My Dad's name was Lynn and he began his life in the small town of Croswell, Michigan, which was about an hour from Port Huron in the days before freeways and interstate highways. Port Huron is on the shores of Lake Huron (See map icon near bottom of page below photos). He was fourth in a family of thirteen children. Marvel and Evadne (later called Peggy) were the two oldest girls; then came Jack, Lynn and Keith; another girl, Olga, Darwin (later Jerry); Courtney (later Dale) and North (who went by Mark as an adult) were the next three boys; Echo (she also changed her name to Gale) and Lornalou were the last two girls and Dwight and Conrad; the last two boys. Lynn's childhood, although deprived and with hunger an everyday fact, remained one of his fond memories. It was a small town and he played in the woods and in the nearby Black River, running wild and pretty much unhampered by his parents. His mother even let his brother and him have a virtual laboratory in their basement bedroom. Lynn recalled later it was a wonder they didn't blow up the whole house. He performed admirably in school, fueled by high intelligence and a thirst for knowledge. However; it was in high school that he began to realize his family was not only poor (as were many people during the depression, of course), but also from "the wrong side of the tracks" as the saying goes and in my father's own words. This put a decided crimp in his self-confidence socially, consequently he became even more determined to excel n his scholastic endeavors. Lynn took up photography and joined the drama club. And he began to dream of seeing the world from some other viewpoint than his small town.
Joining the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) in his teens was something he believed made a real difference in his life. This was a group founded by Franklin D. Roosevelt, and combined FDR's interest in conservation and universal service for youth. Roosevelt believed that this civilian "tree army" would relieve the rural unemployed and keep youth "off the city street corners". Having said that, I must state my father was a staunch Republican all his life just the same. After graduating from high school in 1938 and attending 2 years of junior college, Lynn and older brother Jack joined the Army Air Corps in 1940. He worked as a court stenographer at Chanute Field in Chicago. Of course, the war intervened in late 1941 and he was sent to Kearns, Utah for overseas training. After that he was stationed in Trinidad getting to spend a month first in Puerto Rico playing golf when the Air Corps didn't seem to know what to do with him. He loved Trinidad, but never went back, although he eventually did quite a bit of traveling with my mother later in his life. He was the manager there of the tool and die shop, making parts that, in turn, made parts for the airplanes.
After the war, armed with his GI loan he attended Wayne State University, working a couple different jobs on the side. Now that he had seen even a little bit of the world, he was more determined than ever to get out into it and not to return to Croswell. One job he had during this time was working in the Wayne State Bookstore, changing the filing system. He went on to graduate in the top 10% of is class in 1949. But first, along the way in 1947, and in the Wayne State bookstore, he met my mother... |
