The First American in Space – and Our Family Connection to This Historic Event

May 5th, 2011, was the 50th anniversary of an event that ultimately led to the United States sending the first man to walk on the moon. That event was Alan Shepard’s 1961 Freedom 7 flight into space.

A bit of historical background

The "Cold War" was a continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, and economic competition between primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies – and the United States and her allies.

▲The Launch of Freedom 7

Although the chief military forces never engaged in a major battle with each other during this period, they expressed the conflict through military coalitions, strategic conventional force deployments, extensive aid to states deemed vulnerable, proxy wars, espionage, propaganda, conventional and nuclear arms races, appeals to neutral nations, rivalry at sports events, and technological competitions such as the "space race".

◄ Timeline of space race up to time of
Shepard's flight (Click to enlarge it.)

During the Cold War the United States was in intense competition with the USSR as to which country would lead the world in the space race. As you can see in the partial timeline of space exploration to the left, the USSR had sent the first man into orbit and the U.S. was playing "catch-up" in the eyes of many observers.

This video provides a look at the intense competitiveness of the events of that era. Here are links to a couple of YouTube videos about the Freedom 7 launch:
NASA Film - Freedom 7 - #1
NASA Film - Freedom 7 - #2

Shepard's 1998 New York Times obituary reported his experience as follows:

“On the morning of May 5, 1961, [Alan B. Shepard, Jr.] became an immediate American hero. A lean, crew-cut former Navy test pilot, then 37, he began the day lying on his back in a cramped Mercury capsule atop a seven-story Redstone rocket filled with explosive fuel. After four tense hours of weather and mechanical delays, he was shot into the sky on a 15-minute flight that grazed the fringes of space, at an altitude of 115 miles, and ended in a splashdown in the Atlantic Ocean 302 miles downrange from Cape Canaveral, Fla.

Though not much by today's [1998] standards, the brief suborbital flight stopped a whole country in its tracks, waiting anxiously at radios and television sets. When the message of success came through -- with a phrase that would enter the idiom, ‘Everything is A-O.K.!’ -- everyone seemed to let out a collective sigh of relief.'

Daniel S. Goldin, head of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said the Shepard flight was ‘a tremendous statement about tenacity, courage and brilliance,’ adding with a tone of lingering awe: ‘He crawled on top of that rocket that had never before flown into space with a person aboard and he did it. That was an unbelievable act of courage.’ “

[Editor’s comment: When reporters asked Shepard what he thought about as he sat atop the Redstone rocket waiting for liftoff, he reportedly replied, “The fact that every part of this ship was built by the low bidder.”]

“[Three weeks later] On May 25 [president] Kennedy told Congress, 'This nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. No single space project in this period will be more impressive to mankind or more important for the long-range exploration of space. And none will be so difficult or expensive to accomplish.' '' (Source)

The U.S. puts the first man on the moon

Kennedy’s goal was met, for on July 20, 1969, Commander Neil Armstrong became the first man on the moon. He spoke the historic words, "One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." (Source)

Ten years after his initial flight in Freedom 7, Alan Shepard commanded the Apollo 14 mission and was the fifth person to walk on the moon. During the Applllo mission he planted an American flag on the surface of the moon.

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Our family connection to Alan Shepard’s first space flight

In December, 2010, my daughter gave me a collection of information she found in her deceased mother, Sonja’s, belongings. Sonja – my wife in 1961 – still had this 50-year old material from my time in the U.S. Navy. I had no idea the material still existed.

Because Alan Shepard’s flight occurred while I was in the Navy – and the ship I was on played a role in that event – this page of this blog features some of the information provided by my daughter. Why? Because, in retrospect, my small connection with the recovery of the first American in space seems worth recording in this blog’s Family History stories.

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Some personal background

The law in the era in which I approached my 18th birthday required every male to register with the Selective Service System at age 18, which made us subject to being drafted into the army.

What little I knew about the army didn’t appeal to me, so while I was still in high school I joined the Navy reserves. It was a six-year commitment that included attending a full-time “boot camp” for several weeks, weekly training meetings during the year, training for weeks at a time during summers, and two years of full-time active service.

▲The complete photo is too large to fit onto my scanner, but included here are parts of a photo of my boot camp company and me. It's captioned, “Co. A-58 U.S. Naval Reserve, J.J. Duncan, CSC, USN, Co. Cmdr – 30 June 1959, U.S. Naval Training Center, Great Lakes, Ill[inois]”. At the time this photo was taken I was 18 years old, married, had just graduated from high school in May, and two weeks later in July I was the father of a son.

As time passed I advanced in grade, ending my two years of active duty as Radarman 3rd Class. This photo of me at that stage of my service was taken with the Naval Air Station at Quonset Point, Rhode Island, in the background. This was the home port of the USS Lake Champlain, the ship on which I served.▼

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The recovery of the Freedom 7 capsule and Alan Shepard

◄ Crew members of the Lake Champlain seeing the capsule when it became visible as it returned to earth.

▲ After exiting the capsule following splashdown, Alan Shepard is hoisted up in a body harness by a U.S. Marine Sikorsky UH-34D helicopter recovery team of Marine squadron HMM-262 following the first Project Mercury suborbital space flight. ▼

















Shepard, along with his spacecraft, was then taken to the Lake Champlain. (Source)

◄ On the way to the ship...

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Life magazine, May, 1961

The story made the cover of Life magazine, and the article about it, in part, had this to say about the Freedom 7 launch and Alan Shepard.
(Click to enlarge it).

 

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My personal perspective: How a letter I wrote became a news story

In an article titled "Gary Seaman In On Space Feat", the Gary Post Tribune published the article below on 14 May 1961. I never lived in Gary, but had sent a letter about Shepard's flight to my mother, who then lived in East Gary (now renamed Lake Station), Indiana. She sent the letter and my high school graduation phototo to the newspaper - and they became the basis for the article (click twice to make it readable).

  

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▼The capsule on the deck of the Lake Champlain after its recovery

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Flying home from the ship after the birth of my daughter

Not long after Shepard’s flight, in September, 1961, I was at sea during one of the several-week anti-submarine warfare exercises in which the Lake Champlain was regularly involved. During that cruise I was hand-delivered the message below, which notified me of the birth of my eldest daughter. (Click to enlarge it.)

The Navy responded to her birth by flying me, a lowly seaman, from the ship back to our home base so I could be with my wife, son and new baby. It was a remarkable experience to be flung, like a rock from a slingshot, off the deck of an aircraft carrier.

The plane was designed for utility, not comfort, and once inside the aircraft I could barely move. I liken it to flying in a tin can, for there was no padding on the metal interior – and no luxurious seats. Nonetheless it was exciting and gratifying to get home to meet my new baby daughter!

All in all, 1961 was a meaningful year in the life of this young sailor!

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The Naval Base

As a sidebar to the story of Shepard's historic flight, readers may find it interesting to learn a little about the Naval Air Station at Quonset Point, Rhode island, the home port of the Lake Champlain. The article below provides a brief glimpse into its history, which dated back to WW II and its role in combatting the presence of German submarines on the east coast.
(Click twice to make it readable.)

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The USS Lake Champlain

◄ USS Lake Champlain, CVS 39, Circa 1960 (Click to enlarge it.)

Here's another sidebar to the story of Alan Shepard's flight; it's a brief look at the history of the Lake Champlain, as provided in a handout provided to visitors:

"HISTORY OF A CHAMPION
 

Endowed with the victorious fighting spirit of Commodore Mac Donough's naval triumph on Lake Champlain in the War of 1812 and equipped with some of the most modern weapons for naval warfare, the USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN has served as an ever-ready, powerful guardiari of American principles for almost twenty years.

Commissioned an Essex-type attack carrier (CVA) on June 3, 1945, in Norfolk, Va., the USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN joined the Atlantic Fleet in the latter part of World War II. Shortly after the armistice, she became part of the troop-transporting "Magic Carpet." During this good-will operation, the USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN set an Atlantic crossing speed record by whisking 5,000 GIs from Gibraltar to Virginia in 87 hours, maintaining an average speed of 32 knots over the 3,960 mile course. The "Ghamp," as she was now called, held the coveted speed record' for seven years.

The USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN was reclassified an antisubmarine warfare carrier (CVS) on Aug.1st 1, 1957. Since that time, she has strenuously engaged in NATO exercises and antisubmarine maneuvers throughout the Atlantic. Liberty ports in the, Mediterranean, Northern Europe, the British Isles, Canada, and the Caribbean have played host to the Champmen.

On May 5, 1961, the USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN, as primary recovery ship in the Project Mercury space program, gained world-wide fame when America's first astronaut, Navy Commander Alan B. Shepard, was brought aboard immediately after his dazzling flight through outer space.

The Battle Efficiency "E" was awarded to the USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN on August 16, 1961, for outstanding performance in keen competition against Atlantic Fleet carriers of her class. In addition, her Air and Operations Departments and her Antisubmarine Helicopter Squadron, HS- 5, won "E"s in individual Atlantic Fleet competitions.

In 1962, the LAKE CHAMPLAIN continued her work as one of the ready-duty ASW carriers. With her Air Group embarked and protected by destroyer escorts, she regularly departs her homeport of Quonset Point for duty in the North Atlantic Ocean."

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Finally, here's a look at logistical details about the ship, also from the handout mentioned above.

"THE CITY OF THE CHAMPION

In population and complexity, the USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN is a veritable 'city at sea'. Her chain of command can be compared to that of a municipal government, with the Commanding Officer as the 'Mayor', the Executive Officer as the 'City Manager' and the Chief Master-at-Arms as the 'Chief of Police'.

With a gross displacement of 40,000 tons and a 30 foot draft, the massive 'Champ' (896 feet in length with a 101 foot beam) can be driven through the water at speed in excess of 35 mph with 150,000 shaft horsepower transferred to her four giant 14 ton screws. She is the only 'straight deck' carrier presently in the U. S. fleet.

Working on, above, and below her 862 foot flightdeck are more than 2,000 men who comprise the ship's nine departments (Administration, Air, Dental, Engineering, Gunnery, Medical, Navigation, Operations, and Supply.) She operates with an embarked air group of over 40 antisubmarine aircraft.

Included in the scores of crewmen aboard the "Champ" are expert cooks, cobblers, tailors, barbers, laundrymen, printers, and storekeepers. Ship's Servicemen operate the ship's two variety stores, the soda fountain, and tobacco shop - which tend to the 'civilian' needs of her men. Recreational facilities include a well - stocked athletic gear locker, a weight lifting room, a ship's library, a crew's lounge, a reception lounge for the crew and their guests, and numerous TV sets.

Movies are shown nightly in the wardroom and in the hangar bay which is also the scene of basketball and volleyball games and boxing smokers, recruiting local talent. The 'Champ' also has varsity basketball, boxing, and softball teams which actively participate in many all-Navy tournaments. A case full of trophies attests to their successes. At sea, the 'Champ' publishes a daily newspaper, the 'Nighthawk Express', and operates radio station WVLC, devoted to shipboard news and popular music.

There is a fully-equipped, non-denominational Chapel aboard the 'Champ' which has been the scene of Navy weddings and christenings in addition to a full program of religious services.
 

Almost 200,000 meals are served monthly aboard the 'Champ'. Her monthly payroll tops the $500,000 mark. With more than 90,000 gallons of fresh water produced daily at sea, water ration days are rarely required.

All her attributes and conveniences only serve to make the USS LAKE CHAMPLAIN a more efficient deadly weapon against enemy submarines. She's a 'city at sea' to protect those on land."

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Last revised 7/14/2011

Please refer to the disclaimer on the index page of this blog for a statement regarding the accuracy of - and documentation for - the information presented in this blog.

Fleeta Claire Jones Becomes Claire Field

In 1921 Claire Dunn was born Fleeta Claire Jones, and in 1940 she married William Edward (Bill) Dunn (1918-1986). Claire's ancestral Jones line is as follows:

Lewis Jones (1791-1871) & Rebecca McPherson Jones
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Dr. William M. Jones (1831-1892) & Elizabeth Goodman Jones
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Fleetwood Churchill Jones (1857-1937) & Leona Cash Jones
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Rev. Carleton Duane Jones (1895-1967) & Nelle Virginia Field Jones
▼
Fleeta Claire Jones (1921-2012)
(This high school graduation photo is circa 1937)

Claire became the mother of the five "East Chicago Dunns", as I've labeled the family, including me, Patrick Dunn, the editor of this blog. 

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Setting the stage for what follows

Following is an excerpt from an autobiographical manuscript that Claire wrote about various events in her life. This excerpt refers to events that took place shortly after she graduated from high school, circa 1937. The Great Depression was underway and the U.S. had not yet entered the fighting in Europe that became known as World War II.

Her parents had divorced, and their father, Rev. Carleton Jones, was awarded legal custody of their four kids. This led to an onging "contest" of sorts in which Claire's mother, Nelle, repeatedly took some of the children away from him, often using sneaky, nefarious methods to do so, according to the information I've gathered from several sources. 

It wasn't that Nelle wanted to keep the kids. She apparently just wanted to take them away from Carleton, probably to cause him pain, if I'm interpreting the facts correctly. I say that because once she got them she'd find places to "dump" them, as Claire, in one of her letters to me, described Nelle's behavior.

Claire, in a letter to me, described the incident below as her being "dumped" by her mother.
 "…So, Mother [Nelle] decided to get rid of me. She went through this kind of thing often, getting rid of her kids by various means. She had sent [Claire’s brother] DeRand to Aunt Grace [Nelle’s sister] in Seattle when he was about ten or so. Grace kept him for three years. She [Nelle] had sent me to [my cousin] Maggie's for three months, and now she was going to get rid of me for good.

Aunt Bess [another of Nelle’s sisters], in Chicago, invited us to come for Christmas. This may have been a setup, now that I look back on it, as Aunt Bess was not that generous. She used to send us, the whole family, a five pound box of chocolates every Christmas, and that was it.

Of course, I did appreciate the chocolates. They were the only ones I ever tasted. Each Christmas each of us got two chocolates a day until the box was gone. I developed a fantastic craving for chocolates that has never been satisfied, to this day.

It got quite cold as we neared Chicago. We didn't have a lot of money, nothing new about that, so we ate hamburgers quite a bit. There was a chain of hamburger stands called the White Castle, that sold hamburgers for a nickel. Imagine, a nickel. You only got a bare bun and bare meat, and had to decorate it yourself, but it was tasty enough and filling.

Visiting Aunt Bess was interesting. I had never been in an apartment before, we always had houses. Here we were in a bee-hive of apartments, with people on all sides of us, top, bottom, both sides, Also the streets were full of these apartment houses, side by side with only about six feet between them, and no green grass, no trees, nothing of the country about them. It was exciting.

As far as I knew, we were all going home a day or so after Christmas.
Mother took me aside. "Claire, you're going to stay here and get a job."

"I am? What can I do?" A good question. I couldn't do anything that I knew of.

"Oh, you'll find something," my mother was calmly convinced. [The] Depression didn't mean anything to her. "You'll stay with Aunt Bess until you find a job, then you can pay her board.”

Aunt Bess apparently agreed to this. I have no idea how Mother talked her into this. But, as I mentioned before, Mother was a salesman. She could sell anybody anything.

When I thought it over, it really was a good idea. I had fallen in love with Chicago back when I stayed with Maggie. Maggie lived nearby and I could see her as often as I wished. She had a baby by this time, a little girl she called Mimi.

Mother left me and I didn't see her again for five years.

The first thing I did was change my name from Fleeta Claire, which I was still being called, to just Claire. Also I didn't like the name Jones, so as long as I was changing everything, I called myself Field, using my mother's maiden name. Claire Field sounded pretty good to me. A lot better than that hokey Fleeta Claire Jones. This was my chance to get past that awful name and change my whole self.

It took about a month to get a job, which really wasn't bad for the times. I would have liked to get a job [working] for the telephone company, but it turned out that you had to have a birth certificate to prove you were a citizen of the United States, and I didn't have one.

[Editor’s comment: The reason for that is that she was born in the home of a midwife, not in a hospital, and a birth certificate was not issued at that time. She later took the series of steps required, and in 1955 received a “registration of birth” from the Circuit Court of Oregon, which was amended in 1964 to reflect her change from her birth name of Jones to her married name of Dunn.

I have her “registration of birth” as part of a batch of paperwork collected from her house and sent to me. It shows that she was born in the city of Roseburg in Douglas County, Oregon, on 17 June 1921.

The confusion caused by her change from Jones to Field

We, her five children, grew up knowing she was born Fleeta Claire Jones and married our father, William Edward (Bill) Dunn. However, until much later in life we didn’t realize she had once decided to go by the name of Field. This resulted in what now seems like an amusing incident (it was somewhat aggravating at the time).

When one of his daughters was about to be married – in Costa Rica (officially the Republic of Costa Rica, a country in South America) – one of my my brothers applied for a passport and was turned down because he provided “Jones” as his mother’s maiden name.

As he later learned, she had used the name “Field” as her maiden name when we were born. Not having had any reason to have looked at his birth certificate, he hadn’t realized that fact when he applied for his passport. Thus, his birth record didn’t match his application, which caused his application to be declined.

With the date of the wedding fast approaching, my brother sent out an urgent request for clarification of what our mother’s maiden name had been. As it happened, I had recently looked at my birth certificate to get some details for this Family History project – and was able to tell him what she had done with her name when we were born.

With that data he was able to reapply - and obtained his passport just in time to get to the wedding!

Claire’s informal change of names was a source of satisfaction to her, but as evidenced above, has been an occasional source of confusion to her offspring from time to time when we’ve been asked to provide our mother’s maiden name!

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Last revised 7/10/2011

Please refer to the disclaimer on the index page of this blog for a statement regarding the accuracy of - and documentation for - the information presented in this blog.

Talking to Flying Saucers and Spirits of the Dead – and a Painting by the Spirit of a Dead Artist?

The story of a California visit by Claire Dunn in the 1950s is among the strangest in our family's history...




▲ Flying saucer? Photo taken December 2003, at Giant Rock, California (source)

◄ "Giant Rock": Compare the size of the rock to the size of the person standing in the middle. (source)


 





In 1921 Claire Dunn was born Fleeta Claire Jones, and in 1940 she married William Edward (Bill) Dunn (1918-1986). Claire's ancestral Jones line is as follows:

Lewis Jones (1791-1871) & Rebecca McPherson Jones
▼
Dr. William M. Jones (1831-1892) & Elizabeth Goodman Jones
▼
Fleetwood Churchill Jones (1857-1937) & Leona Cash Jones
▼
Rev. Carleton Duane Jones (1895-1967) & Nelle Virginia Field Jones
▼
Fleeta Claire Jones (b.1921)

Claire became the mother of the five "East Chicago Dunns", as I've labeled the family, including me, Patrick Dunn, the editor of this blog. The information quoted below was written by Claire, and is excerpted from a 400 page autobiographical manuscript she assembled about various events in her life. This portion of her manuscript deals with events that took place circa 1953, when she took me with her to California to visit her mother and other maternal family members. 

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"Pat was about twelve years old when I took him with me to visit Mother and [her mother's significant other] Charlie in California. Mother had invited me to come out, I thought it would be nice to take Pat with me. He was getting grown up and able to talk intelligently, not just a child, and I was beginning to enjoy having him.

However, we did not have any money, and although Mother had invited me, I had to pay my own way. I could come up with enough for my own fare, but not his. So I suggested to him that he might use his paper route money to pay his own way out there, that is, if he would like a trip to California. He thought it over, and decided he would.

The flight was enjoyable. I had never been on a plane, and I liked it. Pat was very blasé about the whole thing, you'd think he had flown all his life. While flying over the Grand Canyon, which went on and on for miles, and was spectacular from the air, Pat was reading a comic book!

'Pat, look, look!' I said excitedly, 'There's the Grand Canyon!' 'Um hum', he replied, barely glancing out the window, and returning instantly to his book.

I was peeved. Here was a chance of a lifetime and the dumb kid didn't appreciate it. Then I remembered, rather guiltily, how I had felt when I looked at the Grand Canyon when I was about nine. I didn't appreciate it either, then. Kids aren't scenery conscious, I decided.

When we got to Palm Springs, I was really impressed with the town. It was obviously a resort town, a place where nobody lived, just visited. The town had been built out in the desert, nothing was natural, all of it was artificial and man-made. It was the only town in the United States that had white fire engines, I was told. That may be different now, but it was the only one then.

The sidewalks were made of pastel colored concrete blocks, in random shapes. The lights were hidden in palm trees, and every other tree had a basin of water at the base for the rich [people's] dogs to drink from.

Pedestrians had the right of way over traffic at all times, and they took advantage of it. The street was full of strolling, half-naked visitors. Nobody wore clothes. If you wore a dress with sleeves you were overdressed. Even the people in the offices and stores wore shorts and halters and thongs.

It was colorful and exciting, and hot. Hot beyond anything I had ever experienced. All the houses were flat roofed, with air coolers on top, and water would be poured on the roof so that the evaporation would cool the rooms underneath. This was something I had never had any experience with. Nobody went out in the daytime, at noon, but either stayed inside where it was cool, or soaked in the swimming pools, which everybody had.

The town was composed of shops, real estate agents, and hotels. That was about all the business there was. Restaurants, of course, but they were usually attached to the hotel. Or motel.

Mother was a masseuse. She hadn't had any training and hadn't been a masseuse the last time I saw her, but she was now. California had very loose laws and anybody could say they were anything, and just go ahead and do it.

Some of her customers were movie stars and starlets and movie stars’ wives. She went up to Frank Sinatra's house and gave Ava Gardner a massage on several occasions. She said Ava was beautiful, and walked around nude no matter who was there.

Mrs. William Powell came in for a massage while I was there, a beautiful creature, sun-tanned and beautifully made up.

Pat enjoyed the swimming and the lush life everyone lived. The shops and real estate didn't impress him, but the swimming and the motel did.

Charlie gave me a hundred dollars to spend when I got there. It sounded like a lot of money until I went to buy a dress. My God, the prices! A dress that would have been five dollars in Chicago was twenty-five dollars there. I couldn't waste the money on something like that, so I didn't buy it. Bought some jewelry, and a Hawaiian dress like I had never seen before. Managed to spend the money, all right, no sweat.

"Giant Rock"

There really wasn't that much to do around Palm Springs if you didn't have any money. Mother closed up the shop one day, and we went out to the desert to a place called Giant Rock.

What surprised me was that it really was a giant rock, and that's all it was. In the middle of the desert, with no other rocks around it [photos I found online indicate that she was mistaken about this point], was this rock that was about 100 feet in all directions. Underneath it, a room had been hollowed out. 

A man lived nearby who had a generator for his electricity. He was probably a rancher, there's no other way to make a living on the desert.

Speaking with flying saucers?

What we went to was a meeting of some flying saucer buffs. There were a lot of other cars there, all the people seemed to know each other, as Mother introduced us to many of them. They looked perfectly normal, well, as normal as people in southern California usually look. There were no obvious kooks, nobody with straw in their hair.

The whole group went down into a room that was dug out under the rock. There is no way to describe how dark it can be in a hole under a rock in the desert, in the night. It was the darkest dark I have ever experienced. It was possible to see the radium dial on a watch twenty feet away.

What we went down there for, was to talk to the flying saucers. Yep. Since I couldn’t see anything, I couldn’t tell if the leader was talking on an instrument, like a phone or a radio, or not. He sounded like it. We could hear his side of the conversation, as on a phone, but hear nothing from the flying saucers which were supposedly circling overhead.

These saucers [supposedly] came from a planet which was in back of the moon, which was the reason astronomers had never discovered it. Nobody there seemed to know that a couple of planets had been discovered that can't even be seen, but were discovered due to the gravitational pull they exerted on other planets. Common sense was not a factor here.

There was a good crowd, considering the circumstances, perhaps fifty people. There were lots of old sofas and chairs that had apparently either been thrown out and recovered, or donated to the cause. Fans circulated the air, fortunately, and nobody was allowed to smoke. A secretary wrote down all the messages [from the flying saucers] that the leader repeated as he listened. This would be later transcribed and printed in a paper they passed around among themselves. 

Being a secretary myself, I was impressed with her ability to write shorthand in the pitch black dark we were experiencing. Since I never saw the paper I had no way of knowing how accurate she was in her reporting.

After the meeting or visit everybody left and sort of visited with each other out on the sand, exactly like people coming out of Sunday morning [church] service. I had a feeling of déjà vu as memories of long ago came flooding back.

Mother seemed quite happy at having visited the flying saucers, and chatted happily about it all the way home. To each his own, I guess.

Speaking with the spirit of a dead person?

Later in the visit we all went to see [Claire’s cousin] Maggie and [her husband] Fritz, who live in San Bernadino. [Claire’s aunt] Bess and Mother decided that Maggie should put on a séance for us. Maggie had become a trance medium, a logical successor to the Ouija board she and [Claire’s cousin] Maurine used to play with when I visited her in Chicago.

Maggie obligingly went into a trance and carried on a conversation with the spirit of a black mammy she had been raised with. She also talked like she was on a telephone, and we just heard her end of it.

This did cause Pat to lose his cool. I really think he was frightened and asked if he could be excused. The others seemed to think he shouldn't be, but I let him go outside. This was heady stuff for a twelve year old kid who hadn't been exposed to the kind of family I came from.

Later, when I thought about the things Maggie's 'spirits' told me I realized she and Mother must have known more than I did about my personal problems. There was lots of vague advice and admonishments that I didn't understand then.

A portrait painted by the spirit of a dead artist?

Maggie did do one beautiful thing for me. Mother asked her to do it, but when we all came back from a side trip to Mexico one day, we walked into Maggie's living room and she had painted my portrait! Mother had given her a copy of a studio portrait I had had taken, and Maggie had painted it in three days. She says she is not the painter, that the spirit of a dead painter who never became famous, paints through her.

Whoever it [was], the picture is beautiful and I cried when I saw it. It is one of my greatest treasures.

Other pictures Maggie has painted are beautiful, but none are as good as the one she did of me. It shows me holding a bouquet of yellow roses, and each of them is supposed to be somebody important in my life. And the background shows a stormy sky which is supposed to be my aura. It has an intense look in the eyes, and almost a Mona Lisa smile. To me, it is priceless, a true treasure.

In fact, later I gave instructions to the kids. 'If the house ever catches fire, save the picture. I can't replace it. I can always get more kids!' [Interestingly, Maurine’s daughter Bonnie now has that painting.]

Incidentally, Pat never did think he got his money's worth out of that trip."

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The California trip from my perspective

What you see above is Claire's memories of the trip. Below is my perspective on it, as expressed in messages to my siblings after first reading her version, and before posting it on this blog.

"In her 400-page manuscript she [Claire] tells the story of taking me - age 12 - to California with her to visit her mother [Nelle] and other relatives.

It was a very strange experience!

1) When we arrived at the airport, we exited the plane into an open area, not directly into a terminal as we usually do these days. Nelle was waiting for us, and as we approached her she pointed skyward and shouted for all to hear, something to the effect of, "Look, flying saucers." It was weird, for everyone began to look upward, but there was nothing to be seen.

2) They took me out to a place called "Giant Rock", where a meeting room had been dug out under a seven-story sized rock in the Mojave desert. There, we and about 50 other people heard what were supposed to be one side of two-way conversations with beings from outer space - supposedly hovering somewhere in flying saucers or whatever.

It was like hearing one side of a phone conversation, where someone in the room conducted the half that we could hear, then reported what the space aliens had to say.

See Giant Rock for a Wikipedia story about it - it says, in part, "Giant Rock is a large freestanding boulder in the Mojave Desert near Landers, California, that covers 5,800 square feet...of ground and is seven stories high. In ancient times it was considered sacred by the Native Americans of the Joshua Tree, California, area. In the 1950s it was a gathering point for UFO believers."

3) On another occasion they had me sit in on a séance where Claire's cousin Maggie, supposedly a medium, supposedly talked with the spirit of a deceased old southern mammy while everyone sat in a big circle holding hands. It scared me to death. I ran from the room after a bit of it.

4) Then there was the time her [Claire's] mother told me that she [Nelle] was not my grandmother, but was, instead, a being from Venus who was just inhabiting Nelle's body(!)

Here's a sidebar to this part of the story: In September,1964, about a year or so after the events described above, Nelle wrote a letter to Claire that covered several issues they'd been dialoging about. Included in that letter is a brief reference to Nelle's having been visited by a "ship from outer space" - and that she might just "go away with them the next time."

Claire detailed this California trip in her manuscript - and about Nelle being "from Venus" in a letter she wrote to me when I was writing to her (Claire) 2-3 years ago about family history questions.

Weird?
 
Absolutely!

♦♦♦

I remembered most of those events, but was a bit annoyed by info I'd forgotten. In her manuscript Claire says she had me pay my own way, using money I'd earned on my two paper routes! I delivered five different papers - the (Chicago) Tribune and (Chicago) Sun Times in the mornings and the (Chicago) Herald American, the (Chicago) Daily News, and the Hammond Times in the afternoons.

In the rain. When it was cold and snowy or icy. When it was miserably hot and sweaty.

Every day, seven days a week, except that on Sundays I delivered all the Sunday papers at one time.

On Saturdays I went house to house, customer to customer, to collect for the week's payments. If customers didn't pay, or weren't there, or moved without paying me, that was my problem. I still had to pay Nassau & Thompson (the distributor) in full every week. Deadbeats ate into my earnings.

In other words, I worked hard and long for that money.

I don't have a clue as to how much money was involved, but in effect she used my money to pay my expenses for a trip to meet her mother and that side of her family, none of whom I had ever met before - and never saw again. And show me off (hey, I was cute and smart, so she could brag on me to those wacky people) and it cost her zilch!

Is it surprising that I, as a 12-year old kid, didn't think I got my money's worth out of that trip?

- PWD

♦♦♦

Last revised 7/20/2011

Please refer to the disclaimer on the index page of this blog for a statement regarding the accuracy of - and documentation for - the information presented in this blog.

Index and Links as of April, 2011

♦ Click below to go to:

Index and Links as of April, 2011

The Human Side of the 1941 Fire at Chicago Mill & Lumber Company - and Our Family's Connection

John Dunn, the brother of my generation's grandfather, rose from being an entry-level employee to become the president of a far-flung publicly-held company with thousands of employees. The company was Chicago Mill & Lumber Company, and in 1941 it experienced a terrible fire that resulted in the deaths of three Chicago firefighters in the line of duty as they fought the fire.

◄ One of the firefighters was George Michalski, and
I was contacted by his son, Daniel, who found this blog and my reference to Chicago Mill. Daniel provided a collection of photos and articles about the fire, his father, mother and their children. (While not a member of our family, firefighter Michalski's story
is one that I believe needs to be included here as part of Chicago Mill's history, which is part of our family story.)

As if the death of firefighter Michalski wasn't sad enough, there was an ironic twist. An article titled, “Outing With Family Costs Fireman Life”, says, “…Ordinarily Michalski would have been off duty at 8 a.m., before the 5-11 alarm [the highest alarm level used in Chicago] was sounded yesterday morning. But last week, to enable him to go out with his family, another fireman took his watch for two hours, and he returned the favor yesterday morning.”
(Click this article twice to make it readable.)
Source

In other words, his desire to be with his family on that outing led to a schedule change that put him on duty at the time of the fire at Chicago Mill. How sad is that!

◄ Chicago Tribune graphic given to Alice Michalski, widow of George Michalski
Source
(Click to enlarge photos and exhibits.)

Our family connection to John Dunn:

Elsewhere in this blog
I report on the life of John Dunn, aka Jack, whose lineage and connection to our family can be seen in this matrix. Jack was part of his father William’s second family (William’s first wife and two of their four children had died, reportedly of scarlet fever). Jack was one of the six children of William and Josephine Lauer Dunn, including my generation’s grandfather, Eugene Dunn, meaning that Jack was our great uncle.

On the page in this blog that deals with Jack Dunn, John Stiefel - his son-in-law - made a comment that says, in part:

“Omitted from your biography is that when Jack's father died, Jack was approximately 16 years old, had to quit high school to support his mother and several younger brothers, went to work in a piano factory, eventually took correspondence courses to get an accounting degree, and then quit the piano factory where he had worked for many years to take a job in the accounting department of Chicago Mill and Lumber for ONE-HALF the pay he was then getting, because he knew there was a better future for him as an accountant. This man, who didn't attend college, and may not have graduated from high school, became the President of a public company.

I was with him when he died, and miss him to this day.”

Jack retired from the company after 1962 (when, as president, his name, photo and a letter from him appeared in the company’s annual report) and before 1964, when he died.

He was probably not yet the president of the company on June 16th, 1941, the date of the fire. In fact, I have no information about what his role with the company, if any, was at that time. However, on Jack's page of this blog is a quote from a report about the fire.

It says, in part: “…The total damage of the fire was estimated to be about $75,000 [equivalent to about $1.1 milion in 2010 dollars]. The widows of the fallen firefighters were given support from Mayor Edward Kelly and the Firemen’s Mutual Benefit Association. The three firemen, along with other victims, were later recognized for their heroic efforts in the annual police and fire thrill show held at Soldier’s Field on July 13, 1941."
Source

That version of the story is reported simply in factual terms – and doesn’t reveal anything about the families of the three firefighters who died in the line of duty during the fire. The purpose of this page is to provide at least a bit of that missing element.

♦♦♦

More about George Michalski and the human aspect of this event:

In September of 1935, George Michalski, about age 24, was one of 125 rookies photographed by the Chicago Tribune when they were sworn in as members of the Chicago fire department. Here's a link to a photo of the swearing-in ceremony.

◄ Two years after he was sworn in, on September 25th, 1937, he and Alice married.
Source 



◄ Here they are on their honeymoon. Source







◄ Soon they began having children. This photo is George and their eldest son, Daniel, on June 28, 1940.
Source

 ◄ This is Alice and Daniel at the cemetery on June 21, 1941.
Source











◄ Alice, Daniel and youngest son, Floyd, in a news clipping on June 17, 1941.
Source










So, there you have it. On June 16th, 1941, Firefighter First Class George Michalski, age 30, and two other firemen died in the line of duty while fighting the devastating fire at the Chicago Mill and Lumber Company. Firefighter Michalski was survived by his wife, Alice, 31, and two sons, Daniel, who was almost three, and Floyd, who was ten months old.

◄ This is his badge.








It's labeled with the month and year in which he died in the line of duty. It appears to be part of a tribute to fallen firefighters, for the edges of other badges can be seen in this photo.

♦♦♦

The rest of the story:

In January, 2011, I received the following email message from Daniel Michalski, who found my email address on this blog:

"Dear Mr. Dunn,

Attached are [links to] photographs and documents from my keepsakes.

I thought they might interest you. [The photos and exhibits on this page come from his collection - and are included here with his permission.] 

My father George was age 30 when he was killed, my mother Alice had just turned 31, my brother Floyd was age nine months, and I [w]as to be age three in two weeks.

Death benefits were virtually nonexistent in those days.

Mom received a one-time check for $500 and an absolutely fixed duty-death annuity of $125 per month from June, 1941 until a revision of Illinois state law in 1972 increased that amount somewhat. She received an additional $10 per month for Floyd and me until we reached age 18.

A City of Chicago trust fund in her name was swindled from her.

She was never able to remarry, saying that she felt married to Dad in her heart.

Regards,

Daniel Michalski"

♦♦♦

The photos and documents provided by Daniel are sad, dramatic, touching and interesting – all at the same time. After seeing his remarkable collection of mementos about George Michalski and the fire, I requested Daniel’s permission to use on this blog some of the exhibits he provided. He graciously responded as follows:

“Dear Mr. Dunn:
I was moved and flattered that you chose to make public the documents regarding my father's death in the line of duty. By all means use them, but judiciously.
The $500 my mother Alice received was a one-time death benefit. She later invested the full amount in a private trust fund managed by a Chicago firefighter from his firehouse on North Elston Avenue, Chicago. When my younger brother Floyd became ill with pneumonia, [s]he took me by the hand and together we traveled by streetcar to that firehouse, where she intended to withdraw some of her money.

I recall the incident clearly. We were told that the firefighter ‘retired’ to Mexico, taking all of the assets of the fund with him. In those days during World War II, trust funds were not regulated or insured. Mom lost her entire $500 death benefit. The incident was confirmed to me by a trustee on the Firemen's Annuity & Benefit Fund Of Chicago, the pension arm of the Chicago Fire Department.

My mother Alice died of heart failure on May 6, 2000, age 89; and my brother Floyd died of cancer in 2002, age 62. As I previously told you, my mother was never inclined to remarry.

The Paepcke family, father Hermann and son Walter, founded the Chicago Mill and Lumber Company and later the Container Corporation of America as you surely know. Neither they nor their companies acknowledged my father's death with so much as a sympathy card to my mother. My mother never conceived that Dad died a ‘wrongful death’ in what investigators called a ‘tinderbox’, and was never inclined to sue.

Life is the chance that we all must take, and my mother, brother and I went at it with a vengeance, devoid of my father's presence as a provider, husband, wage earner and consort to my mother.

Again, use my documents and memories as you please, but with discretion.

Every best wish to you, Mr. Dunn.

Respectfully,

Daniel George Michalski”

♦♦♦

◄ Here's a news clipping about the fire.











◄ Here's a photo from the funeral.




                                             



◄ Alice at the funeral

◄ Here's a memoriam to firefighter Michalski.

◄ Daniel Michalski with his father's helmet at the Chicago  memorial park for fallen firefighters and paramedics.



Other exhibits from Daniel's collection:

■ George Michalski in uniform - portrait
■ Second view of the fire

■ Third view of the fire

■ Fourth view of the fire

■ Fire department report about George Michalski's death

■ George Michalski's headstone

Editor’s comment: I cannot adequately express the emotions I’ve felt as I’ve read the articles and reviewed the photos. It’s impossible for an outsider to understand the impact – both past and ongoing – of the sacrifices made by George Michalski and his family. The same applies to the other two men who died in that event - and their families.

I can only say thanks...

And that seems totally inadequate.

- PWD

♦♦♦

Last updated 4/13/2011

Please refer to the disclaimer on the index page of this blog for a statement regarding the accuracy of - and documentation for - the information presented in this blog.