| Harold Albert Smith | |
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What happened in my life since I left the farm. When I was 15 years old, Dad helped me get a job at the Louie Hansen farm on Highway 31 (about a mile north of Scottville). It was a dairy farm. So there was a lot to do with cattle. I was serious about every girl I went with, and there was a girl named Lorraine Gulumo living right near Sugar Grove which was about 2 1/2 to 3 miles further north on 31. Almost every night when I got through helping with the milking it was 7:30 to 8:30pm. I would walk, run or trot down to Sugar Grove to see Lorraine and would jog back to my job at Hansen's about 11:00 at night, get a few hours sleep and get up at 4:30am to start the morning chores. I guess I got to go home to Mom and Dad's farm every other Sunday. I walked all the way to the farm. I quit the next spring.
I went to work at the Evergreen Dairy, which was about 2 miles west. It was owned by Louie Hansen's brother, Charlie. I was making $3.00 a week for room and board at Louie Hansen's now I moved up to $36.00 a month for room and board at Charlie Hansen's. Same type of work, but a lot more cows to milk (of course, we had milking machines, and now I had a beautiful spotted thoroughbred Arabian stallion I could ride. His name was Snort. He was beautifully trained you could ride him without even using the reins - just whoa, get up, gee and haw. One incident I remember was that I was chased by a bull. I was cleaning up the stall, and he was running free in the barnyard. When I would throw a pitchfork of manure out of the door, he would act a little surprised. Then when I threw some more manure, he stampeded the door I was standing in. Fortunately, I was able to run and climb very fast through the manger opening where we put his hay into the manger from the hay mow. He busted the manger when he hit it. I quit shortly after that.
Giles got me a job on a fruit farm down in Summit Township. The folks name I believe was Broders. Well, it wasn't too long after I went to work for them, I was dragging a young peach orchard with a spike tooth quack gradd drag, and it was filling up with quack grass. It has 3 sections, and instead of stopping the horses each time it clogged, I would life it while it was moving. When I went in for supper at the end of that day and sat down to eat supper, my hips hurt me. After I had supper and started to stand up, I couldn't bend my hips. I called Giles and he took me to a chiropractor the next day. My spine was 2 1/2 inches out of line. I never went back to the Broders.
After a few weeks or so, brother Neil was working in Muskegan, and he had rented an apartment. I joined him and got a job in a foundry. I think it was called Campbell Wyan Cannon Foundry. My job was to run a vibrating machine to vibrate cores for the V-8 engine blocks. I then had to put them on a shelf that took them down into a heated furnace to treat them. Need I say more abou the heat I had to work in. I quit and went back to the farm.
Our dear sister Marie lived in Grand Rapids then, and Jack had a friend that owned a used car lot at 100 South Division Street in Grand Rapids. They needed a flunky, so I moved in with Marie and Jack and took the job. It paid $10.00 per week and a percentage if I had anything to do with the sale of a car. They even gave me a car to drive - a 1932 convertible. I loved it. After a few months, the owner said he couldn't afford to keep me any longer, so it's back to the farm again. I think I was 17 at that time.
Neil and Giles both had spent time in the Civilian Conservation Corps so I joined, too. I spend only 1 hitch (6 months) in the CCCs. For about half of the time I was just outside of Escanaba, Michigan, and the last 3 months north of Newberry, right near Lake Superior. I was promoted to second cook shortly after I joined. I always liked to cook. Then the 6 month period was up. I got an honorable discharge, and it's back to the farm again.
I took one day jobs with several farmers in the area. Now I'm 18 years old, and to back track a little, I had a wonderful pal named Walter Thompson. We were inseperable friends all through grammar school, and after awhile, we joined the Merchant Marines. I remember saying if it's good enough for Walter, it's good enough for me. After he had been a sailor for about 6 months or so, he told me to get my seaman's papers. He worked on a ship (an ocean-going freighter called Covalt owned by the Morton Salt Company in Manistee, Michigan). He had been promoted twice, from a coal passer to a fireman, and was an oiler when I shipped out on the Covalt. I became a fireman in due time. Brother Giles shipped out on the Covalt, too. He got a job in the deck department as a deck hand, and believe it or not brother Frank spent a small time working on the ship, too. He worked in the galley. Well, here we go again I met a girl. Her name was Virginia Valencia. She came from a large family of 4 girls and 3 boys. She lived just about a block from the Morton Salt warehouse in Chicago. I met her in a bar and started to date her immediately. It was only a friendship, because I was going steady with a girl in Manistee. I thought of her as my steady. Her name was Margaret Picardie. I even left my car at her place when the ship was away from it's home port. These relationships continued for 3 seasons. Margaret Picardie while I was in our home port and when the ship was laid up for the winter, and Virginia Valencia when we were in Chicago for 3 years.
Then I got my greetings from Uncle Sam. WE WANT YOU for a year of training in August of 1941. I was 21 and drafted into Uncle Sam's army. I went from Camp Custer (where I was inducted) to Camp Wallace, Texas (where I got my basic training). I actually enjoyed the training. It was about 3 months. While I was there, the army had us assemble all our gear and everyone that had everything was shipped to the Phillippines. Most of the men were killed in the Batan Beath March. I was missing my field jacket so I was not allowed to go. God was watching over me. I was very lucky, because Laurence and Gladys Smith lived in Houston, Texas, which was about 35 to 40 miles from the camp. I'd get weekend passes and stay with them. They were gracious hosts. The last weekend that I stayed there, we were sitting and listening to the radio, and this is what came over it. "All service personnel report back to your military base immediately, the Japanese have just bombed Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiian Islands." Little did I know that I would find myself on that island - Oahu. Within the next 9 months, after basic training, we were shipped to Camp David, North Carolina. I was there approximately a month to form an outfit. My outfit became a balloon barrage company. The barrage balloons were strategically placed so that no planes flying a straight course could keep from hitting one. The balloons held 45,000 cubic feet of hydrogen gas. They were sent up on 1/4 inch cable all the way into the clouds so they couldn't be seen. The cable would shear the wings off the enemy planes. Then we were shipped to Vale, California, Mare Island a military base. I was promoted to Corporal. Then in July of 1942, I left California for the Hawaiian Islands. I was stationed on the island of Oahu as a battery gas man testing the purity of the gas they used in experimental balloons on a experimental site. The balloon barrage was disbanded after a couple of years because it had become too much of a hazard to our own planes.
Then the company was armed with .40 caliber guns and .51 caliber machine guns which shot 4 gusn mounted together simultaneously. Then one day they loaded us onto a military ship and moved us to Guam for 14 months. Then day came in the middle of the night, they woke us up and made us stand in formation, and the captain stated very enthusiastically, "THIS G.D. WAR IS OVER." It was then I knew I'd make it home again. As for getting discharged, according to a point system you needed 85 points, I had 83 points. By the time they got replacements down there for us, I had enough. THen 16 days on a troop ship to California, a ride on a train from California to Fort Sheridan (north of Chicago), a visit with Virginia Valencia, a train to Milwaukee, and a car ferry across Lake Michigan. I located a man who was going to Manistee, and he said he'd take Stiles Road past the farm for me. I know my wonderful dad was not psychic, but when that car showed up to drop me off in front of the driveway, my dad was running out yelling, "MY BOY, MY BOY, MY BOY." When I think of it, I still get tears in my eyes. I got the same from Mom, and then I felt really at home again.
Now I've got to make a life for myself all over again. Frank was living in Battle Creek, he said why don't Giles and I come down there and get a job. So Giles and I went to Battle Creek. Giles rented an apartment, and I got a job with the Kellogg's Company doing the same thing I did on the boats, a fireman. I started going to Chicago on weekends to see Virginia. Finally she convinved me that I should move to Chicago so we could be together more. She even rented a room for me in the Division Street YMCA. After I moved there, I was working for the Commercial Furniture Company, I was a sander operator. Also, two of my friends and I started our own business, Future Plastics, Inc. I was working all my waking hours - my day job and my job making things out of plastic. In the meantime, I switched to a bigger paying job as a shop maintenance carpenter for the R.R. Donnelly Company, the world's greatest printer. The only time I saw Virg was on Sundays. She was constantly angry with me. I found out she was dating another guy. I knew where they were one time and I went there and walked up behind the guy and knocked him out and put him in the hospital with one punch. The only good thing that happened was that I found out that Virg was not the girl for me, also she was Catholic and I was not. In my spare time I was going to the Black Hawks hockey games at the Chicago Stadium. There was a cute little blond working where I worked and I was eating lunch with her. So I asked her to go with me to a hockey game. Of course she didn't know anything about hockey but she went with me anyway. That started a companionship that has lasted over 50 years. I went with Joyce for 18 months before we were married, and we have been married for 50 years come this November 29, 1997. We now have 4 children - 2 boys and 2 girls; 11 grandchildren - 7 boys and 4 girls - 4 great grandchildren - all girls.
My livelihood has been made, for the most part, in sales. The products I've sold are vacuum cleaners, stamps, china, encyclopedias, etc. I've been in management most of that time. I am now retired but I have a small shop where I repair vacuums. Besides living in Michigan in my earlier years, I've lived in 6 different places - Chicago, Illinois; Miller Beach, Indiana; Independence, Missouri; and 3 places in Hammond, Indiana. Our present address is 7209 Delaware, Hammond, Indiana. We have lived there for about 25 years.
| Hermina Joyce Herman | |
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