He was a proud working man, who seldom wore anything other than 'work clothes'. He didn't like to visit his Sister, my Aunt Dora, because she expected him to wear slacks and a sports shirt at the very least, when he came to her house.
He spent much of his adult life as a truck driver. On one occasion he was pulling a tanker full of gasoline. As he crossed the old Schroyer bridge over the Big Blue River in Marshall County, Ks, just as the rear wheels of his tanker-trailer came off the bridge, the structure collapsed! Here he is in front of one of the trucks he drove.
He was also what we might call, today, a 'motor head', very interested in cars. Here he is proudly posing with one of his. I can't see enough of it to identify make or model, but I know that he owned a Model-A Ford, and this might be it.
Here he is as a proud member of the United States Army. He didn't volunteer because he assumed he would be rejected on physical grounds. However, when he was called for the draft, he was accepted. When he came home from the physical, he told my Grandmother, 'Mama, Hitler must be winning the War. They just took me'.
He trained at Sheppard Field in Wichita Falls, TX, which was the US Army Air Forces Training Centre. He was then posted to Hq&Hq Sqdn, 8th USAAF, in High Wycombe, Bucks, England, where he met my Mother. His MOS was 'Driver, Light', which meant he was an officers' chauffeur. During his active service, he was General James 'Jimmy' Doolittle's driver when Gen. Doolittle commanded the 8th, and on one occasion, drove General Eisenhower when Ike visited what is now RAF High Wycombe.
And here he is with me! I even recognise where this picture was taken. He's sitting on the foundation of my Grandmother's house. I used to play in the shed you can see to the right. Years later, my Uncle Glen built a garage between the house and the shed.
Rest in peace, Dad, You are gone, but never forgotten!
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