I Was A Card Carrying Member of "U.N.C.L.E."

I have a small collection of vintage television star photographs. My cousin Debbie told me how to write to studios for autographed photos when we were in junior high.

My favorite television show in 7th grade was The Man From U.N.C.L.E. When other kids were going to the Boy-Girl Dance on Friday evening I was at home riveted to the television. The show was big, big, big among us kids. Most of the girls swooned over David McCallum but I preferred Robert Vaughn. McCallum was too cool.(These days I enjoy McCallum as Duckie, Dr. Mallard on N.C.I.S.-he can't get away from shows made up of initials!)

I got an envelope with two color photos and 'membership' card and rules.

No, the signatures are printed on the photo cards. The enclosed membership card reads,

United Network Command for Law Enforcement
This is to certify that _____has qualified for service with U.N.C.L.E. and may be called to active duty with his section on 12 hours notice. (Y3K7-Hazardous Duty)
Norman Felton, Section 1, Number a. Policy and Operations
Boris Ingster Section 2, Number 1 Operations and Enforcement

Note that the member is referred to as "he." Norman Felton was the producer of UNCLE as well as Dr. Kildare, starring Richard Chamberlain, which I watched with Mom.

Also included was a form to join the "Inner Circle."

**U.N.C.L.E. Inner Circle**

Classified Material +++Destroy if Nervous

Attention U.N.C.L.E. Enthusiasts!!! Otherwise known as fans of Robert Vaughn, David McCalum and Leo G. Carroll!!! Otherwise known as Napoleon Solo, Illya Kuryakim and Mr. Waverly!

Congratulations--You are now eligible to become a member of the U.N.C.L.E. Inner Circle!!! And received the following U.N.CL.E. goodies-- an autographed 8x10 color photo of secret agents Solo, Kuryakin and Waverly; an I.D. card in full color, proving your loyalty to U.N.C.L.E.; and a giant journal containing the inside story behind "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."

Plus...Photos and secret specifications of the fabulous U.N.C.L.E. gun, together with classified bulletins about upcoming shows throughout the year!!! And...you may be asked to help promote "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." in your neighborhood!!! How about that???

It's easy to join, too. Simpy mail your membership dues of $2.00 per year to Central headquarters and Squadron Leader Mark Whitsett, Re., Mild-mannered machine-gunner recently appointed to head this super-secret arm of U.N.C.LE. Inner Circle!!! You'll be sensational!!! (Last one to join is a T.H.R.U.S.H.!!!) Please allow sufficient time for delivery of your first goodies!!! 

Squadron Leader Mark Whitsett, Ret.

U.N.C.L.E. Inner Circle

Central Headquarters Box 704

Beverly Hills, California 90211

Foreign members may send 20 coupon response international available at your local post office. (Mexico and Canada use money orders)

Don't you love all those !!!!  I did not send in my $2.00. I doubt I could have scrapped up $2.00 in 1964. My allowance in high school was $2.00 a week; in junior high I likely didn't even get an allowance! According to The U.N.C.L.E. Timeline the Inner Circle was created in 1965.

Bewitched premiered in 1963 and I was a big fan. The show was funny and Samantha was amazing and beautiful and smart. Darrin was pretty lucky she gave him the time of day; he was snarky and old-fashioned and a wet blanket.This photo of Montgomery must have been for the men.

This pic is actually hand signed, "To Nancy, with my sincere best wishes, Tony Franciosa"! I remember he was on a TV show, but for the life of me I can't figure out what it was.

In 1963 Inger Stevens starred in The Farmer's Daughter . I kind of remember the show.

Who is Van Williams? And why did I send for his photograph? What was he in around 1963? I don't even KNOW. I see on IMBD he played a character named Ken Madison on Surfside 6 and also on Seventy Seven Sunset Strip (which I know I watched, I still remember the theme song). Otherwise I am a big blank. But hey, he's pretty cute.

My writing for television star photos was short lived. In Ninth Grade I decided to give up television! I had too much to do: play the piano, read books, day dream, write in my journal. Once in a while I did homework. I did watch one show: Star Trek. Yes--I was an original Trekkie from the beginning.

Live Long and Prosper
R.I.P. Leonard Nimoy

Gruesome Recollection from a Hundred Years Ago: Hog Butchering

I was always fascinated by my grandfather's article remembering hog butchering on his aunt and uncle's farm. Being a child of the 1950s suburbs and the wide aisles of modern grocery stores, it was hard for me to believe that a little boy was witness to such a bloody and gruesome scene, none the less participating in the event. It makes me glad I am a vegetarian!

Lynne at Six Years

In 1960 my grandfather Lynne O. Ramer (1903-1971) wrote a series of articles for the Lewistown Sentinel, the local paper for his hometown of Milroy, PA. Gramps wrote close to 200 articles that were published in the Sentinel and other newspapers, many recounting tales of farm life in the early 20th c.
 
Gramps was orphaned before he was nine. After the death of his grandmother "Nammie" (Rachel Barbara Reed Ramer, second wife of Joseph Sylvester Ramer) he lived with his Uncle Charles and Aunt Annie Ramer Smithers or Uncle Ed and Aunt Carrie Ramer Bobb.


Lynne with his cousin

Gramps was very smart and in the 1920s went to Susquehanna University and was ordained in the Evangelical Lutheran church.  He took teacher's training at Columbia University along with his friend and fellow Susquehanna U alumni Roger Blough who would go on to become president of U.S. Steel company.

Gramps taught at Hartwick Seminary in New York State where he met my grandmother, and they moved to Kane, PA where he taught in the high school. My mom was born there.


Lynne in 1952 at work

During WWII Gramps was an engineer in the Chevrolet aviation factory in Tonawanda, NY  and in his 'spare time' earned his Masters in Mathematics from the University of Buffalo. At this time he was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal church.

Around 1960 he moved to Michigan and taught Calculus and Trig at Lawrence Technological University while still working for Chevy.

He became very interested in research conducted by Lamont Geological Survey by Ewing and Donn and obtained a grant from Blough's steel company for their research.

But he never forgot those early days. So here is the story Gramps wrote on hog butchering:

*************
Getting Early Start

Before dawn cracked or even came close to cracking, all hands were on deck. Regular chores were down in double time—milking, feeding, watering, separating.

Breakfast was bolted down in a whistle. Pig sty was given last cleaning out and washing, while the roused porkers eyed the activity with deep resentment and suspicion. “What! No feed today!”

Then the farm boy started pumping water, carried it in pails, filled three, four copper and or cast iron kettles and filled dozens of milk cans besides.

Kindling was doused with kerosene and fires were lighted and soon crackling and burning. Showers of sparks ascended in the dark or maybe as rosy-tinted dawn spread her first fingers—and the frosty air was set in circulation by the sudden invasion of thermal currents.

Wind barriers were readjusted to give maximum vertical output. Soon the water began to simmer and it was a full time job keeping the fires roaring. The stored woodpiles began to diminish in height and more was scoutched [sic] up, just to play safe.

From many directions the butchering helpers began to arrive, in buggies and in spring wagons. Neighbors and relatives, some from the cities. Merry greetings were passed. Then the forces moved on to their places of occupation: Women folks to the kitchen and shanties to prepare foods for the dinner, and the pots, pans and crocks for the puddin’ meat and the ponhos, while the men took their assignments from Uncle Ed, the boss butcher.

Shootin’ and Sitckin’

The men descended on the pigsty, armed with rifle and deer knife for sticking, while the young ones were told to stay back and keep the fires going. “You’re too little to watch shootin’ and stickin’.”

Soon you’d hear the crack of a rifle and maybe dead silence, but more likely an unearthly squealing. Perhaps the sty door would be opened and the dead pig dragged out. or maybe he’d come out “standing,” gushing blood from the severed jugular.

Maybe he’d drop dead all of a sudden, but like as not he’d take off up through the apple orchard with two, three hands in a merry chase. No one liked that, for it may mean a hundred yards dragging the carcass to the scalding barrel. Unusual work was undesired—usual work was sufficient.

“Get the water in the barrel!” All hands rushed to do so. It had to be real scalding hot to make bristle removal easy, yet not too scalding as to start the porker to cookin’.

“Refill the kettles!” And you’d do so, from the reserved milk cans. Or, run like blazes to the pump to get more in a hurry.

“More wood on the fire!” And hands and feet were really flying!

Into the barrel they shoved the head end of the now extinct porker, and sloshed him around. Water slopping on the ground melted the frost.

Testing the Bristles

“Pull him out, boys, and upend him!” Then they dipped the tail end. It was time for Uncle Ed to test the bristles. If they came out easily the “dip” was successful. If not, more scalding water was added until the bristles did come off just right.

“Up and over!” And so Pig No. 1 was ready for scrapping. Meanwhile the killers and stickers had another pig en route to the scalder—never a dull moment. Snout hooks and tendon hooks were used to handle the slippery porker, from scalder to scrapping table.

Then in a few moments scrapping knives began to clean off the bristles until the pig’s carcass was white and pink and gleaming, that is, from the ears backward.

“Okay, boys, on the head and at the feet.” These were choice areas reserved for the younger boys and grandfathers.

It was really an art to scrape the stiff, shorter bristles from the wrinkles around the pig’s snout and beady eyes, and from the deep wrinkles of his fat jowls and under his chin. Also from the creases of his stubby feet.

And these just had to be clean, for from them came the ponhos ingredients and choice pickled tidbits and for the souse. (Barbers could do better with Uncle Ed’s stubble, since his pink cheeks were at least a bit flexible.)

Heave Ho! Up You Go!

Within a few minutes all carcasses were promptly stretched out, inverted, on the ground, and leg tendons were freed for insertion of the tree hooks. With these inserted securely, there came the order, “Heave ho! And up you go!”

In a trice the pigs were swinging, pendulum-like, from the tripods. A deft slash of the knife in the belly area and the large intestines were removed and carted away in the wheelbarrow to the barnyard.

Soon every fowl and every bird, pigeon, swallow and sparrow on the farm was picking away at the odorous mess, as you hastened back for the next load.

Then the carcasses were washed thoroughly with pails of lukewarm water. Viscera and vital organs were deftly severed and removed, being placed in proper containers for further cleansing, trimming and cutting before cooking as ingredients for the choice dishes that grace the farm breakfast tables.

Specialists At Work

Then the head butcher, man of steady hand and keen eyes and of long experience, takes a double-bitted axe, previously sharpened by the farm boy, and deftly splits the disemboweled carcasses down both sides of the pig’s backbone.

Like all Gaul, the pig swings into three parts, whence now the sub-butchers each takes his parts to the trimming tables and proceeds to exercise his private specialty. One, the ham trimmer; one the flitch trimmer and rib-stripper; and one the shoulder man.

Each of the sides quickly becomes three parts, and each of these parts begins to assume familiar shapes and contours. Off come the feet, out come the ribs. The flitch, ham and shoulder get their artistic shapes under the practiced hands of masters, as each steps back to view the details of chiseling, shipping and trimming.

“More wood on the fires! More water in the kettles! Get out the lard cans and trimming cans from the stockpile. Come on there, boy, get moving!” Never a dull moment.

The division of labor now assumes new proportions. There are soft under-belly slabs of leaf lard—slippery as an eel and just as hard to hold and chop into squares. Stingy membranes to remove and cut through—of course that’s the boy’s job.

Then the nice firm fatty places must also be chipped. And the vital organs trimmed and cleansed. The meat scraps and firm suet-like pieces are sorted out for the sausage meat. Small intestines are drained and washed and taken into the shanty for “Nammie” to scrape, turn, scrape again and turn, wash scrape again—until every loose membrane is removed. Then these casings for the sausage are ready for the stuffing.

No barber with straight razor could ever approach the skill of the “Nammies” in intestine-scraping. They come out clean and clear as finest plastic, with nary a cut or even a pinhole, in yards of yards of the product.

Merrily the work went on. The play and the exchange of jokes saved for the occasion flew fast. Plans for the winter’s programs (even church suppers) all went hand-in-hand with the trimming and chipping and cutting.

“Nammie’s” Pigtails

Pig tails were traded from kinder to gown-up, but inevitably one or more found its way to “Nammie’s” skirt, as if she didn’t know it was affixed there while she wagged and wiggled for purposeful entertainment!

Meanwhile in the kitchen the air was blue and white with gossip and filled with savory odors of roasting stuffed chickens, beans and beets and cabbages and carrots and potatoes boiled. All simmered tantalizingly on every lid of the cast iron cooking ranges—one in the kitchen, another in the shanty.

Hands and tongues flew with abandon and soon the table was bent and buckled from the mounds of mashed spuds, bowls of giblet gravy and vegetable dishes, as well as celery and cabbage salad and cole slaw and pickles and eggs devilled in red beet juice and piccadilli and stuffed pickled peppers and spiced crabapples.

“Dinner is ready!” In flock the “hands” to the pump and basin—of nice cold water. Hands and faces find dry spots and places on the harsh linen roller towels. Out of the ovens come the roast chickens, the escalloped oysters, the baked squash and divers other items.

Grace is said and from there on you can use your imagination, since this is a butcherin’ dinner. Peach, pear, plum, cherry and apple pies with a variety of cakes are all standing by on every available shelf and table.

The little farm girls wait hand and foot on the men at the tables, sometimes giving some peculiar and special attention to certain farm boys of their choosing.

Meanwhile the cooks sit in the rockers and exchange quips and stories with the men and with one another. After the men are gone back to the butcherin’, they and the girls will eat at the second table.

Yards of Sausage

“Okay men, let’s go!” And out they troop, to wind up the work. “Fresh wood on the fires. Say, tame down those lard-kettle fires or you’ll burn the lard.” The lard stirrers begin to supervise the stirring and the fire-stoking so as to maintain just the correct heat for the simmering and rendering.

The puddin’ meat and ponhos cookers test the degree of doneness of the livers, hearts, tongues, kidneys, meat strips and head meat and the pig’s feet. “Boy! Taste that liver! Is it done enough to suit you?” And it usually is, but seems to require a good-sized chunk just to make sure.

Meanwhile as the chunk of liver cools, you are busy grinding the sausage meat, while “Pappy” salts and flavors and samples. Then he takes a tubful and starts the stuffing, stripping yards on the spot, yards and yards of smaller intestines. The press is turned and out flows the sausage.

“Nammie stands by and as the sausage emerges she kneads and squeezes and coils the product into another waiting tub. “Watch where you’re spitting tobacco juice, you old buzzard! We don’t want none in our stuffed sausage!”

Ponhos and Lard

Then the pig’s feet are extracted from the ponhos kettle and the chunks of vital organs are ground in the sausage grinder. The mess is stirred back into another waiting kettle. “Nammie” adds the spices and corn meal in just the right proportions—“a little of this and a little of that.” She keeps sampling the ponhos with over-sized wooden spoons just to be sure.

“Sausage stuffing all finished! Bring on the lard! Careful now!  Don’t get scalded.” And the dippers and pails full of nicely toasted and rendered lard chunks go splashing into the sausage grinder, which this time has a large-holed inner liner to capture the lard chunks.

Press and squeeze till every bit of precious amber-fluid is out of the crispy brown pieces and gathered into the waiting lard cans. Then the pressed cakes are removed and stacked for the chickens to feed on this winter. (But are sampled quite extensively when cool enough!)

The brimful lard cans are allowed to cool a bit, then lids are placed on firmly. Then the ponhos, thoroughly cooked and just the right color, is poured into crocks and pans and a small quantity of lard poured on to seal the batch from the air. Each helper and neighbor, as well as city visitor, had bought his own pan for a helpin’.

Come Again Next Year

The chilled hams, shoulders, backbone chunks, flitches, et alia, are carried into the proper storage facility where further treatment such as pickling, smoking and preserving will occupy odd moments for following days and hours.

Clean up, wash up pails and pans and knives. Wipe up and scrape the tables and the cutting boards. Sweep up the bristles to dry and later be burned far away from dainty noses.

Douse the fires, clean the kettles. Store the hooks and the hangers and empty and wash out the scalding troughs and barrels.

“Okay now, boys! Let’s have a snifter of dandelion wine! And thanks a million. Be sure to stay for supper and also come again next year!” The helpers and neighbors thin out, to go home and do their own regular chores: feeding, watering, milking, separating.

The embers die down. The woodpile had disappeared. All is quiet. The butcherin’ has ended.

Lynne

*****

The articles appeared in Ben Meyer's column "We Notice That". Ben responded in the paper with this follow-up:

Dear Lynne:

Congratulations! That was a bang-up job of remembering the many varied details of a family butcherin’ such as was so common place hereabouts a generation or so back.

Our old-time readers, and doubtless many of the younger fry, will take keen delight in reading and re-reading your story of  Uncle Ed and Aunt Carrie’s farm in Armagh Township.

Some of the old guard family butchers still do business at the old stand. But their number dwindles as time goes on. You may be sure their products are in great demand. People’s mouths drool just at the very thought of being presented with a mixture consisting of a ring of sausage in skins, a pan of ponhos (the main ingredients) and some side dishes like a generous slab of puddin’ meat, souse, et cetera.

Back in the old days we used to call such a present a “metzelsoup” down in Dauphin County where we came from. All the hands that so willingly pitched in and worked so hard found that such a hand-put as they departed for their homes that evening well repaid them for all the time and labor expended. Fortunate indeed were outsiders, such as neighbors who hadn’t participated, if they were remembered when one of the farm boys brought a metzelsoup to the door and said, “Here’s a present form pop ‘n mom!”

Certain of the old line butchers have parleyed the family butcherin’ into Big Business. They are the ones who supply home-made pork products in quantity, at wholesale rates to the local markets, including and especially the super-markets.

The Modern Version

Maybe some day while helping yourself at the magnificent display of packaged meats in the counter at the super-duper, you’ll see employees walking past with huge quantities of ponhos, sausage, puddin’ meat. They are being unloaded from a farm truck that’s backed up to the delivery door outside.

People around here still keenly relish the old-time flavor of home-made butchered goods so they demand it rather than to have the stuff shipped in from some packing house where they wouldn’t have the knack of making the stuff right anyhow.

Seems there’s one item in particular you can’t buy in most local retail stores and that is home-made souse. Only souse obtainable is some coarse, tough kind, very much commercialized and nothing like the real thing. Doesn’t taste any more like the real thing than shoe leather compared with a gold brown buckwheat cake!

Correction: Certain neighborhood stores still carry the home-made kind. Some of the local butchers operate little factories in their back yards. They can supply you with the real wiggly jiggly souse including plenty of pork and not bits of rind and bone and pig skin.

Yes, all of the things you mention are to be obtained too at Farmer’s Market where the vendors still include a small handful of Amish farmers. Thanks again, Lynne, for your masterpiece! Oh, yes you employed all the technical terminology of an old-time butchering, or almost all, but one work was missing—“cracklin’s!”

**************

Lynne Oliver Ramer's retirement announcement was not the end of his work life, as he continued teaching at LIT.

Chevrolet Engineering Retirement Announcement, July 23, 1965

This is to announce the forthcoming retirement of Lynne O. Ramer in the Design Analysis activity [electronics computers], which becomes effective September 1, 1965, ending an association of more than thirteen years of service with the Chevrolet Engineering organization.

Following his graduation from high school at Milroy, PA, Lynne attended Susquehanna University where he received a degree in Liberal Arts. Lynne later received a Masters degree in Math from the University of Buffalo. He also received a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Susquehanna University Theological Seminary and began teaching at Hartwick Academy. He was ordained a Lutheran minister in 1926.

Lynne started in the public school teaching profession as a teacher of history and math at Kane High School in Kane, PA 1920-30. From June 1942 to January 1946 Lynne was employed at the Chevrolet Aviation Engine Plant in Tonawanda, NY as an Engine Test Operator. He then returned to school teaching at the University of Buffalo and West Seneca High School. In January 1952, Lynne transferred to the Chevrolet Aviation Engine Plant as an Experimental Engineer. He was transferred to the Holbrook Test Laboratory in November 1953. In March 1955, Lynne was promoted to Senior Project Engineer. in January 1961, he became a Senior mathematician programmer, and in October 1962 was reassigned as a Senior Analyst, the position from which he will be retiring.

Lynne has also been a part time teacher since 1942. He has taught various night school, including University of Buffalo, Wayne State, and Lawrence Tech. He has also been very active in the church since June 1950 when he was ordained a perpetual deacon.

His future plans include teaching at Lawrence Tech and continuation as a Deacon in the church.

Eugene Gochenour's Memoirs: Jokesters Join the Lab

Dad wrote about "New Blood" as the Air Conditioning Lab expanded in the 1980s, including two jokesters who loosened up the lab. These stories became legend in our family. 

Eugene Gochenour at work in the 1980s

"As the demand for air conditioners in automobiles increased, it became necessary to increase the size of our lab. The lab had always been serene, orderly, and fairly quiet (boring), but that was soon to change. One day two new mechanics transferred from another lab to ours.

Their names were Jim C. and Jay F. They were noisy and boisterous and not too respectful of us older mechanics. At first I resented their presence because they were so disruptive. Also, they were always thinking of ways to annoy me.

At lunch time I often took a nap since we had a 45 minute lunch break. Once when I awoke after the nap and tried to walk I tripped because they had tied my shoelaces together! If I removed my shoes while I slept they would hide them and when I awoke I had to walk around in my socks trying to find them.

Once when I was standing on my bench putting in a new light bub in a ceiling fixture and could not drop my hands, they loosened my belt and pulled my pants down. So, there I was, standing on my bench in my under drawers until I could finish what I was doing and pull my pants back up.

On the top of my bench was a small cabinet with drawers. It had many nuts, bolts, washers, and other small parts. Sometimes when they were both by my bench and I was talking to one of them the other would be dumping the drawers full of parts onto my bench. of course when I saw what they did, I chased the one who dumped the parts, but they both just laughed.

In the 1980s we got another new addition to our lab. Diana C. was an Electrical Engineer. She had graduated from the University of Michigan and was very sharp. Well, one of the mechanics had a small wooden statue of a naked man wearing a barrel that was hung from his shoulders by suspenders. it stood about six inches high and with his bare feet looked like some poor hillbilly. Some people would be inquisitive and lift the barrel, and when they did a huge penis wold pop out. We all got many laughs when that happened. But we decided to improve him. We drilled a hole in the penis and hooked up a hose and a water supply to it.

Jim C. and Dad in the lab

When Diana came into the lab one day we showed her the little wooden man and when she lifted the barrel we turned on the water and she got squirted. She was surprised and we all howled with laughter. Diana could have really raised hell for us, but she was a good sport, and never complained to our bosses. She learned fast what she was in for when she worked out in our lab.

One day a huge horsefly flew into our lab Jim C. chased it around until he caught it. He sprayed it with something from an aerosol can which knocked it out, then he came over to me and pulled a hair from my head. He put Crazy Glue on the hair and attached it to the back of the fly. He must have thought about this before because he had a small, quarter inch by three inch piece of toilet paper with the words "Eat at ARA" printed on it. The sign was attached to the other end of the hair on the fly. The ARA was of course the company that ran the Chrysler cafeteria.

Well, there happened to be a meeting going on at a conference room next to our lab with about ten people including our lab supervisor and some engineers and designers. When the fly revived, Jim opened the conference room door and set the fly loose.

So here's this fly cruising through the room advertising ARA with everyone watching and after a few trips around it land on the nose of Fred McC. who was looking up toward the ceiling. When Jim released the fly into the room it became quiet but soon after there was a roar of laughter. No one was ever reprimanded for this, but I think they knew who was responsible.

Setting on a cabinet by my bench was a small toy slot machine. Occasionally someone would come by and pull on the lever. The toy was at about face level and when the lever was pulled a little round funny head would pop up and squirt the person who had pulled the lever. There was always someone new to pull the lever so we got many laughs from it.

Even though we had a good time at work, everyone was a good worker and our lab accomplished much.

Jim C. was a hunter and he and I planned to take a weekend and go to my brother-in-law Don Ramer's cottage near Grayling, MI. I had spent a week helping Don and his wife Marie build the floor, walls, and roof panels of the cottage a few years before. Don had ten acres and his twin brother Dave had ten acres net to his. It was all heavily wooded.

After work on Friday, Jim and I loaded up the car with our guns and hunting equipment and headed north. When we were north of Bay City it was very dark. Parked at the side of the road was a van and as we approached we saw a man waving to us. So we stopped to see what he wanted.

The man told us they had hit a deer and heir van was disabled. He said the deer had a broken back and was lying by the road behind their van. He asked if we had a gun so we could stop the deer from suffering, and we said we did. Jim had brought along a pistol and he went and shot the deer. Then the man asked if we could run him into the next town for a tow truck. We, of course, said we would. There was another man and a woman in the van and they took down our names and our license plate number before we left. On the way to town the man said they had a load of apples in the van.

The first garage that we stopped at in the next town did not have a tow truck but they would take the deer. He said they lived on deer Up North. The next garage did have a tow truck, so we left the man there and continued on our way.

I don't know if it is legal to shoot an injured animal but we could not see it suffer.

On another trip, my son Tom, Jim C, and I stayed at Don's cabin to hunt.

Tom Gochenour and Jim C. at Uncle Don's cabin

The Cape Doctor by E. J. Levy

I read this novel in one day.

It was a windy, gloomy day. But that is not why I read it in one day. I read it in one day because I did not want to stop reading. 

I loved the narrative voice, the feeling of being transported back several centuries, the knowing wink to the style of the early 19th c in lines like "No one who had ever seen Margaret Brackley in her infancy would have supposed her born to be a heroine (or so Jane Austen might have written of her..."

I was interested in the questions the narrator struggled with, about choice and chance, gender identity, the gap between male and female autonomy and self-determination.

Which of us is undisguised, after all? Which of us reveals himself truly to the world. ~from The Cape Doctor by E. J. Levy

 

The Cape Doctor is based on the true story of a woman who posed as a man to gain an education and become the first female doctor. She performed the first recorded, successful Cesarean operation.

portrait of Dr. James Barry, inspiration for The Cape Doctor's protagonist

Levy's character is inspired by the historical Barry, but Levy gives her own spin to the story, concentrating on the feminist issues. Her Dr. Perry lives as a man, but identifies as female. (Another character is hermaphrodite, which some believe Barry was, while others believe Barry was transsexual. Those controversies do not affect my reading of this novel, as this is historical fiction inspired by true events, and not a biography.) 

Under Levy's hands, the imagined character Margaret Brackley becomes Dr. Jonathan Mirandus Perry. She tells her story of transformation from a subservient and invisible female to an authoritative and competent professional man of society.

In dire poverty, Margaret's mother sends her to beg aid from her uncle. There, she meets General Mirandus, who takes an interest in her brilliant mind. After her uncle's death, the general sends her to be educated in Edinburgh's esteemed medical school with plans for her to become his personal physician in Caracas.

Margaret cuts her hair and binds her breasts and dons a boy's clothing. She learns to lower her voice, to change her actions and her attitude, to mimic. She learns how to masquerade, how to pass.

As Dr. Perry, she becomes a successful army doctor in Cape Town, with at least one young lady falling in love with her.

When her true sex is discovered, she has a love affair and must chose between love and her career, and more importantly, "the right to think and speak and move as I chose, not as others bade me. To experience life on my own terms."

I thought of Mary Wollstonecraft, another brilliant woman who was also against marriage, whose love affairs were scandalous.

As a first-person narrative in the style of the early 19th c, Margaret/Perry speaks to issues of identity and freedom, often in pithy epigrams. And most are quite timeless. Including, "You can judge a culture by its medicine, by how it teats is most vulnerable--the ill." 

It is interesting to learn that the Cape Doctor is the name for a strong wind that today blows away the pollution over Cape Town and provides waves for perfect surfing, but which was believed to also blow away bad spirits, healing the town. And that fair weather comes after the blow. 

I received a free egalley from the publisher through NetGalley. My review is fair and unbiased.

The Cape Doctor

by E. J. Levy

Little, Brown and Company

Pub Date  June 15, 2021

ISBN: 9780316536585

hardcover $28.00 (USD)

from the publisher

A "gorgeous, thoughtful, heartbreaking" historical novel, The Cape Doctor is the story of one man’s journey from penniless Irish girl to one of most celebrated and accomplished figures of his time (Lauren Fox, New York Times bestselling author of Send for Me).

 

Beginning in Cork, Ireland, the novel recounts Perry’s journey from daughter to son in order to enter medical school and provide for family, but Perry soon embraced the new-found freedom of living life as a man. From brilliant medical student in Edinburgh and London to eligible bachelor and quick-tempered physician in Cape Town, Dr. Perry thrived. When he befriended the aristocratic Cape Governor, the doctor rose to the pinnacle of society, before the two were publicly accused of a homosexual affair that scandalized the colonies and nearly cost them their lives.

 

E. J. Levy’s enthralling novel, inspired by the life of Dr. James Miranda Barry, brings this captivating character vividly alive.

Eugene Gochenour Memoirs Part III

I have been sharing Dad's memoirs over the past weeks. Today's excerpt continues his childhood memories from the Depression.

Gochenour family in late 1930s; Eugene is front right; his mother back right,
sister Mary back left and to her right is Al Gochenour.

"Military Road was built centuries ago for armies to travel from Buffalo to Niagara Falls. The road was elevated at the location where the house we lived in was built. On each side of the house was a gully. The strip of land where the farm house was placed was filled [with dirt] to the level of the road.

"The foundation of the house was about three feet thick, built of stone that probably came from a nearby quarry. When we first moved there the house had a dirt floor in the basement but later Dad and some friends put in a concrete floor. Huge logs with one flat side supported the floor of the house. Wooden pegs held the logs together. A cistern was located under the rear porch but of course it had not been used for dozens of years.

1865 Military Rd in the 1940s after Al Gochenour bought the
property and fixed it up. 

"The house sat quite far back from the road and one day as we sat on our front porch, to our amazement, we saw elephants walking past on the road. The elephants led a parade of horse-drawn wagons filled with lions, tigers, and other animals. Now as children we had never seen elephants, and we were amazed to see the size of them. The circus had come to town and this was their way of advertising it.

Circus passes down Military Rd at Ensminger Rd; an Ensminger family house in the background.

"The first photo shows the elephants as they passed by. Across the street is the Ensminger farm house. It sat at the corner of Military and Ensminger Roads.

"When we first moved there Ensminger Road was just a dirt road leading into the fields. The barn that sat behind the house had already been torn down, and soon [about 1960-61] the house would be intentionally be burned down to make room for a bowling alley. A childhood friend, Ridgely Ware, had lived there with his mother and aunt. As a child I remember drinking water from a well with a hand pump that was on their side lawn. I drank it with cupped hands and it was cold and delicious. Before the barn was torn down, two old horse carriages were parked in it. Ridgely was about two years older than I, but occasionally we did things together. Sometimes we would go into the barn and sit in the carriages and make believe we were driving them. There was also a well with a hand pump in the barn, but I was told that the water in that well was bad, so I never tried it.

"During the ‘40s the Ensminger barn was torn down then during the ‘50s the house was sold.

"One day early in the morning I looked out of my upstairs window and saw the Ensminger house burning. Rather than tear the house down the owners decided to have it burned down. So they got the firemen to set it afire and control it. It is an awesome sight to see a burning house with the flames reaching high into the sky. The heat was so intense it could be felt blocks away. A bowling alley was built on the lot next to where the house had been, and the house lot became a parking lot. Such is progress.

Circus parade with donkeys passing on Military Rd near Ensminger past
where a bowling alley would be built in the 1960s

"The next photo shows a donkey, pony, and horse. As you can see the previous animals had made their contribution to the highway and the fly population. Across the road is the field where there would soon be a bowling alley.

Circus parade traveling on Military Rd north towards City of Tonawanda;
the field would later house the Erie County Highway Department garage; foreground
later had a Texaco gas station and Schwinn Bicycle shop.

"The third photo shows the parade as it travels north toward the city of Tonawanda. The field across the street is where the Erie County Highway Department garage would be built. The lot on this side of the street is where a Texaco gas station and a bicycle shop would be built. The lot had once been a town dump.

"The old farmhouse had a basement only under part of the house. When we first moved there, it had only a dirt floor. The kitchen area had a crawl space under it, and when the water pipes would freeze during the winter father would have to crawl under there with a blow torch to thaw them out. Rats and mice had chewed passages through the walls and ceilings for a hundred years, and during the fall and winter you could hear them scurrying around. Our kitchen cupboards had many holes covered with tin can patches that had been nailed on probably from the time when tin cans were first made. But the rats would just chew another hole. One night a rat got into the house, and we saw it. Well, everyone went chasing it through the house trying to whack it with a broom or stick. We finally cornered and killed it. That was our excitement for that evening! A few years later when I was older, it was my job to go into the crawl space and retrieve any dead smelly rats that had ate the rat poison bait that we had set out for them. We eventually hired an exterminator who treated the house monthly.

Emma Becker Gochernour with Mary and Alice on left,
Gene on right, and Emma's brother Lee in center. Open land on right
would eventually be where Rosemont Ave. was built.

"As kids, we could always find something to eat. There was a house on Delaware Avenue that had a garage that sat quite far back from the street. There a person sat all day making the sugar cones used for ice cream cones. Broken cones were always left on the window sill for us to eat. They were like candy to us.

"Many people had fruit trees, strawberry patches, and grapevines in their yards, and we always knew when they were in season. We usually would raid them at night, but occasionally we would pull a daytime raid. The neighbors we took from probably did not even care, but to us it was exciting. We also had a Bartlet pear tree in our yard that had great pears.

"In the springtime, [my Uncle] Lee and I would pick and eat all the meadow mushrooms we would find in the fields. Eaten fresh and raw, they are very good. The second week of June is when the wild strawberries were usually ripe, and mother would spend hours in the fields picking them. She always took the dog along because she was afraid of snakes, and the dog would chase them away. Mother made jam from the strawberries. Mother would also pick dandelion leaves during the spring, and make a salad with it. Even I liked that salad.

"Near the airport and the dump was a golf driving range. During the late ‘30s some of us kids were hired to pick up golf balls from the field. We were paid ten cents for our work and we would give back five cents for our favorite candy bar, a Milky Way. We liked to go to the dump also. There we found what we thought was some neat stuff, and took it home. When our parents saw what we had hauled home, they made us put it out to the street so the rubbish man could haul it back to the dump. I often wonder if the rubbish man thought that some of those things seemed familiar!

"The Sheridan Park Golf Course had some nice hills where we could sled during the winter. One day I slid down the hill and ended in the creek. It was a long freezing walk home! There was also a pond where we ice skated on.

"When summer came, I would go to the fields next to the golf course to find golf balls that the golfers had lost. Then I would sell them back to them. One day I found and sold twelve dollars worth of balls, with which I bought a portable radio. Since they were new on the market at that time few people had them. The radio was large by today’s standards. I liked the smell of the plastic material that covered it. The plastic looked like leather, and the radio had large batteries. It was great to take anywhere and have music.

"During the '30s and '40s I had many ways to make money. I picked up pop and beer bottles from along the roadways and took them back to the store where I got two cents each for them. I had a paper route, cut lawns, worked in the field with John Kuhn, and got a weekly allowance of twenty-five cents from mother for my home chores. During the fall and winter, I went to the housing project where I received a dollar for each ton of coal I could carry from the street to the customer’s coal bin. My friend Dale Thiel and I would usually do the coal jobs together. We would use the customer’s trash cans to haul the coal. It took about 20 to 23 cans for the ton of coal. Also during the winter, I would shovel snow from people’s driveways and sidewalks, for two or three dollars.

"The nearby horse riding stables rented out horses to the public. They made many trails through the woods and fields that we would ride our bikes on. We literally had trail bikes in those days! Also in the woods, we would build tree houses from scrap wood we found."

Eugene Gochenour's Memoirs Part 4

Today I continue to share my father's memories of growing up in Tonawanda, NY in the 1930s and 1940s. Here Dad writes about making a tractor, hay farming, tragic deaths, camping along the Niagara River, about the local airport and even the town dump! I remember going to 'the dock' at Grand Island as a girl and wading in the Niagara River. I was told not to go far out as the current could carry one over the Falls!

Eugene Gochenour

"Father decided to get a real tractor and found one in the country and somehow hauled it home. It was a Fordson tractor with a four-cylinder engine and was built sometime around the late '20s, or early '30s. Once home, he found it needed some spark coils, so we had to drive to Holland, New York, to a tractor parts store to buy them. Holland was about thirty miles away. When we got back, he installed the coils, made sure it had gas and oil, and cranked it up. After he got it running well he painted it red, and it looked and ran great!

John Kuhn on a tractor built by Al Gochenour from a 1928 Buick.

1937 Eugene Gochenour and with sister Mary on tractor at Kuhn's farm.

The house in the right background was on Waverly St and belonged to Phil and Edna Kuhn.

Gene Gochenour age 14

"During the summer, I would drive the tractor and John Kuhn would ride behind operating the sickle machine, the hay rake, or pitch hay onto the hay wagon. The tractor had huge rear wheels and small steel wheels in the front. I was probably thirteen years old when I started to drive it.

"The fields we mowed were Timothy grass, alfalfa, and clover. The first cutting was usually during the middle of June. When it was time, I would drive the tractor, and John would control the sickle bar, which was like a large lawnmower.

"After a few days, when the hay was dry, I would tow John as he operated the hay rake. We raked the hay into long lines so that when we brought the hay wagon out, we could drive along the line and pitch the hay onto it. Then we hauled it to the barn where it would be stored in the hayloft. Salt was added at that time. The salt helped keep the hay dry by absorbing moisture from the hay, and the salt was a good addition to the cattle’s diet when they ate it.

"When John no longer had any animals, he baled the hay and sold it to the riding stables that were near by. Each bale weighed around 100 pounds. John sold them for about a dollar each.

John Kuhn bringing in the hay, 1930s

"There were always many cats around the farm, and some of them were half wild. They would go into the fields to catch mice. The mowing machine had a long sickle bar that cut the hay and sometimes a cat would be in the field and lose a leg to the machine. There were a few three-legged cats on the farm. Occasionally a pheasant would also get caught and lose its life. Dogs, rabbits, and other animals seemed to be smart enough to move away.

"John also had a cider press and father borrowed it one fall to make some apple cider. Dad had made a box trailer and one fall day we went to the orchards by Lake Ontario and brought back a load of apples. The press was wooden with a hand crank. After the apples were washed they were dumped into the top of the press. Turning the handle chopped the apples up. Then the apples were crushed by a press that was on the machine. The press had a large wooden dowel attached to a screw, and as you turned it, the juice flowed out of the bottom into a trough. The trough drained the juice to where you could fill either jugs or barrels. When the juice first flows it tastes like apple juice, but before long, it tastes like cider. Some of the cider father gave away, some he sold, and some he made into Applejack, a high alcohol drink.

"We were very good friends with the Kuhns and one evening we invited them to a corn roast. When John ate the corn he remarked how good it was. We said it should be, because it had come from his field! We all got a big laugh from that!

"The end of the airport landing field was two blocks west of our house, and about a half mile past that was the Sheridan Park Golf Course. The airport hangers were about a half mile north, and east of them was the town dump.

"Almost every evening during the summer, a man named Peewee would parachute from a plane. One evening he jumped from the plane, and the chute did not open. He landed in the dump and was killed. The oldest Morrow boy was called Buster, and he had always helped Peewee pack his chute, and he felt bad when Peewee was killed.

"There was always something going on at the airport. There were midair shows, and they gave flying lessons, and plane rides to customers. Once during the Second World War, a P-38 warplane made a forced landing and had to be towed up Military Road past our house because the field was too short for it to take off. Another time a Grumman Wildcat fighter plane crash-landed. I went over to see it and was surprised how big it was. It had belly flopped and the propeller blades were all bent back. That plane also had to be towed past our house. During the war I knew every war plane there was.

"Whenever there was something going on at the airport it drew huge crowds. Then a neighbor friend, Ridgely Ware, and I would put a sign on the lot behind his house and charge 25 cents to let people park their cars there. I don’t know who owned the lot, but people were glad to park.

"Levant (Lee) Becker was my mother’s brother and my uncle. He was about two years older than I and we hung around together a lot. He and I had many adventures together. He lived with my grandmother and grandfather on Morgan Street in the City of Tonawanda, about four miles away. Sometimes I would walk through the fields to his house.

Lee Becker at the family camp on the Niagara River

"They had a rowboat they left on the shore of the Niagara River about four blocks from their house. Sometimes Lee and I would row out onto the river and hook onto a barge that was that was being towed up the river. We would tie the rowboat to the last barge, then run up to the front of it and jump into the river, let the barge steam by, then grab the rowboat as it passed by. The only person on the tug was the captain, and he was so many barges away that he could not holler at us. After we left the barge, we drifted back down the river and rowed over to Grand Island. The river at that point is about a half mile across, and on the Grand Island side was a spot called Elephant Rock. It had that name because of a huge boulder that sat out in deep water, about a foot under the surface. It was in deep water, but we could swim to it, and stand on it. We also called the spot “bare ass beach” for obvious reasons. The bank of the river was about twenty feet high there, and a road went along at the top of the bank. I am sure people saw us at our nude beach.

"Sometimes when we were at Lee’s house we would walk to the Erie Canal where it went through the City of Tonawanda. There was a swing bridge that went over the canal that we dove and swam from. The water was not exactly clean but that did not bother us. The Robert Gair Paper Mill was next to the bridge and we found many comic books in the bales of paper. The top of the cover page was cut off because they had been returned from stores when they were not sold. We eventually had a huge pile of comic books.

"Lee spent a lot of time at our house and one night when he was there he and I crawled out the front upstairs window onto the roof. From there we could watch the cars drive by on Military Road. Dad worked at the Buffalo Bolt Company and he brought us home some of the scrap slugs that we used with our slingshots. Well, we had our slingshots, and we decided to shoot at the cars as they passed by. We had done this before, and never hit one, but on this night when we shot, we both hit a car. The car stopped, and a man got out, walked around the car, and when he could not see what had happened, got back in, and drove away. We were so scared we never did that again!

Al Gochenour in front of  the 'chicken coop'

"There was an old chicken coop in our backyard and Lee and I would sometimes climb onto the roof and sunbathe. My father suspected we were climbing on it and told us he would kick us in the butt if he ever caught us on it. We did not listen very good and one day he did catch us on it, and he did kick us both in the butt! We never did climb that roof again!

"Lee and I fished together a lot. Sometimes we would go at night and fish for suckers or bullheads at Spicy Creek on Grand Island, or at Burnt Ship Creek Bay which was over by the North Grand Island Bridge. We fished for Northern Pike both there and at Jackie Senn’s boat livery on the East Niagara River.

"Lee got a car before I got my wheels and occasionally we would drive to a rink in North Tonawanda to roller skate.

"We spent one winter each building our own sailboat. The boat was called a sailfish and we built it from a plan we found in a magazine. It was a one-person boat and you wore a bathing suit when you sailed it 'cause you sure got wet sailing. Sailing on the river was a challenge because of the strong current.

"Nineteen Forty-Six was a great year for me. I had a motorcycle for wheels, a girlfriend, and when summer came my parents allowed me to stay at the family campground on Grand Island. The camp was a beach on the Niagara River that was leased by the year. All our relatives paid toward the lease. Lee and I stayed there all summer.

The dock at the family campground on Grand Island along the Niagara River.

"My future brother-in-law Clyde Guenther worked at the International Paper Mill but stayed when he was not working. At the camp was my father’s large Army tent, a twelve-foot trailer that he and I had built, a raft, dock, rowboat, and a sixteen-foot sailboat. We had a friend whose father owned a brewery across the river. We let him have parties at our camp as long as he supplied the beer. He also had an eighteen-foot sailboat and occasionally we would sail the river with him. The boat could hold seven or eight people, and sailing on a warm summer was beautiful. 

Clyde Guenther. Getting ready to target shoot at the camp.

"At night we would have a campfire on the shore. Crayfish (crabs) would come near the shore at night and we would catch them using a flashlight. We would throw the largest ones on the fire, and cook them in their shells. They would turn orange in color, and when they were cooked and cool, we would peel the claws and tail and feast on them. They were like lobster. 

Camping along the Niagara River

'Moose', Lee Becker, Abbey Becker, Clyde Guenther, and Gene Gochernour at the camp

"On weekends many of the relatives would come to the camp. It was like a family reunion.

Emma Gochenour along the Niagara River in 1956

Lee Becker at 'the dock' on the Niagara River in 1956

Alice Gochenour at 'the dock' on the Niagara River

"Crayfish would come near the shore at night and we would catch them using a flashlight. We would throw the largest ones on the fire and cook them in their shells. They would turn orange in color, and when they were cooked and cool we would peel the claws and tail and feast on them. They were like lobster.

"Crayfish were the best bait for catching bass. The bait shops charged $1.25 for a dozen so Lee and I would catch our own. We knew a certain weed that the soft-shelled crabs liked to hide in. Crabs shed their shells as they grow, so they hide till their new shells harden. They are the best bait for bass.

We would row to the certain weed bed, and with a net haul the mass of weeds onto the deck of the boat, and pick out the crabs. We saved them in a minnow bucket till we used them.

"Grand Island split the Niagara River into the west and east rivers. Our first camp was across from the City of Tonawanda on the east river. It was just upriver from Elephant Rock, a huge boulder in the river that we could swim to, and was knee deep under the surface. To get drinking water we had to row across the river to a park. The river had a strong current and it was probably a half mile across so it took a while to row over there and back. But we had always rowed the river and were used to it. We had a nickname for the camp. We called it Gismo Beach. Lee had been in the army and had served in Korea, and he came up with the name. Back then everything was a Gismo.

"There was a lady who walked her dog by our camp every day early in the morning. One day she knocked on our trailer door while we were sleeping, and excitedly told us about someone lying in the bushes by Elephant Rock. We were all only half awake and went back to sleep and forgot about it. Late in the day we saw a Sheriff car by Elephant Rock and walked there to see what was going on. There was a young man lying in the bushes and he was dead. Someone had turned him on his back because you could see the imprint of grass on his face. Later in the week, we read an article in the newspaper that he had been in the U. S. Navy, but they did not say what he had died from. Where he was lying was only about one hundred feet from our camp."

Clyde Guenther at the Niagara River Camp. Elephant Rock is in the background.
Where the white posts meet the trees a dead body was found.

Clyde Guenther's sailboat on shore near Franklin Street

"East, and across Military Road from the airport, was a very large field that was used for the town dump. It extended from Military Road to Delaware Road, and from Knoche Road to Waverly Road. This was where Pee Wee died when his parachute failed to open, and where we kids would junk pick.

"Many ferocious wild cats lived there. They were probably farm cats that had gone wild. They lived in the piles of trash, and if we chanced upon one, they would hiss and snarl like demons. One small pond was left back in the field, and a muskrat lived there. The dump was used for many years but finally became full.

"When they stopped dumping there they dumped in the gully next to our house. So for a while, we lived next to a dump. Living next to the dump was not too nice because of the noise, dust, smell, and flies. This was during the war, and a man told us kids he would pay us a nickel a bushel for broken bottles if we broke them up. Well, it seemed like fun at first, breaking bottles and putting them in bushel baskets, but we soon decided it was too much work and told him so. So that enterprise was short lived.

"It did not take long to fill the gully so they then started to dump at an abandoned gravel pit on the other side of the airport. Before it was made a dump we fished and swam there. We called it the Pit. Many rats lived at the dump and we would take our 22 rifles an shoot them for target practice. The original dump east of the airport changed from a dump to a cemetery. I often wonder what they run into when they dig for a grave? The gully next to our house was eventually the site of a Texaco gas station, and a bicycle repair shop."

[Ed.note: Reader Bud Reid informs that the airport Dad referenced was the Consolidated Bell Airport at Military and Ensminger Roads.]

Memories of Eugene Gochenour: Scouting, School, and Accidents

Today I am sharing selections from my father's memoirs about growing up in the 1940s in Tonawanda, NY. These stories are about accidents, Boy Scouts, and school days at Philip Sheridan Elementary School and Kenmore High School.

Accident Prone 

Ray Grace and Gene Gochenour
Boy Scout Troop 146

"I was a very hyper kid so I was always getting cuts and bruises, unlike my sisters who never got hurt.


"One winter day my father and I went to a Boy Scout camp at Holland, New York, about forty miles away. It was called Camp Ta-wi-e, probably an Indian name. When we arrived there we met the rest of the troop in the parking lot and unloaded our clothes and equipment. There was snow on the ground and we had to hike about a quarter of a mile to get to our campsite. The troop consisted of about twenty scouts, with Stan Grace and my father as leaders. We were all excited when we arrived at our campsite, and set about preparing for our weekend stay.

"I had a new hatchet I was waiting to use, so I started to chop wood so we could get a campfire going. I was not chopping for very long when the hatchet glanced off of a log and struck my foot. Well it was sharp all right, because it went through my overshoe, my shoe, my sock, and into my foot. My foot was bleeding quite bad and I could not walk on it, so they all took turns hauling me back to the car. No one noticed how deep the snow was on the way in, but they sure did on the way out!

"Somehow Dad found a doctor at East Aurora, a town not far from the camp. The cut on my left foot was near my big toe, and it took three stitches to close it. That was the shortest camping trip we ever had! Dad never hollered at me when I got hurt."

Troop 146 at Summer Camp

Troop 146 at Summer Camp. Gene is at the end of the middle row on the right.

Gene Gohenour on the left, Ray Grace on right, 

Gene Gochenour holding turtle. Harry Summerville, Louie Grace,
unknown, Keith Rhodes, Roger Schneckenberger, unknonw, Ray Grace.

Swim race at camp

1940s, Troop 146 in parade.

Alger Gochenour was part of the Sheridan Parkside Men's Club sponsoring Troop 146

Alger Gochenour listed as part of the Sheridan Park Men's Blub for Troop 146

"As a youngster, I went to the Philip Sheridan Elementary School. It was about a half mile away and I walked through the fields to and from there. It had five classrooms and a fenced playground. Once when I was in the lavatory I started running to get to class and a kid tripped me. My head hit the wall and when I put my hand to my head, because it hurt, I found my hands were covered with blood. It must have been quite a sight when I came screaming out in the hall with blood running down my face, and bloody hands from holding my head. The kid who tripped me was probably scared for what he had done. Someone from the school took me to the doctor, and he put in three stitches, after calling my parents.

The "old" Philip Sheridan Elementary School

"Keith Rhodes was a friend who lived two houses away. One winter day we decided to go over to the hill by the railroad track and do some skiing. On my first trip down the hill, I fell at the bottom. When I fell, my knee struck a clinker, a large rough stone that had fallen from a train. It cut a hole in my pants, and when I looked into that hole, I saw blood. The wound hurt bad, and I started hollering. This probably scared the “H” out of Keith, but he helped me up the hill. We had a sled with us, and I sat on it, and Keith hauled me to John Kuhn’s house, a couple of blocks away. So here we come, me hollering, and holding my bloody knee, and Keith pounding on their rear door to get their attention. Lucille and Alma came to the door, and looked shocked, but then wrapped a towel around my knee. One of them went to Keith’s house next door, and brought back Keith’s uncle Jim Turk, who was visiting there. My parents were not home, so he took me to the De Graff Hospital in North Tonawanda, about five miles away. When I arrived they put me into a room, but they could not do anything until they got my parents’ permission. My Uncle Abbey came to stay with me till my parents came. Then the doctor fixed me up with twelve stitches. Eighteen stitches, and still counting!

"It was my job to cut the lawn, usually once a week, and one day I decided to adjust the lawnmower blades because it was not cutting right. I had watched Dad do it, and thought I could. To check to see if the blades are set right, you take a piece of newspaper, set it between the blade and the cutter, and rotate it. If it cuts the paper clean, it is good, if not, then you turn the adjustments until it is set right. Well I rotated them all right, except the palm of my hand, by the wrist, was also between the blades. So I cut my hand, and off to the doctor we went to get two more stitches.

"We kids were not supposed to go into the [Sheridan Park] creek at the golf course but sometimes the temptation was too great and we would sneak in to look for golf balls. An old man, who we called the Geezer, patrolled the course, and would holler at us, and kick us off when he caught us. We were terrified of him. Well, we were finding a lot of balls that day in the creek, and everything was fine until I stepped on a piece of glass, and cut my foot. I think it was a broken bottle. So I had to ride home on my bike with my bleeding foot. It was about a mile to our house and when we got there I showed it to my mother. She probably thought “Good Lord here we go again!” So off to the doctor we go again for three more stitches. Now were up to twenty three stitches!

"At least I never broke any bones as a child. Even after I grew up, I occasionally needed to get stitched up. While working at the station one day I was loading up the pickup truck with used batteries to take to the scrap yard to sell. The truck was parked in the front driveway, and when I bent over to set a battery down, it slipped, and I dropped it. When it fell into the bed of the truck, battery acid squirted straight up into my left eye. I was terrified, and jumped off the truck, and ran for the station. It was winter, and when I got to the front door, I skidded on the ice, and when I put out my hand to stop, it went through the front door window, and I cut my arm. But then I opened the door and ran to the lavatory to wash out my eye. I wasn’t worried about my arm, just my eye. Flushing
out my eye quickly saved my eye from serious damage.

"Bad things always seemed to happen to my left eye. When I was in school, I took up a course of Machine Shop. When working on a grinding machine I got a tiny piece of steel in my left eye. Then working at the garage, at various times, I had brake fluid, anti-freeze, motor oil, and dust in my eyes. Luckily, the eyes have survived all the abuse!


School Days

"The year was 1935 and the first school I attended was the Philip Sheridan Elementary School. It was located on Elmwood and School Streets near Sheridan Drive. That was about a half mile from our home on Military Road. I remember crying when mother left me after enrolling me for the kindergarten. I was not happy, but I soon became distracted by all the toys and the sandbox they had there to play in.

"Since the school was not too far from our house, I had to walk to and from there. Sometimes I would take a shortcut and walk through the fields. On the way I would pick and eat strawberries when they were in season, or I'd kick up a pheasant, or see a muskrat, or other animal, so I liked doing that.

"I think the school had five classrooms. It had an auditorium with a stage and a large fenced playground. One day during recess, while playing at the playground, I found a chain with a metal pendant on it. I threw it into the air a few times to see how high it would go. But then I threw it and it went over the fence and landed in the deep grass in the field. So it was gone. I later decided it was a religious medal I had thrown there. So much for trial and error!

"This was the school where the kid tripped me in the lavatory and my head hit the wall. When I came screaming out of the lavatory with bloody hands holding my head, it must have been quite a sight to see! That episode cost me three stitches.

"One of our teachers decided we should all get harmonicas and learn to play them. Well the day came when we all had them, and at the teachers instructions we started to play the designated song. I did not know how to make music with it so I just blew into it and faked it. I think many of the other kids did the same, because the song was a disaster. After a few sessions like that the teacher gave up trying, and that was the end of our harmonica lessons. My harmonica was a Honer, and I did eventually did teach myself to play a little.

"Not long after I left and went on to the Washington Middle School, the little Philip Sheridan School was closed, and a new, large, and modern school was built two blocks north of it on Coventry Road during 1947. My first real job was working as a waterboy for the John W. Cowper Construction Company that built the new school. Years later my daughter Nancy went to that Philip Sheridan School.

"The next school I attended was the Washington Middle School. It was located on Old Delaware Road in the city of Kenmore, about five miles from our home. The kids in the area where I lived were bussed to and from that school. At the Philip Sheridan School I was the fastest runner, but not when I got to the Washington School. That school had many more students and I was no longer top dog at running.

"Behind the school was a ball field, and one day while playing baseball there, a ball was hit over the fence, and I climbed over it to get it. When I climbed back over it my hand snagged the sharp wire at the top and I was momentarily hanging from it. When I got it loose and dropped to the ground it was bleeding quite bad. The school nurse put a bandage on it, but I don’t remember if I had a tetanus shot.

"The school was located near the center of the town and there were many stores nearby. One of my favorite things to do on the lunch hour was to go to Galagher’s Bakery and get what was called a fruit doughnut. At that time they cost five cents, and I loved them.

"The Second World War was going on when I went to that school, and kids would take money to school to buy war saving stamps. The stamps pasted in a booklet and when it was filled, exchanged it for a war bond. The bonds were in $25, $50, $100, and larger dollar denominatons. The money was used by the U. S. government to help pay for the war effort.

"Then came Kenmore Junior High School. It was located on Old Delaware Road, about a few blocks north of the Washington School. During the Second World War there were scrap drives to collect metal to be used for the war effort. Everyone was patriotic and wanted to do their part to help. We would scrounge around home to see what we could find, and haul it to school on the school bus. When we arrived at school, we threw it on a huge pile at the rear of the school building. It grew to be a small mountain. The bus dropped us off and picked us up at the back of the school, and when the scrap metal pile was removed, we would play handball at that wall while we waited for the bus to take us home. During the winter we would sit in the hallway and play Pinochle until the bus came for us.

"I worked at the teacher’s cafeteria for a while. When I worked there I got free lunch meals, eating what the teachers ate, and the food was better than at the student cafeteria.

"The school had a print shop and the teachers name was Walter Faxlanger. I went to that class for a semester and enjoyed it. We learned how to set type, how to run the printing press, and did some bookbinding. Walter would sometimes give us a lecture on the evils of smoking and how much money it would cost to smoke for a year. Years later when I operated the service station that my father built, Walter had also gone into the same business, and he was the head of the Gasoline Retailers Association of Buffalo. He talked me into joining, and I served on the board of directors for a few years.

"The next school I went to was the Kenmore Senior High School. It was also located on old Delaware Road, about 8 blocks north of the junior high school. It was a very beautiful school with three floors, very wide hallways, and a locker for each student. There was an Olympic size swimming pool, and a large gymnasium that had a huge doorwall that could divide the gym in half so the girls were out sight from the boys when in use. The auditorium was like a movie theater with a huge stage, floor to ceiling curtains, carpeted aisles, and upholstered seats. There was a typing room where each student had a typewriter, and at the chemistry class each student had a stool and a granite work table with a Bunsen burner, water faucet, test tubes, beakers, etc.

Gene Gochenour, Sophmore year at Kenmore HS

Gene Gochenour, Freshman at Kenmore HS

Mary Gochenour yearbook photo, Kenmore HS

Mary Gochenour, yearbook photo Kenmore HS

"The machine shop metal brake, and individual benches with vises. The wood shop was equally equipped with everything including a workbench for each student. There was an electrical shop, and a home economics room with stoves and ovens where students made cakes and meals. At the wood shop I made a darning egg, a baseball bat, and a small table that I had designed. At the metal shop I made a hammer with a screw driver inside the handle. I also made a V block, a device used in metal working to hold objects as they were machined. Each project involved using all the machinery at the shop to build.

"The swimming pool had bleachers where people could sit and watch swim meets and swim shows put on by the students. Behind the school was a football field and running track and bleachers for many people when there were football games or track meets. I think the school was as modern as any in the country.

"My grades were never outstanding except for Earth Science and the shop courses. I rode the school bus to and from school until the last year when I drove the motorcycle.

"Archie Henderson and Joe McAuliff were two of my school buddies. They were in many of my classes and they were both bigger than I. One day when they were picking on me in fun, a teacher saw us, and gave them a scolding for ganging up on me, not knowing they were not serious. After he left we all got a big laugh out of that! Those two big bullies picking on poor little me! Joe and Archie lived at the housing project, and we played baseball and basketball together, and Archie sold me my first car.

"Every year the school would put on a sport competition day. We would all gather out by the football field where we would compete in various events. The events were running, long jump, ball throwing, etc. I entered the basketball throw and won one year. Maybe nobody wanted to compete in such a dumb event!

"At the time when I graduated in New York State two certificates could be earned. One was a High School certificate, the other was from the State of New York. The reason this happened is that at the end of the year when the students were given their final exams, one of them was a test for the state that was comprehensive, covering all of the students’ past education. The high school test covered only the past year. Each year we would spend some time studying past Regent tests to prepare for the next. Earning the State certificate was more important than the school one.

"My graduation class had 466 students. When I graduated I had a major in shop, and also had taken the classes for college entrance. Little did I know that many of the courses would be helpful even though I decided not to go to college. I took business courses that came in handy when we opened the station. And the chemistry and shop courses were invaluable when I went to work at Chrysler. I never took any classes to be an auto mechanic, I learned them on the job, and from reading repair manuals."

Gene Gochenour's Senior Photo, 1948