Our Family History

by Rosemary Enthoven

(daughter of Eleanor (O'Brien) Fenech, Martha (O'Brien) Marion's oldest sister)

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This is the history of your family as my sister, Anne, and I have learned it from our parents and from our grandparents. Like so many American families, we carry in our bodies and in our bones the spirits of several nations and the cultures of far away lands. Even when we are not aware of their echoing voices in ourselves, those voices are a part of our deepest selves. If we know this past, even a little of it, it can enrich and amaze us and inform and inspire our travels. When we look at our little children, we will have the fun of seeing an old talent or a puckish smile come to light again. This is the story of my inheritance and that of my sister, as best we know and can tell it.     

The Irish Side: Maternal Great-Grandparents

     Our mother, Eleanor, was born in Laurium, Michigan, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan between the freezing waters of Lake Superior and Lake Michigan. Her grandparents came from Ireland, and this is where I will start the story because I know it best...

     Mary Green (seen sitting at right with daughter Hanna -- later called "Auntie" -- circa 1912), my great-grandmother, was born in 1836 in County Cork, the southernmost county in Ireland. She left home all alone at the age of 17, and sailed to Boston Harbor, where she became a maid in a house in Boston. Now one might wonder why a young girl would travel all alone to a far away place called America. I do not know the details of Mary's life, but we do know what was happening in Ireland at that time, and what the promise of America might have been for young Mary Green.

     Some Irish History

It was a complex series of events over several centuries that caused so many of the Irish people to emigrate to the United States, to Canada, and to Australia during the nineteenth century.  It was more than just the famous Potato Famine of 1846 to 1851 that prompted this emigration. The roots of it go back to the religious wars of the 17th Century which put in place a relationship between Ireland and England that haunts the western world to this day. Ireland had never followed  King Henry VIII  and Elizabeth into recognizing a national English religion which, although theologically close to the Roman Catholic church, substituted the Monarchy for the Pope as titular head. Henry VIII also abolished those religious orders that maintained allegiance to the Pope, and Henry's supporters gradually took over the wealth and property that had belonged to the Church and to these Orders since the Middle Ages. In Ireland, this taking over of property from the Church also resulted in the taking over property from Catholics. This would have profound effects on the future history of the Irish people.
In the 17th Century, England was reaping the trading and cultural advantages of the wild age of exploration, and her merchants were eager to be allied with the rich Protestant trading centers in Holland and Germany; meanwhile, Ireland stayed rather in a backwater. Her economy continued to be largely dependent on sheep and simple farming. Most of the land was ceded to Englishmen loyal to the British throne.
Oliver Cromwell and then William of Orange, who became King William III of England, continued to fear an uprising from Ireland. In 1690 William landed in Ireland with a large army, and defeated the Irish at the Battle of the Boyne.

 This is the "victory" that is still "celebrated" today as Protestants march down the streets of Catholic townships in Belfast and provoke the bloodshed that has been such a curse on Northern Ireland.
The lives of our great-grandmother and the lives of all Irish were changed irrevocably by the Penal Laws which were imposed on Catholic Ireland in the aftermath of the Battle of the Boyne. They were not lifted until 1839. Catholics were not allowed to own land or a horse, to serve in the army or carry a gun, and perhaps the most injurious of all, their schools and churches were closed. The religion and education that the Irish had loved were denied to them, and they became a dispirited and deeply depressed and poor people. The land was owned by Protestants, most of whom lived in England and who only came over to hunt for grouse in the fall and to collect the rents. Such landlords did not develop their land, or invest in its production. They arranged to grow a few crops and pasture sheep, and expected their Irish tenants to export those crops and wool to England, and use the poorer, leftover land to grow potatoes  and sustain themselves and their children. And from this came the disaster of The Potato Famine.

In 1845, the potato crop in Ireland was wiped out by a blight which made potatoes inedible. Ironically, it was believed to have emanated from America a year earlier in tubers which first made their appearance in Holland. Sadly, it was potatoes that kept the Irish alive, for it was the only thing they could grow in sufficient quantities in the tiny plots allowed them. Individual consumption varied from six to nine pounds per day. An average family of five needed to grow six tons of potatoes a year!  Few could afford to buy extra food, though they might fortify the potatoes with buttermilk and salt. Some families owned a pig, feeding the animal on potatoes too small to cook. When the potatoes became black and shriveled with blight, there was literally nothing else to eat.
In 1845, Ireland entered into a six-year famine of proportions hard to believe, even in our era of African and Asian famine. It is perhaps harder to understand because Ireland, barely 50 miles away from England by sea, was a part of the British Empire, the mightiest and richest nation the world had ever seen. But sadly enough, the Irish had become so depressed and uneducated by this time that their plight was of little concern to the English, who regarded them as having little worth or potential.(It is interesting to note that in this era of apologies, Tony Blair, Prime Minister of great Britain has sent an apology to the Irish for British indifference during the Famine, and Queen Elizabeth is planning a visit, the first since the days of Queen Victoria.)
For the next decade, families and villages were wiped out by famine. Parents gave their last food to their children; children wandered  as orphans through the countryside. Workhouses were everywhere, but there was no work, and landowners took to paying their tenants to emigrate (10 pounds was the cost of passage to America) rather than pay the tax on them as tenants, and so the exodus began.

The Voyage To Boston

By 1855, one million Irish had sailed to distant lands, and by 1880, another five hundred thousand. This was the time  of the Famine Ships (Ed. note: AKA, Coffin Ships) and the time when Mary Green sailed away from Cork. Now we have to use our imaginations because I do not really know what the particular circumstances were that caused such a young girl to sail away alone. Maybe her parents had died, or one had died. Maybe she was the oldest and the strongest and food was needed for the younger ones. (For some reason this is my conjecture.) Perhaps there were no eligible men in her village, and she risked never marrying at all. Maybe she had a friend or a favorite relative already in America who encouraged her to come. Perhaps her parents kissed her good bye with many tears knowing they could offer her nothing at home but deprivation and suffering, praying that she would find good fortune in America.

The Famine Ships

Now we can picture Mary in 1853 with her small bag of provisions and maybe some extra clothes going down to the wharf at Cork with her ten pounds sterling looking for a berth on a ship. Or she might have had to go first to Liverpool by small barge as a great many of the ships sailed directly from Liverpool to America. Finally, when all was ready, and the winds were right to set the sail, the ships moved off into the west to open seas with their passengers lingering long on deck. Their hearts were filled, I'm sure, with all that had been and all that was to come.

The voyage on these small sailing ships took from five to eight weeks. I remember my great aunt Annie telling me it took Mary six weeks to reach Boston, and it was usually an ordeal of huge proportions. The passengers slept, ate, and cooked in overcrowded holds. Food was scant and water rationed. Cold, rain, sometimes snow or sleet, rough seas, fog or days of maddening calm were part of every trip. Weakened passengers who were already sick  and frightened would need care, as would the babies and small children. The worst fear was the fever form of typhus. Many passengers boarded with this fever and infected still more. Sometimes as many as half the passengers died enroute or shortly after arrival from the fever, and ships were routinely met by immigration officers who took the sick off to crude barracks to wait for death or their recovery.

Life in Boston

Mary must have been very strong and very determined to survive all this, but survive she did and arrived safely in Boston Harbor. I wonder how long it took Mary to find work in America, or how she found her position. At that time there was great prejudice against the Irish, particularly in Boston, which was primarily settled by the English who brought their prejudices across the sea. Many advertisements for workers said NINA (No Irish Need Apply). But however she did it, work she found, and Mary was hired as a maid for a family in Boston. Here is what her son, our grandfather, said about that 80 years later:
"The man Mary married was Patrick O'Brien. He was a man not much older than Mary, born in County Cork on a small Island named Bear."
He came to America about the same time as Mary. I do not know much about him or what work he had found in Boston. His courtship of Mary is described by my grandfather Michael O'Brien in letter to me  in 1956. This was the year of my graduation from Radcliffe College.
"I am toying with the idea of coming to Boston when you graduate. Let me know the exact date...I like Boston and for  sentimental reasons, I like to visit Bunker Hill Monument, where in 1856 my parents did their courting on the monument steps. There was no other place available."

I really don't know much about my great grandfather, Patrick O'Brien. He looks a handsome, strong man from his photos, and I like to think that both Mary and Patrick were strong, and possibly excited about all that was new and promising in America.

Mary Green Marries Patrick O'Brien

Mary and Patrick married in Boston, and I hope that despite all the hardship, there was some laughter and romance as they planned their lives on the steps of Bunker Hill Monument. They must have looked to each other for everything -- security, companionship, respite from so much hard work and possibly unkind people, and memories of "the old country."

    They must have loved stories, and humor, for certainly my grandfather had a wonderful sense of humor, and all my great uncles and aunts were exceptionally affectionate and generous, "not a mean bone in their bodies" was the way it was put. They must have gotten these qualities from somewhere, and I expect it was from Mary and Patrick who sat on the steps of Bunker Hill and dreamed of a future and a family together.  It is fun to think that Alain and I walked near Bunker Hill when we were courting one hundred years later in 1956.... 

     I am not too sure of what happened to Patrick and Mary then. I do know that they were married in Boston, and had two little sons there whom they named John and William. Sadly, both sons died as infants and were buried in a Boston churchyard.  Perhaps these children died of disease or malnutrition. I have read that the tenements in Boston's Fort Hill were as unhealthy as the "wretched huts of Ireland."  Certainly, Mary and Patrick would have had few resources to buy medicines or obtain special care for their babies, and Mary herself was very young and probably overworked and poorly nourished herself.

Moving To Michigan

  The next thing we know is that Mary and Patrick picked up and moved to the Upper Peninsula in Michigan after hearing that there was employment for young men and boys in the newly established copper mines there. I am full of admiration for these two who did not give up and succumb to the harsh conditions of Boston, but emigrated still further from all that was familiar to find the work and security they longed for. And of course, it made all the difference in the world to the future of our family.

   Instead of raising their children in the Irish Catholic ghettos of Boston, they brought them out to a territory with greater freedom, greater opportunity for hardworking families, more ethnic diversity, education, and a whole new world to explore. As you hear the story, you will see what wonderful advantage they took of this undeveloped rural land which must have looked a little bit like Ireland to them.
A letter from a Welshman written from mines in Wisconsin (not far from those in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan) says "Wages are quite good, including for boys 14 to 16 years old and "living is cheaper."  The letters mention "healthy land, healthy crops, available land. We are comfortable and glad we have come."
This is the world that Patrick and Mary journeyed to with high hopes and heavy hearts as they left those little graves in Boston. How would they have gone in the early 1860s.

Life in  Copper Country, Northern Michigan

Eventually, Patrick and Mary must have secured a home and a job in the mine for Patrick. They must have been overjoyed to finally have children who lived and who prospered in their new little world, but there was still sadness to come.  Accidents, illness, deaths of infants and mothers were a part of their world in ways that we can hardly appreciate now. Doctors and medicines would have been very sparse in northern Michigan, and even if they were there, very little could often be done.
Of their children, these are the ones that survived beyond infancy. Records of their births survive in the 1870 and 1880 Census tracts for Houghton Township, Keewenaw County and 2nd Precinct Calumet township, Houghton County:

- Daniel, born in 1859...He died in a mining accident.

-  Mary Ellen, born in 1861...She died in 1878 at the age of 17.

 - Timothy, born in 1864.

 - Patrick Jr., born in 1867.

- James, born in  1870.

- Hanna born in 1872 ...Known as Annie, or to our generation as Auntie.

- Michael Edward,  born in 1877...My grandfather.

Sadly, I do not know very much about their early  lives. It can be freezing cold in northern Michigan with blustery winds coming over Lake Superior. It can be stunningly beautiful with clear blue skies and waters and majestic pine forests. Anne found in the high school the records of Patrick and Michael, who graduated from Sacred Heart High School in Calumet. The families were often housed in small cottages built by the owners of the mines. They probably did not have indoor plumbing. Our grandfather speaks in his letters of the many immigrants from all parts of Europe that came there to find work and land.
Swedes and Finns, Polish and Hungarians, Scots and Welsh, Grandpa seemed to know them all and find great pleasure and even humor in their stories and ways of speaking. One gets the sense from his letters and from knowing him later, that there was easy tolerance among these many ethnic groups, and the Irish must have found it a great relief not to be persecuted for their beliefs or looked down upon for their culture. There were public schools for all, and churches, and a lively community spirit.
Life in the mining villages was harsh as well. I wonder if the small houses had electricity or running water. The impression I had from Grandpa was that life was not easy, but marked with an independence and a sense of mobility and freedom that must have been exhilarating.
But overall, in those early days loomed the Mine -- the source of jobs and income, the source of danger and death.  Our own family suffered tragically in this mine. My great grandfather Patrick and his son, Daniel died in mine accidents. Son Patrick was in law School at the time in Wisconsin. His father's death had a great impact on the causes Patrick fought for as a young lawyer, and his subsequent career as a deeply respected judge in Michigan.

Grandpa tells the story of Daniel's death
in a letter to Jacqueline Enthoven in November, 1959...

"As regards family history........ I am thinking of many things I will include
in the memoirs. I will be helped by a book I got from Judd and Kitty McCluskey on my birthday, Sept. It is a history of the Calumet and Mich. Mine and many others in the Copper Country. I am reminded of many things-- for instance, long before I was born, the oldest boy, age 15 in the family, lost his life at Cliff Mine. A tram car for the mine which he and a fellow workman were pushing out to the mill went over the trestle and Dan (his name) went with it. He lived unconscious for about 10 days and finally died. My mother never got over his death. She spoke of him very often. He must have been a good boy. He started to work to help such a large family, and when mother was ill she says he used to make the breakfast and take care of her. He was a lovely penman. We had some of his school exercises. One of his teachers told my brother, the Judge, that Dan was the best student in his school. In this book I refer to there is a picture of the tramway and the mill...."

I do know that after this accident, my great grandmother did not want any more of her children to go into the mine, and as far as I know, they never did.
I do not know what happened to Uncle Tim, but Patrick or Uncle P.H., as he was always called, studied Law in Wisconsin and eventually became a judge and Attorney General for  the state of Michigan, a position he was elected to over a period of many years.  I shall write of him separately. His two sons were also lawyers and became judges in Michigan.
Uncle Jim never married and was a bit of a wanderer. I remember his "dropping in" on us several times to stay, once on his way back from Alaska, where he had been panning for gold. I remember him as rather a reclusive, rough-looking man who seemed to keep to himself when he came. But my mother was always sweet and welcoming to him. In one of his letters, my grandfather speaks of Jim as a bachelor who loved little Rosemary (the youngest of Grandpa's children) so much and who never failed to come to visit without "bringing her a treat."

Aunt Annie, whom we always called "Auntie," was wonderful, my favorite of all my many relatives. She had trained as a nursery school teacher, I think in Chicago, and taught  kindergarten for many years. When my grandmother died leaving seven children, the oldest of whom was my 14-year-old mother, she came to live with  her brother -- our Grandpa --  and raised the children as their mother. She was tall and thin with a rather angular face. She had large blue, rather sad eyes and hair that was always white in my memory. When I was a child she let me brush it and pin it up in all sorts of ways which delighted and amused me no end. She was gentle and patient. She made a book of pictures cut from magazines and little songs and poems which I still have. When I was 16, I made such a book with pictures cut from cards and little poems that I composed, and knew that I was her soul mate in that book.

I still remember so many of her songs, "Up on the housetop" and "Little dog Scottie with tail so short" and the story of "Good little Nell who rocked the baby and cleaned the house." Auntie spent the last months of her life at our house on Seminole Avenue.  I was 15 then, and I used to read to her when she was too weak to read to herself. The last book I read was a life of Henry Ford. She loved it. She died of cancer of the liver, and I know that was a great sorrow for my mother, and for me as well, who had really loved her gentle, generous spirit. Her death, and the death of my little friend, Richard Keydel, impressed me most with the sadness and the finality of death when I was young.

And then there was my grandfather, Michael Edward O'Brien. He was a tall, imposing figure, rather heavy in his later years, who loved a good dinner and a good story. He was definitely a people person, generous, outgoing and demonstrative. He graduated from high school but probably was not able to go on to college. His own father died when he was only 13, so he might have left school early to help to support his mother and sister.

He worked for the post office as a young man in Laurium, and then discovered the world of life insurance. Life insurance was a new idea at the turn of the century. There was no social security, and company pensions were not ordinary. There was some accident compensation paid for by some companies , but if the breadwinner of a family died through illness or accident, the widow and children often had no secure means of income. Thus, life insurance can be very appealing to a young man with a family in times when illness and accidents were so prevalent. I will tell more of this when I speak of Uncle P.H.'s courageous career in gaining benefits for families of miners.

Somehow, Grandpa was hired by a company that sold life insurance, and he went all over the state talking men into gaining "peace of mind" and the price of the premium, assuring them that their families would be provided for if they could no longer provide. Since his own father had died in the mines, grandpa knew from experience how devastating an accident can be for a family.

With Grandpa's gregarious nature and energy, and his connections with ethnic groups all over the state, he soon became one of the most successful salesmen in Michigan and was able to found his own company. He also became president of a bank in Calumet which still stands today.  In 1913 or so, he moved his growing family to a large house on Edison Avenue on the west side of Detroit, and soon had his own Life Insurance Company. But I am ahead of my story.

MICHAEL O'BRIEN MARRIES NELLIE HARRINGTON

First, Grandpa fell in love with Nellie Harrington who had grown up in Lake Linden, near Laurium.

She was the seventh of 13 children. Her parents were Sylvester Harrington and Mary Shea. We have a photo of Mary Shea. Amazingly enough, if I heard the story correctly, our grandmother, Nellie had gone off to New York City where she was trained as a secretary, and worked. It does seem very enterprising for a young girl from the Copper Country to be so educated and to go so far away. She and all the O'Briens represent a very upwardly mobile and energetic community.

Grandpa said that he first saw Nellie in Church at Christmastime, and fell in love with her immediately. She was so beautiful, he said. All the photos of her show her to be lovely, indeed, calm and intelligent. She had large eyes and long face, her hair and clothes seem quite stylish. I am sure that Grandpa loved her with a passion, and was always bringing her presents and flowers. That was his nature.

MY MOTHER'S EARLY YEARS

My mother, Eleanor Mary was born on September 20, 1904. When my mother was eight years old -- and already had four little sisters, Anne, Kitty, Margaret, and Martha and a little brother, John -- Grandpa moved the family to Detroit where he established his own insurance company, and they bought a house on Edison Avenue.  It was here that Rosemary, the youngest, was born in 1913.

And then the worst of all possible things happened. My grandmother died totally unexpectedly. There was no illness, and no warning.

My father told me many years later that he suspected that she died of an ectopic pregnancy, although that could not be proven. Later my mother had an ectopic pregnancy, and my father never lost his fear that she might suffer another.

My mother always gave the impression of having had a secure, comfortable, and happy childhood. The children went to the local parochial school, and summered in a cottage at Pine Lake, which was always filled with relatives and friends. Cousins were close, and grandmas lived with children in their later years. There were plenty of swimming parties and picnics. Their father would arrive on Fridays with a carload of food for all the family and guests.

But besides the carefree times, mother told us about the weeks of confinement the children would have when one or the other of them contracted a disease like measles or mumps or chicken pox. If one child came down with the virus, the whole family was kept in quarantine. That could last for weeks, as one child after another contracted the disease. My grandfather usually moved into a hotel during those weeks, as otherwise, he would not have been allowed to go back and forth to his office. For the children, it was a long holiday where if they were not the current patients, they amused themselves by giving plays, playing wild games of hide and seek, leaning out windows, etc.  It must have been a very trying time for the adults of the family trying to contain all the exuberant energy of the well children while nursing the sick ones, and who with so little medicine, could be very sick indeed.

In 1917, this idyllic childhood ended very abruptly with the death of my grandmother, the mother of this large family. My mother told us later that they had all gone off to school one morning, with no idea of a problem. They were called out of class early with the news that their mother had died. Mother said that they were given no explanation, and never really had a chance to talk about it or grieve. They were given black dresses for the funeral, that was all.

After that, my grandfather's sister, Annie O'Brien, came to stay and take care of the household and seven children. We called her Auntie, and I have written about her earlier in this account. My mother loved her for her gentle generous ways, but the sudden loss of her own mother I think cast a shadow of sadness over my mother for the rest of her life. My grandfather was deeply attached to his wife and suffered from depression in the months after her death. He went off to a sanatarium for several months, my mother told me, and later she went on trips with him to California and to New York. He always spoke of how much his Eleanor (my mother) reminded him of Nellie, and a special bond grew up between father and daughter.

Soon another sad death visited this family. Little Rosemary, the youngest of the children, and just six years at the time, died of diphtheria. Grandpa described her death in a letter written about 40 years after her death. The sorrow he still felt at losing this little child comes to us through the letter in the most moving way.

"She (Rosemary) was the youngest and was different, black hair and dark eyes, a regular little Spanish type. There was an anti-toxin for diphtheria, but instead of giving her a shot when he (the doctor) suspected it, he would wait until the next day to get a report from the Board of Health that confirmed his diagnosis. But in the meantime, all that day and through the long night, the power of the diphtheria infection was working although as the doctor admitted afterwards, it would have been no harm to give the dose of anti-toxin even though there was no diphtheria. She seemed to be getting better. The house was quarantined, so all I could do was to come to the back door and inquire how she was.  My sister, Annie, was taking care of her with the utmost devotion."

I wish my mother were here to tell the story of her life as it unfolded. Despite these profound losses of a mother and dear sister, I believe my mother would say her teen years were happy ones. She recounted their summers at Pine Lake, their house brimming over with O'Briens, Sheas, other cousins and friends. Grandpa would come out every weekend, his car brimming over with groceries and probably another friend or two.

Somewhere along in these years he married his first wife's sister. Her name was Lyle Harrington Kettenhofen. She was a widow with four children, Clemens and Bob, Mary and Bunny. So now there were ten children, all close in age and all teenagers or almost teenagers in one house. It must have been a household brimming with energy and activity. My mother was still the oldest, and probably always was a bit more responsible and reserved than the others, qualities she carried all her life.

I do not think that Grandpa and Aunt Lyle, as we called her, were very happy together. They never seemed close and had separate bedrooms as far as I know. Aunt Lyle died when I was in high school, and the step-sisters and -brothers never saw each other much after that.

The portraits of Anne and me, which we each have in our homes, and the four painting of a village along the coast of Maine, were done by Bob Kettenhofen's wife. Her name was Phyllis Campau Kettenhofen. I like her paintings very much.

I do not know what my mother did the year after graduating from high school. I believe it was another year before she started her training as a nurse at Harper Hospital in Detroit. Grandpa writes of that in another letter  datedApril 10, 1958, to Jacqueline Enthoven:

"One never knows just what is around the corner. When Eleanor decided to take on training as a nurse at Harper Hospital, she left home to reside in the nurses' home. When I took her there that evening and left her there, I was never so lonesome in my life before or since. Her mother died only a few years before, and Eleanor was so much like her in her manner and disposition, it seemed like a double loss, yet see how nicely it turned out. She met Dr. Fenech, and I am sure in less than a year she was married, and I don't know of a happier couple than Eleanor and Dr. Fenech."

Actually I don't think grandpa was quite right on his dates, as Mother did finish nurses' training, which took three years, graduated, and I think worked for a year or so as a public health nurse before marrying. Of course, she and my father couldn't marry before he had finished his residency in surgery and had established himself in a medical practice and income. That was the way it was in those days .

But Grandpa was very right that they were extraordinarily well suited and happy together. As I said at my father's memorial service..."She was the center, the quiet place where he could always come, the beautiful woman he loved above all things."

Our parents first lived at the Wardell in Detroit, just north of the DIA, an apartment-hotel rather near the hospital, and which must have provided many of the housekeeping services. Then they moved to a house on Kerby Street, which is where Anne and I were born. Now, I think those streets have all become part of Wayne State University.

From there, we moved to a house in Indian Village, 2954 Burns Avenue in 1938 or thereabouts. I have vivid memories of that house, of running through the hose in the backyard with our neighbor, Pete Warren, of playing in the vacant field next door which was for me the scene of rich imaginative play. We lived next door to Nichols School which Anne and I both attended in the early grades before starting at Saint Edward's, our parochial school, which was about four blocks away.

Of course, everybody walked to school in those days. Our mother had no car, and in fact, could not drive. Very few women could. She took the bus downtown to shop for clothes and household goods. Groceries were delivered to the door. My father went to the Eastern Market on Saturdays, bringing home bags of fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh eggs and flowers. I especially remember the gladiolas that he loved, and the plants of chrysanthemums.

It was in that house on Burns that we listened to our first electric Victrola, with 78 rpm records that seemed a miracle; that I broke my leg, falling down with my father on Easter eve. It was there that we strung a string to the Warren's house and sent paper messages back and forth; that Pearl Harbor happened and our father enlisted as an officer in the U.S. Army. He joined the medical unit from Harper Hospital which became known as the 17th General Hospital. Their unit made its way to Camp Custer and Camp McCoy, and then to Northern Africa, Tunisia and finally to Naples, Italy ,where they were until the war ended in 1945.

It was in this house that Anne and I had polio in the summer of 1943, and spent weeks in bed, and more weeks learning to walk and run again. I will let Anne tell those stories as she was older than I, and has a better memory.