"primer," or what we would now call "Kindergarten." We walked to school, about 2 miles away. The school was completely isolated from residences, "way out in the country," in a pleasant glade. It was a small 2-room frame building, and was named for a well known Smith County family by the name of "Craft."

I progressed from "Primer" to First Grade there. Then the county built a magnificent consolidated school - - from first through 12th grades at Raleigh. In fact, I think this brick

building is still there. I started to this school in the 2nd grade.

The only "catch" was that there was no transportation provided and I and the neighboring children had to ride a wagon with boards for seats four miles each way each day, rain or shine. But my enthusiasm for the new school, and the exposure to many new students and teachers, was interrupted by the family decision to move "to the city" in the middle of my first year there. I was then 7 years old. I'll have more later about schooling.

As far as religion was concerned, my father had been reared Methodist, but was perhaps a "bit" lukewarm. However, my mother was devoutly Christian and Methodist all her life. During my years at Shongolo, my mother would have my father "hook-up" the horse or horses to the buggy or "surrey" and she would drive 2 or 3 miles each Sunday to a small community church for Sunday School and worship. I remember that many people would bring prepared food to have "dinner on the ground" after the church service was over. There was always much hard work on the farm, but we never labored on the Sabbath."

I should mention that I don't remember much about the town of Raleigh. I think the only brick buildings were the new school and the county courthouse. There were a few homes and a few stores facing the main and only street. There were no automobiles and the street was only a dirt road. The stores had wooden plank sidewalks in front of them. The only traffic was horses, wagons, or buggies, and a few people. As I remember, there were no concrete or asphalt roads in all of Smith 8

County. I saw my first two automobiles a year or two before we moved away. One belonged to a neighbor whom we visited, just to see what a "car" looked like. The other belonged to, or was borrowed by, my future brother-in-law from Taylorsville, Mississippi. He and my half sister Ethel drove to Shongolo to be married at the family home. I remember the wedding, the car, and the fact that it got "stuck" in the mud of the dirt road as they were leaving. Everyone had to walk down the road to the car to help push them out.

The groom was a small town banker from Taylorsville, where my mother's father lived, by the name of Zephyr Hester. They both lived out their lives there and eventually died there.

Their only child, John Currie, died as young man. The name Currie was the maiden name of my father's first wife.

Somewhere back in this period of my early memories, a lumber producing operation took place along Shongolo Creek. A lumber company set up a sawmill on the back end of my father's farm to cut hardwood logs and haul them to the mill to saw into narrow boards called "staves," from which barrels could be made. They did not make the barrels there, but shipped the staves elsewhere to be made into barrels.

It was quite a sizable operation and the workers apparently were housed in Raleigh, but my mother and sisters supplied a hot meal for them at noon. I remember that they were kind and gentle men and during their lunch periods they liked to be around the children, including me. Of course talking and listening to them was a completely new experience for me.

During these early years, I had a speech defect that was called "being tongue tied." It was apparently caused by the ligament under the tongue being too tight. The problem was later corrected after we moved to Hattiesburg, by a simple operation.

At this time the problem apparently did not bother me very much, because for the words I couldn't say properly, I "invented" new words I could say. The family, relatives, and friends simply learned the words I had invented. The "stave" mill men all knew the words I used and would talk to me at length. I don't remember how long these men were at Shongolo, but they eventually had cut all the available hardwood trees and moved away by the time my family moved to Hattiesburg.

At age seven, I was in a good school and everything to my mind appeared to be "in order." However, my father had apparently been having troubles with a large family and not enough income to support it. He finally lost the farm and our home. I still don't know the details, but I think it was simply because he could not pay his taxes. The net result was that we moved to "the city"--Hattiesburg, Mississippi-- two counties away. We would occupy a rented house and my father was confident that he would be able find work and support his family, which now consisted of my parents and the seven children that had been born to my mother. The four half- siblings had by now gone their separate ways. As for me,I found myself in a completely different world. This, I will describe in the next section of "Recollections."

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PART

2

Recollections

At the age of 7, my family moved from Raleigh, Mississippi to the city of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. I remember very little of the actual process of the move, nor how it was accomplished.

This occurred in the late fall or winter of 1923 (this was also the year my future wife, Thais, was born in New Orleans).

The family consisted of my father and mother, my brother James, and my sisters Eleanor, Grace, Annie May, Pauline and me. We moved into a rented house in a residential neighborhood. It was within walking distance of the business area and had a Methodist church about 2 blocks away. The largest public school, covering grades 1 through 12, was within easy walking distance. I remember I was very pleased with my new neighborhood and the friends we were making. I marveled at the novelty of electricity, running water, and indoor toilets.

Also, a streetcar ran the next street from us, and a neighbor across the street had the first radio I had ever seen or heard.

Some of the children were promptly enrolled in the large public school, including me. I was in the second grade and had been doing well in the new Raleigh school. However, I had the misfortune of encountering a completely non-sympathetic teacher who did not even attempt to understand my speech defect and, in front of the entire class, announced that she "was not even going to attempt to understand a child that could not even talk," and promptly declared she was putting me back to the first grade.

In spite of the unhappiness of my not understanding what was going on, and my losing a year of school, it was ultimately to

my benefit. My new first grade teacher was one of the nicest persons I have ever met. She apparently saw in me a challenge to her abilities as a teacher and role model. It was about this time that my parents had another "tongue clipping" operation" done on me. Between this correction surgery and my new teacher, whom I remember well after 73 years, my communications with others improved. This dedicated teacher, Miss Montgomery, paid particular attention to me, not only in the classroom, but devoted most of the recess and noon hour periods to working with me. She taught me pronunciation and spelling by dividing words into syllables, etc. These teachings have remained with me for the rest of my life.

My sisters Eleanor and Grace dropped out of school during that first year in Hattiesburg and got jobs as sales clerks or cashiers. They would have been in their upper teens at this time. James was too young to start school, so that left Annie May, Pauline, and me in school. Annie May was 5 years older than I, and Pauline was 2 years older.

My father's finances continued "downhill." Rent had to be paid, and now all food had to be purchased; there was nothing self-produced, as on the farm. He struggled to get positions in various fields. I remember he thought he could make a living in sales or marketing, but nothing he tried seemed to succeed.

However, I was only 8 years old and not that much aware of the details of his efforts. In any case, we survived for two years on whatever income my Father and older sisters earned.

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After about one year in the first house, we moved to another house in a different part of town. This must have been in 1924. I don't remember, or did not know at the time, the reasons for the move. I do remember that I did not like the second place as well as the first.

going to get married, leave our home, and move to another part of the state. Since she was sort of a favorite older sister, I remember begging her not to get married and leave home. In fact I think I remember crying. But, she did marry "Mike" Buford from Greenwood and moved there with him.

It was about this time that my mother, who apparently thought she was past menopause, found herself pregnant. It was June 1924 that my youngest sibling, Helen, was born. I was not at home when she was born, since my family had sent me off to the farm to spend the summer with my oldest halfbrother, Lamar, and his family. I returned to Hattiesburg in time to start to school.

So...there were now only five children - Annie May, Pauline, I, James, and Helen - left at home. Our living at Hattiesburg was also about to come to an end as my father had come to the conclusion that he could not "make out" in the city and that we should move back to the farm.

It was also later that summer the my oldest sister, Eleanor, married. So, in that year the family had one new child to "replace" the one that married and left home.

During the time we lived in the second house, we had continued to go to school at "Central High School" where we had first started. However, we now moved to a third house in yet another part of town.. In this case it meant another school. It was a "grammar" school, whose name I have forgotten.

I don't remember much about this neighborhood, but I did like the school and my teachers. Pauline had become my selfappointed sort of older sister/guardian. I remember that none of the older children at the school dared to "pick on me."

It was also at this place that my sister Grace took me for a long walk one day and patiently tried to explain to me that she was 13

P ART 3

Recollections

In Parts 1 & 2 I recalled my early life in Smith County, Mississippi, the move to Hattiesburg at age 7, and the decision to go back to farm life at the end of two years of living in Hattiesburg.

I do not recall how my father knew of the fertile lands of the Mississippi Delta in northwest Mississippi. Perhaps he had taken a trip upstate to see for himself what was available. The Delta section of the state includes the lands north of Vicksburg and nearly to Memphis, Tennessee, with Louisiana and Arkansas to the West, and with a width of from a few miles to perhaps 70 miles. It consists of 10 or more counties and has some of the most fertile soil in the world. In my time it largely produced long-staple cotton which, along with Egyptian cotton, was the most premium cotton in the world. This was before the development of any of the synthetic fibers.

The soil had become so fertile because of the annual flooding of the Mississippi River for many thousands of years. This was before the U. S. government constructed levees along the river to prevent this annual flooding.

During the many years of the Great Depression of the 1920s and the 1930s, the small farms in the Delta had been absorbed into large plantations. These were owned by a few wealthy men or by outside financial interests. Many of the smaller farmers of the Delta, like my father, had lost their farms and in order to live by doing the only thing they knew how to do, were forced to seek land and financing from the large plantations.

The plantations would supply funds and furnish the homes, the equipment, and horses or mules as well as enough land for the family concerned. In return, when crops were harvested, one half of the proceeds went to the farmer and one half to the plantation. This might appear to be "a pretty good deal" for the farmer. Unfortunately, the farmer did not usually have enough funds to buy the necessities needed during the spring and summer while the cash crops were being produced. This meant he had to borrow money from the plantation against a future crop, or shop in a plantation shop at their prices. The usual result was that the average farmer was always in debt to the plantation owners.

I mention these matters in some detail because this is the life we had to live during the several years we lived in the Mississippi Delta!

Sometime in the winter or spring of 1926-1927 we moved from Hattiesburg to Delta City - or to a plantation home near there. It was a small town with a good school about 25 miles east of the Mississippi River and east of the Louisiana- Arkansas line. It was in Sharkey County.

As I remember, I was in the third grade and liked my school and teachers. We were bussed to and from school. The family consisted of my parents, Helen, James, I, Pauline, and Annie May- now a teenager.

The family worked hard that spring and summer and we produced a good crop of cotton and corn in the fall of 1926. The plantation owner's home, barns, mules and equipment was 15

nearby, and the school bus picked us up on a nearby road. As I remember it, life appeared to be a bit more pleasant on the farm than in Hattiesburg.

However my father's arrangement with the plantation owner apparently was not satisfactory, as we moved during the winter of 1926-1927 to the other side of Delta City, to another home on another plantation. However we did attend the same school.

We will never know how that move might have worked out, because in the spring of 1927 the worst of all things to Delta farmers happened. As I remember, it was about the first of April when the levee of the Mississippi River broke a few miles above Greenville, in Washington County (the next county north of Sharkey County, where we were living).

Immediate evacuation was ordered. I don't remember all the details, but we quickly stacked some furniture on top of other furniture, as the water was expected to be 6 to 8 feet deep at our house. We were then taken to a larger town nearby. I believe its name was Hollandale. It had a railroad track on which freight cars were being brought in for the farmers, or for a member of their family, to occupy; it was also for them to move anything they had time to move, particularly the family livestock. It was decided that my father would remain there while my mother and the children were evacuated to Vicksburg. We were transported by a small Mississippi River paddle wheel steamboat, a "stern wheeler."

We were treated well in Vicksburg by the federal, state, and local officials in charge of the evacuation. I particularly recall the great efforts of the Salvation Army people to see that everyone had proper food and clothing.

I don't recall how long a period we remained in Vicksburg before we could return home, but it was a matter of several weeks before the river receded within its banks. The flood waters could not recede until this had happened, and of course there was a tremendous volume of these waters covering many hundreds of square miles of the entire Delta.

After the flood...

By the time we had returned to our home in Delta City, and the soil had dried enough to plant crops, it was too late in the summer to plant the major crops of cotton and corn. We salvaged what furniture and other possessions we could and moved again. This time my father made some sort of arrangement to get a home to live in but with no crops on its land.

This place was near Greenwood, Miss.- in Leflore County- and the land was high enough that it had not been flooded. That fall we helped harvest the crops of others.

I don't remember too much about this place. We went to school in Greenwood, a fair size city. I remember liking the school. During this period of 1927-1928, my sister Annie May made close friends with a young woman about her age, who lived and worked in Greenwood in a large wholesale pharmaceutical company. My sister, Annie May, who was only about 17 years old, persuaded our mother to let her drop out of 16

school and take a job with this drug company, even though this meant her leaving home to go live in Greenwood. Her friend took her as a roommate in a rooming house and remained her closest friend for the rest of their lives. Annie May later married there and lived there the rest of her married life.

joined the Boy Scouts in Greenville and, in my final year there, I finished grammar school and started to junior high school. I was really beginning to enjoy living in the same place for more than one year. But then we moved again!

In the winter of 1927-1928 we moved again to a plantation near Leland - in Washington County. We lived there one year.

We attended school in Leland by school bus. I remember it as an excellent school- a large consolidated well staffed school. I also remember our living near a large lake called "The Bogue."

We would go swimming and fishing there, and also learned to paddle and row a boat. I also remember that while we lived at Leland my grandfather Dennis (my mother's father) visited us. He was the only grandparent I ever knew and this would be the last time I ever saw him, since he died before I ever saw him again.

During the winter of 1928-1929 we moved again to a large plantation near Greenville. Greenville was an old Mississippi River port city and our new home was only a few miles from the city. We lived near a large lake called "Fish Lake". We lived there for two years, but in two different houses. The second house was a larger house than the first one I enjoyed living there. I made many new friends, both in our neighborhood and at the schools in Greenville. While there I completed the 6th grade and started the 7th grade. I was 1213 years of age. My closest friend was allowed to drive a car and I could sometimes go to or from Greenville with him. I 17

P ART 4

Recollections

In the winter of 1929-1930 we moved from Greenville and the Delta back to southern Mississippi; this time we moved to Laurel, a city near Hattiesburg, where I had lived for 2 years after leaving Smith county.

Needless to say, I was unhappy with the move. I was 13 years old, in the 7th grade, and had to leave my many friends, the Boy Scouts, the fine new school, and the neighborhood I had come to know. When we arrived in Laurel, we moved into what must have been a rented house for a few months. During this time my father apparently investigated finding a more permanent home. In early spring he found a small farm with a small but livable house, which he arranged to purchase.

Thus, at last we again had a home of our own.

I was now old enough and large enough to do a man's work.

He managed to obtain one horse and a few pieces of farm equipment, but the nation and our particular section of it was now in the midst of the "Great Depression." We had great neighbors - all land owners themselves. We walked to school, about 2 miles away; it was a small frame building in a small neighborhood called "Glade," about 4 or 5 miles from Laurel.

Our family was now down to our parents, Helen, James, myself, and Pauline. I was 13 and Pauline was 15. We were all excited about being in a place of our own. We fenced a large area for a vegetable garden. My mother would supervise the garden, but my father and I would do all the harder work in it.

We planted ornamental plants and fruit trees. All-in-all things appeared "to be looking up."

I finished the 7th and 8th grades at Glade School. In the fall of 1931 I entered an unusual high school. The state of Mississippi had established a series of junior colleges throughout the state. The closest one of these was nearby; it was "Jones County High School And Junior College," and was located between Laurel and Hattiesburg, in Ellisville. It was about 10 or 15 miles from where we lived, but school busses daily came by our house to provide transportation for us. There was no tuition in either the high school or the college.

I attended this school in my freshman year (1931-1932) and did exceptionally well scholastically. My grades were high enough that I received permission to finish high school in 3 years without any summer school. I started my sophomore year in the fall of 1932. My class was well over 100 students.

Some of my classmates put my name up to "run" for the president of the sophomore class. To my surprise I won the election!

So, again things were "looking up." I was a popular student. I would finish high school in 3 years, and I would be able to go to college two years at the same school. Also, I had recently achieved area wide recognition of sorts. The Laurel daily newspaper had offered a prize in an essay contest, which would consist of a small cash award and the publication of the entire essay in the paper. The area was primarily an agricultural region and the subject of the essay was to deal with improvements in increasing the fertility of the soil without undue expense.

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This would best be done by growing legumes to naturally enrich the soil by nitrogen fixation.

The contest was open to everyone except employees of the newspaper. I decided to submit such an essay. I chose as my subject "The Use of Winter Cover Crops To Increase Soil Fertility". I had found out that my congressman would supply me, free of charge, dozens of research reports from all over the country on a wide variety of subjects. I eventually requested many such reports, studied them, and then summarized my thoughts in an essay. I was amazed when my essay won first place and was promptly published in the newspaper. No one had helped me and I had no typewriter available. I submitted the paper in long hand. I was 15 years old at the time.

Alas, all my plans fell apart! In the middle of the school year my father could not make the payments on our small farm and we had to move again. I was now 16 years old.

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P ART 5

Recollections

In the winter of 1932-1933 the family moved from Laurel to Madison - from south Mississippi to central Mississippi. Madison, sometimes called Madison Station, was just 12 miles north of Jackson, on a principal north- south highway ( No. 51 ) and on the main north- south railroad- the Illinois Central running from New Orleans to Chicago. It is in Madison County, whose county seat is Canton. It was an older section of the state and had a wider diversity of people than some of the other places we had lived.

My father had leased a large farm about 2 miles from Madison. The house was quite large and comfortable. In fact it was the nicest home I had ever lived in. I was now 16 years old and fully capable of doing a man's work on the farm.

While we had plenty of land (160 acres), we did not have proper equipment and only one horse, while several horses or mules were needed to do large scale farming.

The school, Madison Ridgeland Consolidated School, was excellent. We were bussed to and from school and the teachers were definitely above average. I had been in the middle of my sophomore year at Ellisvile, which I continued in Madison, finishing in 1933. The school did not have as extensive a curriculum as Ellisville, so I was not able to carry out my plan of finishing high school in 3 years.

I was old enough to enjoy social activities and my new friends always included me in their parties and dances, although I never was very good at trying to dance. I suppose I was a normal teenager. I dated several classmates and had the normal

"crush" on one or two. The main problem was that we did not own an automobile, which meant that I could not socialize unless someone gave me a ride.

I also decided that, since I now had the opportunity, I would participate in high school sports. In my junior and senior years I was on the first team in football and basketball. I was tall for my age, so I played"end" on the football team and "center" on the basketball team. There was one difficulty, however; after practice each school day, I would have to walk 2 miles home..

All in all, I enjoyed my two and a half years at MadisonRidgeland High. I had no problems with grades. In fact I had the highest scholastic average in my time there and concluded my senior year with the highest average in my class. My favorite subjects were Math and Science. However, I particularly excelled in Latin. I went to the statewide literary competition in Jackson each of the 2 years I studied Latin and placed second in first year Latin and first in second year Latin.

My activities around our immediate neighborhood included visiting with neighboring families, hunting and fishing, going for long solitary walks in the nearby Pearl River swamp, and learning as much as I could about electronics. However I was limited by what I could do in this field because we had no electricity on the farm and no money for batteries. I read as much as I could on the subject, built some good crystal sets, and installed high antennas between tall trees. So I had good radio reception, whether the family did or not.

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I finished high school in June 1935. I had long since decided that I was not going to be a farmer. There was no possibility of the family sending me to college. The only choices I had were to somehow put myself through college or join the Army Air Corps as a high school graduate. They were accepting some such graduates for further education and pilot training.

This taught me a couple of lessons I've never forgotten: be careful whom you trust, and get anything really important in writing. This principal- now deceased- was perhaps the most respected man in Madison!

The apparent answer to my problems was suggested by my high school principal. He proposed that, even though he knew I had the highest grades in my class, I would not object to his naming another classmate as valedictorian of our class.

He then would repay the courtesy by getting me a scholarship to Millsaps College in Jackson. Since I had much rather go to college than be valedictorian, I agreed to his proposal. The other student was a good friend of mine anyway.

In the meantime, in order to use my summer months to advantage, I found that I could join the Army-run Civilian Conservation Corps and yet be permitted to withdraw in the Fall if I could find a way to go to college. With the promise of a scholarship to Millsaps it would appear that I had a real solution to my immediate future.. However,in late summer 1935, I became worried because I had not heard anything from the principal or from Millsaps about a scholarship. I scheduled a trip home on a weekend to go see the principal and find out what he had done. To my complete amazement he denied ever having made such a promise and stated he had made no contacts with Millsaps at all!

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P ART 6

Recollections

Having finished high school in 1935 at the age of 18, I enlisted in the U. S. Army supervised Civilian Conservation Corps.

This was one of Roosevelt's creations to help get the nation back on its feet during the Great Depression of the 1930s and 1940s by creating jobs for young men and providing food and lodging for them while they earned $30 per month. The administration of the program was given to the Army, who called to active duty reserve officers to put in charge of the various camps. Each camp had about 200 men. This put even more money back into circulation, by the pay of the these reserve officers. These camps were located at places where improvements were needed "in the public domain."

In my case, the location was the Civil War Park at Vicksburg, Mississippi, where I spent the summer of 1935. There were four camps there. We lived in barracks and ate in "mess halls". Most of our work was in landscaping the park.

It was an excellent experience for me. This was my first time away from home and I learned a little about discipline from being supervised by army personnel.

In the late summer of 1935 I found that the scholarship I had been promised to Millsaps had not been obtained and that my plans to attend college that Fall were apparently not to be. On a trip home from Vicksburg to Jackson, I decided to make some sort of effort to go to college. I decided to personally ask for an interview with the President of Millsaps. I simply walked into the administration building and asked the recep-

tionist if I could see the president. She checked with him and he agreed to see me.

I told him about my desire to go to college and how I had been disappointed in not getting a scholarship. I asked him if there was any way he could help me to attend the coming semester.

He replied that what little funds that had been available had already been assigned. He then asked me how much money I had saved. I told him about $100 that I had saved that summer. He thought a moment and then replied that, in his opinion, I should not work and save another year, but enter the coming Fall semester and stay in school as long as I could..

Then, if I were forced to drop out and work and save, I would more than likely be back. I would be more determined to come back once I had experienced college life. He said he would take a personal interest in me and steer any aid he could my way.

I thought this was good advice, and in September 1935 I enrolled as a freshman at Millsaps College. I had saved the bare amount of tuition cost for one semester. Grace and Mike, my sister and brother-in-law in Jackson, offered to let me live with them. The family in Madison supplied some of our basic foods from the farm.. My father and mother were pleased with these arrangements.

Each semester for the next three years I was never sure where the money was coming from for my tuition, but by working at every little job I could get- after school hours and during the summer months- I managed to pay my next semester's tui25

tion. To my recollection no one ever had the money to help me. Grace cooked for me, washed and ironed my clothes, and encouraged me in every way she could. For the school year 1937-1938 I made a long time loan from a scholarship trust fund to pay part of my final year's cost and to pay for the experience of living on the campus my final year.

During my freshman year I joined the Mississippi National Guard in Jackson at the lowest rank in the Army - a Private.

One night each week I attended drills for 2 hours. For this I received one dollar per each drill. Each summer I would go to the annual 15 day encampment at an Army base in Mississippi or Louisiana. For this I would receive $15. This was one of the many ways I made enough money to pay my tuition. The Infantry company I trained with had officers who were veterans of World War I. The uniforms, rifles, and equipment we used were surplus supplies from World War I. I went on my last encampment in the summer of 1939 while in graduate school. I was then a Private, 1st class in an infantry medical detachment.

I was granted my B. S. degree in Chemistry in June 1938. I had done this in 3 years with one required summer school session in 1937. I had the highest grade average in my graduating class. I also had the highest grade average in the entire college for the 1936-1937 school year.. I then applied for a graduate assistantship to three well known institutions- the University of North Carolina, Tulane University. and the Georgia School of Technology. I was granted two of these and chose to accept the "Georgia Tech" one. I was then 21 years old.

26

P ART 7

Recollections

After finishing Millsaps in June 1938, I had to wait until September to go to Atlanta to attend Georgia Tech. I don't recall all I did that summer. I spent some time in Madison, worked awhile for a contractor in Jackson, and went to a 15-day duty at an Army camp in Louisiana.

I had become engaged during my last year at Millsaps to a classmate, and had actually gone into debt to buy her a diamond ring. She was from McComb, Mississippi, lived with her aunt near Jackson to attend college, and drove her aunt's new car to and from school. However during the summer of 1938 I saw very little of her because I had no transportation and neither of us was in summer school at Millsaps. We mostly saw one another when she borrowed her aunt's car and furnished the transportation. Her aunt was very fond of me and was trying to help the romance along. I will mention this episode in my life only this one time, and say that the engagement lasted until I had finished graduate school in June 1940.

By then we had drifted apart and met in McComb and mutually agreed "to call it off. I have not seen her since that time.

In early September 1938 I packed all my requirements in a huge trunk and headed for Atlanta and a completely new life.

At this time I had made no plans in advance as to where I was going to live in Atlanta, where I was going to eat, nor exactly what my duties were going to be to earn $65 per month from Georgia Tech. I had estimated that this amount would pay all my necessary expenses. I had never lived away from home before and had only been out of Mississippi a few times to Atlanta and once very briefly to New Orleans. These few visits

to Atlanta had been overnight trips from Jackson as a temporary U. S. Deputy Marshall. This had been arranged through an older man who was a U. S. Marshall. These trips had allowed me to earn a few extra dollars, since I was paid for my services. Since we were transporting federal prisoners to Atlanta, I wore a badge and carried a loaded revolver.

This trip to Atlanta to go graduate school was by train. When I arrived, I checked my trunk at the train station and took a cab to the Georgia Tech campus. I inquired about a place to live and found that the YMCA building on the campus had just one room left for rent. The building was only one block from the chemistry building, so I now had a home in Atlanta. I arranged for my trunk to be delivered to my room.

Shortly after I arrived in Atlanta, the Fall semester started. I had my own graduate courses to enroll in, some non-credit courses I wished to take, and one course required by the Chairman of the Chemistry Department. This was a more advanced course in stoichiometry than undergraduate chemistry courses usually taught. Also I chose to take one year of basic German, since many references in Organic Chemistry had been written only in German. Thus, my work load was pretty heavy. My assistantship duties consisted mostly of supervising students in their laboratory requirements. This usually required most of my weekday afternoons. It quickly became obvious to me that the most serious and capable of these students were the "Co-op students" as opposed to the regular students. All students at Tech were male then.

28

The "Co-op students" were those who were literally working their way through college. They were on a "quarter" system instead of a "semester" system. They would go to college 3 months and then by arrangement assisted by the school, they would go to jobs in their field of study. They required 5 years of this to graduate but, at that time they would have a college degree and three years of experience. I enjoyed this type of teaching and had no problems with my students. As for as my personal life is concerned, I did not live in the YMCA building but a few weeks before I moved to a boarding house a few blocks away. I did so at the request of of another graduate student who was to become my best friend for that year. He wanted a roommate at the boarding house to share a large front room. We would share the room and for a very reasonable cost be served 2 or 3 meals a day family style. This worked out very well for most of 1938-1939 college year. The room was large. We each had a double bed and desk. Also, it was within easy walking distance to school. However, this situation did not last through the school year before we moved to another rooming house a few blocks away. He had become involved with the landlady's daughter and I had become a bit involved with her best friend. They wanted the situation to become more serious and we did not - so, we moved away.

Our new home until the end of the school year was on a well known Atlanta street, West Peachtree Street. The school year went well for me. Because of my busy schedule, I did not try for high scholastic grades. I had a "B" or "B+" average and did quite well in my major subject, Organic Chemistry. The chair-

man of that Department and I became close friends and corresponded with one another for many years, until his death. I had made another friend with a fellow graduate student from the University of Arkansas. However, neither he nor my roommate returned the following year. In the summer of 1939 I came home to Jackson and Madison. I worked that summer at various things - with a contractor in Jackson, several other things, and went to an Army camp for 15 days with an Infantry medical detachment. This was certainly a new experience.

This camp was at Hattiesburg, Mississippi, and it dated from World War I. In September I returned to Atlanta for my final year at Georgia Tech. Neither of my best friends from the first year returned. However, I met a new graduate student who became my roommate, a young man from Georgia. We moved into a nice rooming house on Peachtree Street. "Gone With The Wind" premiered in Atlanta that Fall, and all the cast came from the airport in a parade to a nearby hotel. My roommate and I walked just 4 blocks from our room to the hotel to see them leave their cars and and enter their hotel. As a coincidence, years later we attended a wedding of a young friend from New Orleans at a church within the same 4 blocks.

I had much the same routine my second year at Georgia Tech.

I did take more advanced courses in Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Chemical Thermodynamics. In addition, I had to do the work and write my thesis on some original research, which was required for my Masters Degree. I also took a novel course for that day on the subject of what was then 29

known about the sub-atomic particle. 1939 was just six years from the beginning at the nuclear age. This time was the beginning of travel by air. It was such a new thing.that people would travel to the new and very small Atlanta Airport to await the arrival of the next flight to see the plane land, to see the size of the plane, and to watch the passengers disembark.

Delta Airlines was then the only airline serving Atlanta.

By this time the war in Europe was now well underway; the U. S. Government had passed the "Lend-Lease" program and we were getting deeper and deeper involved. It was generally believed that President Roosevelt would eventually "get us into this war in Europe" in spite of his assurances to the contrary .

I was healthy and of draft age. It appeared that I would have no choice but to be drafted and go into the Army as an enlisted man, since I had had no chance of taking R0TC in college. However, one of my professors, who was a reserve officer in the Army's Chemical Warfare Service, told me that the Army badly needed additional chemical officers and that I could apply to the Army to take the entire 4 years ROTC training by correspondence work alone . He gave me the details on how to do this. In the winter of 1939-1940 I applied to the Army, took my physical examination at a nearby Army base, and was enrolled in my correspondence course work. This gave me a greatly increased work load, as I had to rush completion of each lesson I received, mail it to the Army to be graded, and await the next lesson. I continued this routine until June 1940, when I received my M.S. Degree in Chemistry. However, I still had not completed my correspondence course

work. No one from home attended my graduation- from family or my fiancee. It was a case of no money for travel, as we were still in the dark days of "The Great Depression." I fully understood the reason for their absence.. I had made numerous applications for employment as a chemist with many of the larger chemical companies- such as Dupont,Union Carbide.Dow Chemical, and Monsanto. However, there were simply few jobs available. Finally, as my graduation approached, I received my one job offer- from Joseph E. Seagram, one of the largest alcoholic beverage manufacturers in the world. While it was not a job offer I relished, I accepted it.

After visiting Jackson and Madison briefly in June 1940, I reported to Seagram in Louisville, KY and was told that I was to report to Lawrenceville, Indiana. There they had the second largest whiskey distillery in the country. I reported to Lawrenceville and liked nothing about it. I did not like the work either, which was not being a chemist at all, but more like common labor. The excuse they gave to me and many other college graduates like me was that they wanted all their technical employees trained in every phase of the company's business before being assigned to a technical position. Actually it was their tricky way of hiring college graduates to be equipment operators.

I had no choice that summer of 1940 but to try to make the best of the situation. However in the Fall I received a telegram from Mississippi's Senior Senator in Washington notifying me that I had been awarded a Civil Service "Professional" position with the U. S. Food and Drug Administration and 30

that I should report to New Orleans by a November date. I had taken a Civil Service test for Junior Chemist while still in Atlanta, but had almost forgotten it. I gave my two weeks notice to Seagram and headed south to New Orleans.

I reported to the FDA office in the U. S. Customs Office on Canal Street for my specific assignment. They indicated that for the immediate future they were assigning me to do inspection work. I found that a law had been passed in Congress to insure the quality of canned foods, and specifically canned shrimp. This was before the days of frozen food products, and if people in inland USA liked shrimp, they ate canned shrimp.

It was quite a large industry. There were many such canning plants along the Gulf coast of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. All these plants that shipped canned shrimp interstate were required to be supervised by USFDA Inspectors. In late 1940 I started doing this type of inspection work in the New Orleans area; this included the Parishes of Orleans, Jefferson, and St. Bernard. In December I was transferred to Biloxi, Mississippi. Biloxi was supposed to be the largest shrimp canning center in the US, and perhaps the world. The many plants that required inspection required a staff of about ten FDA inspectors. While in Biloxi I was doing primarily this type of inspection. However, I also did some drug inspection work. Our group had offices in the federal courthouse and post office building in Biloxi. I had purchased my first automobile. We normally worked only 3 to 6 hours a day, and life had become a bit more pleasant for me. In April 1941 my father died suddenly. I was telephoned in Biloxi and

immediately left in my car to drive to Madison, but when I arrived, I found that he already died a short time after he had a "stroke" that morning. The family decided to bury him in Raleigh, in Smith County, where he had been born. Shortly after the funeral I returned to Biloxi. Within a few days I received a telephone call from New Orleans regarding a position as a research chemist with a company called International Lubricant Corporation. The offer was interesting because I still wanted to be a chemist, but I also found my present work interesting.

The caller, the president of the company, asked if I could come to New Orleans the following Sunday to interview.

Since I had nothing to lose, I agreed to see him on Sunday.

My current girl friend in Biloxi, a B.A. and M.A. in Art from the University of Colorado, suggested she drive me to New Orleans in her new car. I interviewed the president and senior vice president, but still would not commit myself to change positions. I promised I would consider it and let them know.

They waited less than a week and called me again. This time I agreed to go to work for them. I then gave the FDA a two week's notice.

After moving back to New Orleans, I eventually found a nice apartment on Napoleon Avenue to share with a recent Georgia Tech graduate who had just been employed by International as a mechanical engineer. We both remained at International the rest of our working lives, except for World War II. We are still friends; his name is Bob Stoops.

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32

P ART 8

Recollections

On arriving in New Orleans from Biloxi, I looked for a nice place to live. I specifically wanted to be near the University section. I found such a place in a nice rooming house at 1000 Broadway - on the corner of Broadway and Freret near Tulane, Newcomb, and Loyola. I rented a large upstairs room and planned to live alone, until I met an appropriate person for a roommate. Within a few weeks I met the recent Georgia Tech graduate that I have mentioned before. He shared the room with me for a short time. Then we decided to seek a small apartment in the uptown area. We found such a place at 1407 Napoleon Avenue - one block from St. Charles Avenue. We lived there until he reported to the Army for active duty, and I was married a short time later. My new work at International was interesting. I was finally a "working chemist".

I met many interesting people that summer of 1941 - some where I worked and some from outside. I "dated" someone occasionally, but did not get interested enough in any of them until late summer, when I met the sister of one my fellow employees. We began to be regulars at the various parties and functions of our group. Her family was from El Salvador and her father was the Consul from El Salvador. They lived in a nice home on St. Charles Avenue. In September of 1941, while on a nice yacht ride and company party, I met a young college student who certainly "caught my eye" Her name was Thais Wild. She was 18 years old and a senior at Newcomb. Within a few days I called to see if she was interested in seeing me again. She was. Now I had two girls to see or not see. However, within a few weeks Thais and I were "going steady" and had become engaged. It was now February 1942; Miriam Mo-

rales and I remained good friends. Meanwhile, on December 7, 1941 Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and World War II was underway for the USA. I had recently received my commission as a Second Lieutenant in the Chemical Warfare Service, but had no idea when I would be ordered to "active duty."

Also, we were waiting for Thais to graduate from Newcomb so we could get married. By a remarkable coincidence I was not ordered to active duty until a few days after Thais had finished Newcomb, on June 3, 1942. We were married on June 10, and went on our honeymoon to the Mississippi "Gulf Coast." I received my active duty orders in the mail while still on the honeymoon. We shortened our stay on the coast by a few days and rushed back to New 0rleans to resign from International and get our affairs in order to report to Pine Bluff, Arkansas

by June 29. On the way to Pine Bluff we stopped overnight in Hattiesburg, Mississippi to attend Fred Wild (Thais' brother) and Mary Knight's wedding. The next morning Fred, Jr. and Mary left by train for Carlisle, Pennsylvannia (he also was reporting for duty to the Army); Thais and I left in my car for Pine Bluff, Arkansas and the Wilds (Thais' parents) left to go home to New Orleans. It was quite an eventful June!

34

P ART 9

Recollections

On departing Hattiesburg and the Wild wedding, we drove to Jackson to spend the night and visit with my mother. The next day we drove to Vicksburg, crossed the Mississippi River, and headed to Pine Bluff, Arkansas. I was to report there for my Army assignment. We arrived there, checked into a motel for a few days and found a place to live. This was in the home of` one the nicest families we had ever met. They lived in one of the better residential area of Pine Bluff and had decided to clear the upstairs of their home to rent as an apartment for a military couple. Since housing in the area was critical, they considered this as one of their contributions to the war effort.

We contacted them and they invited us to move in with them.

They treated us like family members. Thais was only 19 years old and had never lived away from home. They had a daughter about 16 years old and a son about 12 years old. Their name was Leibenguth. They were originally from Indiana and he was the manager of the local J.C.Penney store. We remained there for over 2 years, and after the war was over we visited them and they came to visit us in New Orleans. The Army assignment was to a new Army Arsenal in the process of being built. It's function would be the production, shipping, and storage of war materiel. It would be called "Pine Bluff Arsenal." I arrived before the arsenal had been built, and, along with about 200 other officers, would help supervise the construction of the facilities by civilian contractors. Then, we would supervise the production plants using civilian workers.

Finally, when the plants were no longer needed, we would supervise their "moth-bailing." We manufactured poison gases and various other chemicals used in their manufacture. We

filled and packaged these gases, as well as incend- iary bombs, white phosphorus munitions, and high explosive munitions.

The "Arsenal" was about 6 to 8 miles long - along the Arkansas River and about 2 to 3 miles wide. We employed over 10,000 people during the war and produced many of the munitions used by the Allies during World War II. I daily drove to and from the arsenal from Pine Bluff. We had to "car pool" our cars because each family car was allowed only 4 gallons of gasoline per week. Also new tires for personal use were simply not available. Since the plants operated 24 hours per day, 7 days a week, the worst part of our work was "shift" work.

Each supervising officer changed their hours each week- from 8 AM to 4 PM for one week, from 4 PM to midnight the next week, and from midnight to 8 AM the following week. We could never get use to these changes. There was a certain amount of personal danger in our work. Everything we handled in our plants was either poisonous or highly explosive. I spent some time in our Army hospital for chronic exposure to one of the worst poison gases-Lewisite. However, I don't recall a single fatality in production work during this period.

Thais and I were married in June 1942. By the summer of 1943 World War II was very much a part of everyone's life.

Along with other young married couples who had no children, we started thinking and talking about the very likely possibility that we Army officers would be sent overseas for combat duty without much notice. If this were to happen, there was also the possibility that we would not return. Many of us in Army thought that our wives should perhaps have children 36

now. The wife would at least have a child by which to remember her husband. I mention this because it was a factor in our decision to have our first child. Eric was born on January 31, 1944 in Pine Bluff. Thais had an excellent Obstetrician, and had no particular problems with her pregnancy. She was not yet 21 years of age when Eric was born,and we were still living with the Leibenguths. Mrs. Leibenguth was of much help to Thais during this period. However, due to the lack of space in our small upstairs apartment, we finally decided to move across the street to another private home. The Chambers were a childless couple who, in order to provide housing for the military, had converted their garage to a small apartment.

It was on the ground floor and somewhat cooler in summer than living at the Leibenguths had been. It also had a room for Eric and an enclosed yard for him to have a playpen and to play in, as he was just beginning to crawl and to try to walk.

The Chambers were also pleased to have a baby "in the family". After living there for several months, we had an opportunity to move into a much larger apartment. There were two apartments upstairs divided by a large central hall. It also had a large front porch to be shared by the occupants of the two apartments. The other apartment was occupied by a fellow Army officer from the Arsenal by the name of Clarence Moritz and his wife Margaret. They also had their first child, who was the same age as Eric. We became lifelong friends with this family and still correspond with them. Margaret was a native of Baltimore and Clarence was a native of Texas. His family was from Port Arthur, Texas, and he had graduated from Texas A & M. They now live in Beaumont, Texas.

In mid-winter of 1944-1945 I was transferred to the home base of the Chemical Warfare Service, Edgewood Arsenal, in Maryland - about 20 miles north of Baltimore. The war in Europe was now "winding down" and we were closing many of the plants at Pine Bluff Arsenal. The Army had decided that additional combat officers would be required for the invasion of Japan. I was to be "converted" to a combat officer. We knew no one in Baltimore. However, Margaret Moritz's parents lived there. Margaret assured us that we should meet her parents as soon as we had arrived in Baltimore - that they would welcome a chance to meet her friends and to provide any help they could. We followed her advice, after first coming through New Orleans and leaving Eric with Thais' parents.

On arriving in Baltimore we contacted Margaret's parents, the Colleys. They, as Margaret had predicted, immediately practically "adopted" us. They helped us to find a nice apartment in Middle River, a town on the outskirts of the Northern part of Baltimore. They remained close friends during the forthcoming stay in Baltimore and later when we returned to Baltimore.

After we were settled in our new apartment, Thais' mother brought Eric to us by train from New Orleans. She remained with us for a visit of several weeks and then returned to New Orleans by train.

That winter was a cold one for us. There was snow on the ground for weeks at a time. For the next several months I commuted by "car-pooling" to Edgemont Arsenal with fellow officers. At the Arsenal I spent equal parts of time training 37

"in the field" and in classroom of the Chemical Warfare School.

Shortly after President Roosevelt died in April 1945, I received my orders to report for duty with a combat battalion at Camp Gruber, Oklahoma. I, Thais, and Eric drove from Baltimore to Muskogee, 0klahoma - a small city in the Indian Reservations part of the state. Camp Gruber was about 15 miles away. We found a rather "beat-up" looking apartment in an old house. I arranged for car-pooling to and from Camp Gruber, and reported for duty there. That summer was not a pleasant experience. The battalion to which I reported was part of a regiment which had already seen combat duty in Europe. Their morale was low, as they did not appreciate the thought of serving overseas again. My battalion was not happy because they were getting a new main weapon. Their weapon had previously been the largest bore "cannon" in the Army's FiWld Artillery, an 8inch rifle. Their new weapon was the Chemical warfare Service's major weapon- the 4.2 inch mortar. This was the reason why I and other CWS officers had been assigned to the unit.

We had all been trained in the use of this mortar and I, for one, had been classified as an "expert" in its use.

My assignment within the battalion was one big headache. It was a dual assignment. I was to be the Headquarters Company commanding officer as well as the battalion S-4 staff officer. The S-4 is charged with the responsibility of all supply and logistics matters. These positions were supposed to have an officer with the rank of a major. I was a First Lieutenant.

The Headquarters Company consisted of about 150 men. The

S-4 work covered the procurement of, responsibility for, and financial liability for all materiel required by the battalion.

For example, we had about 25 heavy Army trucks and 105 Jeeps. During that long hot summer, my battalion was preparing all our equipment for shipment to a west coast port for shipping out to a staging area somewhere in the Pacific. This was in preparation for the planned invasion of Japan.

In August the U.S. dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan and the war was soon over. Everyone gathered in the streets of Muskogee the night of the day of the announcement of the dropping of the bomb for a rather jubilant celebration. No one, including the military personnel, had the slightest idea that the U.S. had such a weapon. The "Manhattan Project" had been a successfully kept secret from the American people.

The reported power of the bomb was hard for anyone to believe. However, when the second one was dropped, Japan quickly surrendered and World War II was over.

I thought I would quickly be discharged from active duty to return to New Orleans; but this was not to be. First, as S-4 of my my battalion, I had to legally return all of our equipment to the supply sources from where they came. This required a large amount of "paperwork" for me and my staff - about six to 8 weeks of work. I was very relieved when I finally got a document saying that I was now relieved of all financial responsibility. Secondly, I found that I could not now be discharged anyway, because I did not have enough "points." The military had devised a schedule by which active duty members would be released on the basis of points. While I had been on 38

active duty for nearly four years, I had not served overseas or in combat. Those who had done so earned extra points and would be discharged first. The net result of all this was that I would have to remain, for an undetermined time, on active duty.

I was then transferred back to home base of the Chemical Warfare Service at Edgewood, MD. We moved back to a small apartment at Middle River in the Fall of 1945. I spent the winter of 1945-1946 commuting daily to Edgewood Arsenal. I had a variety of "window-dressing" type of assignments, since it was known that I would be leaving the service as soon as I had earned enough points. It was another cold and heavy snowfall winter. Thais had never seen so much snow, but Eric loved to play in "the white stuff," Finally, by February of 1946 I had acquired enough points to be released. I drove to a nearby Army base, Fort Meade, MD, for my official discharge papers. We immediately left to drive home to New Orleans.

There was at least a foot of snow on the ground at Baltimore and Washington. As we crossed the bridge over the Potomac River, we noticed that it was frozen over. As we continued southward, the weather was gradually warmer, and we observed millions of redbud trees in bloom in the mountains of North Carolina and Alabama. By the time we came through southern Mississippi and arrived in New Orleans the azaleas and camellias were blooming. It was now late February of 1946.

39

P ART 10

Recollections

We returned from Baltimore and my Army duty in February 1946. We were planning on living in an apartment at 2468 Dauphine Street, in the same place we had "fixed up" to live in back in 1942, when we returned from our honeymoon. It was on the second floor of Thais' parents' home. They had rented it during the war, but now made it available for us again. We moved into the apartment not knowing how long we would be there. We did want a house of our own, but at that time did not have much savings from the war years. I was invited back to my old position at International Lubricant Corporation "ILC." They had prospered during the war, making and shipping lubricants under their own brand names as well as for other oil companies and large organizations,who marketed lubricants under their own brand names. The laboratory staff had grown a lot. That fall I was named Chief Chemist, as well as Research Director, working directly with the Senior Vice President. Also, that fall Shell Oil Company purchased all the stock of ILC from the private owners. We were now a wholly owned Shell subsidiary.

We continued living at 2468 Dauphine Street until early fall of 1946. We then found that we could purchase our own home with the help of the "GI Bill," which had been recently passed

by Congress. This would guarantee us a low interest loan for a home. We found a place we liked at 6224 Waldo Drive, near the lakefront in New Orleans. We made the arrangements through a local "Homestead," bought the place, and moved there in the fall of 1946. This was the first place we had lived since we were married that we had not rented. We lived at

Waldo Drive from 1946 until early 1952, but my memories of those years are all sort of telescoped together. I was doing well at ILC. I was in a car pool with several fellow employees so that Thais had use of our car much of the time. It was a friendly neighborhood and we made a lot of friends. Eric was growing fast and started to school while we lived there. Before we left, Thais' parents bought a home across the street from us. Thais and I could now go out socially without worrying about baby sitters, since the grandparents were very fond of their grandchildren.

In 1947 we had decided to have another child. In February 1948 Thais had our little daughter, Cynthia Elisa. This completed our family - first a boy and now a girl. In 1950 we made a great trip to Europe. It was supposedly a business trip and we accompanied the president of ILC and his wife, but it was more pleasure than business. Shell 0il Company was then - and now, owned by British and Dutch interests. The ILC president was invited at a high level by these interests to visit the European headquarters of Shell, since they now owned ILC. Mr. William Saunders, the ILC president, was primarily a business and financial manager. He felt that he should have a technically trained person with him and I was chosen for this role. He was taking his wife and asked me if Thais could get away from her children for two months. I checked with Thais and her parents and they volunteered to take care of the house and children for the time we would be away. In June 1950 we took a train to New York and then boarded the Coronia, the fanciest ship of the Cunard Line, to 41

England. It was our first cruise and we enjoyed it very much.

We then toured England, Wales, and Scotland for three weeks by chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce. We traveled from London to nearby Hampton Court Palace; on to Oxford University, and through a section of Wales to Chester, England. From there we went to Manchester, and then to the English Lakes District. From there we entered Scotland, and toured Glasgow and then Edinburgh. From Edinburgh we drove back to England and stopped at the old city of York. Then we made a stop at Cambridge, and finally went back to London. We were in the UK a total of three weeks. In London we stayed at the Grosvenor House Hotel. Since Mr. Saunders was considered an important visitor from the US, we were entertained on a rather lavish scale. This was noticeable because the English themselves were still living under wartime rationing. It was only 4 years since World War II had ended.

In passing, I should say that I did spend some time on technical details and was able to pass on to my British and Dutch colleagues some very important details about some of the patents that they had acquired from ILC when they bought our company. After three weeks in the UK we took a plane across the channel to Amsterdam. We visited the head office and research laboratories of Royal Dutch Shell in Amsterdam, made tours of some of the nearby areas, but stayed in a hotel in The Hague. We were assigned a senior Shell official as our driver and guide. We next visited Belgium briefly and then took a train to Paris. Shell-France personnel entertained us there.

This included an invitation to have dinner with the Sales Direc-

tor of Shell-France and his family. They lived down river from Paris. His name was Rigaud, and he had been born in Louisiana but had come back to France as a child.

We were impressed with Paris as a city, but were not impressed with their people. From Paris,Thais and I left the Saunders and took a train to Lucerne, Switzerland. At our hotel in Lucerne we found a letter at the desk from the manager of Shell Switzerland offering to make himself available to help us in any way he could. We let him know that we were a bit tired of being entertained and would prefer to be just regular tourists on our own. For the next few days we enjoyed very much seeing something of the country. We took a train to Amsterdam, but planned stops on the way at Freiburg, Karlsruhe and Essen to visit with some of Thais' relatives. From Amsterdam we took a plane to New York, and then a train to New Orleans. Thais' parents met us in New Orleans. Her father was holding Cynthia in his arms, but when Thais held out her arms to her, she would not come to her. In two month's time she appeared to have "forgotten" her mother!

I stayed in the Army Reserves after the war, although most of my friends did not. When I returned from Europe, I found that I had been transferred to a large Transportation Corps unit in New Orleans as the Chemical Officer. "Chep" Morrison was my commanding officer. Lt. Col. Morrison was also the Mayor of New Orleans. He eventually became a major general, while I eventually retired as a Lieutenant Colonel. The war in Korea had started in 1950, before we made the European trip. As an Army Reserve officer, I had to report to the 42

American Embassy in each country we visited. Fortunately for me my services were never required in this long, useless, and bloody conflict.

parents were both still alive, as were my mother and siblings.

We now settled down at 19 Gull Street in anticipation of a stable future.

The two years between 1950 and 1952 went smoothly. Eric was now in school. Thais had tried to get him admitted to a parochial school but he was denied because he did not quite meet their minimum age requirement. Rather than have him miss a year of school, we enrolled him in John Dibert public school on Orleans Avenue. He did well there, as much of the troubles in the present public school system did not exist at that time. Meanwhile, Thais and I were looking at residential lots on which we would eventually build our permanent home.

We had looked at the appropriate parts of Jefferson Parish, and all over Orleans Parish. We finally decided on a lot in Lake Vista- on the lakefront. This land was relatively expensive at that time, because it was artificially created land dredged from the bottom of Lake Pontchartrain in the 1930s.

It was also above sea level, which most of New Orleans is not.

A lot that cost $5,000 then sells for over $200,000 now. In late 1951 we had plans submitted by an architect and a contract signed to construct our home at 19 Gull Street. In February 1952 we moved into our new home and have been here ever since. Eric was 8 years old and Cynthia was 4; Thais was 28 and I was 35 years old.

A lot had happened to our lives and to the world in general in the nearly ten years of our marriage. We had lived in many places under sometimes trying circumstances. We had made many friends. We had two fine intelligent children. Thais' 43