Chapters from "TIME TRIALS"
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September 1939
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The decade was drawing to a close in late 1939, when I arrived in complete innocence. The nation, and much of the world, still struggled within a colossal economic depression and war loomed across Europe, Asia, parts of Africa, and the Far East.
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Germany had invaded Poland on the first of September 1939, a Friday, and day one of the Walworth County Fair that year. I was born the next day, September 2nd, and World War II began that weekend.
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In February 1941, Henry Luce, founder of Time and Life in an article titled The American Century argued for the United States to accept the mantle of world leadership with the decline of the British Empire. Its reluctance to do so earlier had provided space for Nazi Germany’s rise.
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Ten months later after Luce’s article, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, and the United States, already aiding the allies, entered the War. Along with Russia’s resistance on the Eastern Front, this was a major factor in ending WWII. Afterwards, America rested at the “sweet spot” of history with Europe, Japan and much of the Far East recovering from the war.
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By the time I reached grade-school age, however, the war was winding down and the baby boom was still a couple years away. The Great Depression and WWII had diminished birth rates. When my cohort group entered school, classrooms were small and teachers unhindered. When we began high school in 1953, jobs were plentiful. For those who went on to college, career opportunities prevailed. The economy was strong and unemployment low. This would last for a few more years until the turbulent Sixties.
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Ours was a land of rich, diverse, and abundant natural resources. This largess would be augmented by the self-serving doctrine of Manifest Destiny, dating to the mid-19th century. Given the special virtues of its people and institutions, it was thought that the United States was destined with a special mission to redeem and remake the North American continent. This it did by subjugating Native Americans, conquering Mexican land, and relentlessly pushing westward.
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From here it was a short leap to the doctrine of imperialism that justified America’s mission to civilize other areas of the world. We also appropriated resources benefiting our economic way of life. All this was done in the name of “making the world safe for democracy.” We were an emerging Western civilization, blessed by God’s will, to create a better world. As a result, the United States with four percent of the world population would come to enjoy the fruits of 25-30 percent of its natural resources: oil, coal, aluminum, copper, and more.
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In the process, we have stumbled episodically with ill-fated wars, devastating assassinations, specious global ventures, Presidential misdeeds, oil supply shocks, banking failures, financial greed, transgressions in high places, hyper consumption, economic downturns, and far too much gun violence. Some people also suffered as income and wealth inequality, along with racism and xenophobia, were persistent stains on this land of the free and home of the brave.
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Despite being a “nation of immigrants,” we have been reluctant to welcome newcomers, particularly those with darker pigmentation. Yet, over the years, most have integrated successfully. Initially, they lived in ethnic neighborhoods, working at lower-level jobs. In time this would change, as their children and grandchildren advanced upward and forward. Me included.
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It was a beautiful late summer day in 1939, when I was born on Saturday morning of the popular county fair in the southern lakes’ region of Wisconsin. My father, Henry, a volunteer fireman, manned the city fire truck, when Donald, an older brother by nearly nine years, was dispatched by his mother to inform dad that she was in labor and about to birth her third child. The gender was unknown, but she had hoped this time for a girl.
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Off they went to the Lakeland Hospital three miles south of Elkhorn, a town of 2,382 citizens as the decade was drawing to a close. The automobile, a vintage Model A, came off the Ford assembly line several years earlier. Dad was a sufficiently skilled and punctual driver to arrive at the hospital in time for the 10 a.m. birth.
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Child birth was familiar to mother, but nearly a decade had lapsed since her earlier two sons were born in 1928 and 1930 respectively, a time frame that conveniently bracketed the Great Depression years. Two more babies would follow soon—in a mere 11 months, August 1940, then four years later in July 1944. Both would be boys.
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Had she known the fate that awaited, her yearning for an infant dressed in pink might have been even more desperate. Sensing her eagerness, so the story goes, Dr. Edmund Sorenson, who would deliver all of her five children, had cautiously promised a girl. The fetuses’ heartbeat was softer than usual for a boy, which apparently was a subjective, pseudo-scientific indicator before reliable sonogram tests.
Richie 10 months
Richie (4) and Roger (3)
At least the boy that emerged from her loins that beautiful September morning was as cute as can be expected. The name she had selected for the new baby would be “Karen Kay.” When the unexpected occurred, she chose the closest androgynous name that came to mind—“Dale.” When her girlfriends arrived at the hospital later that day, Helen was summarily persuaded to drop the female pretense and give the boy a solid lion-hearted male label, “Richard.” Dale would suffice for the middle name.
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So, it is that an active child with an acute sensitivity, relentless energy, and inquisitive mind entered the world. I likely benefited from having two brothers a decade older, who lavished joyful attention providing mental and tactile stimulation. The irony is that all the other babies born that weekend in the Lakeland maternity ward were girls.
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I grew up in Elkhorn, an idyllic conservative town with mild social stratification compared to that of many cities. Sure, there were neighborhoods with upscale homes of the more affluent including an assortment of doctors, attorneys, bankers, and merchants. No real mansions among them aside from Frank Holton’s home built at the end of Broad Street, a stately boulevard aptly named.
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During the first year of my life, times were austere with the Great Depression lingering and war hovering over Europe. Under Nazi leader Adolph Hitler, German troops invaded Western Europe in May 1940 and overran Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, and France. A dark cloud hung over the continent leaving only Great Britain—and Russia on the Eastern front—to resist the Nazis. The United States pondered entering the war. The Presidential election that year pitted Republican Wendell Willkie, anti-war advocate, against third-time candidate Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who was accused of maneuvering the nation towards war. Americans were weary and torn, but FDR won in a landslide.
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Frank Holton had arrived in 1917 from Chicago and a year later opened the band instrument plant on Church Street near his home. The company produced brass horns and silver-plated bugles used nationwide by school, town, and military bands. Elkhorn’s Drum and Bugle Corps was a fixture in parades and for Friday summer evening concerts on the iconic band shelf at the west end of the picturesque city park that housed the Walworth County Courthouse. Today the house is Holton Manor Nursing and Rehabilitation Facility.
Fred B. MaGill and the Elkhorn Cornet Band
The first town meeting was held in 1846 with a population of 539. In the early 1800s, Colonel Samuel Phoenix had spotted a rack of antlers in a tree and called the area “Elk Horn.” The land’s beauty and fertile soil attracted settlers from Milwaukee to start a village. Located in the center of Walworth County, Elkhorn was designated the county seat. Walworth county had been plotted a few years earlier, but it wasn’t until 1848 that Wisconsin gained statehood.
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The county’s classic configuration within the Northwest Territory was a symmetrical square, 24 miles on a side made up of 16 equally designed townships each six-by-six-miles square. Elkhorn being in the center of the county was a natural location for its political headquarters—the county seat.
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Walworth County is rural Midwest Republican country. This is the land of independent farmers and small business owners who want government small and the freedom to pursue their enlightened self-interest. Any inequality that might result is justified and will be sufficiently taken care of through private charity. Yet, the people come together in community activities, conduct patriotic parades on national holidays, and hold a classic county fair every summer over Labor Day weekend.
1887
The Southern Lakes - Walworth County
While many areas of the nation are moving away from such bucolic celebrations, the county fair in Elkhorn, started in 1851, is going strong. It has grown each decade. Attendance for the six-day event in recent years has been about 175,000—far more than the number of residents in the entire county. Virtually, everybody attends and many participate: children show their prize animals, adults work exhibit halls, young women race horses, while men showcase tractors and trucks. All seem to enjoy the carnival rides and grandstand entertainment.
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The Walworth County Fair is Wisconsin’s second in size only to the State Fair in Milwaukee. People attend from far and wide with many crossing the Illinois border from the Chicago metro area to enjoy the pastoral entertainment and home cooked delights of its various food kiosks hosted by local clubs and farm organizations.
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The boy’s curiosity matured into respect for education, a thirst for learning, and pursuit of knowledge. Little of this, however, was revealed in my early school years. Inquisitiveness came through persistent, unrelenting questioning of new acquaintances much like a detective.
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I would tag along with an older brother hanging out with high-schoolers at a soda shop downtown or watching them playing football on the grassy, tree-lined courthouse square. I enjoyed the innocent banter about girls and admired the guys’ tight spiral passes as well as towering punts.
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On a beautiful summer day in 1945, Don and his buddy Bill Dunbar scaled the roof of the Dunbar home a block away on North Washington Street. Seeing their joy, I hollered from the sidewalk below wanting to join them. Bill shouted, “‘Dick the Prick’ go home!”
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Don responded, “Don’t say that; he’ll tell his mother.”
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Needless to say, that is exactly what I did knowing it meant something forbidden. Mom had a sense of humor and just laughed. I sort of figured it out.
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Otherwise, the kid’s early school years were hardly remarkable, as the routine of primary grades often seemed tedious. He was what Paul Goodman, author and public intellectual, described as “a lively child brought to a pause.” Quantitative skills—arithmetic and mathematics—were the exception, at least among peers in Elkhorn’s Elementary School. This 1887 edifice still stands as an historic reminder of the town’s nineteenth century past.
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His elementary school days were joyful, and sometimes eventful, particularly during recess, where he could stand out on the playgrounds, and in physical education, displaying a propensity for athletic skills. Among other things, he was the fastest kid in class.
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Our family home on North Washington Street was modest with quarters tight—three small bedrooms and one bathroom with a tub but no shower. Initially, the two bedrooms for three boys seemed adequate. Then a fourth, Roger, arrived in August 1940. All seemed fine, if not excessively cozy. The oldest, Bob, soon would graduate from high school and depart for the navy but not before the birth of Alan, whose crib was in my parents’ room.
Five Brothers • 1945
Roger’s middle name also bears some intrigue acquired through the persuasion of those same girlfriends. This was mother’s fourth child, and the end seemed near, but none of her sons bore the name of their father. Helen was fixed on the label “Roger,” so the woman at her bedside that summer day refused to go into the sunshine, unless she agreed to a middle name “Henry.” For whatever quirky reason, she thought Henry beneath the dignity of her Scots-Irish “MaGill” background, despite it being classic and regal to many.
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Even in the deepest winter months, much time was spent outdoors engaged in games, bicycling, sledding, skating, and basketball. The home was a short two blocks from downtown and about 250 yards to the elementary, middle, and high schools, all located within a rectangular landscape complete with a large but modest playground and adjacent athletic fields.
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During the deep chill of winter months, the playing field across the street from the elementary school that formed a modest bowl was filled with water that turned to ice. This provided a skating rink for entertainment and exercise on weekday evenings and weekends. One school night, after convincing my mother to go to the rink, I proceeded to break off a front tooth attempting a quick spin stop on the slick surface. I was a novice skater, and this dulled any enthusiasm I might have had for the sport.
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The tooth was capped and turned yellow, discouraging my smile. It was replaced at the conclusion of football in college by Don who was a Marquette University dental student completing his lab requirements. He also swapped a few fillings for gold foils, a permanent but soon antiquated procedure. There was a time in my life, when the value of gold in my head exceeded my net worth.
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Today, the 1887 elementary building houses school district administration offices. A secondary school reserved for junior high students during the 1940s, 1950s and into the 1960s was built in 1906. A classic 1938 senior high school came three decades later, as enrollment for 14-17-year-olds increased nationwide.
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Some 30 years later, this vintage art deco high school building gave way to a larger structure maybe 400 yards away on the east edge of town. Vestiges of the 1938 building that now serve as Jackson Elementary still exist. Most notable is the gymnasium that hosted regional basketball tournaments in the 1940s with contests played before capacity crowds in the 1950s.
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Despite humble, unpretentious means, my upbringing had distinct advantages. As one of five boys, clustered in two waves bracketing the Great Depression, I was positioned to play a dual role. Richie or Dick, as I was called, benefited from having surrogate fathers and role models in older brothers Robert James, born in 1928, and Donald Eugene (1930). On the other end of “lost decade,” were Roger Henry (1940) and Alan John (1944) who provided the opportunity to serve both as an older and middle brother among extended siblings.
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It was an energetic household that likely suffered from the lack of a youthful feminine presence but nonetheless offered a supportive and vigorous environment.