

RAMBLE

A MEMOIR

William J. Gehron

© 2010 by William J Gehron

PART I

Family Background

The other day I received a telephone call from my sister Grace who lives in Florida. (As I write this I must report Grace's death on October 1, 2008. (There is more on this later.) What struck me about our conversation, some times heavily weighted in Grace's favor, was her reference, not infrequent, to our mother and father. In one thought she expressed how lucky we were to have such good parents, but in the next breath she was chiding them for not telling us about what lay beyond the front door of the home where we had grown up in Pelham, New York.

Confusing? It was somewhat. Yet it did get me to think later about my immediate family and those who had preceded them. Who were they really? Where did they come from? What were their hopes and aspirations or their faults as Grace had suggested in that conversation? And beyond that, who was I and what was I all about? In addition to Grace, our children seemed to want a full profile of the Gehron family though the years.

I think I was a placid baby who turned into a relatively placid man. In turn, I wasn't terribly inquisitive and so delving into family history did not seem to be 'down my alley'. I never really tried to explain, document, study or analyze the origins of my being here. This is not to say I didn't know something about my family background but I wasn't really as curious as I probably should have been. Following on the heels of that call and my daughter Anne's occasional plea for some background about my mother, father and their families, I decided to begin writing. She stated, I thought quite correctly, a chronicle might be in order especially since beyond Grace and me there were not many left around who had any real historical perspective about all of this.

So here I am, a little like Clement Clarke Moore, with pencil in hand to write a story for our children which like A Visit From St. Nicholas will be a blend of fact and fiction \-- I can't be sure of each and every fact. Some things I do know for certain, others may be assumptions but I hope this attempt will prove fruitful for all.

For me it all began on August 5, 1924 at the Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. In those days, even if you lived in the suburbs, you never put full faith and trust in the local doctors. Certainly, when a delivery was due, only the best care would do and nothing could top the doctors, nurses and hospitals of New York City – provided, of course, you could afford it. At that time in my family, money was not a major concern.

My father, William Gehron (interestingly no middle initial or name), was a relatively successful architect who held a senior position in the old, and to me, elegant architectural firm of Arnold W. Brunner and Associates. Their offices were located at 101 Park Avenue, a business address my father maintained throughout his life even after he had eventually taken over the firm. He was a graduate of Carnegie Tech, now Carnegie Mellon University. He matriculated in 1912 after some tough years of study. It is easy to imagine the time he must have put into his studies for, as he told me many times, when he arrived in Pittsburgh to study architecture he didn't even know how to spell the word. But from the beginning he loved the work and in his time was considered an excellent student. Because of his unique sketching talent, he was known as the 'Shade and Shadow King'. In those days such an accolade was quite a badge of honor. Pen and pencil were important tools in the business world then because renderings frequently sold the concept of a building. Hugh Ferris an architect/render was in his prime then and his drawings are still a wonder to behold. His sketches sold potential clients on building a building. I have some prints of drawings my father did as a young architect in New York trying to supplement his initial, modest salary and they compare quite favorably with the work of Ferris. It was a skill he carried with him throughout his life. He refined his technique from a somewhat mechanical black and white, pen and ink production in his early years to charcoal and free flowing water colors for pleasure in later years.

My father was at no pains to tell me how he arrived at Carnegie Tech. This story may be in some part his fiction or mine but the essence is certainly true.

My father's father, Jacob Gehron, was a German immigrant who arrived in New York City in 1882 and moved on to Williamsport, Pennsylvania where he opened a lumber mill and hired out as an architect-contractor. As I write this the firm, Jacob Gehron & Sons, was in business until a few years ago. Jacob Gehron was never a wealthy man. He had a wife and nine children to support, (three girls and six boys). He may have reached the comfortable level. In any case, he did well enough to support his family and give male members of his clan one or another role to play in the firm but he was in no position to promote the interests of any of the nine beyond that. From my father's stories about this period, I have to assume he worked with some of his other brothers as a carpenter on various of Grandpa Gehron's jobs. One day he said (it may have been a number of times), he was nailing some stripping on a roof when he looked down to see on the ground a well tailored gent gesticulating and issuing orders to the construction foreman. "Who is that," he asked one of the older hands who promptly informed him, "That's the architect". It was my father's claim that he much preferred to be that fellow on the ground to the one on the roof and so he determined to pursue a career in architecture. It was not to be easy. When his father came from the old country he carried the credentials of an architect-contractor a position he won through the customs of the time in Germany and brought with him to the United States. But in the early 1900's architecture in America was becoming a professional business in which a degree to be licensed and to practice was a requirement. For my father this meant a college degree and such an education required money. I don't know the 'ins and outs' about how all this became possible. I do know, however, that Grandpa Gehron couldn't afford to send his son to college but in the wings there was a wealthy Williamsport citizen who could and did. Whatever the arrangement, he evidently had faith that William Gehron had the right stuff. Thus, in his very early twenties, being the only son to do so, he left Williamsport for Pittsburgh to embark on a lifelong career as a 'New York Architect'.

I have mentioned Grandpa Gehron and this might be an appropriate point to say something more about this Pennsylvania family with some very fleeting recollections I still hold in my mind.

Grandpa Gehron was born in 1852 in Eberstadt, Germany. I remember that from time to time my father would jokingly refer to some bastard-like problem in the family lineage. Only recently did I discover that this actually involved Grandpa Gehron. I had thought that any 'hanky-panky' probably had occurred much, much earlier. Suffice to say that Jacob Gehron was born under the surname 'Flat' or 'Pflat' and was adopted by his uncle George Gehron and his wife. I don't know what to read into this but it seems that Jacob might have been born out of wedlock.

Whatever the mystery surrounding his birth, from his youngest days until his departure from his native land in the summer of 1882 Otto von Bismark must have dominated his life and that of his adopted family. Bismark in 1862 took charge of Prussian policy in 1862 and in 1871 created the German Empire controlling its domestic and international policies until his dismissal in 1890. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte III, nephew of Napoleon I, in neighboring France would have been no stranger either. He proclaimed himself emperor in the year of Jacob Gehron's birth but his empire would end disastrously in 1870-71 in the Franco-Prussian War. These were years of growth strains and pains for Germany and the turbulence of these times with uncertain enemies or allies in England, Austria, Russia and Italy may have prompted Grandpa Gehron to look beyond the boundary of the Old World to the New. Suffice to say, I can never recall a word from my father as to what led his father to decide to emigrate when he did.

Certainly a factor in those unstable times was that at age 23 he married Margaretha Daechert a local girl who was two years younger than he and by the time he decided to leave there were three children to account for – Matilda Gehron born in 1876, George in 1877 and Jacob the following year.

I know my father worshiped his parents and for all the years I can remember he was very solicitous of their welfare. Being the only son to pull up stakes in Williamsport he kept them aware of his own situation through postcards and letters at regular intervals. He did so until their deaths, Margaretha in 1928 and Jacob in 1936. Although they never came 'East' to visit, my mother and father did go to Williamsport and it was on one of those trips that I met both grandparents for the first and only time.

I have a more vivid impression of Grandpa than of his wife. I presume that during that brief stay at the family's only residence at 1413 St. James Place it was because I saw more of him than of her. As I recall, his place of business was just out the back door. It was a large lumber mill complete with railroad tracks, woodworking machines large and small, piles of firred and unfirred wood in what I remember as a building resembling a large airplane hangar. Outside was a great sawdust pile. It was a busy place where the work was conducted by people who seemed instinctively to know what they were doing. You had the feeling that Grandpa Gehron made it work without working.

I reveled in the place. I was given the job of moving small piles of sawdust from the cutting area to the big sawdust pile via a cart that was pushed by hand along one of the rail tracks. The smell of fresh cut wood, the ease of moving sawdust and doing a man's job suited me just fine. I could not have had a better time.

Grandpa was always around somewhere. He wore a dark rather formal business suit with black shoes the top of which reached above his ankles. His suit was old fashioned unlike the Eastern cut of my father's clothes. He looked old world as did Margaretha who also dressed in black. Both were good natured people around the house but that might have been simply do to the fact that Williamsport was home to all the Gehron family except my father and all wished at one time or another to pay their respects. For me, when I wasn't 'working' there were a sufficient number of nephews – I can't recall nieces – to fill out my day in amiable play.

I mentioned earlier that the firm of Jacob Gehron in my eyes was a busy place. As I review Grandpa's obituary I can see why. It notes that since the business was launched in 1893 it held many important contracts in and around Williamsport. I'm not familiar with any of them but among those cited were the Williamsport Wire Rope Company plant; Williamsport Hospital; Elk's Lodge; Independent Order of Odd Fellows' Club and the Rialto Theatre. What I do know is the firm, through Grandpa Gehron, built up a lasting reputation for honesty, integrity and quality. I am sure that these characteristics are a reflection of another important part of Grandpa Gehron's life – his religious convictions. While my father was not very religious in a formal sense, he was very proud of his father's church activities and made a point of mentioning them rather prominently when Grandpa's name came up in our conversations. Appropriately, his religious faith was based on the principles of Martin Luther a near German neighbor born four hundred years earlier. Luther lived, studied, proclaimed and died in Saxony a region but a hop, skip and jump from Eberstadt. His influence was keenly felt in Germany since the Lutheran churches originated as territorial churches, subject to the 16th century local princes and became in effect state churches. Luther, by the way, among his many accomplishments married a former nun, Katherine von Born, in 1525 and raised six children. But I digress. I do know from his obituary that Jacob Gehron "had been a member of the Emmanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church for many years and was a leader in the congregation."

That same obituary noted that Grandpa was a prominent contractor in Williamsport where he settled after having immigrated to this country and followed his trade as a carpenter. Earlier, I referred to him as an architect-contractor and equate the difference to American shorthand and old world artisans. In any case, the Jacob Gehron contracting firm was started in 1893 one year before he gained US citizenship. The business was eventually incorporated in 1923 with Grandpa as President-Treasurer permitting him to keep a firm hand on the tiller. Four sons joined with him in this process. He remained active in the business until his death at age 84. Surviving him at that time was a daughter and five sons – all but my father living in Williamsport. Other survivors included two step-brothers and a step-sister, 18 grandchildren and 8 great grand children. Margaretha had died 8 years earlier at age 74.

I wish I could convey some fuller impression of Grandma Gehron but in those days women spent the larger part of their lives at home doing those things that keep a family together and running smoothly. On that solitary visit to Williamsport I just remember her being around the house. With the nine children she brought into the world over a seventeen year period she obviously had her hands full. She lost two of those children prior to her own death. Minnie born in 1886 died at age 14 and Henry, who lead a fuller life but ended up being an alcoholic died two years before to her own death. There is a Gehron family genealogy and it reports a lack of information about Grandma Gehron and her background. So all told, unlike Grandpa Gehron who established a business and was actively engaged in the community, Grandma Gehron remains but a shadow and more the pity.

As if to bring this contrast between a visible Grandpa Gehron and shadowy Grandma Gehron into sharper focus I have before me an editorial written not about her at the time of her death but about him at his – the community recognition factor. It appeared in the Williamsport Gazette and bears quoting in full. Titled "Jacob Gehron, Builder", it reads as follows:

Williamsport recognized in Jacob Gehron one of its substantial citizens. He was by profession a builder. His nature was such that this description fitted him better than did that of 'building contractor'. He was so completely interested in his work and put so much into it that one felt building meant far more to him than the business interests involved in it. (As an interesting aside here, my mother had placed on father's grave the words "He loved his work" -- a chip off the old block?)

Mr. Gehron took a quiet but useful part in various community activities and was widely known and respected. As he passes from among his friends and neighbors, leaving a highly respected name, he leaves behind him sons who paid him the compliment of making his work the pattern of their own life work. That is a tribute which many men desire, but which few receive in such measure as did Mr. Gehron from his four sons.

The four sons, of course, were those who played a role in Grandpa's firm: George, Jacob, Jr., John and Carl.

I have not speculated on what led Jacob and his spouse and three children to settle in Williamsport. I gain the impression that they knew where they wanted to go on arriving in this country and wasted no time in getting there. Williamsport, the seat of Lycoming County in central Pennsylvania, is situated on the Susquehanna River. It was settled in 1772 and gained city status in 1866 some 16 years before the arrival of the Gehrons. The Columbia Encyclopedia reports that the city grew with the development of the lumber industry in the 19th century and that could have been a major factor in a carpenter's decision to settle there. I would also assume that some earlier immigrants from Eberstadt made it their abode and had extolled it's virtues through word of mouth or correspondence or through hearsay. Pennsylvania, itself, was a magnet for people of German descent from the founding of the colony of Pennsylvania. It offered persecuted sects including Lutherans religious freedom, a la William Penn, and let those immigrants retain, to a considerable extent, their language, customs, architecture and superstitions. The term Pennsylvania Dutch is from the German Deutsch and refers to the people of German descent who migrated to the area in the 18th Century. All in all it was a logical place for German immigrants in the late 1800's to establish themselves -- a home away from home. The fact that Jacob Gehron and the first generation of his family settled permanently in Williamsport makes clear the soundness of his initial decision. Interestingly Jacob and Margaretha ended up being stick-in-the-mud Williamsporters remaining there for the rest of their lives except for one recorded visit to their hometown in Germany in the summer of 1907. Why they elected to make that trip to Eberstadt at that time is not clear. But Germany was then on the brink of being Europe's vexatious power with France, Russia and England then creating the Triple Entente which by 1914 faced Germany and its allies in World War I. They may have felt a crisis building and if they were to go home again, it was likely to be then or never. Yet it may simply have been a sentimental journey since it was exactly 25 years after their departure from the old world.

I have briefly mentioned my father, William Gehron, in describing the Gehron family background. It is probably appropriate at this point to place him in sharper focus. Jacob and Margaretha's six additional children, two girls Sophia and Minnie, and four boys, Henry, William, John and Carl were all born in Williamsport. William was the seventh to arrive and first drew breath on July 9, 1887. I don't know much about his early years. However, father used to make a point of having been around and recalling – which I doubt – that great blizzard of 1888. I'm sure as a very young child he heard stories about that great storm and in later years relived it through them. But clearly he had little or no immediate knowledge of it. I suspect in a big moderately well-off family his was a relatively normal childhood. They did stable a horse and I have been told that much fun and games surrounded that four-legged beast. The riding ability acquired in those days, straddling a horse bareback, may have emboldened my father to apply for a commission in the cavalry in World War I. In any case, he seemed to hold fond recollections of wild rides through local streets and fields. There weren't many other childhood stories that I can recall. I really cannot recall any mention by him of his early education before attending Carnegie Tech. However, from an application for a commission he submitted to the U. S. Army Signal Corps in 1917 he did spell out his schooling. He went to elementary school – he gives as the name of that school the Williamsport Public School – from 1893 to 1903 and states that he did graduate. But interestingly, in response to high school equivalent on the application, he does list the Williamsport High School which he attended in 1904 and 05 but notes that he did not graduate. It seems clear that he withdrew from high school to join with his older brothers in Grandpa Gehron's business. From 1905 to1908 his employer was Jacob Gehron, Contractor and he describes his job as 'in charge of building operations'. I would have to assume that any entrance exam he took to get into Carnegie Tech was based on knowledge he acquired in the field as opposed to any formal schooling. For the record, his weekly wage for the three years he was with Grandpa Gehron was initially $15 and topped out at $40. The latter was probably very good pay for a 20 year old in those days. It may account in part for his quitting high school knowing there was good money to be had in working for his father.

I imagine as a young boy he was an average athlete as he was when he attended college. He was never really interested in playing sports perhaps because much of his time was devoted to pitching in doing various chores for the family firm long before he left school. He did tell me that when he arrived at Carnegie Tech he tried out for the football team but the first day of practice he was so broken and bruised that he quit after retiring from the field. He evidently did play class football and basketball at Tech and he was on the Design School track team. However, all that was a far cry from any varsity sports. He did maintain an interest in Carnegie Tech football in his years after graduation attending several games in Pittsburgh and taking me along on one occasion. A big occasion I might add as it was the only game – I think I have this right – in which Carnegie Tech bested Notre Dame the great football powerhouse in those days.

All this sport commentary reminds me again of his application for a commission in World War I for it asked that he describe his proficiency in some thirteen sports ranging from very good to very poor. Chess, horsemanship, sailing and tennis were activities in which he was very good, he reported. Good were baseball, football, gymnastics and marksmanship. He put billiards, boxing and motorcycle in the average category and listed fencing and polo as very poor. I have a feeling he was never involved in at least half of those activities but then I may be wrong. I do know that later he became a good canoeist and made some wilderness journeys with a fellow architect and good friend Arthur Gilkerson. He also embraced sailing later in life. But generally speaking, sports were not his thing.

What was his thing was the architectural world in which he found himself. I've already mentioned his drawing skill. He was a diligent student in college where he ranked in the top ten percent of his class and reveled in architectural and structural design and mathematics. He took his first major step in that direction on October 7, 1908 when he left Williamsport for Pittsburgh to begin his freshman year at Carnegie Tech. The date can be pinpointed since he received as a going away present a book of the Bible dated and simply inscribed – mother and father. Years later he penciled a note on the book's flyleaf: 'This Bible was given to me the day I first left home when 21 years of age to go to Carnegie Institute of Technology to school".

At the time he was beginning his formal architectural training Teddy Roosevelt was coming into the last year of his final term in office. Under his leadership, the United States was passing through a decade of progressivism in which the 'captains of industry' were denounced by Roosevelt as 'malefactors of great wealth' and a 'square deal' essentially for all was the objective. Much of what Roosevelt sought to do was to be thwarted by his hand picked successor William Howard Taft who held the Presidency throughout father's time in college. However, it was a heady time in America's history as government moved to protect the rights and well-being of the average man and William Gehron surely sensed that.

Once he arrived in Pittsburgh, he seemed to look east and while there were sentimental attachments to Williamsport it was New York City that seemed to captivate him. He spent the summer of 1910 with the New York architectural firm of Dennison and Hirona as a draftsman and building superintendent. The following summer he was with Ernest Flagg performing the same tasks. Those two summers were probably instrumental in his arriving at a final decision to practice architecture in New York.

Even though he was earning money in the summer months to help pay his way through college, money was always a problem. He told me many times that among other things he worked as an usher at the Pittsburgh Opera House. I don't know if his financial guardian angel in Williamsport supported all or less than his four years of education. I suspect he paid for tuition but board and incidentals probably had to be covered by father. However, he managed financially; he gained his A. B. degree in Architecture in 1912 as planned. I assumed he went home to Willamsport after graduation but he didn't stay long. In September of that year he joined some college friends, including, I believe, Arthur Gilkerson, to travel for six months through England, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Spain and North Africa. The trip was as much an extension of the study of architecture as one of pleasure. His surviving sketchbooks from that period are full of drawings of artistic and cultural landmarks with detail after detail of columns, ceilings, doors, windows, fountains, fences – all sorts of things. And much of what he saw and sketched was reflected in some of his subsequent work. There are also whimsical sketches of people, animals, inanimate objects such as carriages or just a shoe that he found joy in drawing. These remind me of some of Toulouse-Lautrec's drawings done just for the sheer fun of doing them. Some of father's we have mounted and placed on the wall of our home.

There is no way to tell whether that small band of friends sensed the catastrophe that was about to embrace Europe and undertook their extended journey before disaster struck. Whether perceived or not, it was a timely trip and certainly numerous things they saw and drew disappeared in the destruction that followed in the ensuing four years of war.

When he returned to New York early in 1913 he joined Arnold W. Brunner at 101 Park Avenue. The firm was engaged in some major projects including the design of the Stadium of New York City College, the Students Building of Barnard College and the Public Ledger Building of Philadelphia. Father was in charge of making the drawings and supervising the construction of these undertakings. I gather, within a short period of time, he actually held an interest in the company. He was to remain with the firm until Brunner's death in 1925.

I have trouble visualizing my father in the military since that form of discipline would have been alien to his nature. But I take it that he was drafted sometime after the U.S. entered World War I in April of 1917. With a great degree of patriotism and some source of regret he had to disengage from the passion of architecture to that of soldiering. Here the records are thin. However, I did come across a U. S. Army form which states in part the following: "Know ye, that reposing special trust and confidence in the fidelity and abilities of Sergeant William Gehron I do hereby appoint him Sergeant First Class, 808th Aero Repair Squadron, A.S.A. of the Army of the United States, to rank as such from the first day of November 1918." It was issued at the direction of Major General Kenly, whoever he might have been.

But I am getting ahead of the sequence of the most important event in my father's life – his marriage to my mother. Grace Patricia McDermott was born in New York City on March 11, 1898 the third of four daughters brought into the world through the marriage of James McDermott and Irene McDonald. Of the other three children Marion was the oldest followed by Irene and Josephine -- called Jackie..

That year was an auspicious time in American history as the Spanish-American War began and concluded within its twelve month span. Not only was the Spanish Empire essentially dissolved but Cuba was freed under U. S. tutelage and the Philippines, Guam and Puerto Rico ceded to the United States. According to the Columbia Encyclopedia the United States emerged from the war with new international power. That new found authority probably was in part responsible for America's eventual involvement in the First World War.

Unfortunately, the lineage of both the McDermotts and the McDonalds is very obscure. The former were of Irish extraction, the latter Scottish, but also Irish, I think. When family members arrived here, I know not. The McDermotts might have come in the 1850's when, following the Great Potato Famine, almost two million Irish left for the United States. I feel fairly certain that both 'Pop' and 'Nanny' McDermott, as they were known to me, were born on this side of the Atlantic. I generalize because the McDonald side as I recall, like a number of immigrants to this country, made their way here through Canada. It seems some McDonalds spent some time on Prince Edward Island before pushing south. Some may have remained there. The route through Canada to the States was not an unusual one as many desirous of leaving the old country simply took the first passage out and Halifax was a prominent stop for vessels plying the Atlantic in those days. Being Scots – if that was the case – was another reason to establish roots in Canada. I'm inclined to believe the McDermotts went straight to New York. In any event, both families ended up living in lower Manhattan as that is where Pop and Nanny met and married. At the time of my mother's birth they must have been living on the Upper West Side for according to my records mother was baptized in the Church of the Holy Name at 96th Street and Amsterdam Avenue which must have been the McDermott's local parish. It is still there today.

I have a much more vivid recollection of Nanny than Pop. Pop was cultured and articulate without much formal education. His father died when he was eleven and he had to work to help support the family. I imagine he was typical of his class of Irishman for he loved city politics and being with the boys in the local political club and ale house. He was a thin, affable man who despite his limited education was well read and knowledgeable rather a contrast to his wife who was quite reticent and reserved. He seemed eventually to find employment in real estate and insurance. I say this for I came across a letter he wrote in June of 1936 to my mother on the occasion of my sister Grace's graduation from Pelham High School – actually the paper was for office memos which carried the letterhead of William N. Callahan Company insurance, bond and real estate brokers at 51 East 42nd Street. I presume that was his general field of endeavor throughout his adult life. His handwriting by the way was flowing and precise. His words were poetic. I believe he must have had some good years for I recollect a visit by him to my mother and father's house at 66 Highbrook Avenue in Pelham. He arrived with daughter Irene who was at the wheel of a brand new Ford two door sedan complete with rumble seat. It was, I think, a gift to my Aunt Irene from her father -- very jazzy for those days. Just to have a car was stylish. On the other hand, the letter to which I have referred held a small post transcript that read: "Rene will attend to a small gift. Wish I could do better." I think he meant Irene would find some token for Grace on her graduation, Pop could not afford much. Things were probably not going well for him at the time. I believe I should quote here the entire text of that letter, which was addressed to my mother, since it really is the only item of reminiscence I can find that lets Pop speak for himself. On the outside of the envelope in pencil my father wrote: "Letter from Pop – one of the last he has written." The return address was 623 West End Avenue, Apt 2. It read as follows:

(June, 1936?)

Dear Grace

Irene wrote me to tell me of Grace's graduation. I am indeed sorry I cannot attend the evening it occurs but I wish you would convey to Grace my kindest felicitations on this glorious occasion. It is the climax of four years of study and the ecstasy is hers and also yours and Bills and I know you both are proud today in anticipation of the event. I remember well the preparation for you girls on a like occasion and it was then and only then that we realized that you were all grown up and that a different view of life was ahead of you. And how well you all met it and how happy things have been for all of you. Let's hope such will be the consummation of their lives and that God will guide them through the years and that every hope you cherish will be realized which I am sure it will be. Sometimes we become serious on occasions of this kind because of the raising of the children from childhood to adolescence but it is but a stage of life through which we all passed and how happy were we at those gatherings. So take on again childhood dreams and enter into the occasion with the same gayety that was yours at graduation and then come down into the years that followed and see how lovely your life has been replete with happiness. So we wish just so for Grace today and on through the years until the end. This is my tribute first to Grace second to you and Bill and little Bill. Have a good time and be a girl again.

Love

Father

There was another notation at the end: Excuse the stationary. I wrote this in my room.

I would guess that Pop was born in 1865 that tumultuous year in which the American Civil War came to an end and Lincoln was shot. He was one of three children but the only son which may account for his early introduction into the working world.

His marriage to Nanny may have been successful at first, but it eventually ran into trouble. I surmise that their marriage took place in 1894 when Nanny was eighteen years old and Pop was twenty-nine. My first awareness of problems was when I was about five. When mother and father went off to Europe I spent some time with them in their apartment somewhere in New York City's Washington Heights. Later research suggests the apartment as being # 55 Payson Avenue which as it happens is just down from where young Bill now has his apartment in New York. It was an unhappy stay for me as there was much bickering and it usually ended when Pop retired from the battle by leaving probably to join the boys at some convenient watering hole in the neighborhood. Of course, that was some thirty years into their marriage but it was the bridge between earlier years when they were touched with some happiness and unhappiness and the last years when Pop walked out. It must have been shortly after my visit with them that Nanny according to Aunt Jackie called her to say she thought Pop was seeing another woman. I don't know if he did but I would guess Nanny might have challenged him and on that note he decided to leave her. Nanny, Aunt Jackie said, took it quite well. The girls and particularly Irene who was unmarried and living at home, were devastated. Irene worshiped him. I gathered from discussions between my mother and father after Pop's decisive act that he may, for a time, have had a fling – Atlantic City, New Jersey was mentioned – but eventually he hit the road downhill and within half a dozen years he passed through illness to his death in 1936. It was all very sad for he had alienated his wife and children and had no one around who cared about him except my father who paid his hospital expenses and those of his funeral and burial.

Nanny lived on for years after his death and this might be an appropriate place to put her in some sort of focus. By deduction I have to guess her birth year to be 1876 around the time Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone and Thomas Edison, in the following year, the phonograph. I understand from Aunt Jackie – and I should explain here that as I wrote this she was alive and well and we had chatted about some of these things – that Nanny's mother died when she was two and Nanny had gone to live with the family of her mother's sister. Whatever her domestic situation, lower Manhattan was her playground from infancy to her youthful marriage. I know nothing about her education although I assume there was some schooling involved. I do know that she was steeped in Catholicism for the church was a major force throughout her entire life. I have a feeling her mother may have been Irish Catholic and the mother's sister with whom she grew up had her stay the course culminating in a Catholic Church wedding which made the eventual breakup of their marriage quite shocking in those days. Nanny was short and somewhat stocky. Her interesting face and shy manner may well have attracted the attention of Jim McDermott. In the years that I knew her, Nanny didn't elaborate on much but she was always quick to defend the church no matter how obscure or trivial a matter on its teachings or tenets might be. If Aunt Irene was around – and she usually was since they lived their lives together – she would second those views. Although Nanny was an unassuming woman, she was very nice and it was always an occasion for me when she would come to our house for dinner. It wasn't that she'd say much – she wouldn't. But just the fact of her presence was pleasant and, fortunately, as the years passed she usually was accompanied by Aunt Irene who was a welcomed addition. Those evenings would many times end in some degree of acrimony since my mother, who was a non-practicing Catholic, would goad Nanny into endless and frequently senseless arguments about the church's stand on one thing or another. I always marveled at their willingness to leave the fray only to return to combat again inside a fortnight or so.

Nanny was a good mother who throughout her life remained close to her daughters. Since she and Aunt Irene lived but a stones throw from both my mother and Aunt Jackie, they saw a lot of them. Aunt Jackie was married to William Barnes and they lived with their five children in New Rochelle, N.Y., the same town where Nanny and Irene shared an apartment. Pelham was just a town away. Aunt Jackie said that Nanny was very saddened when Aunt Marion, who married Just Humez, moved to Detroit where the business he was in for a lifetime, McBeth Evans Glass Company, now defunct, was located. There were no children from that marriage but they seemed to enjoy each other and their life together. I'm sure that was a source of satisfaction to Nanny who felt them to be far away.

I have said that Nanny seemed to accept Pop McDermott's departure with stoicism and grace as painful as I am sure that event was to her. But I don't think she, or her daughters for that matter, ever, in their heart of hearts forgave Pop. She might have felt that given the eleven years difference in their ages, the older Jim didn't understand his younger wife. But however she tried to rationalize their broken marriage, I'm sure it was a hurt that she carried with her through the subsequent twenty-six years she outlived him. Nanny was 87 at the time she died peacefully in her sleep in 1962.

One can say all is well that ends well and that could be the case in this tale of failed marriage. Aunt Jackie told me that Pop and Nanny are buried side by side at the Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, N. Y. Joining them there is Aunt Irene whose death deserves some elaboration given its circumstances.

We are all aware of the violence that surrounds our lives. As long as there have been sins so has physical force been used to harm. Yet I am not aware of any life on either side of the families I have so far addressed here that had been so taken by a violent act except that of Aunt Irene. I make exception to death caused by war for I know of at least one relative on the Gehron side who lost his life in World War II. What I have in mind is a life taken in the normal pursuit of our daily lives by a malicious act on the part of another. Irene McDermott at age 89 was the victim of murder.

Rene, as Pop McDermott used fondly to call her lived quietly and frugally in a second floor apartment in a house at 542 Webster Avenue in New Rochelle, N.Y. She and Nanny had resided there for years and after Nanny's death in 1962, Irene who sought no disruptions in her life, contentedly stayed on in their comfortable suite. In her later years she had a day worker come in on a regular basis to clean and do other chores that Rene could no longer tackle at her advanced age. On August 19, 1986 the woman she normally expected did not show at the apartment but a substitute did. There is no way we shall ever know exactly what happened to gentle Irene but the 'health-care worker' as the press referred to her hit her over the head with a bottle of Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry and strangled her with her own rosary beads. The aide then fled the scene taking some of Irene's meager personal items with her. She was arrested by the police and after four frustrating years the justice system found the woman guilty of second-degree murder, grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property and sentenced her to twelve years in prison.

The Gannett Westchester paper of July 20, 1990 reported the defendant's tall tale and I think it bears reporting here since it is so patently ridiculous but gives some inside into Irene's violent death. The story said that the woman...

"Testified that she killed McDermott after they became involved in a scuffle." The aide, "who said she was 18 or 19 at the time of the death, added that she had been under severe stress at the time. She said that after McDermott called her names and struck her with a bottle in the stomach, she fought with McDermott and accidentally struck her in the head with the bottle." She continued, "McDermott began screaming as blood flowed from her head and she tried to calm McDermott by wrapping a beaded rope (the rosary beads) around her mouth. Somehow, she told the court, the rope slipped down to McDermott's neck. McDermott then went limp and she cleaned up the kitchen and took the bloody McDermott to the bedroom."

Ironically, Aunt Irene, who made hardly a ripple in the world beyond her, became the object of much attention in a community that was shocked by the nature of her death. As Aunt Jackie said to me, "At least, now she is at peace." She was a very holy woman and if dedication to her faith -- she was a daily communicant - - is the road to heaven, Aunt Irene is surely there.

As a sidebar to Irene's story, I would observe that she worked many years as a secretary but lost out on a good portion of her Social Security because she had lied about her age on originally taking the job. She went for youth over security. Not unheard of when you are a young woman.

I'm not fully aware of just how father and mother met but Aunt Jackie thought she remembered and her recollection is certainly as good as any. While my father was working for Brunner he was living with three or four other bachelors in an apartment on upper Riverside Drive (458 perhaps was the address). Mother's family was living more or less around the corner on Claremont Avenue. The year was probably 1917. It seems that one of the gang of four – a Bob Scott as Aunt Jackie recalled – was going with my mother and at some point introduced her to my father. Mother at the time was 19 and father was 30. I gather that mother had just completed school – Aunt Jackie mentioned business school acknowledging in the same breath that mother didn't like school – and had taken a secretarial job with a downtown firm. She was very attractive and talented. She sang in the church choir and her voice was such that some thought was given to a singing career. There were a string of beaux of whom Bob Scott seemed at the time to hold the edge. Father was distinguished and successful. Clearly, they were drawn to each other. I don't know what prompted him, other than to eliminate his rival for mother's affection but father approached Pop McDermott, according to Aunt Jackie, to warn him that Bob Scott might try to elope with his daughter. Pop thanked my father and promised that he would keep an eye on things. On Friday, November 9, 1917 mother did not return from work. Pop and Nanny were frantic. It was not until the next day that they heard from their daughter. A telegram came addressed to Mrs. James McDermott, 91 Kenmore Place, Brooklyn, dated November 10, it read:

Dear mother just married Bill. Left for Boston on 5 o'clock boat. Will write you tonight on boat. Love and kisses Grace

Was father's warning to Pop a cover for his own intentions? Who knows? Anyway, it seems that they made arrangements to be married at Saint Nicolas of Talentine Church in Fordham by a priest, Father Zeiser, with architect friend Louis Adams and his wife as witnesses. They then traveled to Boston as a newly married couple. Whatever concerns Pop and Nanny had they clearly accepted the arrangement for I have a copy of an announcement that read:

Mr.and Mrs. James H. McDermott announce the marriage of their daughter Grace Patricia to Mr. William Gehron on Saturday, the tenth of November One thousand nine hundred and seventeen New York City.

I don't know where mother and father spent Friday night but I venture a guess it was with the Adams's working out plans for the events that were to unfold on the following day. How long they considered the idea of eloping I do not know but given their feelings at the time it was probably spontaneous. With the marriage cast in stone by Nanny and Pop's belated announcement Grace Patricia McDermott and William Gehron were to share their life together until his death on November 11, 1958 – forty-one years later almost to the day.

I have already noted that the United States was at war by the time of their marriage. It was not long thereafter that my father found himself in the military. As a newly married man I am certain he had to be drafted. At some point, maybe even from the outset of his service he sought a commission but it was not to be. Sometime, shortly after his induction, he found himself on active duty in Washington, D. C. Initially his young bride remained in New York. Aunt Jackie seemed to remember them living in Fordham immediately after their return from Boston and that is quite likely as the Adams may have lived there and mother and father found the area attractive. Even today people remember, for instance, that St. Nicolas Talentine Church and parish were elegant in those days.

I found a letter he wrote to mother from his new post dated Sunday night, April 14, 1918 – actually it was written on Cosmos Club stationary. Could he have had entry to that distinguished group? It mentions missing her and hoping she would soon be with him. Before the war ended in November of that year she did join him and according to Mother they were in an apartment that across backyards looked upon the Taft or Harding residence, I forget which. That same letter makes clear that the newlyweds were having their skirmishes. Father had evidently received a letter that angered him and he responded saying,

"...I don't mistrust you because I know you will keep all the promises you made. And if you don't then you are not worthy to be my wife. And I don't want you, because if I could not trust you when I am away I could not love you with true love. And that is the way with me if you can't trust me to write to a friend while I am away. Then you can't have the true faith that goes with true love dearest, because truth, faith and love are incompatible. It is not possible to have true deep lasting love, without having faith in the one you love. I addressed you in my letter in the same manner you addressed me so you can see how it feels to get a letter like that from the one you love. Hereafter dearest you must think before you act and remember that other peoples feelings are just as sensitive as your own and that they also have a heart...."

He concluded on a more affectionate note:

"...I am so lonesome for you tonight. I was alone all day. I did not talk to a soul, I don't think. But I am looking forward to seeing you soon dearest. With all the kisses in the world, from Bill."

It included a follow-on thought:

"Good-night Gracie dear; goodnight love one XXXXX..."

I should point out here that such domestic quarreling was part and parcel of their life together. Such disputes were not as dominant in their life as Nanny and Pop McDermott, but they were not just rare occasions. Mother had a quick Irish temper and father, while slow to anger, could eventually explode. I remember once coming to mother's rescue when father picked up a giant China urn from the living room fireplace in the Pelham house and threatened to crown her over the head. At another time, fed up with mother's habit of cleaning house in the evening, he threw the vacuum cleaner, mops and brooms down the hall stairs. And yet another time, an argument at the dinner table culminated with father heaving glass and china to the walls and floor. All this suggests a pretty stormy marriage but while there were disputes, they were largely offset by pleasant periods of calm and love and most took place in a much less highly charged atmosphere than I have just described.

As a very young boy I was, of course, impressed by my father's soldiering in the Great War. When I used to ask him about it he would tell me that he had been at the 'Battle of Union Station". That conjured up all sorts of romantic ideas about his heroics until eventually I learned that his military career was spent at Washington's Union Station with the Construction Division of the Army Signal Corps where as sergeant one of his primary responsibilities was to insure that at the close of business each night the station's window shades were at a uniform level. About his military career there is really nothing more to add. With the end of the war on November 11, 1918 he must have been quickly mustered out of service. And just as promptly, I am sure, the two of them returned to New York.

Mother settled into being a housewife while father picked up his T-square again at 101 Park Avenue. Mother whose health was rather frail in these years was soon pregnant and in 1919 brought my sister Grace into the world. They were city dwellers at the time, just where I am not sure but perhaps still in Fordham. For many of the City's better-heeled, however, a new trend was catching on – a retreat to the quiet of the suburbs – and they got caught up in that movement. Father bought some land in Pelham within walking distance of the New Haven and Hartford Railroad station. The line was the principal public transportation link to the City. Actually, the New Haven was at one end of the block and a second rail connection to New York – the old and the now long defunct Boston and Westchester – was at the other. Clearly, this was an ideal spot for anyone who wished to commute to work in the Big Apple. He designed his own house on the property and two additional dwellings to the left if you stood looking at it from the street. The Gehrons moved to 66 Highbrook Avenue at the end of 1921. I found an invitation with a drawing in color of a house with front door open and a message, 'Come on over" beneath surely done by my father's hand. Inside it said, "...to the Gehron's housewarming party Saturday evening January 14, 1922... Bring some spirits." He talked his structural engineer, Al Crossett, into buying the house next door and his New York lawyer, Donald Robb, the third dwelling. The three houses still stand side by side to this day and in my book they are the best looking on that or surrounding blocks. I should add that there was a falling out with the engineer and the curtain covering the dining room window that looked out on his property was always closed for the sum total of all the years we lived in the house. Robb, the lawyer and his family, lived there for many years and remained friends. Eventually, though, he found his hobby, composing music, more compelling than the law and eventually moved his family to Arizona where he taught at the University.

This may be an appropriate place to describe the house at 66 Highbrook Avenue. I would not know how to give the outside look of it with some kind of a name such as colonial or tutor. It was my father's adaptation. It was not imposing in size but conformed to the size of the surrounding houses. As you looked at it from the street, there was a drive way on the left with a separate one car garage toward the back of the property. The garage doors were of heavy wood, sturdy and carried carvings as did the solid front door which was situated at the center of the house. Initially, before the addition, you entered a center hall. To the right was the entrance to the living room with a large fireplace and solarium both of which ran the length of the house – front to back. You entered the sun room as we called it through a large door frame off the living room. At the back end of the room was a wide door to the outside backyard. To the left of the hall there was a dinning room at the front and off that, to the rear, an entrance to the kitchen. The kitchen contained a breakfast nook and a door leading to the basement. The feature of the kitchen was a restaurant type refrigerator which at that time I had never seen in any other house. Stairs to the second floor rose directly from the center of the hall and were wood never to be carpeted. At the top of the stairs, to the left was a bathroom. Another left led to the then master bedroom which looked to the front of the house. From the center hall again, a turn to the immediate right led to a small bedroom which I occupied. It looked out on the back yard with a door to an outside porch which ran above the solarium. It was never really used for any purpose except to keep open on spring and summer nights. A turn to the right from that room led to a larger bedroom which faced to the front of the house. I cannot remember if it too had a porch door. In any case, that was Grace's bedroom. A door on the right side of that room led to stairs up to the attic. I can't believe there was only one bath originally, but I am not aware of another either down or upstairs. The addition changed all that. From the center hall on the second floor directly to the rear of the house a new master bedroom was created with a master bath. It was a large room with a walk in closet and a string of large windows along one wall. The room contained two large beds with hand-painted back boards done by one of father's artist friends, Vincent Margolati. On the third floor, above this addition, was a huge open space for sunning. It was shielded by a curtain around three sides for privacy and it was entered from the attic which was remodeled to incorporate numerous large drawers around the room. For years I ran an extensive train set along its floor. The remodeling also included an extension from the kitchen to the rear with a short hall to a bathroom and to the right of it a "maid's room" and off the hall to the left was a door leading to a back porch. Finally, outside the back sunroom door father built a formal terrace with a large marble table in the center. On the outside addition wall facing into the terrace there was implanted a large sculptural piece done pro bono by Papa Jennewein the sculpture who will be much referred to later. On the other side of the terrace a wall was constructed about three feet high, three feet wide running the length of the patio. When the concrete was still wet, father had all four family members press their right hands into the cement leaving our imprint there. For good measure, he then wrote with a sharp stick the date the deed was done. I wonder if the wall and our impressions are still there. He also had the remainder of the property carefully landscaped complete with a series of retaining walls to the backyard boundary line. I don't know why I have gone to so much detail about the house but there you have it. I should note that father made the plan of the original house available to other interested buyers and I believe there were at least two copies made of the house – one I am quite sure was built in Texas.

Addressing the house, I would observe that after the addition was built it was the subject of a burglary. It was the one and only time. I'm not sure when it took place because I was too young to be much aware of the fact nor do I recall what was taken. I believe it occurred when the house was empty but I do remember that it left mother and father with a spooked feeling for sometime thereafter.

I previously mentioned that father took over with a partner, Alfred Ross, Brunner Associates following the principal's death. Arnold Brunner, it should be noted here, was a highly regarded architect who, in addition to the various large building projects he designed was a prominent member of a small group of advisers who sought to develop a City Beautiful concept for Manhattan's central business district. Gehron and Ross as the new firm was named finished Brunner's commissions and initiated projects of its own. The Twenties was a roaring time for architects and new work was pouring in. In fact, father told me that in those intoxicating days he was mulling over the possibility of retiring about age 40 though just what he would then do he never said. I was, of course born during this heady period rounding out the family.

In 1929 those good times all came to an end when prices on the U.S. stock market collapsed with securities losing $26 billion initiating the first phase of the Depression and a world economic crisis. Sometime after the crash mother and father were traveling abroad. Partner Ross, as I understand it, when he could get word to them told them the New York financial world was in complete disarray and they stood to lose everything. They were just having too good a time to worry and paid little or no attention to Ross's warnings. That at least is the story as I recall it. When they did return, things had turned upside down. Mother said that financially they came home to a life style that featured mustard and bread. The business was in shambles as Ross had taken to drink and had let things go to pot. One strong quality father had was an ability to persevere in the face of any and all odds. He just wasn't a quitter. He broke with Ross and set out to operate independently which he did from 1932 until 1952 when Gilbert L. Seltzer joined him as a partner in Gehron and Seltzer. At first, to repair his financial condition, he looked to the Federal Government which President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was seeking to revive with his New Deal following the worst depression in the nation's history. From 1933 to 1936 he was consultant architect for the Housing Division of the Federal Public Works Department designing housing projects in the New York metropolitan area. After that things started looking up and while there were good times and some bad he proceeded to make his mark as a major New York architect.

At this juncture, it seems appropriate to turn to the obituary that appeared in the New York Times of November 19, 1958. I think it is a cogent summary of his architectural efforts and should be included here as a matter of record. It is captioned "William Gehron, Architect, 71, dies" with the subcap "Designer of governmental and school buildings, planned war memorials." It read as follows:

William Gehron of 66 Highbrook Avenue, Pelham, N.Y., an architect noted for his designs of Government buildings and war memorials, died yesterday of a heart attack in New York Hospital. His age was 71.

Since 1952 Mr. Gehron had been a partner with Gilbert L. Seltzer in the architectural firm of Gehron and Seltzer at 101 Park Avenue. Among the projects he was work on before becoming ill three months ago were the East Coast War memorial in Battery Park, the Civic Auditorium in Utica, N.Y. and the Court of Appeals Hall in Albany.

Mr. Gehron and the office of Alfred Easton Poor also were working on the new Queens Criminal Court House and Prison in Kew Gardens. He was the designer of the Borough Hall of Queens, for which the Queensboro Chamber of Commerce gave him its award for excellence in design in 1940.

The architect of four buildings and a bridge in Capital Park, the state administrative compound in Harrisburg, PA, Mr. Gehron also was the designer for the master plan for the extension of the park, a $50,000,000 project now in progress...

Work at West Point

For the United States Military Academy at West Point, N.Y. he designed Washington Hall, Grant Hall and, with Mr. Seltzer, recently completed Thayer Hall.

Denison University in Granville, Ohio conferred on Mr. Gehron the honorary degree of Doctor of Fine Arts in architecture. He was the designer of the Denison campus plan and many of the university buildings, including a library, community center and faculty and student housing.

Mr. Gehron was born in Williamsport, Pa., and received a degree from the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1912. He also studied abroad before becoming associated with Arnold W. Brunner of New York. He was with the firm until 1925 when he formed the firm of Gehron and Ross. From 1932 until 1952 he operated independently.

In that period he was consultant architect from 1933 to 1936 for the Housing Division of the Federal Public Works Department and designed housing projects in the New York metropolitan area. He also designed P. S. 191 and 192 in Manhattan, several campus buildings for City College, the Harlem Hospital Dispensary and the Convalescent Day Camp on Welfare Island.

He was the designer of the former Halloran General Hospital, Willowbrook, S.I.

Kept within budgets

...A proponent of craftsmanship, he tried to coordinate all forms of art into his architectural designs. Because of the simplicity outstanding in his structures he was able to erect them within the limited budget allotted by government agencies.

His appreciation for workable designs of the past was evident in the Veterans Memorial Bridge he made for Rochester, N. Y. Reminiscent of Roman viaducts, it was one of the works that won for him a silver medal from the Architectural League of New York. The other work was the Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Bridge in Harrisburg.

His survivors include his widow, the former Miss Grace McDermott; a daughter, Mrs. Grace Patricia Heilmann (sic) of Roslyn Heights, L. I.; a son William J. Gehron of Alexandria, Va., and four grandchildren.

It's not an all inclusive summary of his work – he did a school in Darien, CT. with his friend, Arthur Gilkerson, and much work at the US Air Force base at West Hampton, L.I., among other unlisted projects. Nor does it mention that he was an A.I.A. Fellow, member of the Century Club and the Architectural League. I should also note that for a number of years he also maintained an office in Williamsport in addition to 101 Park Avenue. I think he felt that since he was involved in major work in Harrisburg he should be considered a 'native' which, of course, he was. The New York Times' reference to craftsmanship reminds me of the fact that he had good working hands. Those early years with Grandpa Gehron introduced him to the intricacies of brick laying, carpentry and plumbing. It was not unusual for him to go to a job, get up on a scaffold with the workers and take a trowel in hand to show them exactly how he wanted the brick pointed up. That earned him a lot of respect from the men on the job.

He was buried from Christ Church in Pelham Manor where he had done some pro bono architectural work. Burial, of course, was in the family plot at the Water Mill, L.I. cemetery a village where for many years mother and father maintained a summer home which overlooked both the village green and the cemetery. On the green he designed the village war memorial to its World War II veterans again on a pro bono basis.

Before turning back to some thoughts involving my mother, I should impart briefly on the physical layout of 101 Park Avenue as I remember it and some of the principle characters there as I remember them. I'm prompted to do so because I have just finished a novel by Jack Finney entitled Time and Again where the protagonist travels back in time to insert himself in the world of New York City in 1882. So what one might ask and I would observe that he found there people – most fictitious of course – who would have been lost forever had he not returned to report about them. So with father's office, the people who were in it and the look of it would similarly be lost should I not take this occasion to recall them. Incidentally, that particular year of 1882, would have found the Gehron's passing through and the McDonalds, McDermotts and on wife Pat's side, the Walshs and Colemans all living in New York City. All of them could have been traveling in the same city trolley on any day that year.

The office was on the 14th floor of what I believe was called the Architects and Engineers Building (101 is still there in number but the building father resided in was torn down and has been replaced.) It was at the end of the corridor in one wing and upon entering you were in a fairly large anteroom with a large Spanish style table against the wall bracketed by two imposing chairs in the same style. Opposite, the room was cut in two by a waist high railing with a gate in the middle. There was a reception desk on the other side of the railing in a recess and thus somewhat hidden from view. Should a visitor enter and not be seen or heard, there was an old fashioned bell mounted on the divider the tip of which, when struck by the palm of the hand, would announce with a tinkle, tinkle sound their presence. Once through the gate, father's office was entered by a door on the left. It was a grand room both in terms of scale and appointments. In its center under an imposing lamp shade hung from the high ceiling was a large circular conference table with perhaps half a dozen leather backed chairs around it. Bookcases covering two and a half walls reached two-thirds of the way to the ceiling and were crammed with hundreds of art books of every description. Atop the bookcases were free standing sketches, renderings and model plaster and metal casts of sculptural pieces a number of which were done by Sweden's most famous sculptor, Carl Milles, all pertaining to works that were on the drawing board or had been built. I will come back to Milles and his long time friendship with my father to secure a historical footnote that should be a part of this record. To continue with the make up of his office, the wall opposite the entry from the anteroom contained a large glass section with French doors opening out to a small rail balcony. Pull curtains ran along the entire length of the wall and when opened looked out on Grand Central Station and much of New York north, east and west of 42nd St. Father's huge roll top desk, originally Brunner's piece, was situated against the wall in a corner of the room so that with a half turn of his chair to the left he could take in that view. To the right of his desk and the left of one of the bookcases was a door that led to a secretarial/file room. Directly ahead was yet another door that led to a small office from which the junior partner operated. If you took a right turn in the file area and walked some ten paces you would come upon yet another door. It opened to the drafting room. A light, airy space with some twenty drafting tables in place and depending on the work at hand the number of places occupied would range from a half dozen to a full house.

My father's two chief designers one an ethnic German – Mr. Bammer – the other a Norwegian – Mr. Ellison were the overseers of the drafting room. They got along rather well but there were times of heated exchanges between them over design concepts which father could usually assuage. Several times my father offered Ellison a partnership in the business. Ellison refused because he didn't wish to take the risks being a partner involved. Bammer wasn't as steady as Ellison and father never approached him about taking a stake in the firm. Eventually, father had to fire Bammer. I don't know the circumstances but I think hard times wouldn't permit the luxury of two designers in the office at some point in time. I do remember mother saying that father broke down and cried when he let Bammer go. I can certainly believe that for father used to tell me that the worst part of his profession was firing people. Bernie was the office boy when I worked in father's office on a couple of summer vacations. He signed on after graduating from high school and he just stayed on. Father liked him and over time gave Bernie a permanent position in the drafting room. Bernie lived far out on Long Island and consequently spent a good deal of time commuting to work. Father constantly encouraged him to move closer in for he felt a long commute was a waste of time. I don't know if Bernie ever took the advice. He did stay on with Seltzer after my father's death. And then there was Miss Auerbach – Bernice Auerbach – the only woman in the office. She staked out her own kingdom for she was secretary, receptionist, bookkeeper, file clerk and paymaster. There is little doubt that the office could not have run without her. She was dedicated to my father and the office. She stayed on after father's death, but unfortunately, I don't know what eventually became of her. There were, of course, others who left their mark on the office but for me these were the regulars and I have fond memories of them.

Before going on to mother, this might be a good place to comment on the Gehron, Milles relationship. Elizabeth Liden in her book, "Between Water and Heaven" subtitled Carl Milles Search for American Commissions, makes a number of references to father but there is one paragraph I would like to quote in full to set the stage for their relationship. The book can be found in our Lewes library both at the Pond House and at #238. It reads as follows: "In 1930 the New York architect William Gehron published an article entitled 'The Work of Carl Milles, Sculptor' in the journal Archtecture. The interesting thing about that article is not its content – which is no different from what could be read about Milles previously—but the author. Gehron had visited Stockholm a year earlier to look at Milles' work and modern Swedish architecture. During his visit he wrote to Milles introducing himself and asking permission to compile an article about him. They did actually meet, as witness a letter in which Milles thanks Gehron for his visit and wonders if they will meet again on Milles' arrival in New York early in 1930. 'I should be happy to work together with you as artist,' Milles writes. His lifelong friendship with Gehron brought him a great deal of assistance but only one completed commission."

My father liked Milles' work and had him in mind as a sculptor for various projects he was working on. Liden got it right that that lead to only one commission the buildings at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. However, their friendship while not "lifelong" covered about 25 years from 1932 to 1956 and during that period my father helped Milles as he tried to get work in the States.

The point of this digression about Milles is that during their time as friends, they wrote to each other rather frequently. Father saved both Milles's incoming written by him in his own hand and father's outgoing done in his office through Miss Auerbach and her typewriter. The combined letters of the two weighed in at about two pounds. Recently, I contacted Millesgardens (Evelina Jansson) – Milles's home is now an extensive area dedicated to his works – and she eventually agreed that the letters should be given to Ingrid Svensson, Head of Division, Department of Collections Manuscripts, Maps and Pictures, Royal Library of Sweden in Stockholm who is in charge of such holdings of Milles's material. So the letters are now part of that Milles's collection and current members of the Gehron family are agreed that that is the right place for them to be. We asked only that when publicly used attribution be to "courtesy of the Gehron family". I am sure father would be very pleased about their residing there.

Now, I want to turn to a discussion about my mother. Mother was very supportive of father and his work throughout their life together. She was a source of encouragement and I'd even say inspiration to him for he worshipped the ground she walked on. She was shrewd, intelligent, artistic and witty. She was also a very attractive, stylish woman who men enjoyed being around as she enjoyed being with them. At parties she was usually the one front and center while her husband would hug some quiet corner of the room. As I have already suggested, she was a diligent housekeeper and neatness for her was next to godliness. When Grace, my father or I entered the Pelham house, shoes would come off and be placed in the hall closet not to be retrieved until we departed the premises. Needless to say, the house was always immaculate. It is interesting now to think that my father's design for the house included a rather large fireplace in the living room. But it was only occasionally used as mother didn't like anyone tramping in with logs nor having them stacked for burning. The only saving grace was fires were intermittently set there and thus the hearth was not desecrated by a tub of fake flowers or some equally foolish decoration.

I really believe mother enjoyed being a housewife. Not only did she seem to find satisfaction in such work but she enjoyed cooking and was good at it. Being father's chef was not an easy job, for while he enjoyed eating, he was fussy about what was placed before him. He abhorred white bread and was constantly on the lookout for cancerous poultry, in particular. I seem to remember a Thanksgiving dinner at which he refused to serve what he considered a blemished turkey. Mother accepted his decision but she must have been heartbroken by such a tyrannical decision. Yet she was always desirous of pleasing his palate and would cook up many different dishes his mother had served him in his youth. For some reason chicken fricassee comes to mind as something of a dinner table staple which may have been a Williamsport favorite or, come to think of it, a way for mother to serve chicken without the danger of it being rejected as tainted. Looking back now I could see that as an example of her shrewdness. Mother also had a great tendency to assume that father's finances were always healthy except for those mustard and bread days during the Great Depression. She liked to charge things running up considerable bills from service stations to liquor stores. One item that invariably would get a rise out of my father at the end of each month was the telephone bill. He could never fathom why it was so high consistently. The answer, of course, was that mother loved to reach for the phone. She not only did much of her daily chores over the telephone but would use it to advantage to promote father's work. There were a number of times, when at home, he would lament that he should have called so and so before he left the office for the day. And, lo and behold, within some minutes of that lamentation she would have so and so on the line. I don't know how she did it, nor did my father. I'm convinced that she could reach you anywhere in the world where there was a telephone.

Mother also had an adventuresome spirit and was particularly eager to join father in exotic travel – exotic for those days. In the late 1920's and early 30's they took boats, trains and planes through Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. One letter I came across from mother tends to underline her interest in travel which she always described as 'broadening' but it too says something about her. It was written on stationary bearing the seal NGI Augustus which was the ship they had traveled on and bears the year 1932. In any event, it warrants inclusion in full:

Dearest Irene (Aunt Irene, my mother's sister was taking care of us), Gracie, Billie and Elsie (Elsie was our German maid),

Here I am writing on this paper as there is not other writing paper in our room at the Cataract Hotel where we are staying for one day on the Nile to leave this afternoon on the sleeper for Cairo! A ride on the train of 15 hours! That is where we shall get colder weather! It is just like summer here but the delightful part of it is that the evenings are so cool and dry. Our waiters informed us that we might have a sand storm tonight as it is blowing quite some! We won't be here but Bill (my father) and I would have loved to have seen it. This is our last day on the Nile – our room and balcony looks directly over the Nile. Really very beautiful! The room alone costs $20.00 a day – Terribly expensive but Irene Egypt gets you as they say if you once taste of the Nile you shall return – I believe it. It is simply fascinating yet weird!

Well children, I must tell you all something interesting. Who should get on our Nile steamer at Luxor but Gene Tunney & his wife Polly Lauder! His table was right next to Bills and mine. They were with another couple! Well we got very friendly with them both & we had an African Party on board with them then they also insisted on Bill & I joining them on deck several times for highballs! They are really lovely, simple people! I sang for them also & they really enjoyed it. I told him Gracie dear about you liking him & he said that he wants to send you h is love! So tell that to the Shaws! (The Shaws were our next door neighbors, on the other side from the Crossetts) We hope to see them in New York again some time! How is my adorable 'Billy Boy'! It won't be long now for us to arrive in New York & be with you all again! Won't it be fine? Have you heard from any of our friends? The Gilks (Arthur Gilkerson and his wife), or Courtais (Henri Courtais an artist and his wife also an artist), or anyone else? How is mother & father ? (her mother and Irene's ) How is Brownee? (a neighbor down the street) Give her my love & tell her that the Gehrons are going to have an African Party on their return to America! We have lots to tell you all! Has Billy been promoted? Ha! Ha! I wonder! Oceans of love & kisses to you all.

Grace

The letter's exclamation marks points up mother's exuberance; the sandstorm, her spirit of adventure; the Shaws, a sense of one-upmanship; the singing, her musical talent' the taste of the Nile, her romantic instincts; the inquiry about friends and comment about the Tunney's, her sociability; and the comment about Billy's promotion, her sense of humor. On the last point, I should add the family story that at some point in time – perhaps the year her letter was written – mother entered a contest sponsored by Borden's Milk. It was one of those folksy company promotions which aren't done in these days of slick advertising where buyers of Borden's Milk were encouraged to send in a verse of fifty words or less as to why they liked the product. I think there was a monetary prize for the entry the company thought best and mother won with this: 'Here I stand, three feet tall. If it wasn't for Borden's milk, I wouldn't he here at all."

Mention of Egypt tempts me to digress here from my remembrances about mother to tell a story my father use to recall when talking about their trip there. I call it his pyramid tale. It seems that on one occasion they both were taken by their Egyptian guide to see the pyramids which my dictionary describes as a structure with a square base and 4 triangular sides meeting at a point. While viewing one of them, they were approached by a man standing at its base who asked if they would be willing to pay him to see him climb to its top. Father was intrigued by the idea, gave him money and then both watched as he began his climb. Father noticed that periodically he would briefly disappear from sight only to reappear and continue upward until, indeed, he did reach the top where he held his hands up to salute his accomplishment. What a climb mother and father both thought at the conclusion of his feat. It was only sometime after the event that it occurred to father that what they had witnessed was not one mans climb to the top but a team effort. With each disappearance of the climber someone else took his place and so reaching the top was accomplished by perhaps a half dozen or so. Still my father felt it was a trick worth the price. As I write about this I feel certain the Egyptian Government no longer allows such shenanigans in today's tourist world.

Now back to mother.

I have already said that father had an intensive love for mother and I should note that love was returned in kind. She had a great affection for him throughout their life together and she was very proud of all his accomplishments. In fact, when father died in 1958, I believe she lost a large part of her interest in life from that point on. She was only sixty at the time and while she lived for another eight years it was only her children and grandchildren and Pat who seemed to make her life enjoyable. She really didn't take care of herself and died of kidney failure although after her death an abscess was found in her colon that in her last months was probably a significant factor in her failing health and demise. Mother joined father at the burial plot in Watermill. Somewhere I noted his saying on his tombstone. Mother's read "Her heart was in his heart".

Relating information about the cause of death takes me back to my father's death the result of a heart attack as reported by the New York Times. Actually the state of his health had been running downhill over several years and that fact could have eventually so taxed his heart that that was the final result – a heart attack. But for the record I should point out that father told me that as a younger man he was told he had a heart problem (Grace, evidently, told Bill that father told her that he too had had rheumatic fever) and could be proud of the fact that he managed so well for so long. I venture to think his heart was stouter than supposed. Into this equation I should put sister Grace who in her youth developed a heart problem due to rheumatic fever. That problem never seemed to slow her down. The point here is that future generations need not fear a Gehron heart is somehow flawed.

Mother had some health problems as a young woman. I was never made privy to their nature. However, during the years I was aware of such concerns she displayed nothing but an iron constitution.

PART II

AN OFFSPRING

At the outset of this opus I noted my birth date as August 5, 1924. It was not a particularly auspicious day weather-wise or otherwise except, of course, for my own appearance on the world stage. The weather that day was typically August with the New York Times reporting the probability of thunderstorms. Also, there was not much in the news. The Times lead story was about New York's Governor Al Smith throwing his support to John Davis as the Democratic candidate for the Presidency in 1924. Smith, who was one of the most forceful governors of the state of New York (1919-1921 and 1923-1929), did make the Presidential run in 1928 but lost largely because of his Catholicism, opposition to prohibition and his affiliation with Tammany Hall. Other stories reported that an Italian aviator flew his seaplane at 188 miles an hour and in sports, Babe Ruth hit his 34th homer. Killers Leopold and Loeb on the same date in the same newspaper were reported as 'devoid of soul' by some character which perhaps they were. And an ad in that distinguished paper had broadcloth shirts (collar attached or collarless), selling for $1.95. All in all it was a pretty humdrum day. However, as my sister Grace recalls – she was all of five at the time – there was action at 66 Highbrook Avenue. She remembers Pop and Nanny McDermott joining my father for a waffle dinner which was interrupted by a telephone call announcing my birth. According to Grace, father bounded from the dining room table and flew out the front door heading for the Pelham Station and the first train to New York City. I have to assume that mother went off to the Harkness Pavilion Hospital some time before and that my arrival time was somewhat unpredictable. I presume that Pop and Nanny said a little prayer of thanks for a safe delivery and ended their day with a waffle dinner. William Jules Gehron was the baby's full name. William was after my father, of course,. Jules was the name of an artist, Jules Guerin, father, and I presume mother, liked who was living at the time and who did decorations at the Lincoln Memorial among other commissions. Incidentally, the New Yorker magazine of March 9, 2009 (Pg. 81), refers to him and his "...alluring watercolor renderings", which appeared in a 1909 book called Plan of Chicago which sought to remake that city along the lines of Paris.

Dr. McPherson was the man in charge of the delivery.

About my earliest years I can recall almost nothing. I know I spent some of that time in a playpen set up in the front yard of the Pelham house because I have seen a photograph depicting that scene. I also know that as a pre-kindergartner I attended Miss Carr's school which was located a couple of blocks from home. I have no idea of what I and a half dozen other pupils did there. I don't believe there is anything special about the early years of one's life in any case since for each and every one of us it is pretty much a "muchness". That's my view, no one else's. If you have children or grandchildren you know their pattern of life from ages 0 to 5 are unremarkably similar. However, there are a couple of adventures involving me that should be noted here as part of the family lore. One could have brought about my demise at the tender age of three or so. In their early years in Pelham, mother and father belonged to the Larchmont Shore Club where summer days were passed swimming in Long Island Sound. It seems on one occasion I took it in mind to leap off the Club's dock in pursuit of sister Grace. I evidently dropped like a rock and only through the action of an alert lifeguard was my rescue affected. The lifeguard is said to have found me wedged under the float from which I jumped, an obvious goner had he not been around. Grace recalls that mother admonished both of us to say nothing to my father at dinner that night so I'm not sure he was ever aware of the event. I had a similar accident at Shelter Island's Pridwin Hotel where we were staying for part of one summer with Grace performing the heroics on that occasion. I followed Grace into water over my head when I still could not swim. She got to me in time. Slow Learner? Then, too, there was the night mother and father came home from the theatre in New York to find their two children lying in the entrance hall to 66 looking deceased. It was a trick, of course, that our maid at the time put us up to as a surprise. Father didn't take to such a joke lightly and the maid was gone the next day. So I have been told. But since all is well that ends well, these tales don't really amount to much.

What I do recall about those early years living on Highbrook Avenue was the great gang of kids there were on the block. I think many people living in Pelhamwood, which was what the section was called, were like my mother and father – people roughly of their age escaping the pavements of the city for the grass of the suburbs especially having the interests of their children in mind. We played kick-the-can and hide and go-seek on neighbors' lawns, roller-skated and biked on quiet, shady streets, jousted with broom handles and garbage can covers in everyone's backyard and went sleigh riding and skiing through a series of Pelhamwood properties. That there were so many children roughly of the same age was a reflection of the fact that younger parents like my mother and father were at the beginning of that long lasting migration to suburbia. Most of the fathers were rail commuters to and from New York City, a journey of some 35 minutes – so stated the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad timetable. There were the Marvin girls, the Robb and Shaw children, the Tap boys all part of the group on our block of Highbrook Avenue alone. For children this was the beginning of a new type of relationship. Rural living afforded friends but spread widely apart while city dwelling placed limitations on making acquaintances. In the suburban mold you lived cheek by jowl with a bunch of kids and ended up being involved in a host of activities day in and day out. I look back on those times as pleasurable and quite carefree. There was youthful camaraderie and fun. Perhaps the one downer I can remember most vividly is my reluctance to have friends play in my house. As I noted earlier, mother kept a spotless home and to ask children in meant having them remove their shoes and play under mother's watchful eye with, for me, a constant concern that someone might run amuck and move a rug or scratch a floor. As a consequence, I played all over the neighborhood with other children except in my own house. I never said anything to my parents, of course. It was a little wound I just lived with.

Children from the Pelhamwood area went first to the Colonial Grade School and then to Pelham Junior High and finally Senior High School – the latter two being in the same building. As I began grade school, Grace was off to Junior High. The trouble with this was that Grace was not only a good athlete but a good student as well and the teachers were looking for similar talents in me. I showed some promise in the athletic department and not much on the studious side.

At age five I began my formal education in the kindergarten of Colonial School. The subsequent years of schooling unfolded for me as expected – I was never left back for lack of passing grades! There are only snatches of my years at Colonial that I remember. When I was old enough, I rode my bike to and from school. That included a trip from school to home for lunch and a return to school for afternoon classes. I remember the iron bar jungle gym on the playground and several nasty bumps on the head as I scampered in and through the bars. I remember, too, one teacher from the state of Georgia – a woman – who told the class that once in her childhood she went to bed only to find a snake under the covers. That was pretty shocking and for months (years?), thereafter I checked my bed every night before retiring. I have often wondered why she told us that miserable tale. I also remember joining other boys on certain evenings in the school's all purpose room to participate in various Cub Scout activities. It was the thing to do at that age and I stayed with it for a few years but never went on to being a Boy Scout. I do remember that my initiation into the little scout group involved a trip to Saxon Woods – then a wooded park near White Plains – where the 'in scouts' led me into the woods, put a stone in both of my hands and told me to go further into the woods and hit the stones together while calling snipes in a loud voice. There I was, left alone, believing a snipe – some form of bird – would eventually show. On that occasion, too, I was a slow learner remaining in the same spot doing that for some time. It never occurred to me that it was all a ruse. I was so eager to be accepted that I put all logic behind me. You mean you can catch a bird by pounding stones together and yelling? Actually I wasn't an eager scout but I did all right for the couple of years I was involved.

My scouting experience led me into an event, about which at the time I had no knowledge and resulted in the termination of that career. Evidently, the scout master at some point began to show a special interest in me. I recall a couple of occasions when he would pick me up in his car ostensibly, I guess, to go for a ride. He made no overt move but my father was quick to raise suspicions about his intentions and pulled me out of all scouting activities. I don't know where mother stood in the little brouhaha but I feel rather certain that she supported my father's actions. To me it was a mystifying event and even after it occurred I can remember no words of pedophilia.

I have not unkind thoughts about my years at Colonial School and so I must assume I enjoyed them. I do remember the name of its principal, Miss Georgia Avis Coleman who I recently discovered retired at age 78 and on her death left most of a sizeable estate to the Pelham schools. Be that as it may, at my age then, there was the ever-present desire to grow up fast and so I looked forward to my move to Junior High School – then, as I recall, a two year program. The move meant increasing my bicycle trip just three or so more blocks. And so, as in elementary school days I continued to ride to school, home to lunch, back to school and finally back home. At this juncture, I should pay a brief tribute to 'Louie'. I either don't remember or never knew his last name but he was for years and years the street cross guard at Pelhamwood and Highbrook Avenues. In those days, it was a relatively busy intersection. Louie was as faithful to his job of seeing us school children safely across his turf as the day is long. I can never remember him not at his post. In his off time he policed the curbs of all Pelhamwood's streets with his long-handled broom and pushcart garbage can and consequently knew everyone in the area and just where they lived. I think my fond memories of Louie probably stem from the fact that he brought a daily sense of stability to my life just by being where he was every school day. Louie was a warmhearted man of Italian extraction and I can only wish him well wherever he may be.

This might be an appropriate place to take a larger view of my life in the events taking place around me and, I might add, largely unknown to me at the time. I have already mentioned the story in the New York Times on the day I was born of Leopold and Loeb who were convicted of the 'thrill killing' of Bobby Franks. I might elaborate here to note that it was a major news story in that the two young men undertook murder to see if they could get away with the perfect crime. The scene was the suburbs of Chicago and their defense attorney was none other than Clarence Darrow. They were convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment but Loeb was killed by a resident inmate in 1936 and Leopold was paroled in 1958. He subsequently died in 1971.

A year before my birth, Adolph Hitler, who was to play a role in affecting my life some years later, published his Volume of Mein Kampf.

In 1927 Charles A. Lindberg flew the first solo flight across the Atlantic. It was, of course, a sensational effort at that time and thrust the world of aviation into the limelight then and forever more. Noting this deed leads me to think of the number of times I have flown the Atlantic either with Pat or alone on business. It is all so very routine and, of course, so safe relatively speaking. And when one thinks of the number of daily flights across the Atlantic other oceans and continents, it just boggles the mind to think of how many people travel swiftly and safely to their destinations. As I write this, thought is being given to aircraft that will carry 500 or more people at a shot.

In 1928, 65 nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact outlawing war which of course didn't happen. But I mention it because in my later years, arms control and disarmament became a major part of my adult work and remains an area of active interest.

Of the years I am referring to here perhaps the most momentous event was what has become known as the Great Depression. (This was written before the disastrous events of 2008 which will be covered later.) It was a time my mother said looking back on those days when a dinner, as previously noted, of mustard and bread was in vogue. I have some recollection of those years – they encompassed a period from 1929 to the early 1940's – because I was old enough as it proceeded to sense its effects on my family. Father's architectural business was in the doldrums and mother, who could spend money, clearly was on a leash. But the real horror, which at the time I probably didn't sense, was its debilitating result on the general population. At the depth of the depression, according to the Columbia Encyclopedia, about one third of the available labor force – at the time some sixteen million people – were unemployed. That was 33% of the work force. Today we begin to get very concerned, as we should of course, when the number of unemployed reaches over 7%. (As I write this in July of 2009 unemployment stands at 9.5 %.) And it had a ripple effect. According to the same source, the American depression produced severe effects abroad, especially in Europe, where many countries had not recovered from the aftermath of World War I. The social dislocation it caused in Germany, for instance, was a contributing factor in the rise to power of Hitler.

As I proceed toward a new educational vista and moved toward my teens the state of the economy in the U. S. and the ever growing bellicose nature of Hitler were to be the dominant current events surrounding me although I wasn't much aware of it at the time.

I don't remember too much about my junior high years. I took shop and learned forever after how to splice electrical wires. I became involved in organized sports there, as up to that time, whatever I participated in had been purely pickup activities. Football, basketball and track were my three pursuits. For my age, I was fairly well coordinated and reasonably fast on my feet so I was recognized as an athlete by my coaches and peers. But being short and light I excelled only in track where I ran the shorter distances, the relays and did the broad jump, high jump and pole vault. Football is memorable only for the fact that I was a running back who didn't know his right from his left. When I was to carry the ball the quarterback would have to pinch my wrist to tell me which way I was to go. That problem persisted through my days on the 150 pound team in high school. I think, too, of the attraction of the opposite sex. Some of my female classmates from Colonial seemed to be maturing as well or better than I and that didn't escape my notice. Moreover, our evident lack of interest in each other or each others activities at elementary school level turned a corner at junior high where suddenly we seemed to have more in common in our daily doings.

Life at home during these years I feel now was probably pretty routine since I can't recall any outstanding events. It was about this time that I tried to sell subscriptions to a couple of then popular magazines -- The Saturday Evening Post and Liberty Magazine -- in the neighborhood and pedaled tins of some patent medicine – without much success as I recall. There were the Sunday automobile trips, of course, where mother, father, Grace and I would get into our big Packard convertible touring car and head for the country, then around Armonk, N. Y. We would usually end up on some dirt road with an apple orchard nearby where we would all snare some apples unknown to the owner or at other times of the year just end up cruising on dirt roads. Grace and I didn't enjoy these Sunday ventures both rather being at home with our friends but in those days the Sunday outing if you owned a car was a must. I remember too, that many week nights around this age, I would make a practice of meeting father on his way home from work. I'd carry his leather briefcase as we journeyed down Highbrook Avenue to the house. In my child's eye he always seemed tired. I'm sure he was. When we got home I was sometimes rewarded with a fig or some dates which would be in a box in his briefcase. He liked them and thought they were nutritious and he'd buy a box from time to time as he passed through Grand Central Station. Very occasionally, I would receive a small box of my favorite candy – jujubes. I think they are still around. It was probably at this age too that I had a quick brush with the law. The Tapp boys were from my perspective the neighborhood bad guys – right or wrong – and it was in their company that a plan was hatched to lift some candy from Campion's candy store on Pelham's main street. Mr. Campion, by the way, was Norman Rockwell's model many times when he depicted an older man behind a soda counter or some such character. As we entered the store, the Tapp boys were to distract old man Campion while I dipped into the bubble gum jar – then off we'd go. Unfortunately, Mr. Campion kept an eye out for kids given all the candies around and while we thought we were home free he sent the police after us. They caught up to us in front of the Pelham train station and took us back to the store to return our loot. For me, I feared all kinds of consequences. It was certainly a lesson in keeping to the straight and narrow as I think the police intended. The matter ended with the return of the stolen goods, and I don't think I could ever bring myself to darken the door of Campion's again. I'm not sure it had the same effect on the Tapp boys who seemed more uninterested about the whole affair. I've always figured they would end up with some Mafioso family. Noting Campion's role as a model for Norman Rockwell leads me to add that a favorite cartoon in newspapers in those days was entitled the Toonerville Trolley which was based on the town of Pelham's then public mode of transportation. It was popular and ran for years until it became outdated.

Progressing through 7th and 8th grades to 9th grade and High School was accomplished without missing a beat. I spent three years at Pelham High and, as I look at them now, they were good years. It was pretty much the center of my life. Studies, sports, and social activities there consumed much of my time.

I was a struggling student during those years who managed to get by. I passed essentially to please my family and was largely oblivious of the value of a good education to ensure my future. Sports were my first priority followed by my interest in girls. I kept at track where I got a varsity letter but it held problems for me. For one thing I disliked track practice largely because, as a conditioning exercise, we had to run several laps around the track at a pretty good pace. I'd frequently end up in some bushes at the end of those jaunts throwing up. Another problem was the sprint team had talent. Bob Young and Elli Moore were very good and would come in first or second in all the races we would run. We'd be well bunched at the finish line but I'd usually finish behind them. When the team was invited to the Penn Relays, a big interscholastic event in those days, they got the nod and I stayed home. After that I thought about moving over to baseball as a spring sport but my best recollection is that I stuck with track although later at prep school baseball replaced my interest in track.

Incidentally, one member of the track squad who was a year ahead of me was Sid Kelly who ended up for a while working on Capitol Hill for then New York Senator Jacob Javits. He resided across the street from us when we lived in the community of Waynewood in Alexandria, Virginia. I did not realize that was the case – that he was a high school colleague – until very recently when I came across his name as I was going through my Pelham High School yearbook. Our family and his have been friends since our Waynewood days even though they moved many years ago when he was made the chef de cabinet at the Ford Motor Company.

Thomas Fonlen in his book Pelham, New York, reported that the school was opened in 1921. Building it had been delayed by World War I and it was decided to make it a memorial to the soldiers of that war. Its Assembly Hall carries the legend, "Honor here the ideals for which they fought".

This was just the age when girls were beginning to look interesting and while I wasn't much interested in formal parties involving both sexes such as high school dances or cotillions just hanging around seemed to be a pleasurable pastime. When we had the time after school, three or four fellows would head for the house of a girlfriend where she and her several friends could also be found. We'd horse around outside, playing games and talking. Sometimes we'd luck out and be invited inside the house making things look a little more serious than standing around outside. If you really lucked out you could end up in somebody's recreation room complete with a record player and one armed bandits which would accept slots. One of the girls actually had such a place. We were old enough to have a 'crush' now and then. Yet, as I recall, no one really tied themselves to anyone else in any sort of a going steady routine. In fact, I can remember liking five or six girls and traveling to different areas in Pelham to see them. A couple of them were old classmates from Colonial School. One of them was a gal named Mona Freemen, who went on to become "Miss New York Subway Queen" and even later was dating Bing Crosby or some one of that elk in Hollywood.

It was quite the thing to be a student at Pelham High. The school occupied a massive block at the east end of Pelham's main street. The building comprising both Junior and Senior High was large, solidly built of stone of an architecture I'd describe as a smattering of English country house and castle. The grounds incorporated practice fields with an oval cinder track, a regulation football or baseball field depending on the season and a couple of smaller areas where field hockey or such could be played. There were a myriad of facilities from a big, well equipped mechanical workshop, to a good size gym and a sizeable assembly hall and what seemed to be an endless array of classrooms off wide halls. The school had a pretty good academic reputation in those days with a fair number of graduates going on to colleges and universities. In those days not many families could afford to send their children there. It was a sports powerhouse in track, football, basketball and girls' field hockey – a sport in which sister Grace was active and good. The drama and arts department were active as was the foreign language department where instruction encompassed Latin, French, German and Spanish. The teaching staff was competent with enough instructors to keep classes relatively small. And there was a great deal of school spirit which left you with the impression that you were in the right place at the right time. It was also integrated but the few numbers of black students reflected the relatively small number of black families in town.

One reason the football team was so good in those days was because of the hulking presence of one Joe DeFlippo from Pelham's large Italian community. Joe was a good athlete but a poor student. As a consequence he was left back a number of times so instead of three or four years of varsity service as a fullback he managed to extend his playing time by several years at a time he was getting bigger and better. I don't know how many letters he gained in football but he was a local legend and hero in Pelham. I was lucky enough to be in Mr. Miller's math class with him. Joe was a fixture in the class taking the course for probably the third or fourth time. 'Doc' Miller as he was known to the students, would teach while frequently swinging on a water pipe that ran from floor to ceiling very close to an inside wall at the front of the class usually chewing a piece of chalk. One day as we watched him swing arm and shoulder back and forth using the pipe as a fulcrum he went too far and jammed his whole shoulder between the pipe and the wall. He couldn't extricate himself, so he called on Joe – the strongest guy in the class to pull or push Doc's body to release him from his bind. Having been left back by 'Doc' Miller a number of times the class wasn't sure just what DeFlippo would or would not do. Without a moments hesitation Joe stood up and walked to the classroom door, opened it, stepped out and turned briefly to 'Doc' and said, "You got yourself into it, get yourself out of it", and disappeared down the hall. With help 'Doc' was finally freed. Miller never passed Joe and that eventually resulted in Joe leaving school without graduating. He ended up as a member of the Pelham police force with his heroic stature intact. 'Doc' Miller went on about his swinging and chewing but taking care to check his swing.

For a small part of my high school days I worked as a soda jerk at a drug store near the school. It was an afternoon job that took up about three hours or so. I didn't like it even though it gave me some pocket money and an occasional soda or Pepsi. My friends, girls and boys together, would drop by to say hello maybe have a soda and then disappear. I felt chained not being able to leave the soda counter. I was also expected to deliver prescriptions to clients on my bicycle and some of them lived a good distance from the store and at the top of a ridge near the boundary of Pelham and New Rochelle. Tips for delivering the goods were expected but only intermittently received. Oddly enough, I did better in the poor sections and those closer by. In time, I figured this was leading me no where fast and I quit. No problem for the druggist as there were guys waiting in line to take my place.

About this time I started palling around with Ed Whitmore who lived four or five doors down the street and was a student at Pelham High. He was a year ahead of me. Ed was a nice guy and we always seemed to have something to talk about. Our friendship continued through the time we both married. It ended abruptly like a light being switched off when Ed and his bride moved away. I haven't seen him since. There were, of course, other friends but that relationship with Ed seemed to be the closest in those years. I remember we both were in the same French class and one outside assignment was to come to class with a play of our own devising in which only French could be spoken. Ed and I put our heads together and came to class in the costume of two dueling medieval Frenchmen with swords. Given our limited French we had the class in stitches as we thrust and parried shouting simply and solely, "Vous etes fou!" and "Non, vous etes fou!". As I recall, the teacher was generous and we got a reasonably good grade for an enthusiastic performance.

As I have progressed through this narrative, I realize that there are many things not touched upon simply because as I have written those things did not come to mind at the time. For instance, I haven't touched very heavily in this journal on the health of the participants involved and by that I mean the immediate family members. I know I noted something a while back but I feel I should say more. Longevity seemed to be a hallmark of my grandparents on the Gehron and the McDermott side. The exception being Pop McDermott who, at a later stage in his life, gave up his family for a younger woman and died in his late sixties, I think, but of what, I know not – possibly cancer. Mother was a slender person and the birth of two children took its toll on her health as a young woman. However, she had a strong constitution and seemingly overcame any health problems she may have had in her youth. Although she died relatively young at the age of 68 from uremic poison, it was something treatable as the doctor later informed me. She did nothing about it and my sense is she didn't care much about carrying on after the death of her husband. Father died at the age of 72 about normal for a man around the half century mark. But, in fact, his living that long was quite remarkable for he had a history of heart trouble. He proudly recited in his later years the story of being diagnosed as having a heart condition as a young man with the life expectancy of thirty-five or so. He loved proving that assessment a folly.

Sister Grace and I seemingly inherited mother's sturdy constitution and while Grace developed rheumatic fever when she was about sixteen, had two children and some later surgery done she died at age 89 on October 1, 2008. More on this will be spelled out later on.

As I edit this piece, I have observed that I discussed the matters in the above two paragraphs before. I have decided to let things stand as is.

And, at this writing, I have never had any surgery except to pull up my atrophied lower eyelids. No broken bones can I claim. I did have a dangerous bout of the mumps as a young boy which drifted to one of my two testicles and dried it up completely. Had both gone I would have been impotent but I'm told that that is why we have been blessed with two of such important accouterments as nostrils, eyes, ears, hands, feet and kidneys but, unfortunately, not two livers.

If I had a problem, it was my teeth in my youth. As a child mother never took me to a dentist and, of course, I did not volunteer to go. It is remarkable now that I look back on those years of neglect that I never had a toothache or gum problems that would have sent me to a dentist. Father went regularly during those years and I never understood why he didn't say something to mother about the need to look after my teeth. It was not until I was age sixteen that I was taken to a dentist – good old – and he was rather elderly to me at that age – Dr. Stahl. What prompted the visit I do not recall but clearly it was long overdue. For about the next two years I went to Dr. Stahl two or three times each week. My afternoons over that period of time were shattered. The good doctor would drill, then mix the filling, then put it in the cavity and then wait for the filling to harden before filing it smooth. It was a one and one-half to two hour procedure depending on how many cavities he filled during any particular visit. What with getting to and from his office in New Rochelle that was the extent of my afternoon activity on those days. Needless to say, Dr. Stahl and I became buddies – he liked to talk and I could do nothing but listen. He told me, whether accurate or not, that I had five cavities in one tooth and over sixty fillings when the total was added up. His little joke was to warn me that I had better not fall out of any rowboat because with the amount of lead I had in my mouth I'd be sure to go right to the bottom. As it turned out, his efforts paid off and to this day I still carry around with me some of those Stahl fillings to say nothing of the original teeth saved. Should I get to my life in the army in this epistle, I'll touch, but briefly, on the general subject of health again.

Also, where I mentioned the neighborhood gang and the games we played I neglected to say a word about marbles and that was big in those days. Everyone had his or her bag filled with little, round balls of glass – some quite striking in coloration – which were sacrificed in a marble game. And one or two were big in size and so distinctive in color they were chosen to be used as shooters. It was a simple form of play in which two or more players would put maybe a half dozen marbles each in a circle about twelve inches in circumference drawn on a smooth portion of the ground. Taking turns, each would hold his shooter – called aggies – on his forefinger with his thumb cocked behind and hand held usually at ground level any place outside the circle. He would aim at a marble inside the inscribed line and then thrust his thumb forward propelling the shooter onward with the intention of knocking the marble aimed at out of the circle. If you did, you kept that marble and took another turn. If you missed or didn't hit a marble outside the circle, you lost your turn. I believe the advent of television obliterated such a simple but enjoyable – and time consuming – pastime.

Oddly enough, I just recently came across an article in the Washington Post written by a collector of marbles who was kicking around such names for them – some of which I can recall – like onionskins, lutzes, slags, oxbloods, swirls, guineas, flames and corkscrews. Clay marbles were mentioned too but I never saw any of those. All the above mentioned were of glass. The article noted that marbles are – or were – an ancient toy having been traced back to the Egyptian pyramids, the ruins of Pompeii, 15th century German villages and Colonial America. For the record, the earliest were made of stone then clay then earthenware and finally glass which I was familiar with.

No mention was made either of remembrances growing up of milk wagons – Willowbrook was the dairy name – drawn by horses or of icemen toting large chunks of ice stashed over their shoulders from wagon to kitchen where it would go into the 'icebox', the precursor of the automatic refrigerator. Or of a coalmen who would lug bags of coal on their shoulders from coal trucks to a coal slide at some ground floor window where it would be dumped and the coal would scurry down a chute to a coal bin in the cellar below. From there it would be shoveled periodically into the coal burner. The advent of oil and later gas heat put an end to that trade.

But one thing I have quite neglected was the religious aspect of my youth. I was baptized a Catholic. Mother came, as I said, from a family of devout Catholics and had father agree to bring the children up in that faith. While father's family was Lutheran, he was a very poor practicing one and went along with mother's wish. St. Catherine's Church was within ten minutes walking distance of our house and for a number of years Grace, taking me in tow, would religiously go to Sunday Mass while mother and father stayed home. Given that adult example, Grace eventually gave up her active participation and that left me in the lurch. With no example to follow, I gave up Sunday attendance too. The other members of the family, to my knowledge, never darkened a church door again except for weddings and funerals, although Grace at a late stage of her life did return to the church. Yet, somehow I felt its pull. For a number of years I sat Sundays out but about the time I went off to high school some religious motivation led me to Christ Episcopal Church in Pelham Manor and the priest – that's what they were called – was a young dynamic man fresh from some large Episcopal church in New York City. His name, I recall, was Father Taggart. I liked the church, cozy and very English, and the Mass as the service was called, and the ceremonial trappings – all were very close to the Catholic style. High Episcopal is about as close as you could get to the Catholic Church. Over time I became an altar boy and somewhere around there is a picture of me in costume taken on the terrace of the Pelham house. I can't recall much about my several years of devoted service but I do remember rather vividly one special occasion when I was in attendance on the altar. On one Sunday, Bishop Manning, a very high magistrate of the church, paid us a visit. Of course, the resident priest wanted the service to go like clockwork. But from the outset a partner altar boy and I had trouble. As the processional began, I couldn't light the candle held by my colleague. As we made our way from the sacristy along a side aisle thence to the back of the church and then down the center aisle, I was striking match after match throwing the burned ones into the congregation as I tried to kindle the wick. It never did light during that long march through the church. Later, I was to remove the Bishop's miter with much care since he had a great shock of white hair and after his sermon replace it. Unfortunately, much of his hair arose with the miter leaving him during his sermon with a rather disheveled look and when I replaced it, it ended up rather cockeyed on his head leaving the impression that the Bishop was somewhat inebriated. He was an old man at the time and in his way did nothing to straighten out his hair or his miter. I'm sure these problems upset the pastor but he never complained. Incidentally, he ended up back on the streets of New York but eventually, as a homeless person. I think, after his tour in Pelham, he was assigned to cover the needs of dockworkers in the city and became an alcoholic. Although at prep school, Chapel was a must, my days of formal religious participation ended at Christ Church when I left Pelham High not to recommence until I married Pat, whence I went back to the Catholic Church.

Father believed in some supreme being out there pointing out that you couldn't have solar system after solar system without something giving order to it. However, he never formally participated in any church although because of my role at Christ Church he did become the Church's resident architect on a pro bono basis. Mother and Grace, whatever they believed, just let their formal religious activity lapse. Interestingly, all the other McDermotts were very active in the Catholic Church.

The mention of church reminds me of an incident one summer when the family rented a house for several months in Hampton Bay on Long Island. I don't remember how it came to pass that one Sunday Grace and I attended mass at the Catholic Church in town. At any rate, as we were leaving church there was Al Smith then Governor of New York who I have alluded to earlier in setting the stage of occurrences in the nation and elsewhere on my birth date. Grace dared me to approach the Governor and ask for his autograph. This I did without the slightest trepidation. Smith was the consummate politician and with a smile obliged, asking if I had a pen. I said no and he said no matter he had one. He then asked if I had any paper. In response to my second no he observed that I wasn't very well prepared but no matter he'd sign his name on my white collar – which he did.

Recalling that incident brings to mind the family summers we spent at various towns on Long Island which eventually resulted in mother and father buying a beautiful old house in Water Mill facing the mill and village green which both enjoyed for months at a time year after year until father's death in 1958. While I enjoyed brief stays at that house as did Pat and the children, my fondest memories are of the small town of Remsenburg on Moriches Bay where we rented several houses over a three or four year period beginning when I was probably thirteen or fourteen. I enjoyed those times because there were a number of friends, boys and girls, there and much of the daylight hours were spent in sailboats either racing, cruising for fun or fixing them up. We rented each of those years a wonderful old cat boat about twenty feet in length in which I learned to sail. Father sought to teach but he wasn't your old salt so I essentially learned by personal experience.

I do remember that when father first engaged the boat he did so from Captain Foster who built and repaired boats at his bayside boatyard. Old Mr. Foster asked father if he knew how to sail. The answer, of course, was yes, which just wasn't the case and as soon as father and I left the dock our lack of any skill became quite apparent. We knocked about, jibed here and there but eventually brought the ship safely in. I think Foster admired my father's determination and they became quite friendly which accounted for our return to the boatyard and the rental of the same catboat for a number of years running.

Cat boats were really built for daytime family cruising. Wide of beam and gaffed rigged they carried a billowing mainsail and mounted a heavy centerboard for stability. They were consequently, pretty difficult to capsize making them relatively safe for all family members. Indeed, I remember days when Robin Halstead, a summer friend and I would take her out to turn her over. It was not only an exercise which permitted you to judge her tolerance in this respect but once you tipped over, you had to learn the art of putting her right, wet sails and all.

Robin owned an SS boat – a small, fast racing boat native to the bay – and I was his crew in races held every Wednesday and Saturday. Unlike the cat boat, Robin's sixteen-footer was Marconi rigged with a jib and a spinnaker. This helped me enlarge my knowledge about the use of various sails and especially the trials and tribulations of the spinnaker a great sail when under control. Most of the summer children's families had sailboats, so there was a great deal of togetherness on the water which also carried over to sharing our time on land.

Grace was the baby-sitter for me on many weekdays when mother and father returned to Pelham and father would go to work. She didn't have much of an opportunity to get out and meet people her own age and I think she thought those Long Island 'vacations' something of a drag. There was another problem too, in that the summer regulars who owned houses tended to look down their noses at periodic renters making it difficult to be accepted since Remsenburg was essentially populated by summer homeowners.

My enjoyment of the summers there was also due to my having a crush on a certain girl – a 'sweet sixteen' thing. Her family owned a substantial house with large grounds identified by a sign Wit's End. It was there one weekend afternoon I joined a softball game with their guests and other kids from the neighborhood. Among the guests, was Jim Crowley one of Notre Dame's famous four horsemen of the Apocalypse who was, at that time, Fordham University's football coach. We were on the same team and when I hit a homerun and finished rounding the bases he made a point of singling me out to say 'you really laid into that one, lad'. Such a comment from such an outstanding athlete left my head spinning for the rest of that summer. I should note that I pursued my crush over the three years we summered in Remsenburg and while it all came to naught, it certainly increased my sense of good times during those years.

Perhaps it was my infatuation with the girl from Remsenburg that led to more of a realization that I was growing up and becoming more aware of the world beyond my limited horizon. The thirties were coming to an end and the 1940's were beginning during those Remsenburg years. In the world at large momentous things were happening. Hitler and Mussolini were on the march proclaiming a Rome-Berlin Axis which Japan joined in 1940. The Russo-Finish war began and ended. Einstein wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt about the feasibility of developing the atomic bomb and all was capped off by the Japanese surprise attack on the U. S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The U. S. was at war! I remember being in the living room of the Pelham house that Sunday morning listening to the radio. An announcer broke in to give the news about the attack which I called out to mother and father. I'm sure they were aware of the consequences of what had happened having lived through World War I but while I was startled by the news I could not, at the time, fathom the consequences it later held for me.

At that time, I was in my third year at Pelham High School. I was not doing very well academically. Geometry and French were, as I remember, the real problems and with my marks both father and mother were sincerely worried about a college in my future. Father, of course, saw me as heir apparent of his architectural firm and a struggling math student worried him. Mother, I'm sure, entertained the same thoughts about my joining the firm but with somewhat less resolve than my father. In any case, it was clear that I needed to give more time to my studies than my habits at Pelham allowed. So, at the end of my junior year – which I managed to pass – the family found a place for me at the Loomis School in Windsor, Connecticut – a preparatory school for college. (Today it is known as Loomis/Chaffee). There was only one catch. The school did not like to take on a student for one year only so mother and father agreed that at Loomis I should repeat my junior year. Actually, it was a wise decision for with my academic background up to that time I would probably have floundered as a senior. It was not that Pelham High School had not done the job. It was simply that I did not take school very seriously and I just was not aware of how important the education I was exposed to was to me and my future. So it was that in the fall of 1941, on the eve of what was to become a world wide war, I headed off to Windsor as a boarding school student – age seventeen.

Before going on about my first year at Loomis, the summer between public and private school should be recalled for it was the only time I actually lived on a working farm.

Father had developed an acquaintance with a Mr. Louck who was CEO of the York Lock and Safe Company – a nationally known outfit headquartered in York, Pa. Louck was big into dairy farming around Lancaster, Pa., near York where he operated, as his show piece, a modern major dairy complete with electrical milkers. He also owned some 25 additional farms most of which he rented out to Amish farmer families. Somehow father worked out an arrangement with Louck that I would work for the summer as a hired hand. Pay, as I recall, was to be room and board at the farm nearest to the main dairy, where I was to work, and closest to Louck's imposing estate. It was run by a young farmer and his wife and included a couple of other regular farmhands one of whom was called Smitty, a gnarled old fellow in his late 70's. Father thought this would be an ideal position for his 17 year old son mixing farming with the summer delights of the Louck family at the estate. I was told to pack a tuxedo whether at Louck's suggestion or my father's, I know not. No such garment was in my luggage as mother and father drove me from Pelham to the farm dropping me off at the gate as if no introductions to my new life style were required.

I don't recall the details of my first meeting with the folks at my new homestead but I do recall my first night there. I was called to supper from my small room in the farmhouse to join John, the farm's owner and Smitty and the other hand. John's wife both served and cooked for us but hardly ever joined us. When dinner was placed on the table that first night there was a fend for yourself display as each of the three men's hands shot out to garner the meat and potatoes set before us. Being reluctant to make such a show of haste, I settled for the little that was left. I later understood how hungry you can get when working the fields all day but that rush at the food was a first day eye-opener for the new farmhand. After dinner I went to my room – there was very little socializing – and went to bed. Later I woke up feeling nauseous. What made the event so tricky was the fact that the only place I could head for was an outside privy some distance from the house.

I made it but what I wasn't sure about was whether I could make it for the summer as a hired hand.

As it turned out I did. John and his wife accepted me in a way which made me feel comfortable and Smitty looked upon me as a grandson to be schooled in the ways of farming. I ended up pitching hay, milking cows and doing the many chores farming involves. It was a great learning experience. I know my love and respect for the vacuous, mooing cows of that farm left me forever their friend. They displayed a sense of courage and dignity I was totally unaware of until I lived among them. A case in point was an occasion when John and I were in a barn striving to shoo the cows into their respective stalls in preparation for milking. One of them continually hesitated despite John's urging. Frustrated, he picked up a two by four and whacked the cow across the bridge of its nose and in doing so unintentionally hit the cow's eye so that the eyeball literally fell from its socket dangling at the end of some muscle or tissue. The cow showed not the slightest sense that it was injured. John looked at me and said the problem had to be corrected. He took a pen knife from his pocket, opened it and cut the muscle or tissue so the eyeball fell free.The cow gave no sign of complaint but again at his urging, swung herself into her stall. I was impressed by that cow's valor. That was the beginning of their appeal to me which has stayed with me to this day.

The big deal for me that summer was the chance to work in the main dairy where about one hundred cows were milked electronically, as I recall, twice a day. The bulk were the Holstein breed of cattle which the Columbia Encyclopedia says originated in North Holland and were imported to the U. S. in large numbers in the late 19th century. They are believed to have been bred for their dairy qualities for 2,000 years. The encyclopedia notes that in milk production these cows average a higher yield than that of any other breed, although the milk has relatively low butterfat content. The Louck's modern dairy herd was all prize Holsteins and each produced milk in the gallons as I recall – maybe 9 a day. Louck also had some Jersey cattle about, the smallest of the dairy breeds, but whose milk has the highest butter fat content of any dairy breed. They now rank second in number to the Holsteins in the U. S. Their milk production is much more limited than the Holstein. These were the two types of cattle Loucks had at the modern dairy and on his other farms.

I would get a chance to work at the main dairy during the evening milking session after having completed my day long chores on John's farm. On a number of occasions one of the hands at the big dairy wished to go into town in the evening and I'd be asked to fill-in. I note that to me it was a big deal because there were always visitors watching during the evening milking and I could show-off as a genuine farmhand. My job usually was to hose off the cows' udders before the electrical milking machines were attached. There I would be in heavy black rubber boots with a large black rubber apron strapped over a white jacket that had letters on its back reading Louck's Farm. The fact of the modern milking technique and the prize Holsteins brought a large number of visitors daily to the dairy. I think the dairy's customers must have included just about everyone in Lancaster County and then some.

The other inducement to working there was the access available to the large walk-in refrigerator where bottled milk was stored for sale to visiting customers. All I had to do when I was working there was to walk into that cold room and reach up on a shelf for a quart bottle of ice-cold milk – usually chocolate. That was a little bit of heaven at no charge. As one might guess, the favorite purchase made by the customers was chocolate milk.

I had other memorable experiences that summer including being charged by a bull – I scrambled over a railing with little time to spare and driving a ten wheel tractor trailer truck with hundreds of pounds of prize pigs in back to the railway station in York. There was some talk of me staying on past summer to shepherd Louck's prize hogs through county fairs around the country but that came to naught with the arrival of mother and father at summer's end for the return trip to Pelham. I was sixteen when I was dropped off at Louck's farm. I returned home as a seventeen year old about to embark on a new adventure in education. (Somehow I've managed to get my age at this time mixed up.)

While the farm experience is the most vivid of my summer jobs, I did do various things from the time I was fifteen or so through my college years. The latter time saw me working in father's office as a glorified office boy. I never really liked that because there were many occasions when time hung heavy on my hands. The only pluses were two: in one of those years Pat also had a summer position with a city law firm and she would join me sometimes for lunch in father's office. That was great! She learned how I spent part of my days there for during lunch we'd go to the balcony directly outside the French doors in father's office and sail small slips of paper on the wind in the direction of Grand Central Station. I was always amazed, and I think Pat was too, at how long you could keep those little strips in view and how far they would actually float in the air from the heat of the street. We would even compete with one another to see whose would travel the farthest and/or stay in the air the longest. Talk about an exciting courtship, that kind of thrill stuff would be hard to beat! (Actually, I now recall, those days with Pat took place after I returned from the military and was in college.) The other plus should not be compared with my luck in having Pat around but it was the fact that on the ground floor of father's office building there was a real New York deli and that afforded me the opportunity to order on a daily basis a turkey sandwich on Jewish rye with Russian dressing. I say on a daily basis because my job entailed getting lunch orders from the men in the office (I don't remember what Miss Auerback did for lunch), and taking them to the deli where I would wait while the orders were made up and then return to the office to distribute them. To this day I'm still a New York deli fan and a favorite is still a turkey sandwich on crusty bread with Russian dressing. I must confess, however, that a close second is tongue, with a turkey or corned beef reuben in third. I might add that father was as pedestrian as I in that he always ordered some sort of salad. I could never understand that when so many wonderful sandwich opportunities abounded. One day I asked him why he simply got a salad each day and he replied that when I reached his age, I'd understand. I do.

I didn't just work during the summer in those years. I also worked, when I could find a job, during Christmas vacations as well. I remember one Christmas working in Bonwit Teller's Department store in New York City as a stock clerk. My job was to bring boxes to put purchases in from the basement storeroom to any sales counter needing them. On one occasion, I was carrying a load of boxes through the store when I abruptly came face to face with my Long Island dream girl's mother. I had the distinct impression that she recoiled at the thought that her daughter was the interest of a stock clerk in Bonwit Teller's! As I recall, that was the beginning of the end of that budding, youthful romance. But the job had its flavorful moments as well. There were several chances to takeover from the sales clerks when they went to lunch or wished to take a break. I can recall a number of times when one of the women at the perfume counter habitually took off she would ask me to cover for her. There I would be, day after day, helping customers – mostly male – make selections. Of course, unbeknownst to them it was a case of the 'blind leading the blind' for I didn't know one brand name from another to say nothing of the difference between eau de cologne and perfume. However, it was fun if for no other reason than the buyer just assumed I knew a lot about the stuff because there I was behind the counter. I also worked a summer for Macy's Department store in the city as well. I was assigned to the sports department. At the time the store was pushing a cheap badminton set which I implored every client not to buy. It was a rip-off. I do not understand how a respected store like Macy's could so mislead the buying public.

A word here about Grace who, as I noted, traveled the same route through elementary, junior and high school five years ahead of me. Grace, as I have already observed, was a good student and had her eyes set on attending Wellesley College in Wellesley, MA. Then, as now, it was one of the premier schools of learning in the country. I think the family thought she was too young to take on Wellesley after graduation in 1937 from Pelham High. In any case, she spent a year at Dana Hall – the 'prep' school for Wellesley bound young women – before beginning her college education. Thus, while the country was still in the throes of the Great Depression, and the Gehron family along with it, mother and father had placed their children in private schools in the hope of giving them a solid education. I don't know if Grace was attending on the basis of a scholarship but I was. Somehow father and mother not only got me into Loomis but with a scholarship as well.

One thing that set Loomis apart from most of the other Eastern preparatory schools was the belief that students should handle chores as well as studies. Thus, you cleaned your room, made your bed daily, and took turns, periodically, waiting on table. My scholarship made me responsible for yet another task – overseeing the school post office. I collected and sorted the school's mail for an hour or so twice a day. Among other things, it put me in a position to know who had received packages of goodies from home – an envious role in any school and one I took advantage of from time to time by getting a hand out. I should note here that the only other student holding this scholarship was Bill Flammer so we worked together. Today Bill is a multi-millionaire who has given much in financial aid to the school.

I had no trouble fitting into the life style of Loomis or of making friends. However, even though I was repeating my junior year, I started out very slowly on the academic side in part because I wasn't giving the proper time or seriousness of purpose to my studies. This got me into trouble with the faculty member who ran the dormitory to which I was assigned – Mr. Whitehead. He was one of those strict unbending types who seemed to view all aspects of school life as matters of black or white. In my first year, I was his favorite target as I was somewhat mischievous with relatively poor grades. Each dorm had two Student Council members on each of the two floors of the dorm and they would meet monthly with the dorm headmaster to relax or limit a student's lifestyle depending on a general standing determined by grades and conduct in the month just passed. I don't recall the exact standards but there were four or five categories you could be placed in from unlimited off campus excursions into Windsor and no lights out privileges, or no privileges at all at the bottom. That lowest rung was a scary one to be in for it meant you were essentially on probation and one false move or failing grade and you were out. While the student council members tried to ease me through that first year, Mr. Whitehead – who had the last word -- always put me on a very tight rein. Yet despite his rigidity and my limited freedom, I basked in the style of life the school created. It was a self-contained community where you lived, slept, studied, socialized and played within its confines and to me it was like being in some special club with several hundred kids – all boys roughly your own age. Loomis is now co-ed.

My roommate in my first year was a wonderful, gentle, quiet, intelligent boy by the name of Elliot Debevoise. I think he came from a prominent New Jersey family. And while we were as different in our ways as night and day we got along very well. Unfortunately, Elliot dropped out of my life very abruptly after the first year as he did not return for his senior year. It was some time subsequently that I heard he had died the summer after junior year of some strange ailment. I still puzzle over why we never heard or were made aware of his death while we were in school.

As I look back, I have become more and more aware that for some of the boys the school was probably a living nightmare. As in "Lord of the Flies" when you put a group of young men in a situation of some isolation where in many respects their behavior toward each other was usually peer monitored there are alleged 'regular' guys and others. At times I was repelled by some of the nasty tricks I saw and I know some of those who suffered the consequences when they graduated wished to have nothing more to do with the place. There was a Jewish boy on my dorm floor in my first year – the school was non-denominational which was a plus – who was picked on from time to time and seared into my mind is a night a group ganged up on him in his room and shaved a large V on his hairy chest. V for Victory, I presume, which Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, was then making popular. I did help to break it up but the damage was done. Today he is listed as one of those who wishes to have no contact whatsoever with the school. Such cruelty is unwarranted and I hope such excesses are no longer considered as acceptable behavior on the school campus. I believe he was targeted because of his faith.

Fortunately, some pranks were laughable and hurt no one. I remember waking up one morning and spotting a faculty member's Volkswagen nesting on the terrace entrance to the Administration building within the confines of the school's stately quad. Evidently, a group of students had picked the car up from its parking space on the street side of the quadrangle and carried it to its new location. I think everyone enjoyed that rather humorous stunt except, perhaps, for the professor since it was viewed as an act of disrespect.

I suppose what was wondrous, at least during this first year at Loomis, was how removed I was from the world beyond our school walls. I was oblivious to almost everything beyond our island compound – Loomis was on an island as the Connecticut River split at the island to run on each side. The Depression, the war – nothing seemed to intrude upon the small world in which I was involved.

I should take a moment here to note that one area within our school for fraternizing several times a day was the snack bar which we dubbed 'The Snug'. It was open in the afternoon for several hours and again in the evening. It was, for all intents and purposes, like a village pub where you could regularly drop in to be with your friends and enjoy a milkshake or whatever. The idea to open a snack bar was the brainchild of one of the Rockefeller boys, two of whom went to Loomis some years ahead of me.

Breakfast, lunch and dinner – the latter was a coat and tie affair nightly except Sunday as I recall – was also a social occasion. At each meal you sat at a circular table with eight or so other students. A faculty member joined the table at dinner time and doled out individual portions. There were further opportunities to converse in a relaxed atmosphere even with a teacher at the table – except, of course, when Mr. Whitehead sometimes joined by his wife presided at my table.

Dormitory life also created numerous opportunities to enjoy the company of others. Each dorm was like a fraternity. You knew everyone and bull sessions were common and open to any comer.

The school was so small, of course, that a student could know at least half the student body on a first name basis. However, since it was comprised of both residents and day students it was much more difficult for the latter to know the resident students than residents to know each other. Real camaraderie was largely observed within classes. Seniors liked to be with other seniors, juniors with juniors – on down the line.

In addition to the academic side, sports were also a feature of the school. There were the usual varsity sports – football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey and track. But the school encouraged participation by everyone so there were similar activities on an intramural basis where dorms would compete against one another. At this late date, I can't recall with certainty just what I was involved in except for varsity baseball. I remember that because the coach of the team was my math professor, Herb Catlin. I was a reasonably good baseball player – I played center field - and Catlin liked my performance. So much so, I believe, that he saw to it that I got through his math courses the two years I was on the team. I should add here that my most vivid recollection of my baseball days at Loomis came at Deerfield school or some such place. I was playing, as usual in center field, when an opposing batter blasted a ball in my direction. I went back, back and back and then bang-oh! I fell into a creek bed at the far end of the playing field but as I went down I caught the ball in the air. Even though I had disappeared from sight, I kept my arm with the ball in my mitt above the creek bed and so got the out. Herb Catlin, who had a catlike grin, really turned it on when I trotted in, having by that play, retired their side.

A further note about Catlin might be included here. He and his wife had a summer place in Vermont and at the end of our junior year he invited two or three of us to spend a couple of weeks there to help him put the place in order. In particular, he wanted us to help him complete one of those New England stonewalls around the property. We went, worked hard and generally had a good time. Evenings there were really my first introduction to square dancing which was very much in vogue. I can't recall where we lived or ate but we departed as workers in good standing and I felt my chances of passing math in my senior year might have been improved. Actually, Catlin was a man who judged you on merit and quality of character so in a sense I was fooling only myself if I thought working for him would place me in better standing either with him or in my studies or athletic efforts.

What was most memorable about that summer was our journey home from Catlin's farm. Another student and I traveled from Vermont to New York City by train and somehow arrived in the Times Square area looking for a cheap place to eat. We had our suitcases with us and it was awkward walking around looking for a place to eat lugging them with us. We were dressed, of course, like country boys in rough work clothes since that was all the Catlin job had required. It was probably our simple, wayward look that caught the attention of a young man who approached us offering a place for us to put our bags while we had something to eat. We were in front of a movie theatre. He noted that his uncle was the manager of the place. So it was there, in the manager's office so designated by a sign on the door, that we deposited our bags with thanks. Take your time he said the bags will be perfectly safe and we could go to the manager's office and collect them at our leisure. We ate and returned and, of course, our suitcases were gone. We raised a stink with the manager who said he knew nothing about the matter – which may or may not have been true. We pointed out the ticket taker as one who was aware of our being in the theatre which he denied. We even drew a policeman into the fracas but it was our word against theirs and we got nowhere. It was the first time I was conned in New York City but not the last which I will get to later in this narrative. It could have been worse. The bags contained nothing of value, fortunately, but it was a lesson about placing your trust in the hands of strangers.

In my second—and senior year at Loomis much change was apparent in my school life. At the end of my first year I was voted to be a member of the Student Council for the following year by the student body. That meant that I returned to Loomis that second year with both a sense of authority and responsibility. Two student councilors worked together to assume order on each dorm floor and my friend 'Cap' Eldrigdge (who died in 2007) and I elected to share a very nice dorm room with a beautiful open porch that overlooked the quad. It was our duty to keep the students on our floor under control at all times – to enforce the honor code: no smoking, lights out, study time, room inspection, bed made, rooms swept, etc. and generally to keep things running fairly and efficiently without schoolboy tyranny. The master of the dorm – a faculty member usually with family residing at the dorm – welcomed the role for if we performed well it meant much less for him to be concerned about with those under his jurisdiction. A dorm was made up of a faculty apartment and two or three floors of single and double student quarters. I suppose there were a couple of dozen students on each floor. In addition to live-in boys there were, as noted, a number of 'day-hoppers' from around the area. While their educational opportunities were the same, I thought the non-boarding students missed much of the fun and social benefits the school offered those who stayed the night. I have earlier observed that it was more difficult for them to make fast friends with the residents.

The Student Council, as the name would imply, also was responsible for governing the student body within the rules and regulations set out by the Headmaster and the faculty.

Here I should digress to say something about the Headmaster during my two years there – Nathaniel Horton Batchelder – known to every student as 'Mr. B.' He was an imposing figure tall, robust with the look of an old New England Yankee – whatever that may be. He was stern but just and he loved the school. He would say the homily at chapel – must attendance every day – he would police the classroom halls and he would cover the athletic field like a blanket. He presided in the dining room on many nights and each Sunday presided over afternoon tea with Mrs. B. at their house. For the boys to be invited to the latter occasion was like being asked to sit at the captain's table on a passenger liner. Only a dozen or so were in attendance and if you were there you just knew you were looked upon benevolently by the host. It was always wise to be on Mr. B's good side. I found that out the hard way.

Since I mentioned Mrs. B, I should report that she was an accomplished artist in her own right. She had a studio on campus where she did all of her work as a sculptor and a very well known one at that. Her most widely recognized piece was the AT&T statue of Mercury, the messenger of the Gods, which to this day is still used by the company.

In my first year, as I have said, I was not the model student. Let me cite an example that frequently comes to mind. One day in the French class of Monsieur Cherie he left the room unexpectedly. To fill his role, I immediately hopped up and took his place in the front of the room mimicking his teaching voice and gestures to hilarious support from my peers. What they knew and I didn't was that M. Cherie had returned and was outside the glass paneled door looking at my efforts behind my back. Eventually, he swept into the classroom, established immediate order, and then had me recline on his desk bottom up and with his ever present cane proceeded to take some swipes at my buttocks. The students seemed to take as much pleasure out of his act as they seemed to take out of mine. In this case, M. Cherie initiated his own form of discipline but for other offenses I appeared before Mr. B in his office. Bushy eyebrows jumping, piercing eyes boring in, hands clasped behind his back his demeanor was quite frightening to a teenage student who knew the headmaster had all the punishment cards stacked in his favor. Some of my transgressions were great enough to be subjects of correspondence between Mr. B and my father and on at least one occasion, in my junior year, to bring both my mother and father to the school for a conversation. I was ordered to appear in Mr. B's office for that event which, of course, I diligently did. And I am glad because it was a special moment for me to recognize the stature of the man. I was close to being shown the door at Loomis and my father, mother and I knew it. However, Mr. B told them that while I wasn't always a good student academically or otherwise he had reason to believe I could be and he wanted me to remain in school and prove his point. It almost literally was the first time an adult had expressed in my hearing confidence and trust in me as a human being. That was one of those rare moments when you can sense a dramatic change in your development and comportment in life. As a youngster I left that session convinced that Mr. B believed in me. It was all relatively smooth sailing from there. I've always felt that he gained a special sense of satisfaction when the boys voted to put me on the Student Council. I think he felt his trust was vindicated. I know I did! God love him. Mr. B was headmaster for years before and years after my time at Loomis and his contributions to the school and student body were and are incalculable.

I would be remiss in discussing "Mr. B" if I did not address the matter of one of the English teachers when I was there. He was a young bachelor by the name of John Horne Burns. I was never a student of his but the school was so small our paths would necessarily cross. He lived in one of the dorm rooms provided to single teachers and while he seemed pretty much his own man he was well liked by the students. Although he presumably hired him, I think Mr. B had qualms. Burns had the qualifications the headmaster would have liked. He was a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy and Harvard University. He taught English at Loomis after his graduation until he was drafted into the Army in 1942 and he returned again in 1945. He published his first well received novel The Gallery in 1947 and followed that up with Lucifer and the Book in 1949. I have read both. The Gallery was a good read for anyone.. However, to fully enjoy Lucifer you would have had to have been a student at Loomis. The latter story was a thinly veiled account of life as a teacher at Loomis under the direction of a crusty, aging Principal of the Academy, Mr. Pikey, a thinly veiled Mr. B. It was not a flattering characterization of either the man or his school. Mr. B took umbrage at that. I should add that he was probably also distressed that Burns was homosexual and made no attempt to hide the fact.

Burns wrote a third novel, A Cry of Children, which appeared in 1952 a year before he died in Italy at the age of 36. Gore Vidal called The Gallery the best book of World War II. Had he lived a longer life he might have been considered the preeminent American author so good were his contributions to the written word. I have gone on at length about J.H.B. because he was an accomplished writer who never really gained public attention. What I write here will not help much one way or the other but since our paths did cross I wanted to recognize the man and his talents.

I have previously noted that the student councilors in each dorm met monthly to determine privileges to be extended to their wards based on behavior and academic achievement. These were sober learning sessions – about making judgments based on the strengths and foibles of one's peers and the discreet use of authority. Such duties as these and the general respect accorded a councilor had much to do with a profitable senior year for me at Loomis. I sought to play a constructive role and I incorporated in that attitude an effort to maintain a good scholastic standing.

That second year changed things in another way as well. The school and I became much more aware of an expanding war which involved symbolic choices between the forces of good and evil. The time was 1942 and the United States had been committed to the conflict for almost a year as I returned to Loomis that September. Until then, things had not gone well for the western allies. The U. S. Pacific fleet had been crippled; Hitler had attacked Russia while overrunning the Balkans and Greece and in addition to all else he had invaded in Western Europe. The British had surrendered Singapore to the Japanese and we gave up the Philippines to them. But about that time a turning point was discernible in the war. Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt agreed on unconditional surrender at the Casablanca Conference which exuded confidence in an ultimate allied victory and on the battlefront the German 6th Army surrendered at Stalingrad marking the turning point of the war in Russia. For many of us of military age it seemed, as our senior year progressed, that the war might be over before we could get into it.

Actually, during the summer of 1942 after my first year at Loomis, I had raised with my family the idea of quitting school and enlisting. I was at the time just eighteen years old. Father and mother, of course, would have none of it. My father said I should await my call up – I must have registered for the draft that summer – and should return to school until then. It was a good lesson in parental wisdom.

So, as I have said, I returned to school with the war very much on my mind. So, too, I found on the minds of others particularly among the seniors who would be most likely to be of age. I think the school leaders saw some of this sense of frustration coupled with eagerness for they arranged with National Guard officers in Hartford to set up a special unit of militia to begin our military training. We had uniforms and rifles made of wood and several days a week we participated in close order drills. It wasn't much but it was just enough to have us feel we were a part of the war effort. I was one of the officers in the unit.

I did another thing that year to prepare for military service. With about a half dozen other seniors I took some flying lessons intending to earn a solo license giving me a jump on being a pilot in what at that time was called the Army Air Corps. It was a reach to what to me was the most glamorous of the service branches. I was able to get in about seven hours of flying time with an instructor but none of us got to the solo stage though in my case another hour or so more of instruction would have made me eligible. I enjoyed the experience but I still remember how frustrated I was at loosing altitude doing 'S' turns over railroad tracks and judging the height of the plane from the ground when making approaches to land.

While we had the military itch, as seniors we did concentrate on our studies for no one wished to flunk out in his last year.

I should say something about my social life during those two years away from home. Being a boys' school, at that time, little thought was given over to activities involving the opposite sex even though Chaffee School for girls was located in the town of Windsor. A sprinkling of women would come over to our campus to cheer us on to victory in some sporting event – Chaffee was thought of as a sister institution – and there might have been a very occasional tea dance or such but that was about it. Anyway, during those years at Loomis I had a girlfriend at home. Someone in my Pelham High School class who I had been going around with sporadically during the three years I went there. I saw several girls during those years – one Mona Freeman, who I previously mentioned, went on to be 'Miss Subway' in New York City and she eventually ended up in Hollywood dating Bing Crosby. However, by the time I left for prep school there was just one girl who I thought of as my girl. We spent our time together when I came home on holidays. There was never an opportunity for her to visit Loomis. I think Mr. B frowned on any such activity. I don't recall any of the students asking a girl to visit. Our social life was carved out of the male inhabitants of the island where our school stood. The general camaraderie that existed among us was sufficient to fulfill our sociability requirements.

I should note in passing here that times have changed – dramatically. In the sixties and seventies when many men's or women's institutions were going co-ed. Loomis followed suit melding it and Chaffee together on the island campus. Today the co-ed ratio is about fifty-fifty and officially the school is known as Loomis/Chaffee as noted earlier. When Pat and I went to the 'island' to attend my 50th anniversary in 1993, we were both very impressed by the school, faculty and students. Even today, in early 2008, I can report that it remains a great school.

Beyond our military activity, there isn't much to say about my senior year. I did enjoy it fully from the academic side where I greatly improved my academic standing in keeping with the role of councilor. Unlike my first year where I spent a great deal of time in enforced study in the Study Hall for some infraction of the rules or poor grades, I never set foot in that detested room once in my senior year.

I had mentioned John Horne Burns earlier and I should address some other teachers. One, who comes immediately to mind, was my science professor the likable Charlie Platt. He taught science and physics which along with math were mysterious disciplines to me. Charlie was a good-looking man in that rugged he-man way. He was tall, broad of shoulder, with an interesting voice and infectious smile. In his college days at Princeton he was a football All-American and he certainly looked the part. I liked him because he was a good teacher who made the subject matter at hand seem relatively simple. Beyond that he was just a nice guy who took a compassionate interest in his students. I've already mentioned Herb Catlin and M. Cherie both of whom I also liked. Actually, as I look back on that group of faculty members I feel I was lucky to be there with such a competent bunch – even Mr. Whitehead. I should add that as a student, I had a good working relationship with Frank Grubbs who taught French and who after the death of Mr. B was to become the Headmaster and a good one at Loomis for a number of years. Unfortunately, at this writing all of those mentioned have followed John Burns in death.

The mention of Grubbs reminds me that some years later Pat and I attended a Loomis alumni dinner in New York City where Grubbs was in attendance in his role of Headmaster. He came up to Pat and me and Pat opened the conversation saying, "and what do you do?" Grubbs was so tickled by the question that he used it to begin his remarks noting, "someone asked me tonight what I did. That's a good question. So I'll try to tell you all what I do."

It is interesting how a relatively minor event can become significant to an individual. I hold a memory of such an incident at Loomis which has remained with me since it occurred. For reasons I have never fathomed, General Motor's representatives appeared on campus to test the physical coordination of all the students at the school. It was done over a period of days using the athletic center as the test site. I don't recall the exact nature of the rigmarole each of us was put through but they emphasized hand, eye, foot and general body coordination. One may have been dribbling a basketball down court and taking a shot or another swinging a bat at a pitched ball. Whatever, when the results were in, I was told I had the best performance in the school! Obviously, I was very pleased with the result since it seemed to elevate me above the football, basketball, hockey and other sports stars. I'm sure to everyone else who took the test it is a long forgotten matter but I have warmly carried the thought of the results with me ever since. I'm sure it has made me feel confident whenever physical coordination came into play. I also have often wondered what use GM made of the results of the study and whether to this day it is locked up in some old safe in that ugly headquarters building in Detroit awaiting re-discovery. I think they put up a new building since I was at Loomis but it isn't much better looking.

PART III

INTO THE REAL WORLD

My graduation from Loomis was a real cause for celebration for a number of reasons. First and foremost, mother and father were clearly relieved and proud. They had really sweated out the two years I was there and it all had, from their point of view, ended successfully. Second, I was, of course, elated both because I justified my parents' trust in me and my belief in myself. And third, I had proved to the school that its faith in me was warranted as well.

Just recently, the Associate Director of Reunion Programs sent me a reminder of my upcoming 65th reunion this coming June. Included in the package was a copy of our year book for the class of '43. For me it was an eye-opener in that I never could have recalled the activities I was involved in during my two years there. I certainly don't intend to cover the entire list but I would note, among other things, were items such as Lieutenant Military Drill, Glee Club, Political Club and cast in "Dead End" and "Pirates of Penzance". I remember military drill and "Pirates" but the others escape me.

Finally, I was accepted at my chosen college. On this latter point, it was a very odd arrangement that lead to my acceptance at Williams. A handful of us at Loomis, all close friends while there, decided we'd like to carry our friendship forward at a small liberal arts college which offered the cozy feeling I described earlier that we seemed to share at Loomis. As I recall, about a half dozen of us made Williams our choice and by the time of our graduation, all of us had been accepted. The Loomis academic record was one of good standing with the Little Three Colleges – Amherst, Wesleyan and Williams -- those schools in the year 1943 were not the scholarly powerhouses they are today. Indeed, Williams in those days was thought of as a 'partying' school which was all the more to our liking. Actually, when I did eventually arrive there some years later, the academic side was beginning to be strongly emphasized.

Mother and father came up from Pelham for the ceremonies. I don't recollect much about them except that the matriculation exercises were held in the quadrangle on a beautiful, sunny day just outside the Administration/Freshman Dorm building. Mother and father stayed at the home of the Assistant Headmaster arranged, as it turns out, by Mr. B. Grace thought she was there but I don't think so. She at that time was married to her first husband, John Heilmann, who was then serving stateside in the Army in the Finance Corps. I'm not going to change the above but a glance at some papers recently had among them confirmation that Grace was indeed there. It seems to me that my family invited several of my school friends to join us for dinner and that they did so but I just don't recall. Such a gathering could have taken place during one of their earlier visits but no matter. All in all, I recall the occasion with faint but fond memories. For me, of course, it was the end of my adolescence and the beginning of adulthood though such a change is rarely apparent and certainly at that time was not to me. What was about to prompt this sudden shift was the fact that in June 1943, a couple of weeks after my graduation from Loomis I was called up in the draft to serve in the U. S. Army. If it was to my liking, it was not appealing to mother or father.

I should explain here that as I look back over this period of my life my recollections are hazy. Not all the dates and places of my military years fall into a neat progression. I don't know why this is except time seemed to move fast and my memory has never been one I would describe as sharp. What I will try to do here is put down what I seem to recall and hope the recollections are in some reasonable way consistent with the facts. I might note here that I did try, a number of years ago, to get my military information from the Defense Department's central file system. It was reported back to me that there were no records of my service to be had. They had been destroyed in a massive fire many years before. Thanks a lot.

I noted earlier that I must have registered for the draft on my eighteenth birthday or some time shortly after August 5, 1942. Logic would have it that it was during summer vacation and I know it was at the Pelham Draft Board where the deed was done. I don't know if the Board gave me an exemption to allow me to complete my secondary education but I do know that my call up did not come until June of 1943. I recall asking my parents to let me walk to the Pelham station on my own the day I was to report to duty which they did. I'm pretty sure when I left the house that call up morning I took little more with me than my shaver, shaving cream, toothpaste and toothbrush since I was to be fitted out promptly G.I. (Government Issue), style. To my good fortune, when I arrived at the station who should be standing on the platform, going to the same reporting depot – Fort Dix – but my old high school classmate and track nemesis Bob Young. He, too, was alone. His presence was a welcome touch to me and I believe he felt the same for here we were each launched on a significant venture but together, not alone.

As I mentioned, it was very difficult for mother and father having a son going off to war and God knows what. At my departure they were stoic but I believe they had previously made plans to get away from Pelham when I left and they tried to put the war behind them briefly with a stay on Cape Cod, I think. Actually, there are, I believe a couple of father's watercolors around Cape Cod summer houses dated 1943 which reflect their effort to escape from the immediacy of the world around them.

I have no neat recollection of Bob's and my train ride that day or our arrival at Fort Dix. I think Bob and I were together for several days while our military duds were handed out filling a duffle bag. It was my first exposure to a military barracks where about thirty guys plopped down on steel beds with mattress, footlockers at the foot and not much else. There was a communal john with showers, washbasins and toilets and no privacy anywhere in the place. At one end of the dorm there was a small private chamber where the sergeant or corporal in charge bedded down. As an enlisted man, with no rank, a private as we were called, this type of arrangement was your home on just about any military base in the country.

Fort Dix was a receiving station where greenhorns were assembled and issued their military needs including not only clothes and boots but shots. Guys who had been around for a couple of days would tell the newest recruits to, 'watch out for the hook'. We'd stew, wonder and worry what we were getting into while they would chuckle. But a shot was a shot no matter what you call it. Once the immunization program was over you could join those doing the taunting. Fort Dix was also the place of my first exposure to the butt patrol. To keep us busy when we weren't standing in line to get something, we'd walk about camp areas policing or more precisely picking up cigarette butts smokers had left behind. In those days in the service most people smoked and as a consequence there were always plenty of butts to police. As a matter of record, the military handed out cigarettes to the troops. "Policing the area" was another standard military practice no matter what post you were on.

It was here too that you were assigned to a unit and left from Fort Dix to your new destination aboard a troop train. I was assigned to a half-truck anti-aircraft unit at Fort Bliss outside of El Paso, Texas. Unfortunately, Bob was sent off in a different direction and our paths were not to cross again until the end of the war when we were both back in Pelham. He told me when we met that eventually he was sent into combat in Europe – it could have been the Battle of the Bulge – and was captured the first day he was on the line without having fired a shot. I think he was held prisoner by the Germans until their surrender.

While I lost Bob, I gained a gang of guys from Brooklyn and the Bronx who were on my troop train to join the same unit as I was. They were street smart and initially were prepared to use their smarts in any way to frustrate the Army's plans for them and nest their own eggs. They weren't unpatriotic but almost to the man they felt they would rather be somewhere else without someone telling them what to do. As a consequence, when we arrived at our new base each morning when we lined up for roll call, which included sick call, Brooklyn/Bronx bodies would step forward to go to the medics. They complained of everything from headaches to backaches. The idea being, I guess, that if you went on sick call enough the Army would assume it was a chronic case and discharge you. I can't recall a situation where this eventuated but there was no lack of trying. When the medics would send them back to their respective units these fellows would pitch in and do their respective jobs for the day before going through the same procedure the next day. While all this was rather disconcerting to those of us who did not fall out for sick call, our unit commanders eventually whipped us into shape and we developed into a pretty well-trained mobile anti-aircraft regiment. We spent days in the desert area in that part of the country where the nights were cold and the days hot. We had to exist on one canteen of water per day. We were allowed one shower per week – a full bucket – so we spent most of those desert days covered in dusty sand inside and outside our uniforms. We went on night maneuvers in our halftracks in complete darkness and there were occasional accidents as tracks slipped sideways down steep grades and rolled over. All of us were somewhat at a loss as to why we were receiving desert training since the fighting in Africa had come to an end a month or so before we began our treks into our sandy, barren world. But that was part of the process in our new life – you never try to second guess the whys and wherefores of Army training or Army life for that matter. There may have been opportunities to leave the base and see the sights and hear the sounds of El Paso but I never got there. I do remember going to the movies on the base essentially because of a racial incidence that occurred in front of one which shocked me then and does to this day. A black one-star general was exiting the theater where a bunch of white GI's were standing about waiting to get into the next show. I was walking some distance away toward the theater when I saw not an arm raised in salute to the officer. I know the officer's name was Benjamin Davis, who was the first the first black general in our history. The lack of respect shown deeply shamed me and still does. That's the way it was, unfortunately, in those days. After writing this I turned to the Columbia Encyclopedia to check up on Davis: the entry about him is quoted here,

Benjamin Oliver Davis, 1877-1970, American general born in Washington, D.C. After study (1897-1898) at Howard University, Davis served as a lieutenant in the Spanish-American War and in 1899 enlisted in the regular army as a private. He subsequently rose through years of service to become (1940) the first Negro general in the U. S. Army. He retired briefly from the army in 1941 but returned to duty as Inspector General, retiring in 1948.

So it must have been in the latter role that I saw him in 1943. A guy like that certainly earned a salute no matter what! His son went on to be the first black graduate from West Point and the first black general in the U.S. Air Force.

I have to back up for a minute here to say that maybe I did get into El Paso at least once. As I now recall there were in my unit about five of us who were buddies and seemed to enjoy each other's company. One had a father who was a rich Texan and the son always seemed to have money in hand. On one occasion, he let the rest of us know that he had engaged a suite in a hotel for a weekend and invited us to join him there for some R and R time (rest and relaxation). I remember nothing of El Paso but I do recall spending 24 hours in that hotel room with my buddies drinking apple jack whiskey mixed with Coca Cola – for the first and only time – whiskey bottles courtesy of our rich friend. We drank and slept our way through that weekend and that was it. When our time was up, we checked out and went back to base. I suppose that incident stuck in my mind because up to the time of my army service I did not smoke, drink alcohol or even coffee for that matter. Our apple jack escapade could have been my first exposure to hard liquor. On base you could get 3.2 beer, hardly what could be called alcoholic, which tasted horrible but you swigged it at the enlisted man's club to help you wile away the evenings after a hot day in the sun. In any case, the army set me on the road to smoking, drinking strong coffee and indulging in alcoholic beverages seemingly in one fell swoop. I would probably have traveled down those same roads in a normal life style but not quite as dramatically.

At Fort Bliss I had my first experience in other things as well – all standard occurrences in the military service for the lowly ranking enlisted man. I pulled KP duty (kitchen police), and yes, much of that time was spent peeling potatoes under the ever present eye of the Mess Sergeant. I was assigned latrine duty where you spend the day in the latrine cleaning wash basins and johns and swabbing floors. During my latrine duty I never thought of doing what some guy looking for an out of the service via Section 8 (mentally unstable) did. He rigged a line under each of some dozen john seats and when the inspecting officer came in he shouted 'Attention!', pulled the line and all twelve seats rose in salute to the officer. It was very clever, but probably not good enough for a Section 8. Of all these rudimentary duties the one I found the most distasteful was guard duty. When you pulled it, you did so for twenty-four hours with four hours on and four hours off. Not only was it disruptive to your active/sleep hours but it could be lonely and, at night, eerie. At Fort Bliss I particularly remember guarding an air field perimeter some distance from the base – a deserted area with no human signs at night and no lights. I had to patrol a stretch along the field that probably amounted to a quarter mile walk in one direction. I felt so naked out there that I was ready to be jumped by Indians to say nothing of the enemy. I suppose it was the same feeling as walking through a graveyard in the dark. It was somewhat of a ridiculous effort since I was alone, walking with no cover and vulnerable to anyone intent on taking me out and then taking the airfield. But you would never think of doing anything but the task assigned as the threat of a court martial was an ever present omen.

One other thing I should say about my time at Bliss was my eventual assignment as a driver of a half track and later as the jeep driver for our battalion commander. I liked both jobs for they kept me in the post's vehicle maintenance park most of the day because great stress was placed on keeping the vehicle assigned to you in A-1 shape. Tires and radiators were checked, as was the oil and filter, the chassis was constantly lubricated and each vehicle was diligently washed pretty much day after day. I was determined that when I returned to civilian life and had a car I'd be just as particular. It didn't work out that way, of course.

I eventually was taken off the job of jeep driver because the officer I was chauffeuring around the base felt I drove too fast. All posts had speed limits with signs to remind you all over the place. Allowable speeds always seemed to me to be exceedingly slow so I probably did seem to have a heavy foot on the accelerator and tooling around over the established speed could have been embarrassing for my charge. Why I wasn't asked to just slow down I don't know.

At some point during my tenure at Bliss mother in a letter to me raised the prospect of a visit by the two of them to the base. This suggestion provoked all kinds of caution flags. For me, it was unheard of for parents to visit sons on active duty. At least I saw it that way. I never heard of anyone's parents visiting them. I wrote back directly informing mother that such a visit was out of the question. I told her it just wasn't done, particularly I recall writing, in the state of Texas 'where men are men' and anyway, that I was 'out in the field a lot with little likelihood of being around'. Kindly, they did not push the suggestion and the matter was quietly dropped.

During my time up to then in the service, I continued to hope to get into the U.S. Army Air Cadet program. I should note here that the U.S. Air Force was not established as an independent military service until September 1947. I don't recall how I kept that hope alive when I was drafted but it seems to me that I was accepted as a cadet while at Fort Bliss and was reassigned from there to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa to begin training. I think it must have been some time in late summer or early fall of 1943. It was, even as a lowly cadet, as glamorous and grand as I had hoped such service would be. There was a great esprit de corps among us reflected in part by the attention paid to ensure that you looked like part of an elite force. To this day I have maintained the dress code that puts in line the outside edge of your shirt with the right hand end of your belt buckle with the outside line of the fly of your pants. This may have been standard military dress but I tie it to my service as a cadet since you maintained the line from reveille to taps.

Part of what made this life style so great was the fact that we were billeted on the school grounds of the University of Alabama and all our classes were held there. Moreover, the campus was full of southern belles and very few beaus since most of the men were serving the war effort elsewhere as civilians or soldiers. We thought we cut a pretty nice figure as we walked the grounds eyed by the co-eds as future 'hot-shot' pilots. It was all very civilized. I don't remember much about my brief time there except attending classes – the subjects long forgotten – and to my great disappointment being designated as a bombardier as opposed to a pilot due I think to a pair of pretty good eyes.

As all good things must come to an end, so this did. For me, it was sooner than expected. Things on the war front were moving steadily in favor of the Allies about this time. Allied troops had landed on the Italian mainland after completing the African campaign and having taken Sicily. Italy had taken itself out of the war and the 'Big Three', FDR, Churchill and Stalin had met at the Teheran Conference to discuss and agree on invasion plans to wrest Europe from Nazi hands. It was this latter event that, I believe, did in my days as an air cadet. The invasion plans required lots of people on the ground from support to combat personnel. To begin to meet these future requirements, the army brass just closed down the air cadet program and all of us were reassigned to field units. From flying high in Tuscaloosa I found myself back with the regulars at first, I believe, at Keesler Air Force Base near Biloxi, Mississippi. Later, I was sent to the Ordnance Corps at the Red River Ordnance Base near Texarkana, Texas. In all these station changes I don't recall any opportunity for home leave. I think I just soldiered on. My job at the Red River Base primarily involved working in huge igloos stacking and unstacking high explosive bombs. It was work far from my idea of what a soldier should be doing, so it was here that I submitted my application for Officer Candidate School.

At this juncture it might be appropriate to report on Army friends during my days as an enlisted man. The fact of the matter is that on this score there really isn't much to report. Generally, I was approachable and so wherever I was I had buddies I paled around with. But oddly, except for a couple, really nothing much is memorable. Of the two I can recall by name, one I remember precisely because of his name – Ignatius Regelski. He was, as the name implies, from a Polish family and his roots were Chicago. I can't recall where we were together but it was most likely at Fort Bliss. After work hours we'd search each other out and hit the enlisted man's club or a movie or both. It really was a matter of hanging around together. I must add here that I liked Regelski's name so much I occasionally used it as my own. Not in any underhanded way but for fun. If I was asked my name by someone I couldn't help blurting out his name. The other fellow I recall was Terrance Rainwater a full-blooded American Indian. Again, I can't recall where we served together. I do remember, though, that it was always trying when we'd go to town on a pass. Rainwater who was proud of being (so he said), the son of an Indian chief, was great to be with until he'd get his hands on a couple of beers. Then it was watch out for he'd almost go out of his way to get into trouble. At those times, my job was to try to rein him in but that often wasn't easy. When sober he had no problem with his white brethren. But with 'firewater' his Indian animosities toward those who defeated his people and put them on limited existence reservations boiled over and he was ready to settle the score with anyone of them who came within his keen when in that state. Fortunately, I was the exception. Somehow we always managed to get back to our barracks neither bloodied nor bowed.

I should also say something about promotions. The reason there isn't much to say is that I can't recall being promoted but there is a lingering thought in the back of my mind that I went from private to private first class (one stripe), to corporal (two stripes). A later review of my records confirms that I made corporal when I was assigned as the jeep driver to our unit commander. I know I received some medals for marksmanship with the M-1 rifle marksman, advance marksman or some such designation. I also might have been awarded the Good Conduct Medal but few were very proud of that as it did not signify much more than doing your job without complaining. In the army – or any military service branch for that matter – if you didn't complain you probably weren't a good soldier.

Picking up on my bid to attend Officer Candidate School (OCS in its abbreviated form), at age nineteen plus, I found myself before a board of screening officers ranked as I remember up to Colonel or Lt. Colonel and about six in number at the Red River Depot. The questions asked by the panel are, for the most part, long forgotten. However, I do remember the astonishment of all the officers when I promptly responded to a question of which service I was interested in saying, straight from the heart, 'the infantry to be really in the thick of the fighting.' It was, of course, a naïve and youthful answer, heartfelt as I note but mindless, but it did reflect the romantic view I held at the time of the war and its consequences. To the board's credit they tried to change my mind noting that as I was then in an ordnance unit why not go to ordnance OCS. I couldn't be swayed. Whether they thought I was a nut or were impressed by my persistence I'll never know, but in a short time orders were cut that sent me to the Infantry Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning, GA.

I pause here to note that my youthful exuberance propelled me into the service – recalling that my family held me back from enlisting – and headlong into the infantry probably the most grueling service of all. This was, of course, a war all America saw as a just cause and it brought out patriotic emotions and in a youth of my age it also had its heroic dimension. Adventure, danger, authority, all these things seemed to be involved. I was wrapped up by and in the flag. Wisdom, of course, is not one of the significant qualities of the very young and so there I was where I probably shouldn't have been. Certainly, my father thought the choice was a foolish one. That may have harped back to his World War I experience and the horrors of infantry life in the trenches of that war.

In three months at the school they turned enlisted men into officers. 'Ninety day Wonders' is the way we were described by those in the know. And it was a grueling course with a great deal of emphasis on being physically fit. For some of the older men in my company it was difficult to meet the standards imposed by calisthenics, obstacle courses, full gear hikes and the like. But most persisted, to their credit, even though it was difficult to get out of bed in the morning and most welcome to get back into it in the evening. Mentally the greatest pressure was the urge to succeed and win the gold bars of a second lieutenant.

One of my most vivid memories at the school was a drill to learn how to use a bayonet. It seemed that day after day we would be lined up one man facing another with bayonet at the ready and then challenged to thrust and parry by a giant of a man with a voice to match, standing on a platform where he could be seen by all. It seemed to be an endless exercise which exhausted all of us except our instructor who we knew only as the Iron Major. Oddly enough, as an officer, the short, light carbine I would carry was devoid of a bayonet.

Strange as it may seem, at this distance in time, I cannot call up an image of a face or a name nor can I recall our graduation ceremonies or even who or how I had my bars pinned on. I seem to recall, however, rather vaguely, a tailor fitting us for the uniforms of a commissioned officer on the eve of graduation but I'm not even sure of that. I'm also not exactly sure what took place after graduation. I believe when I left Fort Benning I was already on overseas orders but that time was provided for home leave.

At home, mother and father were both proud and fearful. They had in the window of the Pelham house one of those banners that proclaimed a son being in the service. But in their hearts they were dreading what was to come next. I told them I was to report to New York City for duty after my leave and I think they put two and two together and arrived at the deduction that it was to be my port of embarkation for assignment overseas.

Mother, who loved to drive the family car from place to place on a daily basis, kindly, checked that urge for a while for I was awarded her gas coupons to enable me to use the car during my time at home. I don't think I did anything very exciting in those last days in my hometown before my departure. It was just nice to be home where I always felt comfortable. Again, Grace was not around and I think that was because she was with John Heilmann, her first husband, who, as I noted, was serving in the Finance Corps someplace in the states, maybe around Chicago.

Let me say a little more about Grace and John here as a matter of record. They both worked at IBM before John was called into the service and they met there. While they were dating, John was folded into the military and was sent, I believe, to Durham, N.C. I don't know the in's and out's of their courtship, but I do recall they told mother and father they intended to get married with the ceremony to be held in Durham. As the family of the bride, mother and father arranged and paid for their wedding doing some things by long distance. Grace would probably say I was wrong, but I had the feeling they thought John and Grace were moving into marriage at too lively a pace. Be that as it may, they were married and made their first home in Durham – the town where Duke University is located. Mother and father took time out to be there for the wedding. After I was inducted into the service, Grace and John extended an invitation to me to visit them. I don't remember where I was stationed at the time, but at some point I was able to go see them for a couple of days. I can't recall much about my stay but I do remember being somewhat disappointed because the newlyweds, who I thought should have been in a state of absolute bliss, found things to quarrel about. Be that as it may, John finished his military service in the States and after the war's end, they began civilian life with a rented walkup apartment in New Rochelle, NY, a stone's throw from the Pelham house. When I married Pat, John served as my best man. Unfortunately, later on their marriage was to end in divorce essentially on grounds of adultery on the part of John – a case where he married the other woman and remained with her, I believe. John is now dead. I'm sure Grace would have found something wrong with this account as well she might for I have made it clear in this tale that my remembrances are not as clear as I would wish them to be.

I should say something more about sister Grace here. Being five years older than I when we were young left us with not much in common. She had friends and interests obviously different from my own. This situation persisted certainly into my teens. As I have pointed out elsewhere, Grace was talented combining a good scholarly record with an athletic one. I've mentioned her attendance at Dana Hall and then Wellesley College in Wellesley, Mass. until a bout of rheumatic fever – a disease incidentally that chiefly occurs in children and young adults – forced her to pursue her college education, after recovering, in the warmer climate of Florida – more specifically Rollins College in Winter Park. As to her skills, she was offered a full scholarship at Rollins if she took her major in the following year in the English Department. And as an athlete while there, she played tennis with or against Pauline Betts and others including Stan Kramer both of whom went on to play and make a mark in the professional circuit.

However, Grace wasn't happy at Rollins and after her first year there she left and gave up the academic world for the working one. I believe she landed her first job with IBM and I've already reported where that led to. I neglected to add, however, that her marriage to John produced two children – Patty Gay and Geoff Heilmann. Grace had custody of both after the divorce. They remained with her until each made their own way in the world. I don't know how much they saw of their father but my guess is their contact was minimal at best. Grace went through a last marriage and divorce with a longshoreman named Frank Golden a name she retained as her surname. As of this writing she died after living alone in Florida where she has been left pretty much to herself. She was in failing health and was essentially penniless. Geoff had been helping her out and we trickled some funds to her. But while she wanted to stand on her own two feet, life was tough. I don't know how she would define her life but from my perspective I'd say it was stormy with periods of calm. She'd probably challenge that although she told Bill some years ago that her "biggest regret was that she never lived up to her potential". That I would certainly agree with. During my military service and after, Grace took a very sisterly interest in me and my activities and, fortunately, we retained a warm brother/sister relationship throughout our adult years despite some ups and downs caused by her compulsive drinking.

Before I forget, I should observe here that on at least one occasion while on leave I visited New York City, probably at my father's urging to allow him to parade me past his business associates in the office. But what strikes me about that trip was walking along the streets of the city and being extremely irritated by the fact that everyone seemed to be going about business as usual as if America wasn't at war. I don't know what else I could have expected them to do but it did engender anger in me. Oddly enough, more recently, I have heard this view expressed by returnees from Iraq.

At this point I should say something about where things stood in terms of the girl I had been intermittently dating since my prep school days. I describe it as not a continuous arrangement since I was away at Loomis for two years and she, too, was during that period at Emma Willard School in Albany, NY. We had known each other since our days at Pelham High School but throughout the period of prep school we would casually get together. She was also interested in other boys and I in other girls. Things became somewhat more serious when I went into the service. I suppose that was a natural reaction on the part of each of us. The romance of war, someone going off to it and the need to have support and the interest in me of a girl on what was called 'the home front'. At that point we probably looked upon each other as the other's number one. I suppose it could be put as romantically linked for in those days there was no such thing as a sexual relationship. We were, of course, both still rather young. She was about nineteen and I was twenty when I left for the European Theatre. During my previous time in the military we corresponded and continued to throughout my overseas tour. She was a very nice person – names don't matter here – who was interested in me and my welfare just the kind of support a guy in my position needed at that point in time. In the end, I became a big disappointment to her and the fault was entirely mine but a little more of that later in its proper sequence. I should add here that up to this point in time Pat Coleman was to me an unknown entity. She was, in 1945, sixteen years old making her life in Larchmont, NY and attending the Ursuline School on the border of Larchmont and New Rochelle. Fortunately for me, our paths were shortly to cross but more of that later, as well.

Interestingly, I can't think of a picture of me in my uniform taken at anytime during my home leave. The absence of such a photo could have been simply because film as a luxury item was not being produced at the time. In any event, no pictorial record exists of that period of my life that I am aware of. I suppose, looking back, I'd like to see what I looked like at age twenty in the uniform of a commissioned officer in the United States Infantry with gold bars on my shoulders proclaiming me to be to one and all – an 'officer and a gentleman'. I have to amend this somewhat since I recently came across a picture of me as an enlisted man about 1944. Moreover I was in my officer's uniform for my wedding to pat in 1950 since I was recalled at that time for service in the Korean War.

As I mentioned earlier, the night before reporting for duty after my leave, I asked mother and father to say our goodbyes at the house again letting me walk solo to the Pelham station. I thought then, as when I initially went into the military service, that saying so long in the privacy of home would be much better than a departure on a railway platform with numerous people looking on. If we hadn't lived within a stone's throw of the station I would not have recommended leaving in this fashion nor would it have been possible.

It was this same evening that my father presented to me Papa Jennewein's one inch in diameter St. Christopher medal to guard me in my travels. I remember him sitting with me and taking a small piece of leather, a needle and some strong thread and sewing the tiny medal to the leather to insure I wouldn't loose something that small and, I suppose, that important. To this day, that medal and its leather cover are carried in my wallet where I placed it when it was originally presented to me. I've never done anything to enhance its looks or protect the leather or the thread. As of this year, 2009, while the thread has disappeared, as noted, leather and medallion still remain in my wallet.

In mentioning Papa Jennewein, actually we all called him 'Papa', although his full given name was Carl Paul Jennewein, I'm reminded that he did, for mother and father, a small frieze of me in uniform. I think it must have been done from a photograph -- even though I noted I did not remember one being taken -- because I can't recall ever sitting for Papa. I think he sketched me first and then turned that into a sculptured piece. To my great fortune two copies exist as does the original sketch. It was a nice thing for Papa to do but then he was a very nice man and a good friend of the family as was Gina, his wife. I should add that he was a renowned sculptor, widely admired and respected so it was a singular honor on that score as well. It's a flattering piece, but that's also nice. Speaking of nice, he also did a similar piece of Anne but many years later.

My morning departure I'm sure was a lot tougher on mother and father than it was on me. I was going off on what I perceived to be a great adventure. At that juncture, I had no clear idea of what that involved and I never entertained any thought that I may not return again or return maimed in some way. I expect those were the thoughts upper most in my parents' minds. If I said it was all done in a stiff upper lip fashion I'd be inaccurate because I can't remember the way my leaving went. But I don't recall anyone breaking down as I left although as the door closed behind me I'm sure there were no dry eyes inside or outside it.

I don't have an inkling as to how my order read but what I can recall of my embarkation was a pier in New York City with the Queen Mary tied to it, gangplanks down and men in uniform seeming to be all over the place. A band was playing and women in their Red Cross uniforms were standing at the bottom of the gangplanks handing out cups of coffee with a kindly smile. I was soon to find out that our ship would swallow some three thousand GIs on the pier and head into the Atlantic for Europe without a convoy. She would make the trip alone relying on her speed and maneuverability to avoid submarines. The ship was fitted to carry troops and so its elegance was lost except in overall lines or touches here and there where lobbies or such couldn't be altered. Its wooden handrails around the decks which were retained in their original state were grist for bored GIs and their knives and they carried a host of initials and some other memorabilia. As an officer, I was assigned to oversee a group of soldiers on a specific deck to keep them in good order and look to their needs. I suppose that task could be described as my first official duty in my new role. Sleeping and eating were problems given the crowd on board but the worst aspect of the journey was the sea and the seasickness it caused. Rooms, passageways, everything carried that awful smell during the five or six day trip and the only escape was to go topside if you could find space on those crowded decks. Once there, of course, there was nothing to do but watch the zigzag wake of the ship or the occasional gunnery practice the British seamen performed from a near gun deck platform. I suppose carrying such a weapon was thought to be reassuring to the ship's passengers but we all knew that if the enemy were to sink the Queen it would be by torpedoes and nothing else. Needless to say, that good ship made an uneventful crossing.

What I remember about our morning arrival somewhere off the West Coast of England was the beauty of the day and the silence that surrounded us except for wheeling, squealing flights of sea gulls. (I recently found out that there are no such birds as "sea gulls" as each variety has its own name.) I remember thinking that this country was at war but there was, aside from our presence, absolutely no sign that this was but another day with nothing amiss. I would love to know exactly where we put in for that peaceful moment is indelibly etched in my mind.

My arrival in the European Theatre of war might be a good moment to hold up my personal narrative to report, as best I can, what in fact was the situation on the ground.

June 6, 1944 D-Day was initiated with the Allies storming the beaches of Normandy, France, and gaining a toe-hold on Continental Europe. After that shaky beginning Allied forces moved steadily across Western Europe liberating Paris in late August and pushing ever forward until the massive counteroffensive launched by Germany in the middle of December in Belgium forever remembered as the Battle of the Bulge. Fortunately for me I was not to arrive at my assigned unit until that German effort had ended but if I had, the 3rd Army to which I was eventually dispatched was in the thick of that month long struggle. As noted in the Columbia Encyclopedia, a strong German force broke the thinly held American front in the Belgium Ardennes sector. Taking advantage of the foggy weather and of total surprise for the Allies, the Germans penetrated deep into Belgium, creating a dent of a 'bulge' in the Allied lines threatening to break through to the Northern Belgian plain. An American force held out at Bastogne, even though surrounded and outnumbered. The U. S. 1st and 9th armies attacked the German salient from the north and the 3rd army from the south. Those attacks coupled with air power eventually destroyed or routed the Germans but not without some 77,000 allied casualties. For the U. S. and its allies it was the single most destructive battle in the war as far as those injured and killed.

Following on the heels of the battle, the 'Big Three' (Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin), met at Yalta, in February, to lay plans for the final defeat of Germany and I, in a very minor way, was to play a part in those plans.

I would note at this juncture that given my military orientation – at least in my mind – the war was being directed toward fighting the Nazi's and ridding the world of Hitler and his cohorts. I neither knew nor cared much about events in the Pacific Theatre of war after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Events there, of course, were very important to the overall success of an Allied victory but at the time I was blind-sighted. Fortunately, as steady progress was being made in Europe, Allied progress with the U. S. in the lead was being made in the Pacific as well. By early 1945 Allied forces were approaching Japan and were hitting the near by islands of Okinawa and Iwo Jima following the October 1944 invasion of the Philippines.

In my personal narrative, to which I return, I can't recollect just how we traversed England from our port of arrival to the port of embarkation for immediate transshipment to the Continent. I know we traveled by train to Southampton. But how we got off the Queen Mary and where we boarded the train remains a mystery. At Southampton, I believe I remember that we off-loaded on the docks. I do recall that there was no layover. We went from the train to the gangplank for the journey across the Channel to France. The ship we clambered aboard was an old Polish freighter. Unlike my departure from New York, there were no bands or Red Cross ladies with smiles of best wishes and coffee in hand. From here on you got the impression that it was going to be all business.

While I was traveling on my own separate orders, here again, as on the Queen Mary, I was put in command of a group of enlisted men I didn't know from Adam. It was a crossing where apprehension was rampant. Everyone knew the waters of the Channel were dangerous given the probability of enemy mines as well as submarines. That concern was heightened by the fact that my entire contingent was placed in the very bowels of the ship with only one narrow stairway leading to the deck above which still left you rather far from topside and possible escape in the event of an emergency. I learned then that having a command responsibility helped in stressful situations for in my position I was expected to set the example for those around me. At least, so I thought then and now as well. In any case, that thought led me to remove myself as far as possible from our escape route in the hope of suggesting that I was not concerned about our impending journey. Fortunately, the trip was made without incident as part of a convoy of troop ships and supply vessels moving across the Channel under the protection of naval escorts. Our port of entry in France was Le Havre and it was here that I gained my firsthand impression of war and its devastation. We arrived in the morning and as I led my wards to the open deck to disembark I was shocked at the destruction around me. While the immediate port area was functioning, cranes along the docks and buildings beyond were in shambles looking as if a great array of soldiers with massive numbers of catapults had, over an extended period of time, hurled stones against them laying waste to the city. It was an overcast day and it was here at the foot of the ship's gangplank in what I saw as a forlorn place that I bid my temporary troops good-by and joined a small group of other officers in a truck for the trip to a replacement depot close to the frontlines.

'Repel depos' were uncomfortable places for they were so impersonal. They existed to accept new arrivals where for one or so days they would have a place to hang their hats awaiting assignment to a unit. No one knew one another and didn't care to since each had no idea where he would be assigned and there was little sense getting friendly when each would likely push off shortly in a different direction. In my case, to compound the situation the weather was terrible – full of rain, the air cold and the ground muddy. No one was handing out any equipment so I found myself dressed in my officer's dress pinks – Eisenhower jacket with brass buttons, silverfish colored pants and soft cap – which was beginning to make me feel out of place. My orders came swiftly to hand and in no time I was trucked to my new unit. I was given command of a platoon in Company C of the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 4th Armored Division. I was in General George Patton's 3rd Army! Moreover, I was no longer an infantry officer but an armored infantry officer which I was to learn, meant I was not a foot-slogging soldier but one riding on the outside top of a tank. This was a new strategy conceived. I believe, by Patton. The idea was to let the tanks roll as long as they could. Then, if stopped by a superior force to let the armored troops hop off and fight ground to ground to overcome the obstacle holding up the tanks. It permitted the tankers to take the necessary infantry component along with them.

I will never forget my arrival before my new command. They were laid up just behind the existing frontline and since no fighting was then going on they were at their leisure most rustling up dinner as I arrived about that time. I slowly wandered into their encampment in my dress uniform as they watched with war weary eyes and mud splattered camouflaged uniforms. I recognized the Technical Sergeant in charge and I approached him and introduced myself. He acknowledged my presence and presented me with the carbine gun carried by my predecessor, who I later found out had been wounded earlier. I was the 13th officer replacement in that platoon. I could sense that to these guys I was just another face who would probably be around about as long as the officer I had replaced. If they had faith in anyone to lead them, I thought it resided in their Tech Sergeant. I later found out that he was quite a soldier. He was a survivor of all the campaigns from North Africa to Italy, France and Germany. Sadly, I cannot today recall his name. But I remember he was about five years older than I, a Chicago native and the son of a tailor. My arrival seemed not to impress him in the least but he later told me he had been glad to see me since responsibility for the platoon was mine and he had welcomed being back in the role of second-in-command.

I found a place to put my gear and sat to take in the surroundings. After awhile I was approached by one of the soldiers who thoughtfully asked if I'd like something to eat. When I said thanks, he brought over a canteen cup with something hot in it and I was really gratified, for by his gesture he seemed to break the ice. It was read by me as acceptance to their school of hard knocks.

It might be well for me to give some perspective to the command I had become a part of. I have already noted that General George Patton was in charge of the Third Army. A graduate of West Point, he had a checkered career in the military because he was an irascible man. When I arrived he was a famous tactician, particularly in the use of tanks, and he was constantly breaking through enemy lines and rolling far to their rear. A set of pearl handed pistols, one on each hip was his trademark. In my time in his command, I never saw him but you couldn't help knowing he was around somewhere. Oddly, he was to die shortly after the end of the war in an automobile accident in Germany at age sixty.

Then Colonel Creighton Abrams was the leader of the Combat Command I was a part of. I did seem him frequently. He seemed to like to imitate Patton's rough and tumble style. He loved to chomp on a big cigar. His mastery of tank warfare was acknowledged by Patton himself – no faint praise. Indeed, while I never saw the article, I am told that in an issue of Life Magazine at that time Patton and Abrams were cited as the best tank commanders of the war – bar none. I should note here that General Abrams eventually went on to become Army Chief of Staff and to have the Abrams tank named after him. He too, died at age sixty.

Finally, my Battalion Commander was Colonel Cohen. He was another tough guy. Again, I saw a lot of him as well. The Division Commander, again someone I never saw, was Major General W. H. Hoge.

Oddly, I cannot remember the name of my Company Commander. There was a replacement Platoon Leader who arrived at the Company level the same time I did. His last name was Dean and he was a character. He, unlike me, was the type who reveled in the dangers of war – a guy who liked to walk the edge between life and death. Or so it seemed to me. His trademark, mimicking Patton, were two pearl handled 45s, worn on each hip. He was gung-ho and I felt quite timid when I would mentally compare the leadership qualities of the two of us. While we were friends since we were both greenhorn officers, I generally tried to keep my distance from him as I was never certain what was going through his mind. As it turned out, he was the only man I served with in the military who was to contact me after the war. I was married to Pat and we were living in White Plains, NY, when I received a telephone call from him. I think he lived somewhere in the area. He asked me if I could lend him twenty-five dollars! He must have been in tough straits I remember thinking at the time, since that much wouldn't go very far even in those days.

I should make an effort here to clarify the 4th Armored's basic military structure. There was of course Division Headquarters. Flowing from this were the three fighting elements of the Division which were labeled Combat Commands, 'A', 'B' and 'C', or 'R (signifying Reserve). Each Combat Command was composed of roughly 4,000 men, divided between tankers with their tanks and armored infantry, who, as I noted, rode with the tankers on the outside of the vehicle. The remainder of the Division consisted of various support units. The general idea was to place two of the Combat Commands in action to spearhead the Division's advance keeping the third in reserve. The basic tactic in using an armored force was to break through enemy lines and then move as swiftly to the enemy rear as possible and as deeply as circumstances would permit, disrupting communications supplies and reserve forces, in order to create havoc and force frontline forces to withdraw in response to the chaos in its rear. Of course, the breakout forces, once through enemy lines and in their rear could break to the right or left, or both, and set up a flanking action. In the situation the Division was in at the time I joined it, the effort was to demoralize the German forces in our front by breaking through and moving as far to the rear of the existing front as possible while doing as much damage to what was encountered on the way. There were days as the war wound down that we would travel seventy odd miles before halting. Quite some distance when one considers lumbering tanks moving over unknown terrain with stops to clear towns or pockets of enemy soldiers.

As things would have it, I don't remember the exact date I joined the combat troops of Company 'C'. I have tried to recreate descriptions of where the unit was when I arrived, but I have found that difficult even when refreshed by several books which tend to be specific about the daily movements of the Division. If I had to guess, I would say it was probably some where in France near the French German border. What this means is, I probably spent a total of several months in combat before the German surrender and that hardly qualifies me, as a battle-hardened veteran of the war. But it was long enough to be a live target, to get a real sense of the tragedy of war and its brutishness and to win my Combat Infantryman's Badge and the Presidential Unit Citation.

I observed earlier that the Division was just behind the frontline when I arrived. It seems to me that within twenty-four hours of my arrival we were briefed on the mission to be undertaken next and were launched on that mission. I recall the briefing because I had never been exposed to anything like it. Colonel Cohen called all his officers to his headquarters where he held forth on the tasks before us. The meeting was memorable as my first – I had never been exposed to a senior officer designating battle assignments – and I was introduced (not formally mind you), to the leader of our Combat Command, Creighton Abrams – cigar and all. As to Cohen's instructions, I recall nothing. What I do remember is Abrams bursting into the room waving his cigar in his hand, demanding of Cohen what it was he needed to conduct the upcoming operation. 'Nothing', I remember Cohen saying, 'nothing Colonel, but blood and guts – and we have plenty of that!'

I thought to myself, 'Brother is my fat in the fire or what? These guys are going all out.' I remember the mission because we jumped off at dawn's early light with me on the tank's deck with some of my men and as we moved through the enemy lines, houses were burning around us and a surprised enemy was moving for cover as our tanks came barreling down the road – machineguns rattling with clearly no intention to stop for anything. I suppose I was taken by the fury of the whole thing. We broke into the clear in what I would recount as minutes and I was into my battlefield D-Day.

While I cannot recall the extent of our mission, I believe I would be correct to say that the overall objective was to slash across Germany as quickly as possible without loosing sight of the units we needed for our support. Part of the strategy, in order to permit these lightening moves, was to avoid large cities which usually had to be cleared street by street. Thus, we moved through small towns or open terrain. I have researched the 4th's trail through parts of Germany around this time and sense that our route was to head for Giessen and on to Muhlborg, Gotha, Erfurt, Weimar and Ohrdruf with the idea of moving around any pockets of massive resistance. The larger cities and places where strong enemy strength was encountered were theoretically left for cleanup by the infantry units which followed in our rear. The Big Red 1 was one of them (the First Infantry Division). Because the 4th was engaged in such an independent undertaking it gained a good deal of notoriety in the propaganda issued daily by the Goebbels' controlled German media which referred to the Division as 'Roosevelt's Butchers'.

The event I recall most vividly that first day was the first enemy action that led to a halt in our breakout some way beyond the enemy lines where our attack had started. It was an enemy artillery attack directed at the assembled tanks. In any event, halt we did, as artillery dropped into the area around us. While we gathered our bearings, my men off-loaded from the tanks seeking the protection of their hulls from possible small arms fire. As it turned out, we were by a cemetery and as we hit the ground, a round smashed into the cemetery grounds very close by me and several of my men. I heard someone call out, 'I've been hit', and as I glanced to my left, I saw the man nearest to me stretched out on the ground belly down with a good part of his rear end shattered. I moved to him and called for a medic. Fortunately, we received no further fire. He was the first casualty in my platoon on my watch. I don't remember his name but he was quickly evacuated and from what I could see his wound was not life threatening. It was here that I fully realized for the first time that all of us were vulnerable from an enemy seen or unseen.

I have mentioned Hitler on various occasions, and this might be a good place to say something more about the man. He had, of course, plunged the world into a war that became a global one as Germany, Italy and Japan joined together as the Axis Powers. It was essentially the U. S., Canada and England with its Commonwealth countries and Russia taking on those three and almost literally there were no boundaries. Hitler's regime was composed of men like their leader who were mad, tyrannical or both. Looking back, it is unbelievable that the German people could follow the lead of such a man and his gang. For the most part, Americans, including me, thought of Germany at that time as a contemptuous nation which had to be destroyed. Thus, I suppose, we accepted Roosevelt and Churchill's policy of unconditional surrender. At the time I joined in the fray, the war, for Germany, was hopelessly lost. That was certainly apparent by the beginning of 1945. However, Hitler insisted that the nation fight on. He railed against those Nazi leaders who wished to end the fighting and as the war moved to its conclusion he holed up in Berlin and remained there as the Russians overran the city. Finally, on April 30, he committed suicide along with his mistress who the day before became his wife. There is a quote from the Columbia Encyclopedia which bears repeating: "His legacy is the memory of the most dreadful tyranny of modern centuries." Such a thought makes apparent that for those of us at the killing end, it was not difficult to eliminate as many of the enemy as necessary to bring the war to an end.

As U. S. forces entered Germany there were certain directives the troops were to follow. One was that there was to be no fraternization, meaning there were to be no associations with any Germans, male or female. This was an unrealistic policy when you had thousands of war-weary, young G.I.s swarming over a country where there were plenty of young women, many of whom seemed to welcome their conquerors. They were fed up with years of fear, frustration and by this time what they saw as a folly. As a platoon commander, I tried to see to it that my men followed that injunction but I quickly recognized its futility. I remember that not long after assuming my command we halted for the night in a small town. By dawn's early light I saw in the town square a group of young girls in blouses and shorts doing exercises with what looked like the entire platoon surrounding them and cheering them on. I tried to break it up but it wasn't a popular move. The girl leader was tough to convince – she was a Hitler youth leader – and clearly the troops were against it. All dispersed, but for me that was the beginning of the end of enforcing that policy.

As we drove into Germany it seemed to me that unlimited damage was permissible. It might simply have been the wages of war and perhaps not a policy, but I believe we all felt that punishment of Germans on their home grounds was quite acceptable. So it was that our machineguns with their tracer bullets were in frequent use to put the torch to numerous structures. Patton, in his book War As I Knew It, saw this as a way of forcing the capitulation of towns and cities by letting them know that extensive destruction was on hand if they held out. Eventually he called it the 'Third Army War Memorial Project' whereby he said,

"....the object was to let the inhabitants have something to show to future generations of Germans by way of proof that the Third Army had passed that way."

In that connection, he was as impressed with German industry as I was, and he observed as I did that,

"In spite of the fact that shells were falling with considerable regularity, I saw five Germans, three women and two men, re-roofing a house."

Actually, I saw this same scene on a number of occasions. Men would be putting out the fires and women would be newly thatching the area where the fires had been extinguished.

Also to avoid damage to their cities and towns, many German residents took to flying white flags from windows, balconies and rooftops long before we appeared on the scene. This was against the dictum of the powers-that-be since any sign of surrender was thought to be a cowardly act. However, the people had a strong sense that the end was near so they were willing to challenge the authorities in order to save their property and themselves. Those flags were a welcome sight since it frequently meant that German military forces were probably not about.

As we surged across the countryside, we did meet pockets of resistance. One I remember quite well occurred when we reached, what I believe, was the town of Gotha. I am not sure of the exact location but, in any case, as we approached the town's outskirts the lead tank in our column was hit and rendered useless by fire from a German anti-tank gun. The gun was well placed, for the road was compressed on both sides by a high wall and by putting the lead tank out of action, the gun effectively halted the forward progress of the rest of our unit. It also left the halted tanks vulnerable to enemy fire – 'sitting ducks', so to say. Some tankers and some armored infantry men were killed and some injured by the blast. Those of us on top of the other tanks jumped off and tried to take cover from the enemy fire while we sought a way to knockout the German position. When a comrade or any G.I. is wounded or killed by enemy fire, those surrounding the immediate damage zone sense an urge to take revenge – or to even the score – and by so doing, I suppose, to correct the injustice done to our fellow comrades. In this instance, however, we took no action as the German gun crew of four or five suddenly appeared on the wall above us and some distance to our front with hands raised and in several cases with white cloth pieces fluttering from them clearly in a token of surrender. My men though angered by the casualties resulting from the action, accepted the Germans' terms, telling them to throw down their weapons which they did. I moved up to where they stood now looking quite frightened and as I did so someone asked, 'What are you going to do with them?'

We had run into this situation before since moving so far in advance of the main body of the Third Army there was a great gap between us and any kind of effective prisoner of war depot. Up to this point in time, we had just disarmed surrendering soldiers and pointed them in the general direction of our forces to our rear. I thought this was a sensible way to handle the situation since most knew the war was over for them and at this stage were content to find their way to the rear and U. S. war compounds where among other things they would not fall into Russian hands – a fate every German fighting man dreaded. Almost as soon as the question was asked, a Senior Combat Command intelligence officer approached the prisoners and told them to march toward a building above and beyond where they had appeared to surrender. He directed their movement with a gun in his hand. As I watched, I thought he was going to seek intelligence information from them about the enemy forces confronting us. In little more than several minutes he returned – alone. I neither saw nor heard anything, but in that frightening moment I assumed the worst had happened. War has its horrors and its terrors but to this day I find myself despising that man for committing what I think was a senseless, unnecessary and unlawful act if my instincts were correct. War certainly gives men a license to kill but to do so within established boundaries. I often think of the loved ones of those men and am glad there is no way for them to know what befell them.

Further along in our travels a different kind of situation unfolded. We were moving into the town of Jena when again our tank column was stopped by enemy action. Following established procedure, my men and I jumped from the tank decks to take cover by a wall near by. Ahead some 500 yards I saw at the end of the street a kasserne – essentially a military barracks – and I thought a lot of the enemy was probably holed up in there ready to take us out. I had no idea what was the force that prompted our stop but guessed it might have been anti-tank gun fire from a location around the kasserne. In any event as I was assessing the situation, I heard a voice boom out, 'Who's in charge here?" I looked around and there striding down the tank column was Colonel Cohn. He came up to my location and said, 'OK Lieutenant, get moving and make way for our tanks. That's what you're here for!" With that, I said, 'Yes Sir!" and with no more thoughts about what was out there or how to tackle the problem I got on my feet and started walking down the road toward the building at its end. As I moved, I fired some shots to my front at an enemy I could not see and I assumed my platoon was following my lead and keeping me covered in case I started to attract gun fire. I had covered about half the distance to the kasserne when I stopped for a moment to comprehend why I wasn't being shot at and what was going on behind me. I didn't have an answer to the first question, but as to the second, I was mortified to see that I was the only one engaged in the assault on the presumed enemy. My entire platoon was in exactly the same position as when I moved out at Cohn's command. They evidently were waiting for an order to follow me. I gave it right then and there. And I thought rather reluctantly they came alive and followed my lead.

I stood on the road in the open until they caught up to me which seemed to me to take hours but was in fact probably no more than several minutes. With some firepower at my back, I continued to move on the building with impunity. As we approached its façade I fanned my men out to the right and left. Still not a shot was fired in anger. Needless to say, we moved on the building, cleared it and waved the tank column forward. Although there were signs that it had been recently inhabited, the kasserne was unoccupied. I later found out from the civilians in town that the kasserne had been full of German troops and that they initially did try to halt our column, but when they saw what they were going to be up against, they fired a few rounds and retreated through and out of the town. For me that was one lucky break for as I approached the building over those 500 yards or so I was one sitting duck. I was lucky, too, in that I had fulfilled Colonel Cohn's order. Moreover, I learned that when you are in a tight spot, don't assume people are going to move into action when there is an immediate threat. GIs are generally good soldiers but there are times you have to move them by vigorous voice or hand signals.

Such tales as these are just that – certain occurrences that tend to stick in the mind for one reason or another. Each day and sometimes night, were full of stories I cannot at this point recall.

There is another incident I recall involving German air power. In moving through Germany we saw little of the German air force which was once a mighty arm of the German military machine. Their planes occasionally would strafe our tank columns but without much success. However, one afternoon my armored platoon and its tank force pulled up for the day on a ridge overlooking a valley. It was a strong defensive position for a night's stay in case of an enemy ground attack. We were making preparations to break open our 'C' rations for supper when suddenly from below the ridgeline four German fighters with guns blazing began to shoot up our position, passed over us, zoomed up into the sky and then swung around to make another pass. On their first approach I could see the marks of the bullets hitting the ground and I moved quickly around the nearest tank to avoid being hit. A number of soldiers around the area did the same thing while some crawled under the tanks. As the planes returned I moved again to the side of the tank out of their line of sight. They made a second pass again with guns firing away. For all the ammunition expended by those fighters we took only one casualty which looking back was rather remarkable given their element of surprise. It happened to be one of the men who sought refuge under the tank and in so doing left a leg beyond the cover of the tank and it was pierced by a bullet. That was the last we saw of those fighters. But while on the same ridge, some time later just before dark across the valley floor on a road leading down to it, we spotted a German motorcycle with sidecar attached both occupied by German soldiers. They evidently did not know we were there. It looked like a shooting gallery opportunity so the 50 caliber machine guns on about four of the tanks opened fire. The startled Germans stopped their forward movement and the motorcycle driver hopped off his machine, turned it around and headed in the direction from which they came. I don't know how many rounds we fired at them as they halted and switched directions but as they rode off into the night they got away scot-free.

The latter story tends to remind me of one thing I could see about our fighting men and that was a tendency to use too much firepower. A lot of ammunition seemed to be expended at an unseen enemy. I suppose utilizing a weapon at its ultimate firepower in a combat situation is a form of personal protection – or so it would seem to the individual doing so – but measured in terms of observable results I thought there was a great deal of bullet waste. Actually, I see the same kind of thing in action shots of the Iraq war.

I'm not sure but what these 'war stories' are more than the reader can bear but it was a unique experience and I'm caught up in certain of the events I can recall so I ask for your patience.

As we pushed on through Germany, we would from time to time run into pockets of enemy resistance and it would range from small arms fire to anti-tank guns to artillery fire. With respect to the latter, mortar and artillery shells coming into your ranks were always nerve-wracking because there was really no way to know where the shells would land until they actually exploded. If they blew up close by you knew it was time to run for shelter. The Germans compounded that fear by developing what we called 'Screaming Mimi's'. These were shells that made a nasty whistling sound as they moved through the air. You could hear them coming but you still could not gage where they would land until they hit the ground. I remember one of the roughest 'Screaming Mimi's' times for me, was the day President Roosevelt died. Our company had moved into a small town at the end of the day and it was decided that we would remain there for the night. I was walking through the town after checking my men's positions on the way to a house I had taken over for my quarters. It was not unusual to commandeer a house if you were lucky to be where one was. The owners would sometimes stay but out of your way or sometimes they would leave or be ordered to leave. Such was one of the hardships of war. Unfortunately, many of these recruited buildings were ransacked by the temporary guests as they departed. I was near where I was to bed down for the night when I heard the beginning of a round of 'Screaming Mimi's' headed for our position. I took cover against a building standing by a street I was walking along. I kept moving, however, on the theory that I would be better off inside of my personal quarters. I got to within thirty yards or so of my place of residence when one of those whistling shells slammed into the very building I was about to enter. That was a scare not only because of the noise the thing made as it flew overhead but also the bang it caused as it hit the house and brought some of the structure down. As I recall, I continued on to the house and spent the rest of the night there with some trepidation. The artillery attack was spotty and it ended a short time later.

I have moved my time sequence forward to tell the above story because Roosevelt died the 12th of April and I have something I wish to relate that occurred before then. However, since I have mentioned his death I should note that when I heard about it I felt very concerned about his dying with the war still in progress and about who would lead the country. At that time not many of us knew anything about Harry Truman and from the little I did know, there seemed to be good reason to place little faith in his leadership. He seemed to be a small time 'pol'. Moreover, Roosevelt had been around for most of the years I had any recollection about the presidency and it was difficult to accept the concept of anyone else at the helm of the ship of state.

I was certainly aware of Hitler's treatment of the Jews and certain other minorities even before I entered the military service. However, I had nothing to go on but media reports and, moreover, all of that seemed far removed from my concerns as a school boy and even as a soldier. This was to change dramatically as we thundered across Germany. On the morning of April 4th we came upon the town of Ohrdruf and just beyond its immediate limits we found ourselves before barracks surrounded by a fence. The camp site, which was on a small rise, was called Ohrdruf after the town. There was an entrance to the place where just inside there lay hundreds of corpses, all in striped uniforms, each with a bullet hole at the back of the skull. These were the victims of the SS guards who we found out had left the area a day or so before our arrival. Evidently, they had taken some relatively healthy prisoners with them to carry their goods but those thought unable to do so, or who could not keep up, were gunned down at the gate. In the barracks and in several long lime pits were many more corpses most naked and stacked to a depth of three bodies or so. The bodies revealed young and old, male and female. There were also a few bewildered living among all the dead. I remember some of the survivors in their striped uniforms, all looking more dead than alive, staring at us completely unaware of what was transpiring. Most lay on simple beds with straw serving as a mattress. There were rows of beds with nothing else it seemed in the building. Martin Gilbert, in his book The Second World War wrote that,

'...it soon became clear that Ohrdruf was neither a labour camp nor a prisoner-of-war camp, but something else: a camp in which four thousand inmates had died or been murdered in the previous three months. Hundreds had been shot on the eve of the American arrival. Some of the victims were Jews, others were Polish and Russian prisoners-of-war.'

On our arrival, we heard a rumor that an American Air Force Sergeant had been held there and may have been among the camp's victims. To my knowledge, that was never proven to be the case. Martin Gilbert continued:

'...The sight of the emaciated corpses at Ohrdruf created a wave of revulsion which spread back to Britain and the United States. Eisenhower, who visited the camp, was so shocked that he telephoned Churchill to describe what he had seen and then sent photographs of the dead prisoners to him. Churchill, shocked in his turn, circulated the photographs to each member of the British Cabinet.'

But there was an event at the camp site that Gilbert did not report. The leaders of our units were so appalled by the horror of the place that they forced all the people of Ohrdurf to march through the camp to see firsthand what had taken place. Most of the town's people denied that they were even aware of what was going on in the camp. But clearly that was impossible for I could see for myself that farmers were plowing their fields around the perimeter of the place and had to be well aware of the prisoners in their striped uniforms and their treatment. Suffice to say that at the conclusion of the town folks' visit, the mayor and his wife committed suicide.

There is an unusual addendum I must add to this part of my story since it concerns an update of my experience at Ohrdruf. Some time ago, some friends of ours, John and Ann Wiernicki, were visiting us and John was talking about a book he was writing on his life as a Pole in German concentration camps. Pat mentioned that I had taken part in the liberation of one toward the end of the war. As it turned out, John was one of the prisoners the SS had taken along with them in their retreat from Ohrdruf and he was aware of the massacre that had taken place on his departure. Here, years later, we found that he missed liberation by me and others by but a day or so. I asked him about life in Ohrdruf but understandably he didn't have much to say. He pointed out that life in the camps was an affair where you lived one day at a time and never really knew those around you. But he did note that each morning five hundred or so of the inmates from Ohrdruf would march through the town on their way to work and there was never a person on the streets when they did so. An indicator that the town knew what was going on at the camp and with the inmates but took great care to pretend not to see it.

I cannot be sure that the strategic moves of the 4th Armored Division as I relate them are precise in their details but the time sequences and direction of movements are probably reasonably accurate. Around the middle of April, there were continuing rumors about the Germans moving their forces, including all of the SS units, into a so-called 'Redoubt' (an area of fortification), located in a mountainous area in southern Czechoslovakia. It was at this point that our drive toward the East turned and my combat command headed south. We moved through Jena and on to Chemnitz, which for reasons that I'll never understand was called Karl-Marx Stadt after the war when it ended up in East Germany. It was here on the far side of that town that another incident involving Colonel Abrams and Colonel Cohn and me occurred. I was the lead platoon for Company C at the time when we arrived at what was a rather deep stream which the tanks hesitated to cross. There was some intermittent small arms fire coming from someplace on the other side. We were off the tank decks and taking cover behind them when from out of nowhere the two Colonels appeared in their respective jeeps demanding to know what in the hell was going on and why the column had halted. I explained that there was some enemy fire around and that that was complicated by the inability of the tanks to forge the stream. There were some trees lining the side of the stream – birch I believe they were – and Colonel Abrams pointed to them and said cut those damn things down and get across this obstacle. I made the motions for my men to do so as the two leaders turned their vehicles around and went off to seek other bottlenecks. That was fortunate for me, because I had no idea how we would fell those trees or what good it would do if we did so since they would be of no practical use in moving the tanks across. As I remember, our company commander with his radio called an engineer unit we had attached to us and in due course they put a pontoon bridge across the water allowing us to resume our pursuit of the enemy. The only thing the two Colonels knew was that we were again on the move.

From Chemnitz we continued south through Hof near the Czech border and pushing further south we got to the area around Cham and Furth still in Germany. As we moved resistance became very light. One reason, of course, was that we were far behind what limited military action the German High Command could organize. However, of interest was that periodically we would run into men and boys mobilized as a rag tag home guard. They were really unorganized groups sniping at us as we moved along. I can't recall any damage being inflicted by them but the Hitler youth types were gung-ho and you could never be sure when they might get lucky. The fact that we were so far behind German lines lead to two small but for me, significant events. The first, involved a railroad crossing guard in a small town along our route. I was on the lead tank when we came to the crossing and the crossing bars on both sides of the track were down. This prompted me to hop off the tank and to approach the guard, who was duly dressed in his guard uniform, to have him lift them. I can still see the man's stunned face as he saw an American soldier standing before him. He had absolutely no idea that we were so deep into German territory. Similarly, I again was on the lead tank when, because of our unexpected deep penetration, we came across an SS Colonel and his driver in a motor vehicle who were completely unaware of the state of our advance.. Again, I hopped off the tank and with my carbine pointed at them – I had a tank platoon to back me up - took both as prisoners. The Colonel was pure Aryan, blond hair, blue eyes, Hollywood handsome and in parade uniform. He was arrogant as well. I took his dress sword and his beautiful leather map case before turning him over to our intelligence people. I brought both items home with me as war booty. The sword is still with me but the map case fell into the hands of the children and is lost forever. The mention of booty also brings to mind a huge Nazi flag I took from a factory which it over flew. It was probably eight by sixteen feet or larger. It too came home with me. Mother and farther took it out to the Watermill house and used it as a rug! When I saw that I told them that some people might take offense at having it in the house. The next time I visited it was gone. To this day I don't know what they eventually did with it. A final item I thought I should add on booty. At some point, I'm not sure how or where, I gained possession of an Italian 28mm Beretta pistol a most renowned handgun. It was the type weapon Hilter used to kill himself. It, too, came home with me. I kept it somewhere in the Pelham house and was concerned about it being there. When Pat and I were dating, I told her about it and we agreed I should get rid of it. One day, when both of us were together, I removed the gun from the house, we drove to Long Island Sound and the weapon was tossed into the water.

Coming back to our advance, I pick up the story of the Division's movement from Germany through Czechoslovakia.

Around Cham we turned east again and moved across the German border into Czechoslovakia. It was high country, very nearly 5,000 feet, and was all forested. The roads were dirt and very narrow really accommodating a single tank and so our column was quite extended. I remember thinking at the time that it was an excellent area to ambush a unit such as ours for the tanks had only a forward maneuverability and the woods were so dense we would not be able to see the enemy. Actually, we were traversing through the Bohemian Forest and it was somewhere in this rugged terrain that the infamous 'Redoubt' was thought to be. We were also not too far from Prague, the capital of Czechoslovakia, and, of course, there was speculation that that, too, was an objective of ours. In fact, it actually was initially but our high command in talks with the Russians decided to let the Red Army take the city.

This might be a good place to note that as the Third Army moved across Germany, in concert with other U. S. allied units, events elsewhere were making clear that the World War in Europe was coming to an end. On April 28th the Italian Dictator, Benito Mussolini, Hitler's original Axis Power partner, was hung, upside down by partisan fighters at Lake Como where he was intercepted. Shortly thereafter, on May 1, the suicide of Hitler himself was announced. The next day, Berlin fell to the Russians.

At this point, we seemed to be moving in spurts and starts. The fact was that in the meeting referred to above a decision also had been made to close out our further advance into Czechoslovakia to let the Russians liberate the Czech capital and overrun the remainder of the country. In terms of what happened later it was an unfortunate arrangement since it permitted the Soviets to control most of the country and led us to move our forces out shortly after the conclusion of hostilities. On May 6, a day before the German surrender, I with my platoon had, I believe, made the furthest penetration into Czechoslovakia being in an area around Piscek and Blanta. Others may challenge that assertion but I believe it to be accurate.

Very shortly after the German surrender, actually within a day or so, our Combat Command, including me, met up with the Russians. I recall three different episodes in that connection.

The first involved a lone Russian Army officer who arrived at our headquarters on a motorcycle by happenstance. I don't know why his was a solo act but I suspect he was advancing for units that would come into our area of the country eventually to take it over as had earlier been agreed. There was an end of the war party in progress among our officer corps and he just marched in among us with much backslapping, speaking no English and we no Russian. He spotted and grasped a fifth of vodka with still a good deal of liquor in it which he raised in the air as a salute then placed the bottle to his lips and chug-a-lugged it all – something that would kill most people. When finished, he saluted the assembled group, moved outside to his motorcycle and rode away. No one will ever know whether he made it to his destination or not.

His visit was followed in short order by a convoy of Russian soldiers. They rolled past without halting, but with much waving and many smiles. They were a motley crew of soldiers, accompanied by their camp followers, all riding on the beds of captured German Army vehicles which looked the worse for wear and most of which were traveling without tires but simply on their steel rims. Some of the trucks hauled behind artillery pieces that were unkempt but could probably be made to fire. The same bunch came by not once but three times and from their attitude no one seemed to care. Clearly, they were lost but you got the feeling of 'what the hell', after all, the war was over. This sight was something of an eye opener to me for here was an army that seemed short on discipline as well as supplies with some fighting equipment of it's own but no transport except what it had captured from the enemy. I knew the Russians were tough soldiers but this looked like a real Bohemian fighting force. My third and last contact with them, I will save for the appropriate slot in this on-going ramble.

There were still German forces ahead of us – mainly SS troops – but they were clearly unorganized and with the dawning of V-E Day on May 7th, they seemed to fade away as an active force. The idea that troops were massing in the redoubt area was acknowledged to be quite unrealistic. I know that many German soldiers, especially the SS, tossed away their uniforms and donned civilian garb some of it stolen from Czech citizens at gun point. Others started to drift toward our lines in uniform realizing that their chances of coming out of the surrender alive were much greater with our forces than the Russians who were prone to shoot SS men with no questions asked. The Russian troops as well as the Czechs hated them. I know of several occasions where they were captured by Czech partisans and painfully put to death. The partisans in a bragging style showed me one dead man and spoke of others they held or had killed. It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate but there was nothing I could do and these people were keen on revenge.

On the more upbeat side, I should note that to the local people around us we were heroes who had liberated their villages and land from the hated fascists and we were welcomed with open arms. I don't know if it was Pisck or some town nearby where we found ourselves at the war's end but, wherever, the mayor and some important officials came to me as the ranking commander of the troops in the area and asked if we would be willing to participate in their celebration of the war's end. We, of course, were delighted not only that the war was over but to commemorate that fact in such a joyous way. It was really an unforgettable day. I lined up our platoon and following the mayor and his delegation we began to march into town. As I recall we went up a small rise and began our descent into the village and as we did so there were children in colorful dress lining both sides of the road holding baskets and as we moved past them they strewn flowers in our path. Beyond the children there was a band playing dressed in what looked like firemen's uniforms and beyond them villagers several rows deep lined both sides of the road, smiling, singing and waving. The mayor led us through these assortments of people to the front of the town hall which was appropriately decorated with colorful bunting and flags. Memory fades some but I do believe a small American flag was somewhere among them. There was a ceremony where he said something along with others and I was asked to speak. I did, but my words on that auspicious day are quite forgotten. What I do remember is the great feeling of happiness and relief all those people felt. As for me, I thought it was wonderful to bring such joy to people's lives. My men and I were pleased to be liberators! At the conclusion of the ceremonies the mayor announced that there would be a reception in the town hall for all complete with dancing, a thing that they had not been allowed to do at any time during the German occupation. We were, of course, the guests of honor. I can't recall too much more about the affair, too much beer perhaps but there was delirium running through the town for the remainder of the day.

I should note here that another remembrance of the town was the German type of pancakes I received each morning during our out-posting of the place. Some little old woman took a liking to me. I think she saw me as the leader of the liberators, and each morning would walk from the village with a hearty handful of this terrific breakfast. It might have tasted so good because up to that time we had only K rations for our morning meal, sometimes supplemented by an egg one of the troopers might have rounded up moving through farms during an early daylight reconnaissance mission. In any case, it was a welcome addition to my diet.

Citing K rations, suggests that I have said little about daily life in the field under combat conditions. The food was mostly K rations which were easy to bring along with you. I favored the C ration which was in a can. I was especially fond of the hamburger packed that way. It had some flavor and there was some liquid like gravy surrounding it. K rations consisted of dry food, nutritious enough, but generally with not much of a taste. Once in a great while the company mess sergeant would wheel up the mess truck to our location when things were quiet. It was a real treat for the food was freshly cooked and there was plenty of it. There were also times when we would scrounge up a chicken, some eggs, or other foods found around farms but the effort was a weak one given the fact that we had our rations with us and to do that required extra effort.

For all the talk about foxholes, I never dug one. I hated the thought of digging one and I certainly did not like the idea of sleeping in a hole in the ground. Where I could I would try to sleep on, or if circumstances required artillery fire or the like – under, one of the tanks or other type of vehicle. More than likely, however, I would usually find a house with a proper bed. It was not difficult for an officer especially to commandeer a place in the enemy's country as I have already observed. When outside I used my steel helmet as a wash basin; I'm sure I brushed my teeth with reasonable regularity. I also shaved, I like to be clean shaven – it's a personal trait I've maintained through the years. Using the john was not a problem. Normal facilities were available in any type of building and outside you could always find a private spot and carry on. I was, of course, only at the beginning of my twenties and was therefore in pretty good health. Being young and healthy helped a lot and never once in the four and a half years I served in the military – and here I am counting time in the Korean War as well – did I ever go on sick call. While mentioning food, outdoor living and outdoor hygiene, after my experience in the army, I never could bring myself around to welcoming a picnic or camping. Anything I did in that vein was done with great reluctance.

At the end of the war, as I have already reported, the enemy forces were moving into our lines in very great numbers. Where we were positioned, we had a number of elements of SS troops surrendering to us. Fortunately, where we were stationed there was a rather large stone quarry with steep sides and perhaps some 200 yards in circumference. As we collected these soldiers we disarmed them and sent them into the quarry. I designated a senior German officer as the commandant and let them live without further direction from us. They arranged everything within the camp right down to law and order. German officers were very hard on their men and if, for example, anyone stole something, when he was found out punishment was swift. An empty wine barrel was placed in the center of the quarry floor and when the culprit was caught he was made to stand at attention on top of the barrel for however long the punishment was thought to fit the crime. On one occasion I saw the offending enlisted man standing on the thing for days. One thing about the German army as opposed to that of the U.S. was the fact that German officers were far removed from the enlisted man and with the discipline they wielded that left the troops completely at their command. Thus, unlike the G.I.s who were given responsibility, the German soldier would not act independently and was at a loss when he lost communication with his leaders.

I should note here that one of our prisoners was a high ranking Austrian General. I don't know how he got mixed up with our SS group but there he was with a couple of aides. Even though the Austrians and Germans were allies in the war, the German commanders would have absolutely nothing to do with this group. The Austrian General asked me to permit his group to be billeted separately from the Germans. I did not feel sorry about his plight and told him that was impossible since they were all prisoners from the same army as far as I was concerned.

It was at the quarry that I had my last contact with the Russians. A Russian contingent arrived in our immediate surroundings some days after the war's end and relieved us of our duties including the guarding of the prison camp. As we began to pack up to retrace our steps from Czechoslovakia to Germany and our allotted zone of occupation there, I noticed our former wards on the move. They were being marched from the quarry down a road. Some carried shovels and all were escorted by a detachment of Russian soldiers. I don't know where they were headed or what became of them but I certainly feared the worst. I know the Germans did not expect lenient treatment from the Russians since before their turnover they constantly pleaded with us to keep them under our protection. But given orders, there was really nothing we could do and so it was a request we had to ignore.

Our pulling out was as sad as our entrance into this Czech territory was happy. None of the residents wished to see us depart and none looked forward to a Russian occupation. We felt sorry for the people briefly under our control but for them there was no recourse. The die had been cast.

June 2000

I have been re-reading this section of my stay in Czechoslovakia because in May 2000, exactly fifty-five years to the day, Pat and I returned to the region at the end of a Tauck Tour to Budapest, Vienna and Prague. Our daughter Anne suggested I include this reminiscence in this history while fresh in my mind.

As noted, Pat and I had planned a trip to Eastern Europe and Vienna for two weeks in May with Prague as a last stop. Since I ended the war just fifty miles south and west of Prague, we thought it would be fun to visit the area.

I put the idea in motion with a visit to the National Archives in College Park, Maryland. It might be well to point out here that the National Archive in downtown Washington, DC maintains war records through the Philippine Resurrection. All later war records are stored in the Maryland building. My search very quickly turned lucky when I found that someone had compiled a day to day record of the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion. I should have taken greater pains to peruse the whole manuscript but I quickly went to the historical record of our advance into Czech territory. This roadmap permitted me to determine my company's route through the country until we stopped just short of Prague.

There were no very large cities in the southwestern area of the country but as I read the report it became clear that the Battalion's liberation 'activities' centered around the town of Blatna. Some things were quite clear in my mind about those waning days of the war. However, the name of the actual town my platoon ceremonially liberated I have never been able to recall. So for the purposes of my return with Pat in tow, I focused on Blatna. I wrote a letter to the Mayor explaining who I was and my desire to meet with any local people who still held memories of those days. I said I would welcome an exchange of views.

Within a short period of time I heard from Blanka Malinova, a member of Blatna's town council. She explained that the Mayor had asked her to prepare a program of events during our stay in Blatna. We departed the U. S. without word of what had been planned, we were told to find that out when we arrived in Prague two days before the end of our tour. But as a precaution, we purchased as gifts at National Airport a scarf bearing the signature of U. S. Presidents for our presumed hostess and a peaked cap with the words 'White House' as its logo should we meet with the mayor. A tin of candy was held in reserve.

On arrival in Prague we had no luck reaching Mrs. Malinova who was out of the country. But after connecting with her daughter who contacted her son who in turn reached her husband we reached her.

The program she prepared began with lunch in Prague at a favorite restaurant where Blanka's husband and son also joined us. Following lunch we went on to a twice monthly gathering of former Blatna residents currently living in Prague. I gave a brief talk about my rememberances of the events of those last days. There were some questions. Perhaps the most pertinent being why we left to let the Soviet army take over. I noted that for those of us there it had been difficult and sad but given our orders we had to leave. I added that I had always felt it was wrong of us to stop short of an effort to liberate Prague. Translation was done by Blanka's son and he did very well.

We then drove from Prague to Blatna with Blanka and her husband, a trip of little over an hour primarily through the countryside.

They were both interesting and liberal-minded Czechs who had worked in Prague to fulfill the goals of the liberal movement in the late 1960s which was led by Alexander Dubcek. I had known Dubcek earlier when I was a member of the U. S. Delegation to the 10 Nation Disarmament Conference in Geneva. He headed up the Czech delegation. When this effort failed, it seemed they were so harassed that they decided to leave Prague and consequently settled in Blatna. She became politically active eventually becoming mayor of the town. She subsequently lost that job but at the time of our meeting she was an active member of the town council and, as far as we could determine, the only woman to hold either job.

We arrived in Blatna in the late afternoon and we drove directly to the town hall where the mayor and other council members were in a meeting in the mayor's office. We were introduced to the group and it was arranged that we would all meet for dinner in a Blatna restaurant. With conviviality, good food and much liquor we had a delightful time. The mayor was young, sharp, good-looking and very reminiscent of Bill Clinton.

The mayor insisted we have breakfast with him and some citizens in the conference room adjoining his office. Next morning Blanka met us and we walked to the town hall for breakfast. As we approached the building, we were surprised to see the stars and strips flying above the entrance – a touch in our honor. Once inside with breakfast before us and greeted by the mayor we found a photographer taking our picture at each and every turn. Also present was the curator of Blatna's historical museum with a large collection of pictures of the liberation army in Blatna. There were also several older Blatna residents who expressed to Pat and me some of their sentiments about the troops which came to occupy their town and free it from German domination after five horrible years.

During the course of the breakfast, I mentioned to the mayor that I thought I remembered we had been in the vicinity of a town called Pole. His eyes lit up as he said it was a town very nearby. Later, he excitedly told me that he had found one of Blatna's older folk who saw the American forces arrive in and around Pole. He said he would see to it that we met him. Unfortunately, that didn't happen as the program arranged for us was getting underway in the town hall's council chamber and we were ushered there.

When we arrived in the room there were about fifty elderly men and women present. All of them seemed to be smiling as we entered. On stage were two young girls each playing a bagpipe and pumping out various Czech tunes. It was a very original beginning to our town meeting.

At the outset, Pat and I were introduced and I was asked by Blanka to say something about my experiences fifty-five years earlier at precisely that time of the year. I talked about some of the things I have recalled in a previous part of this history. Then, instead of questions a number of people in the gathering began to tell their stories of what were important memories of the American liberation. This then lead to a parade of people coming up to the table where we sat bringing along with them photos, letters, and other memorabilia. Blanka whispered to us both that these treasures had been secreted away for fifty-five years and were seeing the light of day only this very day. In many cases I think there was a secret hope that I would recognize a face in the photo or a name and might be able to supply additional information. Unhappily, I was not able to do so. The happy thoughts expressed by these people who had suffered through so much in their lives were very moving to Pat and to me. It was a salient moment.

I should note here that all the translation work was done by the Baroness of Blatna who joined the meeting shortly after it got underway. This eighty-some year old woman was an absolute whiz in doing that job. Well she might be, for at one point in her life, she had worked as a translator at the United Nations. Earlier, her father was the Czech Ambassador to the U.S. and during one of those years she was queen of the West Virginia Apple Blossom Festival She was a charming, gregarious person who seemed to be enjoying the event immensely. She, too, remembered the American tanks approach to the town and as she saw them coming she was fearful they were German and thought the worst.

About halfway through our program the gathering swung into yet another gear. One citizen had brought his accordion with him and asked if he could play some tunes. Before we knew it all of us were sounding forth on tunes such as 'Roll Out the Barrel' and 'It's a Long Way to Tipperary', among others. Everyone seemed to enjoy the fun.

At the end, I said a few words of thanks to all the assembled and the meeting gradually broke up. As it did, the citizenry came up to Pat and me to shake our hands and in many cases asked for our autographs and home addresses. What a moving morning it had been.

We were taken out to lunch, along with the Baroness, by members of the mayor's staff. Another pleasant repast was set before us. As it was concluding, Blanka brought over to our table a very elderly man who carried with him a warm smile and twinkling eyes. Blanka introduced him as the man we had failed to meet in the morning and about whom the mayor was so excited. She confirmed that he had witnessed the arrival of the U. S. forces around Pole. He now wanted to take us to those locations.

Blanka, Pat and I with our newly appointed guide set off by car through the Czech countryside around Blatna. The first leg of our journey brought us to a little used dirt road lined on each side by a thick growth of trees. It was exactly the route I could remember traversing. I can't describe the inner thrill I felt at being back there. Our guide said as a young man he was working at a mill alongside the road and had seen the tanks rumble out of the woods. He then pointed out a small turn in the road near the mill, which was still there, and to some boulders by the side of the road. They were the remains of a stone wall I saw knocked down by a tank taking that turn. And there they lay fifty-five years later, untouched and the cause of their collapse known only to me and our guide!

Our next stop, some miles away, was at a piece of wide open elevated terrain. Here our guide told us was where a number of tanks bivouacked. It was not familiar to me.

Our final stop was in the crossroad settlement of Lnare where our guide proudly pointed to a monument dedicated to the Third Army's 4th Tank Battalion – liberators of that area of Czechoslovakia. The troops of the 10th Armored Infantry rode on the backs of those very tanks. So, here again, I stood where I had been fifty-five years ago. I felt the same sense of thrill I had experienced but a half hour or so ago on that dirt road. There is not much to the area but I was told that those who lived there have seen to it that flowers are perpetually at the site. During the Russian occupation, when Soviet military personnel passed by, they would remove the flowers. However, once they were gone, a new bunch would reappear.

The few remaining hours of our visit to Blatna were occupied by a call to the Baroness on her castle grounds which bordered on the town. She no longer lives in the castle but in a cottage nearby. It is too cold to live there she explained but it is open to the public to visit. After a drink, we accompanied the Baroness across a park on the grounds where deer roam freely to the castle for a privately conducted tour of its rooms.

While the Baroness was all but blind she knew every room and where everything was in each room. There was much to see but Pat and I were especially taken by two things. One was a huge 13th century map of a large area of what until recently was the Czech Republic (the country subsequently has been divided into two entities Czech Republic and Slovakia) done in minute detail down to buildings in individual towns. It was certainly a treasure but Pat and I were concerned about the openness of its display. Someone could easily harm it. The other was the turret of the castle which on its inside walls were decorative paintings done early in the castle's history which depicted events of that time. It was in a room in this turret that General Patton and his Soviet counterpart met and agreed to the demarcation line which would separate their troops during our brief stay in that country.

We bid the Baroness and Blatna goodby as the mayor with an English speaking translator whisked us by car to Prague. Before our return trip began, we presented the mayor with the White House cap. He seemed to genuinely enjoy it as a memento of our visit. It was a memorable 'side trip' for Pat and for me. As we were returning to Prague I asked the mayor how many American soldiers had returned to reminisce as I had done. 'You are the first', was his unbelievable reply.

There isn't much more to tell about my WW II experience. When my unit left Czechoslovakia we more or less retraced our steps returning to Germany and occupation in and around Regensburg which became the Third Army's headquarters. As I recall, our Division headquarters was located in Augsburg. Our battalion took over a former German Army kassarne and military life quickly settled down to armed patrols seeking to enforce a code of law and order in the area. The task was not a difficult one since the Germans, civilian and military, were a docile bunch having had their fill of fighting. Moreover, most of the populace was intent on keeping body and soul together since everything was so roundly depleted it was difficult to get on with life.

In a small way to the victor belonged the spoils and so each officer had his own horse – courtesy of the German cavalry. I even went so far as to write mother and father that mine would be coming home with me. I thought this possible since more senior officers were shipping to the States china, glassware, dogs – every sort of collectible – why not my horse! We also took in plunder eggs, chickens and cows. The latter expertly butchered for the mess table by an officer from Texas who was a former ranch hand. We used captured SS men as waiters and even barbers and shoeshine boys. A German band played at the noon and evening meals in our mess. It was a world, briefly, where for example one cigarette was worth its weight in gold. It could be traded for things many times more valuable. To put this into perspective I should note that, horrible as it seems now, from our officers quarters we would flick our butts out the window to the sidewalk below and with perverse pleasure watch as a passerby would stop, look furtively around, stoop and pick up the butts slipping them in his pocket to go home and make one whole cigarette from the pieces.

Since the war was over, we all wanted to get home. However, if you were like me, a late arrival to the European Theatre, your opportunity would come later rather than sooner. A point system was in effect and while I don't remember it exactly, it put together time overseas and in the service and those with the most time in both went home first.

As we waited, our lives were boring and to liven the time we did some very foolish things. I preface this by observing that my immediate officer group consisted mostly of younger men who wore a gun on their hip and had a vanquished nation at their feet. So it was that we amused ourselves with wild horseback rides during the day and shooting sprees in the halls of our kasserne at night. Literally, we put our necks at risk on the horses and our lives at risk from the bullets. After surviving the enemy, we became our own worst enemy. Fortunately, this was a brief period of reckless abandon and as the 'old timers' left for home and new faces joined the ranks these activities faded away. This, of course, was right after the conclusion of the war in Europe and at the time we were serving in the army of occupation in Germany. As one would expect, much of the action I have related here was influenced in large measure by drink.

When my turn to make the return trip home came and I cannot recall when I ended my role as a solider of occupation, it was decidedly slower than the journey over. I was put aboard a Liberty ship which sailed from Southampton and two days out she lost her propeller. We drifted a day or so awaiting help and finally found ourselves back in a Southampton shipyard. It took two weeks to replace the screw and that meant free time for me. I spent a good part of it riding horses in the King's forest. It was all very frustrating, of course, for it seemed like wasted time. I was eager to get home.

This might be a good place to remark about an aspect of human nature that I noted then and it has stayed with me ever since. When you are so disposed as not to be able to have access to something you seem to be obsessed by the desire to have it. For me a couple of things were really missed. I wanted a hotdog so badly I could taste it. And while I never previously joined my family in a lobster dinner – I wouldn't think of eating the thing – I found myself throughout my time overseas wishing for just such a treat. Strange are the ways of the mind.

To make a long story short, when we finally set out the second time we made it to New York harbor in about ten days. As we entered the sky briefly became overcast and out of the dark came a thunderous flash of lightening which I swear hit the ship. I read it as a sign of a boisterous welcome home.

When I landed in New York City there were no Red Cross workers giving out coffee or a band playing as was the case when I embarked overseas. The cheering GIs and the immediate excitement of VE Day had long since quieted down. I don't know the exact month of my return but it was probably in the late spring or early summer. Actually, my discharge records show October 14th 1946 as my last day in the military but I think that was because unused leave time extended it to that date. I believe I left Dix some time in June. To arrange my discharge, I found myself where it all began – at Fort Dix in New Jersey. I spent several days there going through a final physical exam and arranging discharge papers. If I haven't mentioned it before, my combat decorations included a battle star, the Combat Infantryman's Badge and the Presidential Unit Citation. In addition I could also wear the American Campaign Medal, the European African Middle East Medal with the aforementioned star attached. Other medals include the World War II Victory Medal and the Army of Occupation Medal. I earned at least one or so more with later service in the Korean War. Just before leaving the post, I was asked if I wished to hold my commission as a member of the Active Reserve. I didn't want any part of a military life and said no. But the recruiter was persistent and claimed I could retain my rank without pulling some summer duty as active reservists did, and with no chance of being called up only in the event of a national catastrophe by remaining in the Inactive Reserve. I said ok to that not knowing at the time that by that action I would find myself recalled for service five years later in the Korean War.

I had arrived at Fort Dix as an eighteen year old private and was about to depart as a twenty-one year old First Lieutenant. As to my departure, Grace was there in the family car on the allotted day to take me home to 66 Highbrook Avenue. Unlike my leaving from our house to join the Army, I have no real recollection of my coming home. For mother and father I'm sure it was a day of joy and relief – and Grace would certainly be included in that sentiment as well. I, too, was happy to be back and in one piece.

One can say enough of war stories and to that at this point I can only say 'amen'. But I do believe it is appropriate in closing this segment of my narrative to echo General Sherman's Civil War observation that 'war is hell'. What prompts this thought is that war is so frequently romanticized – very mistakenly in my view. Indeed, if one were to count the monuments raised over the years in the nation's capital I would venture to guess that most pay tribute to a military theme as if to state that no greater service can be rendered to the country than that undertaken by force of arms.

In keeping with the hellishness, to me, of war I happened to stumble on a book first published in England entitled, The Flower of Battle by Hugh Cecil. It is not a book that I'd put on my recommended reading list but I was attracted to it because it chronicled the World War I experiences of a dozen British authors who gained notice after the war writing novels based on their experiences in actual combat. That was, of course, a very brutal conflict particularly the horrors of trench warfare in Europe. What interested me was the utter sense of frustration, anger and despair they all felt in playing a part in it. Even the heroes viewed it as contemptible. Unfortunately, countries can readily commit themselves to military struggles but then find it most difficult to disentangle from the gore and devastation they generate for soldiers and civilians alike. And most tragic of all, the purposes it initially was undertaken to gain were almost universally lost in the depravation it produced.

This might be a good place to catch up on the rest of the world. World War II was at an end. It was a war in which more than eighty million soldiers from some thirty nations around the globe had taken part. More than fifteen million died and over twenty-five million were wounded. The USSR suffered the greatest losses in both categories with twenty million dead or wounded. Out of a total of some sixteen million United States military personnel, slightly over one million sustained casualties. One third were killed, the other two thirds hurt. It was and remains the bloodiest war in our history. It all came to an end, of course with the surrender of Japan on VJ Day, August 14th, 1945 –after we had dropped A-bombs on Hiroshima August 6th and Nagasaki on August 9th.

The world was to change dramatically. The nuclear age already had been launched. Within a year, the United Nations would come on the scene dissolving the old League of Nations. The Cold War would commence, as predicted by Winston Churchill, the wartime/peacetime Prime Minister, in his Iron Curtain speech warning of Soviet expansion. The nations of Eastern Europe would, within two or three years, fall into the Russian orbit. China would turn to communism. Most of the world's colonial states would agitate for independence through force of arms or peaceful resolve. Germany and Japan, the former Axis powers, would begin to create, under Allied supervision, a new national order based on representative government. And the United States would embark on a half century – at this writing – of dominance, essentially ennobled, as the most powerful nation on earth. It would be difficult to believe that the world in such a short time would turn so topsy-turvy.

All of this didn't mean much to me as a newly returned war veteran. I was young, had gone through a singular experience and I felt as though the world owed me something. I didn't want to begin college but wished to just loll around Pelham having fun. My family worried about this for I was keeping late hours and drinking among other things. One such instance I can vividly recall is being out in Watermill with my parents and one night, as usual, heading for a bar in Southampton. Later that night as I was heading home to Watermill I lost my way. As it turned out a car pulled along side of me and I thought good I can ask for directions. I rolled down my car window and said to the person in the other car: "Hey, buddy which way to Watermill"? The "guy" in the other car was my father! He had been out looking for me. To bring me down to earth they had Grace take me out to the Pelham Country Club every day to play eighteen holes of golf thinking that would tire me out and have me settle in at night. Unfortunately, I kept up my pace while Grace ended up the day being the pooped one. It was a foolish routine for me but I was restless and just did not know what to do with myself.

Father and mother began boring in about college. They reminded me that Williams College, where as I have noted earlier, I had applied for admission after Loomis and had been accepted was still holding a place for me for the fall of 1946. I must confess that I was impressed by the school's loyalty to me since I had been out of touch for three years but I wasn't ready to make a trade off of college for my extravagant lifestyle. About the time the fall semester was to begin both parents approached me with a plan. The school had been good enough to hold open a spot for me and the least I could do would be to travel to Williamstown, look around, and if I did not want to attend return home. The three of us would drive up and could just as easily drive home. I agreed to that.

At this juncture, I should return to my girl friend on the home front. She followed my progress all the time I was overseas and we corresponded frequently during that time. But when I came home, I was literally at a loss as to who I was and where I wanted to go. I didn't want to be tied to anyone or anything. This is not an apologia for what subsequently happened but simply a means of explaining my state of mind as I returned home. In any case, initially we picked up where we had left off before I went into the service – in those days that means we continued to date. But on my side some thing was missing through no one's fault. I don't remember exactly when it happened but I do remember how it happened. I was invited to dinner with the family one night. It was on that occasion that I blurted out in response to a question from her father about what my intentions were that I no longer wished to court their daughter. It was a horrible moment for all of us. I still feel great remorse for that action and particularly for a young woman who so kindly maintained loyalty to me over a long and trying period. Some could well consider what I did a perfidious thing and I would accept that judgment. But at the time, I felt that it was better to make the break when I did rather than have us both caught up in a relationship that would eventually come to grief. There had never been any formal pledge such as an engagement which made things seem less dastardly. But still it was all most unfortunate. The only positive part of this story is the fact that she married and I hope found a blissful family life.

Drive up to Williamstown we did in September of 1946. Father wanted me to make a good impression on the Dean of Admissions and so I arrived in my dress military uniform which he asked me to wear (quite proper as I was still on military duty). We pulled into the Williams Inn where the three of us were to stay for the night or until I decided whether I wanted to enter the freshman class or turn around and go home. We had an appointment with the Dean after our arrival and father and I went off to see him. We chatted for awhile and then the Dean asked my father if he would mind if just the Dean and I had a talk. This we did, I don't remember what transpired but at the end of the interview I returned to the Inn and found to my amazement that my mother and father had left the Inn and, indeed, the town and I was stranded. Cleverly, they had made a major decision in my life for me. I had no alternative but to register for classes. It was, of course, the right decision and one which I seemed incapable of making left to my own scruples.

I don't intend to recount my four years at Williams, even though I enjoyed my time there very much and I feel indebted to the college for not only holding a spot open for me but for a marvelous learning experience. If I can claim a modicum of success in the years after my time at Williams, it, in large part, is due to the education I gained there.

Before touching on life at Williams I should take note of a minor incident that led me to be known as Tubes throughout my time at college. The school put out a listing of the incoming freshman for that year. My name was shown as William Tubes Gehron an administrative translation of my middle name Jules. As a testament to this, my college beer mug, still in my possession, is inscribed on the backside with one word – TUBES. Oddly enough, the nickname, fortunately, deserted me when I left the campus.

A very few observations about those four years at Williams is, I think, appropriate here. First, I should point out that I was about the oldest fellow in the freshman class. A number of my Loomis colleagues who were caught up by the war did return but they were in the Junior or Senior classes having received credit for ROTC during their time in the military. Being older gave me an advantage when the first major challenge confronted me – pledge week, for acceptance in a fraternity -- a big deal in those days. Today, of course, there are none at all on campus. In any case, Frank Thoms who was the faculty member overseeing their operations at that time told me when the frats completed bidding for members of the freshman class they sought as brothers that I was the first person in his memory to receive a bid from every house on campus. Sounds great, but frankly, I think I just seemed more mature. I don't know whether a war record helped too but it could have. The sad part is I really didn't end up being a 'big man on campus" during those four years and that was the expectation behind all those acceptances. It wasn't all bad for in senior year class elections I was voted a third place in the "most likely to succeed" category and ranked fourth in the "bull session king" ratings. It's fun to think that in the former I was tied with Steven Sondheim who really did make the big time. Some others who did well in their later years but didn't even make the list were Ray Baldwin who went on to serve as the twice elected mayor of Boston, Edgar Bronfman who went on to better things in the family business of Seagrams and Company and Phil Stern who came from a wealthy family which allowed him to tackle and write about a multitude of social and political topics and on the right side, from my perspective. I worked with him briefly when he gained a political appointment to the Department of State as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs. He couldn't put up with or catch on to government bureaucracy so he left not long after arriving. As one might expect, the bull session group contained no standouts as I recall. My choice of a fraternity was Sigma Phi. It was a good choice with a nice group of fraternity brothers and a wonderful house at the center of the college campus known as the Van Rensselaer Manor House, originally built in Albany, NY. In 1893 it was dismantled stone by stone and transported to Williamstown where it was erected as the Sigma Phi fraternity house. Unfortunately, it has, since my departure, been torn down to make way for new college development. My major was American History and Literature which I thoroughly enjoyed. It might be well to observe here that the class when I took it was unique in that we had two professors teaching a group of maybe twelve students. I liked both of them. One was Bob Scott who the class of 1950 voted in the faculty elections as the most popular and the other was Charlie Keller who won hands down as the most hardhearted. Whatever, they were both great teachers!

I tried out for various sports but here being older was a handicap for after three years in the army my timing was off and I found it difficult to compete with my younger school mates. However, one great plus for me was a reintroduction to skiing which I had done a little of as a young boy in Pelham. Being in snow country and having friends who were eager skiers had me out on the nearby slopes around Williamstown and elsewhere in New England. Skiing became a life long passion for me and, as it turned out, later for the whole Gehron family.

All in all, I didn't show much of an extracurricular activity listing in the senior year book. I did do some radio work on the college station and a classmate named Peter Goodfellow and I had a comedy show that I thought was very funny. I don't remember how long it was on the air but I do recall how difficult it was to keep coming up with comic material time after time. If we had an audience out there it would surprise me for we never, to my knowledge, had any feedback from the students or the residents around town.

Another wonderful result of my military service was that I was eligible to receive the benefits of the GI Bill of Rights. This was a bill passed by the Congress which provided government money to assist in my college education. It paid my tuition and most of my other directly related costs including books. It was a great program and I believe it was basically responsible for the education of hundreds of thousands of veterans who under different circumstances would never have attended college. If much of America's public is 'educated' today it is due in very large measure to the GI Bill of Rights. To those who say government is too much in our lives, this legislation is an excellent example of how it can improve our lives and at the same time serve our country well.

As I had started my post service education with some reluctance, my grades tended to reflect my initial lack of enthusiasm. But as time went on, I found I was really enjoying my life at Williams and as my mental attitude improved my marks did as well. I never reached for the Phi Beta Kappa key but in my last year as I fully found myself, I came close to having a total sum of grade points that would have put me on the Dean's List. It didn't happen but I was pleased that I had steadily improved my academic standing in each of my four years.

I should mention here that at the time I was at Williams a big part of campus life were the fraternities. I had a great time in the four years I was a member of Sigma Phi but in the end I came to believe it was a bad system. It was very unkind to a lot of people who for one reason or another were not invited to join. A very good example of this was my roommate at the time. He was turned down and as one would expect somewhat deflated by his lack of acceptance. When I got in, I told the house members that they had overlooked a good candidate and they finally did pledge him. He went on to be a star athlete, a great frat brother and in his senior year President of our fraternity. For a couple of years after I graduated I served on the Sigma Phi alumni board which met from time to time in New York City at the Williams Club. That was when I really turned against the system and it was over the board's decision not to pledge a black student. I left the board and have been unresponsive to any action on the fraternity's behalf since. Williams has joined a number of other colleges and universities in closing down their fraternity houses and I welcome that action.

As life at Loomis had totally involved me in campus life, so too did college seem to restrict my interests to the world of activities in and around Williamstown. This is not to say that I wasn't aware of happenings around the globe. We read the newspapers regularly and various elements of the learning process were connected to developments outside our world but I certainly don't remember following such things avidly or with much concern. I guess the idea was to concentrate on my immediate task which was to get through college and I could address other worldly events when I entered that world as a full blown graduate. It was naïve, of course, for what was taking place in that world was going to again, like World War II, have a considerable impact on my life.

The United Nations was up and operating in a world trying to adjust to the new parameters imposed by the results of a global conflict. The Marshall Plan aimed at Western Europe's recovery was under way. There was turmoil in the Middle East following the creation of the state of Israel, in India where Gandhi had been assassinated and in Indonesia where the inhabitants were on the march toward independence. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization had been created to forestall anticipated communist expansion and Russia and the United States were in a no-holds barred competition to develop nuclear arms. At home, Alger Hiss was on trial for passing U. S. government secrets to the Soviet Union and it looked as if that was just the tip of the iceberg in espionage charges to be leveled touching people both in and out of government. There were also two things happening that would have an effect on my life. Television was coming into its own, particularly with the introduction of color and in a completely different vein: There was trouble on the Korean Peninsula.

The mention of television leads to an aside here to note that I was first introduced to it shortly after my return from the war. One day, on entering the grill room of the Pelham Country Club, I saw the screen for the first time. Projected on it at that moment was an ad for beer and I remember thinking, my gosh, what possibilities this contraption holds for the future!

My reference to the creation of the state of Israel affords me the occasion to make an observation about that decision which I view as a tragic mistake. I am not being anti-Semitic here. However, I have always believed that usurpation of another's land invariably leads to continuous trouble because such an act is never justified in the eyes of those whose land has been taken away. The U.S. Government's full support of the creation of the independent Jewish state of Israel in 1948 has caused havoc ever since. Moreover, I don't believe it is justified on the basis that the land was in essence "a grant from God"in many Jewish eyes. I cannot think of one place in the world where such an act has been fully acceptable. History is replete with such lessons but we never seem to learn.

It was during my last couple of years at college that I was fortunate enough to meet Pat – Patricia Coleman. As I remember, we met at one of those great Jennewein Christmas parties. These were a ritual when we were very young. Papa and Momma Jennewein would invite a slew of children over on Christmas Eve where it would be our luck to eventually meet Santa Claus. At an appointed hour we all were told to look out the grand picture window in the living room of their house – a room incidentally designed by father when he added an addition to the house – and there trudging up the hill in the back of the house was a fully bearded Santa with a great bag of toys slung over his shoulder. There never was a better imitator of Father Christmas than Papa. He had it all, big nose, crinkled features, short and solid with a voice that scared one half to death so deep and penetrating it was. We were called up one by one, after Papa entered the house, to be asked if we had been bad or good. He always seemed to have something on each one of us which he presumably picked up on the sly from our parents. It all ended up for the best, however, and in the end after quite a scare we would be given a gift and run happily away from a sobering Christmas experience. At the time I was referring to earlier, we were, of course, older. I was about 23 and Pat about 18 and we accompanied our parents who were renewing an old experience. I, with mother and father and Pat with her mother, as her father, Federal Judge Frank J. Coleman had died when Pat was just five years old. My meeting her simply meant that I had to see her again. Since I was in Williamstown much of the time and Pat was in Larchmont we had to work out our dates over vacation times since we were each in college – Pat going to Marymount in Tarrytown, N. Y. My courtship was launched and I was a very lucky young man to see it through to marriage. It wasn't all smooth sailing from that point on. Actually, the first time I proposed marriage I was told by Pat that we should wait a while and see how things turned out which really made a lot of sense since Pat was a very young woman and most people she knew didn't marry until their twenties. Being in love, it was a wonderful courtship from my point of view. I was just smitten by Pat. It all came together in the summer of 1950 when sitting on the rocks at Horseshoe Harbor looking down on its quaint yacht club on Long Island Sound I raised the question a second time. It was a very romantic spot to try my luck again. She said yes and so it was. Actually, it was after her and my return from Europe where we met as prearranged in Paris that summer. Pat had accompanied her mother and I was traveling as the result of a graduation gift from my parents. We were married on December 22, 1950 at Saint Augustine Church in Larchmont and went off on our honeymoon to Pink Beach on the island of Bermuda. At the time, I had, of course graduated from college in June of that year and very shortly thereafter was recalled into the military service as the Korean War was then underway. My World War II decision to remain in the inactive reserve had caught up to me! So when we married I was in uniform. Pat had graciously given up college in her senior year that fall so that we might get on with our marriage as at the time I was stationed at Fort Dix, N. J., and it was clear that there would be military dominated moves ahead – the first being Pat's to join me in establishing a first home n Pemberton, N. J., a town just outside the base. It was there we returned after our brief sojourn at Pink Beach.

I'm not sure that at any point in this story I mentioned that later when we were living in Alexandria, Virginia Pat wrote to Marymount to get her academic records so that she might finish her interrupted effort to get a B.A. degree. At first, the college refused but Pat was persistent and they eventually did forward them to American University where she completed her studies and earned her degree from Marymount.

I should, at this point, describe the events that led up to my recall. As noted, I had matriculated from Williams in June. After a great trip to Europe with one of my fraternity brothers – Eric Bjournland – following graduation - this was the same trip that enabled me to meet with Pat in Paris - I returned home and began to look for a job. I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to launch a career in but was attracted to advertising or the media. I began my search in those areas. I followed up on leads from family and friends who were trying to be helpful and initiated searches of my own. One of the latter brought me to NBC in Rockefeller Center in New York City which at the time was running a management trainee program. I was interviewed for the job and waited to hear whether I had been accepted. It seems to me that I was asked to return and I was informed at that time that I had, indeed, been accepted and would begin my new job within the month. I was very excited to be a part of this new media and was very pleased. When I returned home from New York City that very day, my mother was happy to inform me that I had a letter from the President of the United States. She had no idea of the bad news it contained. Needless to say, the President wished to inform me that as a member of the inactive reserve I had been recalled to service in light of the Korean emergency. At that time what has become known as the Korean War was in fact a United Nations response launched by a vote of that body's Security Council. More about that further on. All of this took place sometime during the summer of 1950. Around September or October I was in receipt of my orders to report to Fort Dix. I was one of some one hundred names – all inactive reservists - on the list. I felt that our call up was a raw deal as all of us were under the impression when we joined the inactive reserve that we would be called to service only when the country faced catastrophic consequences. The Korean War was not a real threat to U. S. security. The actual circumstance of our call up was the military's need for seasoned commissioned officers to lead the troops in Korea There were not enough available in the then existing military. I took it upon myself to write to the others on the list and suggest to them that they write their officials in government about the situation in an effort to turn the call up around. It didn't happen but I did get a lot of telephone calls from my fellow recalls. Many said they would find themselves in dire straights if they had to return to serve. One, I recall, said he had just bought an ice cream business in which he had sunk all his money. If called away, he would loose the store and leave his family with nothing. In point of fact, I have no knowledge of how those people eventually made out. My situation was nowhere near that desperate but the prospect of more years in the military was not at all appealing to me – nor the prospect of further combat duty.. It also presented a major problem for Pat and me. Whither would our intended marriage go? Pat talked to her mother and both decided that our marriage should go ahead. It was a courageous decision for there was no way of knowing what was in store for us with me in the Korean encounter. As it was, I went off to duty at Fort Dix and Pat and her mother went into a planning mode for our marriage.

Before writing about my new army experiences I wanted to note another time I was conned in New York City as referred to awhile back. Mention of my college friend Eric above brings it to mind. He became a stock broker in the city and he called me one day to say he was on to a great deal which he wanted to let me in on. He was buying stock from the president of a uranium mining company out West and because of the demand for the stuff at that time – nuclear power was big in those days – we would do very well. The president of that company was in the city to sell his stock. Over the course of a week or so I bought several hundred dollars worth duly receiving nice looking certificates for the shares purchased. In a final call to me on the matter, Eric informed me that the president had disappeared with our money and there was no such company as the United States Uranium Company. I still have a copy of one of the certificates issued in our safe deposit to remind me of the woes of greed.

I found myself back in the army at age 26. Each of us who had been recalled arrived at Fort Dix as individuals not attached to any particular unit. We were all commissioned officers and many were men rather older than I. The basic idea was to get us all in shape for combat in Korea as quickly as possible. The emphasis was essentially on physical fitness the assumption being that our other fighting skills were still intact. Here again, as at Fort Benning years before, the drill was especially hard on the older personnel. But unlike Benning, the time factor here was short. People were placed on orders for service in Korea just three weeks after their arrival at camp. I was now listed as a tanker not armored infantry. I don't know if that was responsible for my not being placed on overseas orders as promptly as some others but I was able to hang on to make my December wedding date.

It was a wonderful wedding! The actual ceremony took place at 10 am at Saint Augustine's Church at the small alter at the right hand side of the church. Pat was dressed in a brown suite looking beautiful and I was in my dress military uniform. Joan Coleman, Pat's sister, was her Maid of Honor and John Heilmann, my sister's husband, was my Best Man. The Pastor of the church, Father Deagan, was in attendance. However, the actual marriage vows were performed by Father Dunn not associated with Saint Augustine's, but who was known by the Colemans and who gave me my pre-marriage instruction re the church's tenants. A breakfast was held at the Larchmont Shore Club with a small number of family and friends from both sides with the idea that a larger reception would be held about a month later. We went off on our honeymoon about one in the afternoon.

We journeyed to Bermuda and stayed, unfortunely, for less than a week at, as I have noted, Pink Beach - a wonderful resort. It was Pat's first flight in an airplane. It was a great place to be. We took in the sights, rode motor bikes, and spent a good deal of time on the resort's truly pink beach. It was, of course, a busy time on the Catholic Church calendar with Christmas and periods of fasting. We had just been married in church and three days later we were in church again for Christmas and would be again some three days later for a normal Sunday Mass. We were even being hit hard by the fasting regulations. We both remember Christmas Eve, a day of fasting when a dinner of thick juicy lamb chops was set before us. Meat was forbidden so we both looked at each other with dismay. Should we or shouldn't we eat the chops? We concluded it was our honeymoon and never looked back. Pat was used to these traditions but it was some thing very new for me. We neglected to take a camera with us—the Colemans never took pictures. I never gave the matter a thought. So we have no pictures to show for our honeymoon. However, two teachers staying at Pink Beach did catch us on the beach one day and did take a picture which we still have. Obviously, we would like to have stayed longer but the Army was grudging in granting leave so we returned to Pemberton, New Jersey, where we had rented an apartment and began our new life in the military beginning at Fort Dix.

This might be an appropriate place to say something about how we became involved in the war – or as it was called at the time – a "Peace Action".

I am using the book entitled The Oxford History of the American People by Samuel Eliot Morison as a refresher. He reports that the Korean War began June 25, 1950 almost the exact date of my graduation from Williams College. Near the end of World War II Russia and the United States agreed to split the country at the 38th N. parallel. The northern portion was to be under the control of the USSR and the southern under US direction. The idea, agreed by both sides, was to unite the two halves after the end of that conflict. When that time came, however, the USSR dodged all UN and US efforts to fuse the two parts into one country and made the north a permanent communist entity. After that our attention was directed elsewhere leaving the North Koreans and China to believe that if they moved on the south, neither the US nor the UN would interfere. President Truman felt a compelling need to protect the people of the south and called on the UN Security Council to take action. The UN responded by calling on its members to come to the aid of the south. Thus, it was a UN police action in which, initially, ten and later five more of the UN nations became actively involved with the US taking the lead. In an odd historical twist, the Council vote to enter the war was favorable because the Soviet representative to the Council, who could have wheeled one of then five veto votes, elected to boycott the meeting and thereby could not cast the vote that would have killed the Council's response.

From the timing of my call up, almost immediately after graduation, it was clear that the US had a great need to get people to Korea as fast as possible. Single inactive reservists, such as I was, were an easy way to get bodies over there since we were not tied to any unit and could be sent quickly as individuals. I have noted that those recalled were at Fort Dix no longer than three weeks before being shipped out. The idea was that we would serve for the duration, I believe. But thanks to a prominent columnist at the time, Robert Rouark, who wrote about how unfair it was to call on the inactive reserve, Truman eventually set our service time at eighteen months. That, fortunately, let me out about June of 1952 when we returned to Larchmont and started looking for a place of our own.

The Korean truce negotiations began in July of 1951 at Panmunjom and continued until March 1953. During that period there was intermittent fighting as the parties tried to resolve their differences. The primary issue was the 70,000 prisoners held by the UN. The North Koreans demanded the return of all of them while the bulk of them wished to remain in the south. By March 1953 a cease fire was arranged but there has never been a formal peace treaty. It is difficult to believe that some sixty years after that war began the two Koreas are still divided and that US forces remain in the south in some numbers. In fact, even today North Korea is still threatening war on the peninsula, having recently stated that from its perspective the peace agreement is no longer valid.

Incidentally, this war was the undoing of General Douglas MacArthur a hero of World War II and famed overseer of Japan immediately after the war. He wished to take the conflict into China which had been fighting with the North Koreans in March of 1951. This idea was against the wishes of the UN and the U.S. Thus, in April of that year, President Truman fired his commanding general. Pat and I were on the road listening to radio reports of this on our way to yet another posting.

So my recall extended over an eighteen month period and Fort Dix was just the start of a series of moves we made over that time. For the record, we left Dix for a tour at Fort Hood, Texas where I was assigned to the tank corps. We rented a small house some ways from the base in Tyler, Texas. From there we went to Fort Riley, Kansas where I attended intelligence school. We had a nice apartment in Manhattan, Kansas. Then it was back to my old unit at Fort Hood. Eventually, we were lucky enough to be assigned to Fort Slocum, in New Rochelle, New York which was one town removed from Larchmont. That allowed Pat and me to move in with Pat's mother while I completed a course in public affairs. After completion of the course, with time still left to serve, we went on to Camp Carson outside Colorado Springs-- now Fort Carson-- where I, again, was placed in an armored unit. We had an apartment in town with a view of Pike's Peak. When it was time to return to civilian life, Pat went on back to Larchmont while I was processed out through that old standby, Fort Dix. I will not go into the history of Pat and my experiences during those Korean War days. However, there are certain memories that should be recorded.

My thoughts of the Fort Hood days are framed by my returning home each day from tank duty which comprised rolling over desert areas in swirling sand in a uniform covered with the stuff to find Pat in that hot environment sitting at our rented house in a lawn chair with a water hose held on the top of her head cooling down. Between us we were quite a pair. Another Hood experience was taking my father for a spin in a tank. He got a big kick out of that. While earlier I noted that mother and father were not welcome to visit during my World War II days, this was different as we were married and they wished to spend time with us both and we were pleased to have them. Finally, there was a call from the commanding general at Hood to appear in his office for some sort of special assignment. What I needed was a patch sewn on my uniform before reporting. Pat did the job. When I returned I found that the patch had been placed upside down! There was no further word from the general.

When we were in Camp Carson we were invited to the home of my commanding officer, a West Pointer, who received us in a very formal manner as proscribed by military protocol. His wife was there as was their dog. Pat, in talking to his wife, looked at the dog and said to her," this is a dog's life" which the wife took as a reference to life in the military. Not a way to ingratiate yourself with a new boss. I was the supply officer for the company I was with and another recollection is Pat on a Sunday coming to the post to help me sort out items for the troops. She was a good sport. Also, there was the time when I was marching my platoon passed company headquarters licking an ice cream cone much to the shock of my company commander, George Schapaugh, who was looking out the window. So it went. Incidentally, George and his wife became our friends and on several instances joined us in later years for periodic visits – one when they and we were in Geneva, Switzerland. George subsequently died and we eventually lost track of his wife.

The most tragic aspect of that time in the military and in Colorado was the loss of our first child who was still born. Unfortunately, while Pat was pregnant we had to make the trip from Larchmont to Camp Carson which was a long and tiring journey. As the doctor proscribed we stopped frequently to let Pat stretch. To this day we are not certain of what caused such a great loss for the two of us. The child was buried in Colorado Springs. It is a memory that remains with you forever. I never felt I handled that situation very well. For both of us it was a totally new world. However, Pat did respond. She was superb under very trying circumstances.

Most of these reminisces will seem quite trite except for the loss of our child. However, we were not military oriented and could not wait to get back to the civilian world. Thus, we carried no special thoughts about that time in the armed service. In June of 1952 that is where we found ourselves – back in the civilian world.

In February of 1998, I was asked to participate in the State Department's Foreign Affairs Oral History Program. The interviewer was Charles Stuart Kennedy a classmate of mine at Williams and first class at the job he was then in as a retired Foreign Service Officer. I didn't think much of my performance but I note this because we arrived at a point where he said, "I'll put at the end here where we are so we'll know where to pick it up, but we've got you at Fort Hood, Texas. You're thinking about what to do. By '52, you're out and so we'll pick it up at that point." And that is just where I am at in this narrative – back in the civilian world wondering what to do. However, before moving on to life in that other world this might be the place to take a brief look at the state of the world as Pat and I moved on.

Morison, in the book I cited earlier, observes that the Cold War started at the conclusion of World War II. The Russians were to renege on all the arrangements worked out by the three major powers – Russia, Britain and the United States – to secure a more peaceful world. Their support of the North Koreans was a part of that duplicity. Indeed, in March 1946 Churchill made his famous observation before an audience at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri that "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an iron curtain has descended across the Continent" As Morison notes: "It certainly had; and presently another iron curtain would shut out most of the Asiatic continent. But years had to elapse before people recognized a basic principle: the children of a big revelation, such as Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin and Mao, can never stop. To satisfy their followers they have to postulate dangers from within and without, and drive on and on until they win all or lose all. They may make truces, but never peace." While there certainly is some element of truth here, I hope there are leaders out there who can respond to the need to work for the good of all. Be that as it may, the Cold War would run a course for some three generations and I would, unknown by me in 1952, play a small part in it as it coursed through the second half of the 20th century.

As soon as I returned to civilian life, I started looking for a job. At this point I was 28 and Pat was pregnant so getting to work was a necessity. I mixed job hunting with some sailing time for Joan Coleman had a small sail boat at Larchmont's Horse Shoe Harbor. Among other things, members could sail on weekends in the prestigious Larchmont Yacht Club races on Long Island Sound. At that time those races were very popular and would be covered in detail by papers such as the New York Times. I digress to make the point that on one occasion I took her boat out and joined the boat's race class and won with the victory, indeed, reported in the Times. It was really quite a win for Joan's boat had a bottom covered with barnacles. I would think that victory record could be found by going to the internet and looking up sports in the Times under LYC and Coleman.

It was through a friend of Joan's, Sally Barrett, that I met her friend Lou Burns, who was in the public relations business. His firm had been advising the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace about regaining its credibility after its former President, Alger Hiss, who I have mentioned elsewhere, had been convicted of spying for the Soviet Union while a senior official of the State Department. At this point, the Endowment had a new President, Joe Johnson, who had been a professor of history at Williams at the time I was a student there. Before his appointment at the Endowment, he too, had served with the State Department. The Endowment asked Burn's firm to suggest someone who might continue to help erase the Hiss stigma and my name was put forward as the firm retired from the field. I was selected and worked with the Endowment until the spring of 1956.

I should mention here that part of the selection process involved both Pat and me. I was asked by Howard Wilson, who was to be my mentor and was himself a former Education Editor for the Herald Tribune, to bring Pat along and both of us join him at a three day session of the Endowment's "Universities and World Affairs" at Saranac Lake where there would be representatives from high level institutions interested in learning about the project. He suggested I take notes covering the meeting, not my strong suit. We went and I recruited Pat to help in the task. She would cover one aspect and I another. Together we did the job and I managed to put something together and turn it in to Wilson. I never heard another word about it. I don't think it was a very good report of the three day sessions but it was a clever way to test my abilities. How did I manage to capture the job? Certainly Pat being there helped!

When I joined the staff, the organization's headquarters was at Columbia University. However, shortly thereafter it moved to a new building it built across from the United Nations in midtown New York. The concept of a new building was thought of as a way to re-launch the organization's previous positive image. My role was to focus attention on the building and the organization. A portion of the building was devoted to spaces designed to promote conferences, exhibitions and various other attention getting undertakings. I was to use these and other PR activities to gain attention for the organization particularly by the press. My initial effort was to arrange the program for the dedication of the building. I vividly remember the day because the ceremony was to be held outside on the UN Plaza where a stage and a great number of chairs were set up. About fifteen minutes before the program was to begin I looked out the window on the scene below and I could not believe my eyes. The only person seated in the audience was Pat's mother, Marjorie Coleman. Fortunately, in the next several minutes there were a swarm of people and the building's dedication went off without a hitch.

When I went to work at the Endowment most of the staff was in the end process of developing a key program called "Universities and World Affairs". The thrust of the program was to signal to universities and colleges in the US that the country would now be playing a much larger role in the affairs of the world. This, in turn, would mean these institutions of learning needed to beef up their staffs and their teaching programs related to all aspects of foreign relations to turn out internationally aware students. The Endowment carried the program idea across the country and did successfully awaken the targeted institutions to this need. I think it was responsible, in part, for that generation of students to propel this country through the roughly next fifty years of the Cold War period.

It was due to the exhibition program that Pat and I found our way to Washington. The Endowment staged with the White House staff a "White House Open Skies Exhibition" which was put on, within the Carnegie building's exhibition space, to promote that aspect of President Eisenhower's disarmament program. That program was a partial response to the Soviet Union and its Eastern allies efforts to capitalize on their peace propaganda while heating up the Cold War. As the name implies, it was designed as a simple no restrictions on travel through the world's skies as a means of creating a sense of stability and peace in the world. The Russians, of course, would have no part of it.

At the time of the exhibition the White House had established within its ranks a small White House Disarmament Staff under Harold Stassen to steer disarmament talks with the Soviet Union and its allies and the U.S. and its allies that had begun initially in London. Floyd Springer, a Stassen political cohort and the director of the staging of the exhibit eventually asked if I would like to join the staff in Washington. I, of course, with Pat's blessing leapt at the idea. Thus, on Good Friday 1956 Pat and I returned to White Plains, where we had bought our first house, from Washington. We were going for a limited stay, we thought, so we rented a house in Hollin Hills in Alexandria, Virginia and rented our house in White Plains. In the latter instance, Pat had two prospective renters in the house at the same time. The one who arrived first found himself under a great deal of pressure since number two was there to take the place if he didn't. Number two, of course, was hoping number one would not want it and toss it his way. Needless to say, we had no trouble renting the place.

The house in White Plains was new when we bought it in about 1951 after we spent our initial days in the civilian world in an apartment in New Rochelle. It was in a new development called Haviland Manor. It was largely populated by young people. Our house was comfortable and large as we added a bedroom upstairs to accommodate our growing family. Next to marrying Pat, that family was the joy of both our lives. William Coleman Gehron was born August 14, 1953 and Michael McDermott Gehron came along a year later almost to the day on August 18, 1954. Both were born in New York City. Anne Pyne Gehron was to come along five years later, another August birth on the 10th, 1959 with the District of Columbia as the place of birth. Until we put it up for rent, we found it to be a great place to live and one we were hard pressed to leave. However, as mentioned, at the time we thought we would be back in a few years at most. Our last year there, I was President of the citizens' association. I found it a rather difficult job with residents' gripes about various concerns which was to be expected in a new community. At the time, I had some interest in going into small town politics and that job would have been a good lead in. However, so difficult did I find fielding such a bunch of complaints that it was a position I did not mind giving up. In fact, that experience turned me off on politics and led me to the belief that I did not want to be in a position where I would deal directly with the public.

The people at the Endowment were a wonderful bunch to work for and with. I was given free reign to operate in my own world. And when the organization sought advice from Members of the Board, I was asked to participate in those discussions. One, I famously remember, was a meeting with Ed Murrow at his office in the CBS building. First I was amazed by the little cubicle this important man worked in. I would have thought it would be quite grand given his authority at the network. However, what really caught my attention were the suspenders he was wearing. They were red with designs on both pair of nude women. That was not my image of Ed Murrow. Needless to say, I don't remember what advice he provided.

There is an aside that I would make here which deals with a book by Joseph E. Persico entitled Edward R. Murrow an American Original. When I told this story to Marvin Hoffenburg, a colleague at the White House and State, he said a neighbor was working on a book about Murrow and might be interested in my tale. That led to Persico getting in touch with me to get the account first hand. What follows is from his book and can be found on page 277:

"He (Murrow) created an ambiance of deceptive ease during the day. William Gehron, a young official with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, recalled being sent to ask Murrow's advice on a public relations problem, namely, how to deal with the fact that Alger Hiss, formerly with the Endowment had been accused of being a Soviet spy. 'I was amazed by the cubicle that Edward R. Murrow had for an office,' Gehron later recalled. 'But what I never forgot is that he had his jacket off and he was wearing these red suspenders—with pictures of nudes on them.' "

"Here was Murrow thumbing his nose at the pin-striped world he inhabited. It was also Murrow thumbing his nose at a side of himself. As though the raw-boned kid from Beaver, still in him, was mocking the kind of man he had become." Persico would again mention those red suspenders elsewhere in the book in a brief passage about Murrow getting into the elevator in his "red suspenders".

There were a number of other distinguished Board Members whose names, with the exception of David Rockefeller, escape me now. In sum, while I was pleased about my new undertaking, I was sorry to leave the Endowment. I still have the leather brief case given to me at my farewell ceremony. Some years later when I was in New York with the USUN Delegation, I went back again for a look around but can't remember having seen any old colleagues.

So it was that Pat and I found ourselves in mid 1956 in Washington where we thought we would remain until the end of the Eisenhower era. I was, as well, a White House employee which was pretty heady stuff. What I remember most about the swearing in exercise was being asked if there was anything in my past which could in the future embarrass the Administration. A "no" answer put me officially on the White House Disarmament Staff under the direction of Harold Stassen.

I think Stassen deserves a breakout here. First, I would observe that in the Republican nominating race of 1952 which Ike won with 845 votes Stassen came in third after Howard Taft (280) with 77 votes. At that time, he released all his votes to Eisenhower which helped Ike beat Taft on the first ballot. So, he was a major politician on the scene. He had good reason to be there. He was Governor of Minnesota from 1939 to 1943. He had delivered the keynote address at the 1940 Republican Convention and at the gathering helped Wendell Willkie win the nomination. He was President of the University of Pennsylvania from 1948 to 1953 when Ike asked him to serve in his Administration as director of the short-lived Foreign Operations Administration. He took on the disarmament job in 1955. In later years he sadly continued his candidacy for President nine times finally giving up after 1992. I personally found him to be an intelligent man but oddly enough for someone in his role he seemed quite shy and not very astute as a politician. He died in 2001 at age 94.

My time in the White House was very interesting and very heady. Let me touch on the substantive first. There were very few people on the staff and those were Stassen men except for me and Marvin Hoffenburg, the State Department representative who I mentioned earlier. Marvin and I have remained friends ever since. At the time, disarmament negotiations were going on with representatives from East and West in London. The Soviet Union took the lead for the Eastern bloc and the US was the dominant party on the western side. Essentially there were two main issues before the negotiators: complete disarmament and the testing of nuclear weapons. The West was pushing for the former and the East the latter. The US had a difficult row to hoe since we had to coordinate policy with our major allies and then bring all the rest of the members of NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) to support those policy decisions. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, called the tune for its side, period. Both countries were undertaking a large number of atmospheric nuclear tests spewing radiation around the globe. It was the most graphic and menacing aspect of the disarmament problem at the time and world leaders and others were condemning these tests. The Soviets were smart enough to read the tea leaves and called for a complete ban on all such tests. We seemed less concerned about the fallout from them and took the position that we would stop testing only under an inspection system that would assure both sides that no tests were taking place. In addition, we pushed hard for a complete disarmament package. The US position did not respond to the immediate, apparent concerns about radiation fallout and much of the world was faulting us for the problem. The idea of a ban without inspection was a great propaganda tool for the East. While tests were eventually banned years later, except for those underground, through the partial nuclear test ban treaty, it was never resolved during the Eisenhower Administration. However, the US did push forward its complete disarmament package and in the London gathering Stassen gave the Soviet Union some figures for the initial reduction of troop levels on both sides. Unfortunately, they were figures not adopted by the US or its allies but were Stassen's own ideas. First to weigh in with the President were the British. They were outraged about Stassen's move. John Foster Dulles piled on and Stassen was eventually rebuked by the allies generally. Dulles had never wanted disarmament discussions located anywhere but in the State Department under his direct control. So with Stassen's error he asked the President to move the effort to State and relieve Stassen of his responsibilities. This was in 1958. Thus, Stassen and his loyalists were out and only Hoffenburg, Vincent Baker, an outsider from Texas, and I were selected by State to be a part of a team to be established in State. I should add that Stassen further hurt his standing with the President by suggesting that Eisenhower dump Richard Nixon as his Vice President in the coming second term. He received neither popular nor political support for such an idea however sound it now seems in hindsight. In sum, our public affairs efforts with the White House Disarmament Staff, given the small group involved in trying to put out information about U.S. efforts in the field, were, I think, marginally effective. I believe that is why State asked me to join its group. Vince was a substantive type who knew the disarmament field's ins and outs well and would be a great help to the State team. Marvin, being a Foreign Service Officer, went back to a new assignment elsewhere in State.

Before leaving my experiences at the White House, I had mentioned earlier that there was a certain pizzazz about working there. It was remarkable what you could get done just by being a member of the staff. In developing programs you could get cooperation wherever you reached for it from inside and outside the government. When I would call a company or any other organization and say I was calling from the White House it would be the top person who eventually would be on the line. It was, as I said, very heady stuff. I recall my folks telling me that a letter I wrote to them, where the envelope carried the White House return address, was brought to the door of the Pelham house by the postman who rang the door bell to deliver it in person. However, I would close by observing that for all that glory, you had to give your all to the job all the time.

I should mention somewhere here that either in my role at the White House but I think it was when I joined the State Department, I was given a special assignment. I was selected, among a few government officials, in a time of national disaster to be shunted off to a secret location in the Appalachian Mountains to insure continuity in government. I was given a special pass (which I believe is still somewhere about) that would permit me to travel there and gain entrance. Family was not to be included! Something of an honor yet it certainly did created a moral dilemma for those selected. You go off to the safety of a mountain retreat while your family takes the consequences. Pat was adamant that I would have to remain with the family if they were in danger. I agreed. If a dire event started the clock rolling and I could not assure the wellbeing of my family, I would not have appeared at my appointed posting. Fortunately, that call never came so the problem was moot. I did wonder where my fellow colleagues would have come out on that choice if family was involved. That aspect of our assignment was never discussed.

When we moved to the State Department in 1958 the disarmament effort was made part of the office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Atomic Energy Affairs headed by Phil Farley, a very capable and bright officer. The name was changed to the Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Atomic Energy and Disarmament Matters. Here, again, I was to be a part of a small staff of a half dozen working on disarmament matters. Our nominal leader under Farley for disarmament affairs was Ron Spiers a most able and shrewd Foreign Service Officer. Spiers and Farley felt they had a very capable team on board and thus one of my first assignments shortly after arriving was an order to go to New York and join our UN Delegation there as its disarmament expert. The day I arrived Henry Cabot Lodge, our ambassador to the UN, was seated in the Council Chamber with US members of the delegation beside and behind him. As soon as I was seated he waved me to him and asked that I draft a reply to the Soviet delegate, who was then speaking. While I have no idea what I wrote, he used it, to my own amazement, there and then. I remained with the delegation for about two weeks and when I returned to Washington, Lodge wrote a well received report about my work with the delegation. In my experience, not many people in such a senior position would take the time to do that.

While at the UN, I had a chance to visit my father who was ill at the time and in the hospital in the city. While I did not join him in the architectural business it was clear to me that he was very pleased by the thought of the work I was doing. It was also at that time that one night after work several of us delegation officers ended a night at a bar near the hotel where we were staying. Much to my surprise one of the patrons was my Pelham backyard neighbor and friend, Ted Bridgeman. I had not seen him since before WWII and sadly have not seen him since.

As public pressure from our atmospheric nuclear tests continued to build and Soviet emphasis on disarmament matters grew, it became clear to the Secretary of State that there was a need to respond to these developments through the creation of a more formidable disarmament organization within the Department. This was accomplished by creating in 1960 the U.S. Disarmament Administration. A chief negotiator, Ambassador James Wadsworth, was appointed by Dulles to head the group, supported by a senior Foreign Service Officer, Edumond Gullion, who was to run the operation. Those of us on the disarmament side in the Farley office joined the organization with a few new hands added. Most Foreign Service Officers were not interested in the arms control aspect of US foreign policy feeling it was a dead end and that nothing would come of it. Thus, there was no stampede to join the new organization. The fact that there was an interim "Farley" operation between the demise of the White House staff and the new Disarmament Administration is probably not a recorded historical fact for, on the public record, I have not been able to find any reference to its existence. So this may be a small historic footnote.

I would add an observation here about John Foster Dulles who was a very strong Secretary of State. I only had one brush with him but to me it was an impressive one. At Phil Farley's request I had written something that was to be put in the public domain. Farley thought it was fine but that it was important enough that Dulles should see it. Dulles was on his way to the airport so we joined him in his limousine. He looked over my effort and, I remember, he made one change shifting an "a" to a "the". It did change the sense of a sentence and I saw that as a real legal mind at work.

I don't know if I have observed that the offices I have referred to here obviously did not work in a vacuum. There were several major agencies with a special interest in the subject matter and had considerable input. Chief among them were the Department of Defense (DOD), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and, the then, Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). In those days none of the aforementioned was very keen on taking a positive stand on any aspect of US disarmament policy. There was a very strong feeling among them that the Russians could not be trusted, they were not really interested in doing any thing positive in the area and that these efforts could undermined national security. This attitude made it very difficult for those of us in State working on the subject to develop and negotiate any aspect of disarmament policy. Even a lot of people in State thought the effort foolish. In the most pressing area, atomic testing, the opposition was overwhelming not to stop the tests even while most of the world was adamantly opposed to them. I have a book in our library written by Earl Voss, then a journalist for the old Washington Star entitled Nuclear Ambush: The Test-Ban Trap. He argued that testing was an important undertaking and it should continue for national security purposes. He was trying to make the case for the testers. While I was against testing, I served as a source for some of his material. He did credit me, along with some others, in the forward of the book for my assistance despite our opposing views. Nice guy that he was, he wrote in ink in the copy he gave me: "To Bill, in the hope this kiss of death can somehow be transformed into an expression of the genuine respect and affection I have for you" signed Earl H. Voss June 6, 1963.

The great public opinion outcry to testing was highlighted by the Lucky Dragon incident in the mid-fifties when a massive U.S. test explosion of a hydrogen bomb in the Pacific contaminated a Japanese fishing ship its crew and its catch. It was the first to arrive in port so the name of the ship has been attached to the incident but she was followed by other contaminated ships that had been in the same waters. The Japanese were appalled by the event and within a short time there was outrage throughout the world. Government defenders of testing would put out a line such as "don't fear radiation from these tests, it is less than you get from the luminous dial on your watch". However, by the time we were addressing the problem in the late 1950s, it was clear a real effort had to be made to bring the situation under control. The Russians were under the same pressure and it was this concern on both sides that made disarmament negotiations a realistic option. The threat of nuclear proliferation was another force for pushing the negotiations along. Both nations wanted to hold on to their monopoly of the world's greatest weapon of war.

Mention of the late 50s serves to remind me of our personal life. On August 10th 1959, as was reported earlier, our third and last child, Anne Pyne Gehron, was born. We were still living in Hollin Hills but had moved to a different house than the one we initially had rented. It was a little larger and a better accommodation for us. We continued to rent as we thought that we would be around temporarily and after the 1960 Presidential elections would return to White Plains. This was a trying time for Pat because I spent a lot of time at the office and she had to manage the household dealings and the children pretty much through the entire week. At least a half day of work on Saturday was expected as a work ethic, so my free time was quite limited. In addition, people like Voss would come by on weekends to chat so it all was very tough on Pat. While she soldiered through, it was a low moment in our marriage.

In March of 1960 the UN Security Council established what was called the Ten-Nation Committee on Disarmament which was located in Geneva vice the previous London talks. Unlike London, these talks were to be under a UN administrative umbrella. If I remember correctly, the makeup was five western nations and five from the east. The US dominated the western group and the Soviet Union the east. While general disarmament was a part of the group's agenda, the test ban problem was the central matter they had to address. (I wrote an article entitled "Geneva Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests" for The Department of State Bulletin of September 26, 1960 which covered developments from October 31, 1958 to August 22, 1960. It was quite comprehensive and pretty good if I have to say so myself (The Library of Congress gave it a catalogue number. I'm not sure if that can still be found at the library.). Wadsworth represented the US at the talks but essentially the discussions went nowhere. This was understandable from the US perspective. The 1960 presidential elections would take place in November with a change of administrations possible and Kennedy, as the democratic candidate, was strongly underscoring doing much more in the disarmament field. In Kennedy's campaign he made a point of stressing that there were less than 100 people in government working on the problem. He said, if elected he would change that. While less than 100 was a safe number, I personally believe there were probably 30 or less throughout the government with any interest in the subject. He was true to his word when, in fact, he was elected. Wadsworth went out with Eisenhower and in early 1961, Kennedy brought on board as his presidential disarmament adviser, John J. McCloy, a major figure on the US public and private scene and at the time a top-notch New York lawyer. He brought along with him as his deputy, Adrian Fisher, a very bright legal type who had been general counsel for the Washington Post. By September 26 of that year McCloy brought into being through the Arms Control and Disarmament Act an independent organization: the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency (ACDA). Its mission was to strengthen United States national security by "formulating, advocating, negotiating, implementing and verifying effective arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament policies, strategies and agreements". McCloy and those working with him decided to promote the arms control concept as opposed to just "disarmament" believing that it was a more realistic undertaking since many people seemed to view the latter as a pie-in-the-sky effort.

McCloy and his team joined forces with those of us who were with the US Disarmament Administration when appointed by Kennedy. Thus, with the creation of ACDA we all became the first members of that agency. McCloy had no interest in taking the helm of the new agency and returned to New York when the President appointed William C. Foster, a Republican with earlier public service at the Pentagon as the Director of it. Adrian "Butch" Fisher was designated Deputy Director. My initial role continued to be what it had been since I arrived at State, namely, public affairs adviser and spokesman. This was a great job to be in for, among other things, it offered me the opportunity to go to the White House before every Presidential news conference to brief Pierre Salinger, Kennedy's Press secretary, on answers to questions the President might receive in my area of expertise. On an every day basis I would join the Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affairs in his office (they were all men) to suggest responses to questions that might arise on arms control matters during State's daily press briefing. I remained, during the first round of new talks in Geneva, in Washington in my public affairs capacity.

This new round continued to be held in Geneva but to accommodate criticism from various countries that wished to have greater representation in the conference. So, within a short time the Ten Nation Committee became the Eighteen Nation Committee with the addition of eight "nonaligned" nations. To allay public concern around this time both the U.S. and the Soviet Union announced a temporary ban on their testing programs.

As McCloy departs the scene, I should say a little about him. As I have noted, he held many distinguished positions: Assistant Secretary of War during WWII, High Commissioner for Germany after that war and President of the World Bank among others. I enjoyed working with him as he was a wise man, very low key and easy to deal with. He had some rough spots in his past such as his refusal to endorse compensation to the more than 100,000 Japanese-Americans held in camps during WWII and as Assistant Secretary of War an alleged reluctance to bomb the rail lines to the Auschwitz concentration camp. However, he was highly regarded as his appointment by Kennedy confirmed. A favorite story for me involves the fact that he was a graduate of Amherst College, and I was a graduate of Williams College which we both knew. He was asked to do the commence address in 1961 at Williams and he called me into his office and asked me look his text over to see if it would do for my college's graduating class. I did and I thought it did.

With the recent death of Senator Edward "Teddy" Kennedy I am reminded of the fact that after Jack Kennedy became President and established ACDA he sent Teddy over to the Agency to see if McCloy could find a spot for him there. The day he came over to see McCloy, the halls of our building were wall to wall with people. Most of them were women seeking to get a glimpse of him given his movie star looks. In the interview, McCloy did not offer him a job but some advice. He told him to return to Boston and run for public office on his own rather than seek a job at ACDA because his brother was President. That advice Teddy took to heart. It marked the beginning of his highly famous career. I don't think that little footnote to Edward Kennedy's history is known by anyone beyond me at this point.

I should also observe here that at about this time Pat and I began the first of a number of personal trips to Europe. The very first, included a visit to London where we picked up a little Morris Minor to use during our travels. The idea was to bring it back to the States for our use. We did a rather unusual thing with that car. We loaded it on a transport plane that flew it and us across the English Channel to Holland. We then traveled through France, Germany and Switzerland and returned home the same way with the car following later. When my office heard we were to be in Geneva, I was encouraged to join the delegation at the disarmament talks. However, I did not take the bait knowing that such an association might lead to a long stay that would have probably sent Pat back to the States alone.

Something I neglected to mention about our arrival in Washington and beginning my disarmament work was the great surprise in store for me about the Soviet Union's attitude toward the west and the US in particular. It blasted out its strident international propaganda in such a fashion that I thought war was just around the corner. To me it was very disappointing that a world superpower and one we were suppose to work with in the interest of peace would indulge in such a continuing and reckless distortion of the west's intentions. It was yet another indication of how difficult it would be to get the Russians and its eastern partners to agree on anything involving the West. The American public was virtually unaware of this out-pouring for it was off the American media radar scope. I think the media just ignored it as foolish utterances.

Despite the Cuban missile crisis early in 1962, the two sides agreed to continue the Geneva discussions. Actually, President Kennedy, early in the year, announced that given Soviet advances in the nuclear weapons field the US would have to begin testing again and did so throughout most of the year. As I recall, the Soviets did as well. Again, this put pressure on both sides at the Geneva talks to bring at least testing in the atmosphere to a halt as the world remained highly agitated about fallout and strontium 90 poisoning. As round two began in Geneva, I was detailed to be one of the US Delegation members for that particular round. As the head of the US delegation the President had selected another high-powered New York lawyer, Arthur H. Dean. I left with the delegation by air for Geneva with Pat, her mother and the children to follow by ship. Pat and I had talked about this new, temporary assignment overseas and decided to undertake it as a family viewing it as a unique experience. When they arrived I had found an apartment house on Rue de Massot in the Plein Palais section of Geneva. It was the property of a Polish Count whose wife did not make renting an easy task. She had us inventory ever item in the house down to unused corks lying in the kitchen drawers. The idea being that when we turned the place back to them all the items surveyed would be dutifully returned. Pat's mother shrewdly put the corks, used pot brushes and a few such other items in a sealed bag to be returned when we departed. In any case, the site was in town, there was a back yard and plenty of room. Bill and Michael went off to the International School while Anne stayed at home. One of its unique features was a pull chain toilet with tank overhead which Arthur Dean, on a visit to the house, said he had not seen since he was a very young child and he was certainly no spring chicken.

As it turned out, Dean, on August 27, 1962, presented two draft treaties; a partial one which would ban all testing but those underground and a comprehensive one. Incidentally, the next days New York Times had on the front page a picture of Dean and me as part of its coverage of the US proposal. The fact of my picture being on the front page was quite a coup for me. Interestingly, other than a couple of delegation members, no one ever mentioned to me that they had seen my picture on the Times front page. (Unfortunately, this paper of record does not list my name in its files for that year.).

The draft of a partial treaty which Dean presented would be the one, with very limited changes, that was to be formally signed in Moscow on my birthday, August 5, 1963 essentially a year after it was introduced in the talks. As stated in the book of historical record, American Headlines, it banned "nuclear testing in the atmosphere, outer space, and in the oceans, but not underground. (The US Senate ratifies the treaty on Sept. 24. By the end of the year 113 nations have indicated their willingness to go along with the treaty, with the notable exceptions of France and Communist China)". It was reported that President Kennedy considered this achievement the highlight of his presidency at that point in time. His assassination took place three months later.

I should say something about Kennedy. I voted for him in the belief that he represented a new thrust in American politics and was of my generation. Although rather hawkish, he seemed to have many instincts that I found compatible with my own. He was witty and intelligent and with his wife a first class representative of the United States. His tragic mistakes were the Bay of Pigs and our involvement in the Vietnam War. His presidency will be up in the air for a long time in my view since he was in office for a relatively short time and carried a good deal of baggage. I have always thought I had a minor role to play in his death but there is no way I can vouchsafe that feeling. In my public affairs position I received numerous press clippings from papers around the country. What I found extremely alarming was the strident tone of the stories about Kennedy in many Texas papers .They were very negative and, in many cases, very down putting about his presidency. I cannot recall reading such harsh things in any other mainstream national newspapers. When the announcement was made of his visit to Texas I was personally alarmed, so much so, that I recall writing a memo to my superiors citing the evidence and suggesting the visit not take place. What I am writing now is a remembrance and could only be verified if that memo eventually turned up. No one should hold their breath on that score.

I would observe here that it was this first stay in Geneva that we were introduced to Swiss fondues, roasted French chicken (France was close by), swimming in Lake Geneva and in the pool at the nearby French town of Evian with visits to northern Italy and Venice. The boys went to summer camp and Anne who was two stayed at home. Our mode of transportation was a Volkswagen Beetle which Pat's mother asked us to purchase for her eventual use. When we returned to the States the car followed. We eventually picked it up in Baltimore and passed it on to its Larchmont destination.

At the end of about a year, we had returned home as a family and we all went into our former life styles. We were in Washington at the time of Kennedy's death and the installation of Lyndon Baines Johnson as the new president. When Johnson returned to Washington from Texas as the new President, he called together, at the White House, a group of senior officials from all branches of the Government. The idea was to inform them of his respect for Kennedy's policies and to ask for their support as their new leader. Somehow, I was the representative for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and was amazed to see Johnson in action. That night I told Pat about my experience and how Johnson had a photographer shooting pictures of him every two seconds during his time with us and what a fantastic ego he had displayed. Her response: "You want a president with no ego? It's part of the job description." As I reported in my State interview with Stuart Kennedy, with the coming of the Johnson Administration some of the glow of the disarmament effort was lost, although the Geneva talks continued, but the emphasis turned largely to domestic policies as was apparent with Johnson's immediate call for a War on Poverty.

In 1964, we again as a family, returned to Geneva. This time I was one of two people designated as permanent members of the US delegation resident in Geneva. The other was Ambassador Clare Timberlake, former Ambassador to the Congo. It was a great assignment as negotiations were intermittent and the pace not nearly as hectic as in DC. I found a beautiful house outside of Geneva above the lake in a town called La Capite. The house was called La Remis (French for "a place to put things") with unbelievable grounds and a startling view of Mont Blanc. We were there for two enjoyable years. This time we had our own Volkswagen station wagon to get around and it gave us much more room than the earlier Beetle. Over our first Christmas vacation we all piled into the Volks and headed off to Villar in the Swiss Alps. We rented a chalet and went skiing every day with instructors in the morning and on our own in the afternoons. It was a dreamlike vacation and a dreamlike place. One night after dinner we all took a stroll, picked up a crepe suzette and walked through what seemed like little diamonds falling from the sky – actually zillions of tiny frozen snow flakes. It was magical.

Skiing in many parts of Europe is wonderful because the higher reaches of the mountains are comprised of fully open slopes. You can go on and on with out being confined to trails as is the case in much of the US. My first day at Villar was a real challenge for me. All of us had agreed to meet at a restaurant at the bottom of the slopes for lunch following our morning ski lessons. My class ended on top of the ski slope and I asked the instructor if I might ski down by myself. With his ok, I started down and as I did so I picked up speed until I was afraid to slow things down for fear of taking a real tumble. When you lose confidence on skis, as in anything else, you end up in trouble. So, there I was running downhill swiftly while sweating greatly as my fear increased. I finally made it to the level bottom still in one piece. I took off my skis and went into the restaurant to join the family when I was completely consumed by a vast cloud of steam. I was almost invisible. I have never before or since gone through that experience. Being flushed with perspiration and coming in from the cold and entering a warm room evidently had my body in a boil. Everyone in the restaurant was startled by my appearance as, needless to say, was I.

When the conference was in session, I would join the other members of the delegation and work along side them. By this time Arthur Dean had returned to the practice of law in New York. Bill Foster, Director of ACDA, or "Butch" Fisher the Deputy Director would take turns leading the delegation. Incidentally, Dean was kind enough to add my name to a long list of those who had assisted him in the preface of his book Test Ban and Disarmament: The Path of Negotiation which he wrote after returning to New York. It was a thoughtful gesture. Those coming from Washington numbered about eight or ten and usually included a representative from DOD and occasionally CIA. Perhaps three or four sessions would take place over the course of a year with the negotiations taking up to seven or eight months. Since recesses would take place in summer and winter months, for the family that left some time in the summer, for as in times passed, swimming in Lake Geneva. It was remarkable that the lake remained ok to do so - don't know about now. We arranged skiing in the winter as a family in Verbier and elsewhere vice Villar. Even on those days when I was at work and the children were in school, Pat would come by the office at lunch time and we would take off for some skiing at La Clusa in France just over the Swiss border and Chamonix another spot in France. We would take a few runs have a delightful French meal and return to Geneva. Since this stay was prolonged, we all became quite adept at skiing. I also cannot say enough about living in Geneva in those days. There were wonderful places to dine in and around the city. There were trips to be made through the beautiful Swiss countryside and more far ranging ones to Italy, France, Belgium and Germany. I think it fair to say that as a family we all share fond memories of our time there.

In the quiet periods during this assignment, I would serve as a disarmament adviser to other US delegations coming to the UN Geneva Center for discussions on labor, trade and other matters since the Soviet representatives brought the subject up everywhere and anywhere. I enjoyed this aspect of the work since I was the only American representative in town who knew any thing about disarmament and that was a heady feeling. The Ambassador was around some of the time but he was on a continuing social role and frequently back to his old haunts in Germany.

During the two years I was with the US delegation we addressed a variety of arms control and disarmament measures from a program for complete disarmament, always raised by the Soviets, to a ban on underground testing, a protracted discussion over that time, to a cut off of the production of fissionable material to nonproliferation, a continuing major concern today. It was all very intoxicating stuff. Interestingly, the Committee remains alive and well as of this writing. While still not formally a part of the UN organization as in the past, a UN representative continues to serve as secretary general of the conference. Now, however, the group considers, at the request of the UN General Assembly, specific arms control matters. It has grown in membership as well. From the original ten members in my day it has bludgeoned to sixty-five at last count.

I must say I was impressed about the way the US delegation tackled the job. Each night during the negotiation sessions we would send a cable to ACDA members in Washington reporting the day's discussions and asking for instructions for the meeting the next morning and the next morning instructions would be there. It was very well handled with very able people at both ends doing what was required of them. To be sure there was much media and public criticism of certain positions taken by the US in the negotiations. The most predictable being that the US position was soft on substantive issues or caving in to the Eastern side. However, the Russian side was very unbending and to try to move things along the US would try to mellow its position within reason. There were further agreements after the Limited Test Ban Treaty which attests to the soundness of that approach.

All the Eastern European nations were in lock step with whatever the Soviets expressed as that side's position. On the Western side while the US generally took the lead it did so only with the concurrence of the British and Canadians both of whom sometimes held views that ran counter to our own. The bottom line was that all the western allies had to be on board before a position was laid out and that included the NATO allies as well.

Speaking of the British, for some period of time Lord Home was the head of delegation for the UK at the talks. He was an interesting man with interests beyond the subject at hand. But what intrigued me most was why he pronounced his name "Hume" as opposed to "Home" as it was spelled. His story was that a long ago ancestor in the course of a loosing battle tried to rally his forces riding into the retreating ranks shouting Home, Home meaning he was among them. The men thought he was urging them to retreat home and so the name has been pronounced "Hume" ever after.

Before leaving the Geneva scene and since I have reported the above antidote a few more similar observations would be in order. At times, the Soviet delegation was headed by Semyon K. Tasrapkin. For some reason young Bill was introduced to him by name but as "Sir Rapkin" which was how his name was pronounced. Bill thought he was of British royalty and bowed. Tasrapkin wasn't impressed. Bill was.

US delegation members were always cautioned not to throw around their diplomatic status by having problems with the police or other such blemishes. Pat was well aware of this. One day while in Geneva she parked downtown at a no parking sign that stated no parking in either direction with an arrow pointing each way. A policeman came over as she was getting out of the car to say she was in a no parking area. To protect her diplomatic status she responded "Oh no, sir, there is no parking that way and the other way but it says nothing about parking directly below the sign. Honor saved.

Finally, we were skiing in Veriber and each of us went off to our morning ski lessons. Anne who was about six then was with her group but was stopped by a photographer for a picture taking session. She lost track of her group and wandered around on her own. Pat and I were completely unaware of the situation. Fortunately, Michael after his lesson was walking through town and there was Anne sitting at the side of the main road in town. He took her in tow. When we all got together after our various morning lessons we all were reunited. Phew.

Before closing out the disarmament side of our life I would note that shortly after our return from our second stay in Geneva I left ACDA for the European Bureau in the Department of State. ACDA remained in business for some time after that but in recent years was folded into the Department of State. I thought that was an unfortunate move. State officials being largely Foreign Service types tend to be more cautious in their undertakings and disarmament efforts require innovation and imagination. Moreover, efforts in ACDA by nature were very often complex, specific and concentrated. Unraveling such dilemmas is less likely to work out in the atmosphere of a bureaucratic State. As I write this, the Obama administration is once again placing renewed efforts to conclude new agreements with particular emphasis on nuclear proliferation and a complete test ban.

On our return in 1967 I was asked to join Arthur Olsen in the Public Affairs Office in State's Bureau of European Affairs. I was pleased to be asked for that Bureau was considered by most in the know to be the best operation in the Department. Moreover Olsen was a former New York Times journalist with his last posting in West Germany who knew Europe like the back of his hand. In sum, I landed on my feet.

When we returned from our overseas assignment we went back to the house we owned in Waynewood. I neglected to mention that while in Hollin Hills we tried to buy the house we were then in but the owner was not interested in selling. Thus, before my first assignment abroad we decided to buy the Waynewood house which was a new house in a new development. We sold the White Plains house which we had bought for about $10,000. The new domicile cost about $30,000. It was a nice place and we enjoyed our stay there and made many friends because most of the people were young with families much like ours. However, our Geneva abode had spoiled us with its view and great wealth of beautiful trees. We thought we should look for something else. Pat took on the job but under no stress since we were happy with the then current arrangement. In March of 1968 she was passing through Belle Haven and spotted a house for sale. There was snow on the ground when I returned with her to look at it from the outside. For me that look through the windows was all I needed to give my blessing to buying it. The oak trees surrounding it added to the charm. Oddly, it had been on the market for about a year. The husband was in the military in Vietnam and his wife was in Texas. Pat got in touch with the real estate agent who actually lived several doors down the street and we made a bid saying that offer was it.. In the end we paid about $70,000 for it. At this writing, (June '08), we had sold the house to our son Michael in the latter part of 2007 for one million. He fixed some things up and resold it in early 2008 for 1.25 million in the worst housing market in 17 years. As it turned out 2112 Belle Haven Road was a great buy for us and a good buy for Michael as well. Commenting on our houses, five years ago last October we purchased one -- 3 Drake Knoll -- in Lewes, Delaware for $400,000. We have dubbed it the Pond House. We have held on to it even though we are now established in an apartment at the retirement community of Cadbury at Lewes and we use it from time to time. Moreover, Bill spends a good deal of his time there and in so doing acts as our major domo for running the place. Other family members and family friends also use it as well, especially during the summer months. Recently, other seasons of the year are becoming increasingly popular since the place is devoid of the summer crowd and the congestion they bring to the area. I should also mention our purchase of our unit in the independent living area of Cadbury at Lewes. We paid for the unit but it is owned by Cadbury. We are on what Cadbury likes to call its 90% plan. We put our money down for the unit –in our case $280,000 and Cadbury keeps 10% of that as its fee. However, the remaining 90% is kept in escrow for use at the time we have health problems and move to the assisted living part of the community. What is not used in that way is, at our death, returned to the estate.

How did we end up at Cadbury? On one of our periodic trips to the Pond House while we were still living in Alexandria Pat saw an add in the local paper touting the retirement community to be built in Lewes and to be called Cadbury at Lewes. She was then about seventy-two and I was about seventy-seven. It seemed appropriate to be thinking about what next? It was something of a lark but we decided to look the place over which at that stage was a strictly on paper proposition. On our first meeting with the marketing people we saw a unit we thought interesting. Since you need only put 10% of the cost down until moving in, which would be refunded if you didn't, we thought it was a good bet on our future. Since then we have never looked back. In addition, Joan Coleman was then living at Sunrise Mount Vernon in Alexandria, VA, an assisted living community, which was becoming more expensive with services going downhill. We thought she would be better off at Cadbury, as well, and with her ok she also bought a unit. As I write this I am convinced that we – all three of us - made the right move. Pat and I have traveled to Alexandria a number of times since leaving there and on each occasion on our return trip to Cadbury have agreed that we have no regrets about the move.

As the Belle Haven house passes beyond our control, this might be a place to reminisce about our time there. While Pat, on our arrival in the Alexandria area, made a point of saying she would not like to live in Belle Haven as in her book it was too conservative and Southern for her taste, by the time we bought the house, we both figured so what. We made a number of lasting friendships there and for our social life could enjoy the Belle Haven Country Club which was right at our doorstep and offered us tennis, swimming, golf (for me) and other social amenities. We were not big on club life and preferred to spend evenings at home with cocktails in the library and dinner following. Our social life included having friends in for dinner or going to their house for the same. They were genuinely nice people whose company we looked forward to and to this day we have pretty much kept in touch.

We spent winter outings in a variety of skiing places with trips to Killington, or Stowe Vermont with day and weekend journeys to Charnita, Pennsylvania and other local spots. In passing, I would note that later Bill, Michael and I would head out West to keep up our skiing habit. I ended up skiing for free at places out there because after age 75 they let you do that! As I write this I'm not sure that is still the case. The proximity of the house to Washington was a boon for me traveling to work by car and later, when I retired and worked the Freedom of Information job, for being able to bike to work rather regularly. I took the Mount Vernon bike path and parked in the State Department garage. It took me about 45 minutes each way and it kept me in great physical condition. Living in that area also made evening outings to Arena Stage, the Kennedy Center and other such destinations a breeze.

I have arrived at a point in this narrative where all our children could pick up the story from here and do a better job in the telling of family developments than I. We all look to Bill as the formal family historian but the others have their own tales to tell – all entertaining. So from here on I shall ramble along as certain things come to mind and generally wind this thing down. Just as I had made this decision, Bill, over lunch the other day, urged me to carry on for, he said, even if they know the story, future generations probably will not. So at the risk of being a bore, I shall slug along.

So the time frame is 1968 and I am at State and Pat is in the Belle Haven house and the children are now all in school. What kind of a world was it out there?

Most vivid in my mind were the riots that the slaying of Martin Luther King set off across the country. Some 167 cities and numerable campuses were ignited. As I recall, on the day or so after his assassination I was on my way to a NATO meeting in Brussels and I can remember the feeling of disbelief I had as I was motoring out to Dulles Airport. Every fifty yards or so there were armed soldiers guarding the Memorial Bridge leading into Washington. You grew up believing that just didn't happen in the U.S. As I write this, we are still not out of the woods yet on racial discrimination and have some ways to go but the Democratic nominee for the 2008 Presidential nomination is a black American. (As I later edit this he is now the President.) Bobby Kennedy was shot in June of this same year. With the Vietnam War still on-going the year seemed heavily tainted with sadness. Indeed, there were mounting protests against the war and at times they were rough and tumble The public was much more into the fighting in this war because unlike the current wars in Afghanistan and Iraq where the soldiering is being done by volunteers, Vietnam recruitment was done by the draft meaning a great number of young people could be called up many of whom were decidedly against it. Just to add to this bleak atmosphere, Soviet tanks rolled into Czechoslovakia to put down the liberal government of Alexander Dubcek, who, as I mentioned earlier, in my days at the Geneva Disarmament Conference, had headed up his country's delegation.

As time went on, events were up and down and in 1973 I walked into a bit of history when I was assigned the role of coordinator of representatives of the press attending the international conference on energy at the State Department. In October of that year the OPEC oil producing countries agreed to raise their prices by 70% in protest of US support for Israel. This created havoc in gasoline supplies and literally shut down many gas stations for lack of gas. Then President Nixon asked his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, to call a group of nations together to resolve this problem. It was quickly done and as part of the undertaking some 1000 journalists descended on Washington and, to my knowledge, the first time such a large number ever had attended a State Department gathering. It was up to me with the help of one secretary to certify that gang and take care of all their needs such as telephones to file stories, typewriters to do their stories and generally help them in their journalistic efforts. I almost literally spend an entire week at the Department. The conference concluded on a positive note and could be claimed as a successful one. As I write this, oil is again in the news this time with an even bigger impact -- the price per barrel has been as high as $147. (As of a later time, the price has dropped to about $45 and later again $62). Interestingly enough, there has been no attempt this time to get the worlds players together. Why? I don't know. Yet such a gathering could be a way to put pressure on the producing nations to open their valves more and seek to stabilize prices.

Some years later, I came across a report written in USIA about the handling of the media at the meeting. I don't know why it was initiated or its authors. I do know that no one interviewed me. In any event, the main point seemed to be that more should have been done to entertain the attending corps of journalists. I found that an interesting conclusion since there were no funds for such a purpose and no place to provide for such an assemblage and no group to help plan any such undertaking. Hats are off to my USIA colleagues.

I served on other US delegations but the most important as I look back was the international Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe subsequently named the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. The negotiations were held in Helsinki, Finland. It is concerned today with assuring stability in the region of its 56 member nations based on democratic practices and better governing procedures.

The then Soviet Union for a number of years during the Cold War period called for such a conference but until 1972 the West saw no benefits to be gained in such a meeting. The Soviets as Wikipedia reports wished to use the talks to maintain control over the communist countries in Eastern Europe. However, Western European nations saw the talks as a way to reduce tensions in the area, furthering economic cooperation and obtaining humanitarian improvements for the populations of the Communist bloc. At the time there were many on the US side who felt it would result in just the type outcome that the Soviets sought including then Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger. With his lack of interest, the delegation was given to finding its own way with a lack of full support from the Washington end. However, the leader of the delegation, George Vest, a solid, senior Foreign Service Officer, was determined to bring the discussions to a successful conclusion. By the end of the conference in August 1975 it was just that. Since it has come into being it has enhanced military security, greater openness and broad cooperation in various areas. Ever since its conclusion the Russians have been acting to overturn its results while the West has greatly benefited from them. It was my good fortune to be at the signing of the accords by President Gerald Ford and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, along with the other counties' representatives, in Finlandia Hall July 30 – August 1, 1975. I remember returning from the ceremony and landing at Dulles airport and driving from there to meet my family at the beach. Not, as I recall, a very smart thing to do as I was really bushed and not in very good shape to drive when I finally caught up with them in Bethany Beach.

The reference to Bethany brings to mind the Gehron family summer vacations there. Pat and I and the children with appropriate pets spent almost every summer there for close to forty years. We always rented a place and we had various locations we were fond of but they always had to be on the water side of Ocean Highway. There was one exception, when for two summers we joined friends where they were nestled on the inland side of the road. For years we considered buying a place instead of renting. We felt we could not do it on my government salary while paying off the mortgage on the Belle Haven house. Viewed from today's perspective we might have missed the boat given the prices those properties command today. No matter, we really did enjoy those vacations and the rental money went to a good cause.

I also was a member of a number of advance parties who would lay the ground work for dignitaries visiting the US. I found that work to be fun as the group was usually quite small, made up of people from both countries, traveling to interesting spots around the country and with essentially your own ground rules. I advanced a visit by Queen Elizabeth, and France's two leaders, Georges Pompidou and Valery Giscard d'Estaing who succeed him. The Brits were the least fun of the three as their team was quite stiff and serious. The principal concern of that group was to insure that essentially no one, except those specifically designated, would be allowed to approach the Queen at any time during the trip. I wondered with the type of control they were seeking how she ever gets any kind of a feel for the people whether here or in her own country. The French teams were more lighthearted. Wine whenever we were airborne and less concern about arrangements on the ground. In Chicago, for example, Mayor Dailey did not come out to the airport to greet us on arrival to work out plans for a Pompidou visit. He was mad at President Nixon for some slight and so he let us know that he was not going to cooperate with arrangements for the visit there. It is important to have local cooperation from the police and others when a high powered guest is in town. We were kept at the airport for about six hours until Dailey finally decided to appear after the White House prevailed on his better instincts. My French colleagues took it all in stride as just part of the job. My moment with the d'Estaing trip was our landing in Hartford, Ct. We were in his plane with his pilot at the controls and when we came in he was not aware that the field was somewhat small and his plane pretty big. We ended up at the runway's end with breaks screeching. He reported to his passengers that old saw that any landing you can walk away from was a good landing and that was that.

Writing of the Chicago experience, reminds me of how small the world can be. During that trip to the windy city our advance team included a woman from State's press office. We met waiting for the elevator to go to breakfast and so rode down together. As the doors opened on arrival at the ground floor a Belle Haven neighbor was waiting to take the car up. I greeted him but I am sure he thought he had caught me out. It was certainly odd to meet in that fashion. As I say, a small world experience. That in turn brings to mind another elevator meeting. That one was in my days in Helsinki and took place in the hotel where our delegation was staying. Pat had just arrived and we both got on the elevator and who should be aboard but George Vest, the leader of our delegation. He looked at me and said "Ho, ho what do we have here" referring to Pat's presence. I simply said "George, this is my wife". He blushed and in his courtly way welcomed Pat to Finland. So it goes. While I am on these thoughts of mistaken identity I should add one which occurred at an earlier time when we were living in Waynewood. Occasionally, we would retreat from the children over a weekend and hole up in D.C. On one such escape, we went to the Statler Hotel for our weekend stay. While Pat went to the newsstand to check out a book, I checked in with the desk clerk. He asked me to wait while he spoke to the manager. Next thing I knew, the manager was before me asking why, since I lived in next door Alexandria, I wished to stay overnight at the Statler. I could not believe I was being challenged about my room arrangement. As I was about to protest, Pat came into sight saying "Bill, I just found a Marjorie Allingham mystery which you might like too". That convinced the manager I was in fact with my wife. I later heard that the hotel around that time had been hit with people from the area who were shacking up with local prostitutes and giving the hotel a bad name.

With the advent of the Carter Administration the hope for bigger and better things in the foreign affairs field never materialized. The final blow was the taking of U.S. diplomatic hostages in Iran. One could sense that the citizenry was just waiting for the next president and along came Ronald Reagan. He seemed to be bringing a different group of people to Washington. They were Republicans, of course, but with a very conservative outlook on domestic and foreign policy. Moreover, I was not a Reagan fan. I thought he would govern in a manner equivalent to a bull in a China shop. He ended up being better than I had supposed but the overall view that big government was the problem I never could accept. I was in the camp of Alexander Hamilton, unlike Jefferson, who believed that a strong central government was critical to the well being of the country. States acting independently could do certain positive things but when it came to health care, environmental concerns, education, pure water standards, etc. that for me translated into national action. Later, in my days working on Freedom of Information, I found Reagan, in the cabinet meetings I perused, a person who tried to attune himself to the general interests of the people he was elected to govern. However, his conservative posture still was not to my liking.

Back to his arrival in town, in my world at State I also felt there was a younger group being brought on board and that they would not appreciate an "old bureaucrat " like me who was associated more closely with Democratic regimes even though I had arrived in Washington under a Republican administration. Thus, during Reagan's first term, I decided to retire and did so. However, I managed to keep my hand in State's bailiwick by being hired as a WAE (I think that stands for When Actively Employed?) in the Freedom of Information Operation. At that time, it meant working five days a week earning up to but not over the yearly sum of my retirement annuity. To work in your areas of expertise you had to have the written approval of the Assistant Secretary of the bureau(s) involved. I ended up covering European and Political/Military matters with many requests for material in the latter category concerned with arms control and disarmament matters. As it turned out I spent almost 25 years in that arena much of it as a Senior Reviewer. I found it not only profitable but very interesting. I say interesting because your review can cover current information as well as historical documentation. It is easy to feel you remain on the cutting edge of foreign policy interests making difficult decisions about what national security and privacy information can or cannot be released. These days you are under the gun, because once the material is made available to the requester it literally becomes available to anyone anywhere as State puts much of it out on its web site eventually making it available worldwide.

When I first started working in this area and that was very early on in the freedom of information operation, a large number of requests came from individuals who had an interest in a special topic many of whom were academics. One I remember very well was an Alexandria lawyer whose name was Fensterwald. He had a thing about President Kennedy's assassination being the work of a foreign cabal and so he filed numerous requests for documents. His interest kept me busy for about two years and when we added the kitchen addition to the Belle Haven house we dedicated it to him. As time went on a shift took place in that early trend with the working press, at the outset mostly American, more and more finding this a good source of material for stories they were working on. For example, Frontline, the PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) was preparing a program on corruption in Russia. It turned to us for whatever information we had on the subject and there was plenty as the Embassy in Moscow covered the matter diligently.

The American press discovery awakened the foreign press as well and soon we had requests from around the world but most such inquires came from the European area and Japan. The general public also eventually found this a useful source of information for topics they wished to pursue. Today it is a very popular research tool for people across the board. I would also add that it is quite a source of information for individuals who seek personal material about themselves. I would note that it is, as well, a promising source of information in that some 90% of the material requested and reviewed by the State Department under the program is actually released.

My judgment was seriously challenged in-house just once and that was in response to a Canadian newspaper reporter's request for material from and to the Embassy in Canada and Washington about the French Quebec question – a very sensitive issue for all Canadians. In processing the case, I released more than a hundred documents I thought were proper to make public. The reporter's story appeared subsequently and noted that the information it was based on came from the Department of State's Freedom of Information Office. Immediately thereafter the Deputy Chief of Mission at our Embassy in Ottawa shot a telegram to the Canadian Desk charging that the released material had done irreparable harm to US- Canadian relations. I was contacted and asked to appear before my superiors and defend my release decisions. I did so and my judgment was vindicated. I was later informed that our FOIA general counsel was asked for his opinion as well and he concluded that he would have released even more. I was thankful for that view.

Before I close out my time in the FOI program, I would observe that in those retirement years I would bike to work as frequently as the weather would allow. I would follow the Mount Vernon bike path to the Memorial Bridge and head up 23rd Street to park in the basement of the State Department. It was a trip that took me about forty-five minutes one way. I think at that point I was in the best midlife shape ever. But the main point for this digression is the experience I had on one of those biking days. I was between the 14th Street and Memorial Bridges when I came up to a fellow on a bike who asked me which was the Memorial Bridge. Odd question I thought while telling him which was which. When I said you can't be from around here he said he was from California. He was just concluding a cross-country bike trip. The most difficult part he responded to my question was the ride from Falls Church to D.C. because of traffic and no bikers' line. I told him he should take in a number of the Washington sights before returning home. "Can't do that," he replied. He had a discount ticket to return home on a bus that left at noon. Clearly, his only interest was in making that trip across the country.

I retired from Freedom of Information (FOI) work the last day of February 2007. I could have continued in the job but Pat and I had decided to sell the Belle Haven house toward the end of the year and move to the Cadbury Retirement Community in Lewes, Delaware. It seemed to be the appropriate thing to do. As it was, we moved to Cadbury on September 13, 2007 and closed out our Washington lifestyle. As I write this we have been at Cadbury over two years. We have made periodic trips back to Alexandria but both Pat and I have returned on each occasion observing that we have no regrets about our decision to move to our new home in Lewes. Of course we have the "Pond House" as well which we can retreat to as the spirit moves us and which is well taken care of by Bill who loves to spend much of his time there. I think this point I have made earlier but it bears repeating.

As I wind up the Washington part of this tale I might turn back to the State interview I have referred to from time to time and summarize the last portion of it in which I was asked about dealing with the media. I think this is appropriate since I did spend much of my time in the role of a spokesman.

Since the founding of this country, leaders, politicians and many others have anguished over the role the media has played. While I have never been on the receiving end of news reporting in my humble view I think the "legitimate" media - by that I mean accepted news sources - has played a remarkably positive part in the country's development. My dealings with news professionals have forcefully underscored that view. Generally, from my perspective, there was a real effort to do a complete and accurate job. In large part, this was due to the caliber of those reporting the news. There were people, I'm thinking of the representatives of the Associated Press and the United Press in the sixties, working at the State Department who, because of their knowledge and insight could well have signed on as Secretary of State. There was a New York Times stringer in Geneva who knew as much about the arms control negotiations as members of our delegation. The point is that there were many reporters I have run into who had a broad grasp of foreign affairs matters and who could dish up a solid report on any subject they were covering. I would include, as well, many foreign corresponds in that category.

Of course, there were frustrations and difficulties at times with personalities. I am reminded of the visit of one New York Times reporter. He was on a European trip with an overnight stop in Geneva. He talked to me and also asked to see some other people. We spent about four hours briefing him. That evening he wrote his story which appeared in the Times the next day. The thrust of it was essentially that the whole arms control effort was pretty much a wild goose chase. It was not only disappointing but as events later proved far off the mark. Actually, he was a very good reporter but not in this instance where his own subjective attitude headed him in the wrong direction.

As I have noted foreign coverage was also generally on the mark. The serious British papers and the BBC were good. Elsewhere, in Scandinavia, other Western European countries and even Japan, while playing up more limited issues of local interest, the coverage was competent and fair. Of course, the coverage in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe was terrible and reported to support their own limited objectives with no concern for accuracy. Even today, Russia tends to play that same game.

In a more general sense, I believe the media has played a significant role in keeping this country on the straight and narrow despite the abundance of "entertainment" we see in the news today. While I do not have the type of direct contact with those covering today's foreign and domestic events, I remain impressed with their coverage of the news and I give them great credit for keeping our nation on track. Actually, without an active media our system of checks and balances would be much less effective.

I have been writing this autobiography over a very long period of time and have only now come to the conclusion that I have been remiss in drawing into the narrative the children of our children. How could I have over looked them up to this point in time? Or were they covered earlier? Of course the four grandchildren have added a new and wonderful dimension to Pat and my lives. Through them we have relived a part of our lives following them from birth to their teens. Rebecca Holloway came first on March 16 1989 to be followed by Katherine Gehron, June 23 1990, Sarah Holloway, December 10, 1991 and last but not least, Luke Gehron, December 19, 1991. We have enjoyed each in their own and our own special ways.

As I write this they are either going to college – Rebecca and Katie – or like the other two are moving in that direction. I think I am right in stating that Rebecca, at South Carolina University, and Kate, at William and Mary, are in special honors programs as are Sarah and Luke in their high schools. As I edit this, I must report at this time that Rebecca has transferred and is now ensconced at the Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia. Also Sarah has been accepted at the same school and Luke is going to Auburn where he will be in the school of architecture. As they pursue their higher education efforts, I hope that these four gifted people as they advance into adulthood will be responsible and will seek constructive ways to enhance their own lives and the world around them. .

In any case, with their parents in tow, we have had a great number of memorable times at home at the beach and at other places foreign and domestic. While Anne and Rex have moved some states away on occasion and Nancy and Michael have lived abroad from time to time, when we are all assembled state side, including Bill, it has been a welcomed fact that we pretty much remain within shouting distance. Which translates into continuing opportunities for all of us to get together frequently resulting in memorable parties, among other things.

Speaking of Nancy and Rex, I have been very remiss in not commenting on their marriage to Michael and Anne. In addition, I have not reported on Bill's marriage to Bob Chapman with whom he had been living in New York City a good number of years later. I think my assumption was that all share the same information about those goings-on so why include it here. However, for those who come along later and may not know, I feel I should set the facts down as a matter of record.

Anne and Rex Holloway were married on March 30, 1985.

Nancy Wirth and Michael followed with their wedding on March 26, 1987.

Bill and Bob took the step on May 1, 1994. Unfortunately, Bob, who the entire family loved, died in July 2000. I might observe here that, currently, in most states gay men and women are not legally permitted to marry. Therefore Bill and Bob had a blessing ceremony in Bill's then Catholic Church in New York City courtesy of Father Madigan a close friend of his. At this writing I feel that times are changing and that such marriages will become the norm.

I am at a juncture now where I can take up a suggestion of Bill, who by the way has taken a great interest in this project and has helped me edit this ramble. His thought was that I address his situation as a gay man with HIV. At first, I did not think this was appropriate since it was such a personal matter. However, on second thought, it occurred to me that this has been a big concern in his life and certainly to the rest of the family even including the grandchildren.

When Bill was about thirteen, Pat thought there was something in his make up that for someone his age seemed awkward or somewhat unusual. She decided to have him see a psychologist which he did. I joined Pat on one occasion. The end result was a non-committal response from his end. I think the thought that Bill might be gay remained in Pat's mind but I was not as sagacious. When he finally told us of his situation at dinner one night in the Belle Haven house when he was in his early thirties, Pat seemed to be expecting it. I was surprised. With the word out, Bill made no bones about his stature and all the family rallied round. That is where we all stand to this day. I must say that everyone associated with Bill has been very understanding. His announcement about having been diagnosed with HIV hit Pat and me sometime in 1985. That was a wrenching thought to comprehend for at that time your life span was quite limited. I thought Bill might not be around in five years or so. HIV/AID was then and remains a serious disease of the human immune system. However, thank goodness, since then strides have been made to treat it and Bill in a determined and positive way has taken all the right steps to keep it under control as much as possible. He takes his pills, eats very well and exercises regularly. Most important, he holds a very positive attitude toward his wellbeing. I have never heard him utter a discouraging word about his situation. Again, people generally have been very supportive. I don't in any way mean to belittle Bill's health problems but this might be a good place to recognize his canine compatriot and colleague, Madison, who helped Bill keep to the strait and narrow by forcing him to walk ever where and tend to his expected needs for a good many years. The whole family was enthralled with Madison. Unfortunately, as I edit this, I should note that Madison is no longer with us. I must add here that there were and are numerous other dogs around and we welcomed their presence. Interestingly, Bill's situation engendered some good in that Michael, well aware of Bill's condition, was prompted to join a government program, initiated by President George W. Bush, to combat HIV/AID in Africa - a program he is still involved in and one of the few things for which I give Bush credit.

I would note that following all this trauma, Bill later announced that he was living with a companion! I remember he said he would like us to meet him. It was, of course, Bob Chapman and they were sharing an apartment in the City. As I remember, Pat and I sucked in our breath and told Bill that we were not ready for that quite yet. Eventually, it did come to pass and as I have already reported he was just a wonderful guy. For the time they were together they enjoyed a very satisfying relationship. It was a tested one for Bill in the end in that Bob, who was also HIV/AID positive, was frequently sick and spent a fair amount of time in the hospitable. Bill was always right there.

Before touching on Bill and his problem, I made mention of Nancy and Rex who joined the Gehron clan through marriage. If we were given a choice, we could not have arrived at a better selection. Nancy is a great mother and when working is dedicated and diligent and always interested in the surroundings about her. She and Michael have a strong and fast relationship. Rex is also a great family man and provider with a keen interest in the world around him. Anne and his relationship are bound the same way as Nancy and Michael. Pat and I have enjoyed our time with them both and consider ourselves lucky to have them a part of the family.

To follow along with some other points of Bill's, he suggested I might cover how I would sum up my life, my reaction to major events and how I dealt with difficult bosses or other people I have encountered along the way.

I believe there are bits and pieces of some of the above set out here and there in this ramble. However, there are a few things I might elaborate on where I have not done so before.

The matter of summing up one's life is difficult for in the course of it you do not normally think about something like that. Now, taking that look back, by and large for me it has been essentially a happy existence. I was fortunate to have generous parents, a nice sister, a wonderful wife and great children, grandchildren and in-laws. Then, too, I was fortunate to hold interesting positions. Particularly gratifying was the fact that each allowed me an opportunity to make a small, positive contribution to the effort to make the world a better place. That is a combination that is hard to beat if you want to find pleasure in life. Besides that, I thought it best to take life's trials and tribulations on a piecemeal basis managing each occasion by trying as best as one could to cope. I think that has saved me a lot of mental and physical wear and tear.

As to responding to major events, I have an emotional side to the good and bad things that of necessity are a part of life. However, I think I try to keep these things in perspective and rationalize their effects on what matters to the well-being of my immediate world and the world at large. As I reread this I'm inclined to think I don't know about that but it certainly sounds good. So be it!

Finally, what about the people I have met in my life.. I have never had a real problem with those I have encountered in the various sequences of my life. However, in general I have always admired those who exhibited the use of good old common sense. I think that is a great personal attribute. I have been fortunate to have had a fair number of people like that around me.

These collective jottings may not meet the idea behind Bill's constructive suggestions but it is an attempt to respond to them if only poorly and briefly.

It is now November 2008 as I continue to write this autobiography. I mentioned at the outset that sister Grace Gehron died last month at age 89. Geoff and Patti got together for about the first time since being adults to arrange for a memorial service at a Catholic Church in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Grace at a late age reunited with the church. After the ceremony, her ashes were distributed over the ocean by her two children as she wished. Grace was not terribly close to me throughout our lives. She was five years my senior and while that may not seem like much, it was enough to keep our interests apart through much of our lives. When I was growing up she had her friends and they had nothing in common with me as I was five years younger. When I was eleven her friends were sixteen and it is easy to see we had nothing in common. As we grew older, Grace went pretty much her way and I went mine. We did keep in touch but it was difficult because Grace had a drinking problem and our telephone conversations were from her end mostly disjointed. She was very talented both intellectually and athletically but she blew those talents as she moved through life – although she remained a life-long good golfer. To point up her studious credentials –she went to the best of schools including Dana Hall and Wellesley College. She ended up with rheumatic fever and left Wellesley for Rollins College in Florida. She did not like it there, although offered a scholarship to stay and so she returned home and went to work with IBM. (I believe I have already reported much of the above but I am not going to change things at this stage.)

I think she neglected her children – a matter she would not acknowledge – and that in my mind accounts for their distance from her as they grew up. As I write this, Pat and I have made arrangements to have a tombstone made for placement in the Watermill cemetery which I thought could carry her date of birth, March 18, 1919 and death, October 1, 2008 and a line "Grace Gehron Golden". I can say that just recently I have been in touch with a Ken Rothwell at the O'Connell Funeral Home at 30 Little Plains Road in Southampton, NY (11968) about arranging for a stone to be placed at the cemetery. He, in turn, put Anthony Vassallo of the Southampton Granite Co. (address: P.O. 1434 Southampton, NY 11969 – phone (631)283-0381) in touch with us. He will cut the stone and see to its placement working with the man currently in charge of the cemetery, Billy Corwith. So, Grace will be represented along with mother and father. I think she would welcome that. As a side bar to this, I should observe that Vassallo will also be cutting from the same piece of granite a stone for Pat and me which will be put in place when Grace's stone is installed. (All three are in place as of this July, 2009 date.)

I think Grace and I were closest when I returned from service in World War II. Among other things, I thought the world owed me a living and I felt I could do what I wished about my life at the time. Grace stepped in and got me out on the golf course at the Pelham Country Club introducing me to the sport. We played just about every day and went the full eighteen holes. That kept us together quite a bit for some period of time. To this day I retain some of the instruction she offered and still use it when I play. In time she found a serious boy friend, John Heilmann, whom she eventually married and that broke up our twosome. John and she first met at IBM. She went on to other arrangements/ marriages eventually ending up with Frank Golden, an ex-longshoreman whose name she retained. Her children, Geoff and Patti (called Patti Gay when she was younger), carried the Heilmann name but I don't think either of them remained close to him. I believe he is now dead, as is Frank Golden.

Grace had set me up as the executor of her estate many years ago. From the beginning I asked that she replace me with Geoff (she and Patti were not on speaking terms for most of this time). However that never happened and though she changed her will a number of times, I had in hand only the very first she drew up. Oddly enough, the lawyer's office she last used lost her will through one of the hurricanes so there was no record of my proposed role. Geoff took matters into his own hands after talking to me. I'm sure Grace would have been proud about how well he handled her estate and her memorial service at the Catholic Church – a church, as I mentioned, she returned to in the later years of her life. Fortunately, Patti and one of her daughters, Melissa, were also participants in that service. It is with every expectation that I believe she now will rest in peace, her very bumpy ride through life being over. Even though through our lifetime we were not terribly close, I certainly will miss her.

Grace's death makes me think of the times in which we are all getting old but there is so much going on about us. I find we are caught up in a world far from complacent. We are facing a financial crisis as threatening as the Great Depression. It is one that, among other things, threatens our own personal financial security. We have lost over half our liquid savings at this point and I don't see a turn around in sight. With that, there is great instability across the entire world scene, a situation that has not been duplicated for this country since World War II or even the Civil War in terms of this nation's well being.

As these great historical events unfold, there is a positive one before us in the election of a Black American as President of the United States. As I write this, he is currently our president-elect. (As I edit this he is six months into his role as President.) It seems ironic that we now look to his leadership, a man whose black ancestors we once enslaved, to bring us out of our great difficulties. I must say that I am proud that our country could bring such a situation about and that we have demonstrated there is reality in our call for equality. He seems to take on this task with an amazing sense of confidence and as he approaches the job we can only wish him well. There is much to repair for the Bush Administration has been a catastrophe for this country. Indeed, in my view, his will go down as the worst presidency in the history of our nation. At this juncture, I see it taking years for this country to regain its political footing both in foreign and domestic affairs even affecting the well being of our grandchildren. He has squandered lives, money and American goodwill in a multitude of baseless undertakings from which there will be essentially no practical gains. I recently came across some figures on the Iraq war I wish to quote but cannot identify the source. It stated that the cost of the war is already at a trillion dollars. When you add on interest on that debt, replenishment of military equipment and long term care for the 80,000 wounded or traumatized the bill comes to about $3 trillion. It concludes with the apt question – "It's a hell of a price to pay for ... well, for what, exactly." I could not agree more.

Of the programs I could support, the Afghanistan effort was one but it was short changed by undercutting it with the distraction of the unnecessary and destructive war in Iraq. We would have been much better off leaving our troops in large numbers in Afghanistan and never committing any to Iraq. Now, as I edit this, I am beginning to feel strongly that we should get out of Afghanistan as quickly as possible, regardless of the consequences, before it becomes Obama's Vietnam. I believe it is a fight we cannot win. The other program I could support, as previously mentioned, was U.S. financial support of the AID/HIV problem in Africa in which son Michael and daughter-in-law Nancy have played a role. Pretty thin gruel, as I see it, for eight years of governance. I won't begin to register a litany of the disasters of his Administration from climate control to loss of international goodwill to despoiling our scenic wonders in support of oil and timber interests. The list goes on and on.

I was against the war in Iraq and found it hard to believe that many people were not similarly inclined. First, I saw no threat from Saddam with or without nuclear weapons. Admittedly, he was a bad guy but the world has a significant number of such characters. I don't see our role as the good cop of the world who should be responsible for eliminating such folk. Essentially, that is the role for the people of the nation concerned to deal with or a multilateral effort. Moreover, we have no right to preemptive action. That is a very dangerous policy for it allows any other nation in the world to claim the same prerogative and who are we to deny such a step having enunciated that right for ourselves. Finally, history has amply demonstrated the ease of getting into a war but the great difficulty of controlling it and of concluding it. The last is a lesson we seem never to grasp.

Writing about the Afghan and Iraq wars suggests that I have made no observation about the horror that led us into those situations – namely 9/11/01 – the taking down of the twin towers in Manhattan. It was a deplorable and essentially senseless act committed by misguided ruffians in the name of a radical form of Islam. It will live in the minds of Americans as great an act of infamy as the bombing of Pearl Harbor where some two thousand lost their lives as opposed to more than three thousand in New York. Even more of a horror is the fact that every one of its victims was an innocent person. Pat, Bill and I were on a trip through New England at the time of the attack and we were unaware of its occurrence until late that morning when in a state park information center we saw a replay of the tragedy on TV. I remember driving to New York to pickup Bill for the trip and seeing the twin towers as we approached the city from the New Jersey side. On our return to Washington from the same perspective it was a smoking hole. Also memorable was the city when we dropped Bill off before returning home to Alexandria a day or so after the attack. The vibrant city we knew was subdued and along the streets as far north as the eighties were signs of the detriment from the collapsed buildings. It was a sad and painful experience.

Here, again, I have arrived at a point where I wonder if I should just conclude this rambling essay. However, I have been encouraged to continue if nothing else but to make some personal observations about the future. Since I have nothing to loose in doing so, I thought I might close things out by taking a stab at what I see down the road. This is especially intriguing after having been exposed to the great meltdown of 2008. Financially it is said to have put this country, and perhaps the world, in the greatest difficulty since the Great Depression. I would add here that until this catastrophe, Pat and I in our retirement years, seemed to be well enough off. We were not rich but we had the means not to worry much about our standard of living. We had enough to be "comfortably off". With my Government annuity, Social Security for both of us and a small second TIAA/CREF annuity we do have a continuing income which is fortunate for us. However a major cushion has been lost to us and probably our children.

At the time of the Great Depression which began with the stock markets collapse in 1929 a recovery, with all of President Franklin Roosevelt's various revival attempts, never got things really going again until we felt the economic surge of World War II. Of course, before it was over, some 13 million people were out of work and hundreds of financial institutions had folded. At this point in time, the beginning of 2009, the current crisis seems not to be so horrendous. However, I should add that almost daily there are new reports of business collapses and further unemployment. The point here is though that it took more than a dozen years for a recovery to get under way in the 30s. And thus, I think it will be some time before we see a real up swing in the current debacle. As I write this, I should observe that those in the know are saying this, like the Great Depression, will be a historical bench mark. My mother, when I was growing up in the Great Depression years, used to say, as I reported earlier, that she and father were confined to a diet of mustard and bread. Fortunately, we are not at that stage yet! But there are certainly a lot of people being hurt.

I see the United States of America as a truly great country. While the founding fathers did not get a lot right, they did get the basics of a democratic society right in that the governed elect their leaders. As Garrett Epps in a recent Atlantic magazine article observed "The historian Jack N. Rakove has written, 'the creation of the presidency was (the Framers') most creative act.' That may be true, but it wasn't their best work, The Framers were designing something the modern world had never seen—a republican chief executive who would owe his power to the people rather than to heredity or brute force. The wonder is not that they got so much wrong, but that they got anything right at all."

The point is that as imperfect as the system may be, it comes closest to a government by the people and for the people and therefore, I think it will persist through the years ahead. There will be outside threats to its well -being but I believe that in the long run it will be a society such as ours that will woo a good part of the world to imitate it.

One current problem, of course, among many others, is that it is a system that involves an electorate which understands and wants such a system of government. Since a large part of the world remains illiterate and has no real understanding of democracy it may be a long time in flourishing.

There are a lot of crises to contend with in this world today with truculent nation states, some nuclear capable, the Afgan/Iraqi firestorm, the global economic situation, the partisan nature of U.S, politics, and domestic concerns in health, education and immigration to name a few. These make for very uncertain times looking ahead.

Not an event of epic proportions but a significant one for us older folks recently came about and it deserves some attention. Pat on March 14, 2009 reached her eightieth year followed by her sister Joan Coleman the next day who marked her eighty-fourth birth year. On August fifth this year I will be eighty-five. Since that is something of a benchmark I thought it might be useful to make some observations about old age.

To initiate the process I thought it would be well to cite a letter from daughter Anne to her mother on the occasion of her 80th. I quote it in full because it says a lot and Pat wants it preserved somewhere and here seems as good as any other place:

March 14th, 2009

Dear Mom,

Happy 80th birthday!!! This is a big occasion and I wish I could be there to help you celebrate...but if I can't be there in person I thought I'd share some thoughts with you to mark this important event!

Having been a mother myself now for twenty years, I feel qualified to say that it is without doubt, 'the toughest job you'll ever love', to steal the slogan from the Peace Corps! Do we ever get it totally right? Well, no but some of us get 'more right' than others I suppose. And, I'm here to tell you that you have gotten it so much 'more right' than anyone I know. The longer I'm a mother the more I understand just how fortunate I have been to have you as my mother. You always seemed to strike just the right balance of caring, concern and loving monitoring with as you call it, 'benign neglect' which is good for children and plants – to steal your phrase.

I think most of all, 'home' – with all that it meant to me – was simply knowing that I was secure and safe and loved unconditionally. And 'home' was you – it was you being there when I walked in the door after school, even if I was only there long enough to grad a bite to eat before racing out the door, it was that safe and sound feeling of just knowing you were there if I needed you. And, of course, you have always been there when I've needed you. Sometimes that meant late night calls when I've locked myself out of my car (with motor running), and sometimes that meant reading a book to me in bed when I was sick with a head cold, other times it was just being a steady presence in my life. And, while you were what we now call a 'stay at home mom' – you were not that typical 50's stereotype. You finished your college degree, you worked at so many volunteer jobs, the International Center, Junior Village and all your foreign 'students' you taught English – making a real difference in the lives of so many people. And, yet the other things that were so important – the chauffeuring me everywhere, making dinners, listening to my problems with friends (Maryanne comes to mind!) -- you also did although they were more mundane perhaps but no less important; those were the things that meant 'home' to me. All these things – your accomplishments over your 80 years have given me a high mark to aspire to as a mother. You succeeded at what is perhaps one of the toughest, but most important jobs of all, being a mother. And so, on this – your 80th birthday – I say 'bravo' and give you a GIANT HUG for all you do, and all you have done over these years, to make this such a cohesive and loving family. Thank you and happy, happy birthday,

Love, Anne

That's a picture from the younger generation. What is the picture for those of us who are indeed in their eighties? I asked 'Aunt Joan' and Pat to ponder that question and pass on any reaction they may have which can in turn be passed on here. To date there has been no response from either although Pat has recently put on type and Nancy has transcribed some thoughts about her life. It is a nice, matter of fact synopsis that the readers of this should get their hands on. Fortunately, it is much shorter than this epic.

From my own perspective, in thinking about the matter, I have superficially concluded that there are three main elements to be considered in the aging process. The first is the physical aspect of your life and the second is the mental – the latter being very subjective. The third is financial or paying your way. As we age, we all share, relatively speaking, the physical deterioration in one form or another but the mental situation is essentially home grown in the life of each individual as is the condition of wealth.

On the physical side, I think you begin to feel your age when you reach your late seventies. I make this observation based on my and Pat's tennis experience. Pat played well into that time but then felt uncertain and decide to pretty much give up the game allowing for occasional matches with the children and grandchildren. For me, I had a great win at age seventy-four when I teamed up with Jeff Austin (his sister is Tracy Austin, a tennis great), at his request, to play and end up victorious in the 1998 Belle Haven Country Club's Century Tournament ( our ages had to amount to at least one hundred – he was forty-seven). But as the years progressed, I slowed down quite a bit. I could not cover the ground as I did the year before and there seemed to be a slow loss of power and speed. Now about ten years later, I have slowed considerably more.

Unfortunately, I am not playing nearly as much tennis as I did before our move to Cadbury. That could be a factor in the deterioration I feel in my game. Yet even feeling 'healthy' age takes its toll. I should point out that one of our Belle Haven tennis group, Don McHugh, now dead, played with our regular tennis group up to the age of ninety (he died in his ninetieth year). He had good hand and eye control but he pretty much stayed in one place. His mind was deteriorating so in a way he was out of it in terms of score. Yet, it was a great performance and he certainly had the presence of mind to know when he was on the winning side. When I was growing up, we use to think the King of Sweden playing at age seventy-five was remarkable. Speaking of hand eye control, mine remains pretty good and this is very satisfying. It takes me back to that GM test at Loomis. To sum up the physical side I would make the following observations: As you age into the late seventies and eighties there seems to be a growing loss of a sense of balance which, I suppose, is why people fall and break a hip or an arm – whatever; then there is a similar loss of strength in the legs and hands accompanied by a general slowdown in body movements with an erect body slumping some and a growing loss of stamina – biking, tennis, hiking. Appetites tend to shrink as well, as does the sense of smell. Sight and hearing losses are in the cards too but these are effects that are more of an individual development. In this latter category Pat and I have been lucky as we both seem to have no real loss in either. Pat, for example, now needs no glasses to see in the distance or to read after her earlier cataract operations. Many of our friends have experienced loss of hearing some quite severe. I drive without glasses but do need them for reading. They simply magnify and are not the prescription type. To the younger who may read this it is probably a very boring history of growing old but because we all do get old I thought it well to let the reader know what lies ahead. I would add in this comment on the physical nature of getting old: Exercise really is important in the effort to remain intact. I had three or four games of tennis weekly up to about the time we moved to Lewes. I did not do much physical exercising for some months after the move and it became clear to me that I had to pick up my exercise pace. Now Pat and I use the exercise room here at Cadbury almost every day and I try to put in at least 30 minutes of active workouts. It has made a significant difference in controlling my weight and blood pressure and keeping me reasonably fit. Nearby there is the Lewes Rehoboth bike trail which I enjoy along with others in the Cadbury community. From Cadbury to Rehoboth and return is about thirteen miles and we usually do the distance in about an hour and a half. Little less in terms of exercise but still a factor in agility is our personal Wii game where Pat and I can play a fast game of tennis or bowl or ski along with other means of competition. I also play on the Cadbury Wii bowling team.

I will not dwell on the mental side of things because this is a very subjective area. Each of us will pass through this minefield on an individual basis. Some will meet dementia in one form or another while others will work around it. There can be other tricks the mind might try to pull off. But as I noted it is very subjective and affects us on a person to person basis. I do believe, however, that it is necessary and important to give the mind a good workout every day. Reading and writing are two interests that become very useful in keeping an older mind hopping. Getting into new circumstances can help as well. For example, I serve on the Cadbury at Lewes Board of Directors and as an adviser to the Cadbury Foundation. These activities massage the mind because they require new thinking about different sets of problems unique to both. Both Pat and I have enjoyed a unique program here in Lewes called the Southern Delaware Academy of Lifelong Learning sponsored by the University of Delaware. There are a wide variety of courses through three semesters covering art, history, humanities, international studies, science and math among others. These, too, keep the mind in good working order. We have been very active participants.

So, we arrive at the financial side of life. There is no doubt that money makes the world go around and that having reasonable wealth is a good thing. It is a constant worry, of course, as the current financial crisis makes abundantly clear. Today there are pay scale cut backs and an unfortunate number of job losses which can be down right devastating. The current projection is a little over 10 million. During my life time I faced a possible job loss and it was a scary situation. Mine did not happen but the fear was there. So my first thought would be to try to find some kind of financial security in your working and personal worlds. Or at least remain conscious of the need to be fully aware of your financial situation. Where is your money coming from and where will it come from as you move toward older age. On the personal side some of this can come from health or life insurance which of course takes money to buy. But the younger you are when you take out these policies, the cheaper your costs. Then there is the work place and the benefits provided by it. Certain places like the government and the military continue to offer good security packages with retirement while many commercial businesses are scaling back such programs. When I worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace I was told of an annuity arrangement the organization had with TIAA/CREF and I was urged to put in at least the minimum amount which I did. Over the years I probably paid in some $15,000 and today I have received so much more than that. It was a small but good investment in my future years.

In addressing the subject of finances, I'm led to recall that you can be naïve about what the future holds. I can recall telling Pat, after she accepted my proposal of marriage, that I would consider myself a success in my working life if I could make $10,000 for the rest of my life. At the time, that was a hefty sum but by today's standards paltry. If there is a moral to that story I suppose it is don't set your sights too low!

Another side of seeking your material well-being is the matter of investments. My father as he earned money sought to add value by buying real estate and eventually selling it at a profit. When that did not work out he turned to the stock market. There he did modestly well and that led me to follow suit. In time, I have found that you certainly should not put all your eggs in one basket. So if you have money to invest it would be well to seek some diversification of your assets – real estate and stocks certainly among them.

While in this philosophical mood, I might touch on one other topic – religion.

In doing so, let me digress for a moment. I am reading a very interesting book about Genghis Khan – Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World by Jack Weatherford. It is about a man I have heard much of but know little about. Weatherford says that "...Genghis Khan recognized the disruptive potential of competing religions. In one form or another, virtually every religion from Buddhism to Christianity and Manichaeanism to Islam had found converts among the steppe people, and almost all of them claimed not only to be the true religion but the only one. In probably the first law of its kind anywhere in the world, Genghis Khan decreed complete and total religious freedom for everyone." He did a lot of other interesting things in the laws he established but this is really a remarkable accomplishment when you realize that the time period was 1206. I did not think that the concept of freedom of religion came about until much later.

Now, I return to my thoughts on religion. As I have stated elsewhere here Pat, and indeed her whole family, was the product of a typical Irish Catholic upbringing. From birth to grave the church was predominant in their lives. While Marjorie and Joan initially attended public school with Judge Coleman's death they and Pat ended up as students in Catholic schools from that time through college. It was a good education in some respects and because of the church's teaching, limited in others. Our children were exposed to a blend of Catholic and public schools through high school but just Michael went to, Regis, a Catholic college, where he stayed for two years before switching to Denison. Frankly, that suited me just fine as I thought most Catholic colleges' curriculum was too circumscribed because of the influence of the church. When college years approached for our children, I suggested that Catholic institutions be ruled out. That may sound narrow minded today but over the last 50 to 60 years a number of Catholic institutions of higher learning, excluding places like Georgetown, Notre Dame, Boston College, etc. , have a much improved academic standing and I would include Regis today in that assessment.

My reference to Michael and Regis leads me to a brief aside. Michael was at Regis for two years as I mentioned above but in his upcoming third year he decided he wanted to transfer to Denison. Actually he was chasing a girl friend around who herself was switching schools. When he told us he wanted to study elsewhere, he also noted that he wished to take a half year off to do some serious skiing in Colorado. He said he had a job in a restaurant which would cover his finances over the lay off period. Pat and I did not like the idea as we felt he might just bum about and never go back to college. We agreed to the half year off followed by a transfer to Denison but told him if things did not work out that way we would no longer support him financially in any college of his choice. Wisely, he went on to Denison as planned. We heaved a sigh of relief.

Back to the discussion about religion, the point I wish to make here is that throughout my adult years I have found the Catholic Church something of a draw on my outlook on life. I welcomed the changes brought about by Vatican II but these seem today to be overridden by a much more conservative dogma as if there should be a return to the Dark Ages. Abortion and the related matter of stem cell research are a case in point. This essentially single issue has been the focus of church leaders, particularly here in the United States, to the point where in the last couple of presidential elections it seemed to be, in the clergy's view, the only issue for parishioners to consider in electing a president. That is a very myopic and, indeed, dangerous view to say the least. What also becomes hard to swallow is that imperious position of the church that it is the only true faith. That becomes rather hard to fathom when the church, especially the earlier church, was responsible for much of the disruption within it caused by some very extreme positions it had taken from the prosecution of Galileo to the excommunication of Martin Luther for beginners.

In any event, Pat and I remained on a reasonable basis with the church and its teachings through most of our married life and stayed with our local parish, Saint Mary's Church in Alexandria, as our home base. Bill, Michael and Anne, as they matured, found their own comfort zone on the matter of religion. Bill stayed close to the Catholic Church while Michael and Anne went in other directions in terms of other denominations. Yet today, Pat and I, since our move to Cadbury, have essentially parted from the Catholic Church here in favor of the Episcopal Church which, by the way, broke with the Catholic Church in 1534. We find that church here in Lewes not much different in the celebration of the mass with its high service and we welcome its general liberal outlook. It is probably the church of choice for our funerals.

What I have noted here about religion is not very pithy and is a rather short take on a subject of great importance. However, it was my intention simply to address it as a matter that should be recognized in this undertaking so others may know where our immediate family stood on the issues.

Mentioning funerals leads me to think of Bill's suggestion that Pat and I might want to incorporate our respective obituaries in this undertaking. When I mentioned it to her she felt why not since we already have our tombstones in place. There is no interest here about being morbid but simply following along in the pattern of just laying things out.

Pat's would read something like this:

Patricia Coleman Gehron, (age) a homemaker, a teacher of English to foreign immigrants and wife of a Foreign Service officer died (date) at (place). She died of ---.

Mrs. Gehron was born in New York City the daughter of Frank J(oseph) Coleman a Federal Judge for the Southern District of New York and Marjorie Sands Coleman. She lived in Larchmont, New York and attended Marymount College in Tarrytown, N.Y. She left in her senior year in 1950 to marry her husband who was recalled in the Korean War after service in World War II. She subsequently received her BA degree through courses taken American University in Washington, D.C. while living in Alexandria, VA in 1973.

After the Korean War, she resided with her husband in White Plains, New York before moving to Alexandria, VA in 1957 where she and her husband spent the next 50 years before moving to Lewes, Delaware in 2007. She moved with her husband to Geneva, Switzerland twice during international disarmament talks there. On her return, she became active in the English as a Second Language Program and tutored numerous students new to the United States.

Mrs. Gehron was an avid tennis player and an enthusiastic reader who promoted various book clubs in the area.

Survivors include her husband of --- years, William J. Gehron of Lewes, Delaware, two sons, William Coleman Gehron of Lewes and NYC and Michael McDermott Gehron of Falls Church, VA and a daughter, Anne Pyne Holloway of Alexandria, VA and four grandchildren, Katherine and Luke Gehron and Rebecca and Sarah Holloway.

And mine would read something like this:

William Jules Gehron, (age) a retired Foreign Service Officer who worked at the White House, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Department of State died (date) at (place).

Mr. Gehron was born in New York City and resided in Pelham, NewYork. He was the son of William Gehron, a prominent New York architect, and Grace McDermott Gehron. He graduated from Williams College in 1950. Before attending college, he served in the Army during World War II eventually joining General George Patton's 4th Armored Division as a commissioned officer and platoon leader in the European Theater. His decorations included the Presidential Unit Citation and the Combat Infantryman's Badge. Following college, he was recalled in the Korean War and served with armored forces at posts in this country.

After his duty during the Korean War, he returned to New York and in 1953 joined the staff of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in NYC as Director of Public Affairs. He came to Washington, D.C. in 1957 residing in Alexandria, Va. where he remained with his wife until their move to Lewes, Delaware in 2007. He first served as a member of the White House Disarmament Staff under Harold Stassen. When responsibilities for disarmament negotiations were absorbed by the State Department, Mr. Gehron became an officer in the Office of the Special Assistant to the Secretary for Disarmament and Atomic Energy Affairs and subsequently its Disarmament Administration group. At this time presidential candidate, John F. Kennedy observed that fewer than one hundred people were working on disarmament matters. Following his election, he established the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1963 and Mr.Gehron became one of the first officers to serve in that organization. In that role, he was on delegations to the United Nations and the Ten Nation Disarmament Talks in Geneva, Switzerland. On his return from overseas he joined the Department of State once again as a Foreign Service Officer in the Bureau of European Affairs. In that capacity he was a member of delegations to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the International Conference on Energy and the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe. Following his retirement from the State Department in 1985 he remained as a foreign affairs analysis and senior advisor working on Freedom of Information projects until 2007.

His avocations included tennis, golf, biking and skiing. He also enjoyed reading and writing.

Survivors include his wife of – years, Patricia Coleman Gehron of Lewes, Delaware, two sons, William Coleman Gehron of Lewes and NYC, Michael McDermott Gehron of Falls Church, VA and a daughter, Anne Pyne Holloway of Alexandria, VA and four grandchildren: Katherine and Luke Gehron and Rebecca and Sarah Holloway.

Amen

Amen, to you the reader, for so diligently following this along.

Amen, to me the writer, for so happily bringing it to a close.

As I write those last words above the date is July, 29, 2009. There could be more. We will see but I thought the last few paragraphs lent themselves to an unusually good escape hatch.

