123 24 26018 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e6c12f970e25041410ecfda42fdebd2d.mp4 d6c059490dc34005369803674321570a https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7927e45a8ca0069261f9e39acf454d7b.pdf 4af27a2b5fc267371ba2aec1eca5dc5f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Jimmie Carrol Bush Vietnam War Total Time: 17:45 Pre-Enlistment (00:24) • • Went to Thornapple-Kellogg High School in Middleville, Michigan. Was 18 years old when drafted in January 1967. Training (00:50) • • Went to Fort Knox, Kentucky, for Basic Training . Chose the Airborne because he wanted to jump out of an Airplane. Active Duty (03:10) • • • • • • • • • Was in the 82nd Airborne Division of the Army Was in multiple different locations across Vietnam during his service, including Da Nang and others. They would be put on a helicopter and be dropped off and then picked up in a month. Spent most of his time in the hills and jungle around Vietnam. He carried an M-60 machine gun (04:33) They were attached to the 101st Airborne for a while, and they took heavy casualties during this time period. Was able to communicate with his family via letters. His mother would send him care packages. On leave, they would get to go into the city and tour. (15:55) Had the opportunity to meet and eat with John Wayne. Post-Service (11:31) • Worked as a bricklayer after the war. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bush, Jimmie Carrol (Interview outline and video), 2005 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bush, Jimmie Carrol Description An account of the resource Jimmie Carol Bush was drafted into the Army in 1967, and served in the Vietnam War. He joined the 82nd Airborne Division, and was involved in heavy jungle fighting. His job in his platoon was to carry the M-60 machine gun. His unit spent most of its time being transported by helicopter. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Fischer, Brady (Interviewer) Caledonia High School (Caledonia, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Army Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2005-01-16 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BushJ Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c682c9f4ab2913735ac28b6a24e00bf8.mp4 e6849dcc15487470e47f7275dac41fa3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/05bdd3ae76aa44af673b4d227700c167.pdf 60b34f689f7801b87d9f5808bb43fc05 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Paul Bush (37:31) Background Information (00:02) • • • • Born January 21st 1931. (00:02) Served in the early to mid 1950s. (00:02) He was drafted into the Army several months after he finished college (approx. 1953). (00:22) Paul’s brother served in World War II in the Navy. (1:00) Training (1:59) • • • • • • • Basic training lasted 8 weeks. It consisted of physical training, weapons training, and emphasis on discipline. (2:00) He had basic at Fort Knox, Kentucky. (2:34) Rather than going into advanced infantry training, Paul and his friend decided they would sign up to be cooks. (3:33) Paul and his friend were placed in a barracks by themselves for 3 weeks before being assigned to truck driver school. (4:10) The men were trained on how to drive trucks up mountains. Paul did not care for this part of his training. (5:21) There were many college graduates in Paul’s platoon. The platoon regularly had checks of barracks to see who had the cleanest barracks. If a barracks won, the men got passes. (6:05) Paul and his friend were eventually sent to Southern France. (8:07) Service in France (8:40) • • • • • • • • • • • • The Army didn’t know what to do with the unit. Most of their time was spent doing KP or guard duties. (9:14) Paul’s friend, having received a masters degree from the University of Michigan, received a job on base catered to his perceived knowledge. (10:48) Paul was made the assistant to the chaplain’s aid. (11:30) Paul served as the chaplain’s aid in Southern France for approx. 6 months. (12:17) The chaplain’s aid was immune from guard and KP duty. (12:45) After 6th months, Paul and the chaplain was sent to central France to a large base. There they had little to do as there was already a chaplain and a chaplain’s aid. They stayed there for 1 month. (13:57) The men then went to Germany. They stopped at an old German air force base. (15:03) The base was formerly used to launch rockets at England. (16:00) The basement of the base was used for storage. (17:59) Paul and the chaplain spent 2-3 months in Germany. (18:25) If a man was in the military on a two year stint they were able to get out early if they were returning to school. (19:36) Paul was given an early out in order to obtain his masters degree (approx. 1955). (20:14) �Travel Back Home (20:40) • • • Paul was flown from Germany to Ireland to Finland then to New Jersey. (20:40) The aircraft experienced engine problems while return home. The pilot didn’t repair it but rather ordered men aboard the aircraft to watch the engine to ensure it didn’t fail. (21:32) The plane landed in Chicago Illinois. Paul hitchhiked his way home to Michigan. (22:30) Teaching in Germany and in Italy (23:00) • • • • • • • • • • • Paul went overseas to teach school in Germany after completing his schooling in the U.S. (23:00) He applied at the University of Miami, Florida, for a chance to teach overseas. He could go to Japan, Italy, England, Germany, and Norway. (23:57) He was picked to be sent to Okinawa. His wife did not want to go there so he was reassigned to Germany. (25:20) Paul served as a teacher in a high school in Germany on a base. His wife did not have a job. (26:07) Paul spent 2 years in Germany teaching. (28:15) He was then sent to a small jr. high on a base in Italy. He was in charge of teaching several subjects. (29:17) Paul’s first son was born while he was in Italy. He taught there for 2 years. (30:13) He couched a foot ball team while teaching in Italy. (30:48) In the following spring, Paul was made a track coach as well. (33:36) After teaching in Italy Paul returned home and was discharged. (34:40) There was a PX on base where Paul did most of his shopping. (35:57) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Bush, Paul (Interview outline and video), 2012 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Bush, Paul Description An account of the resource Paul Bush, born January 21st 1931, was drafted into the U.S. Army shortly after completing college in 1953. Paul completed his basic at Fort Knox Kentucky. Upon its competition, Paul was then sent to Southern France. Here he was made a chaplain's aide, and served with the chaplain on several bases in France and Germany. Paul returned to the states to receive a teaching degree. When he finished he worked through a military program to return to Europe and teach in schools on military bases in Germany and Italy. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Delaney, Matthew (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings Other veterans & civilians--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-05-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BushP1394V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/124384bc8fda0dccc8e8f13eb1ccab05.mp4 bdcf0ba9ef095719df19e4a57b2bca6b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1c655753075227a0a5bb567b781ebc85.pdf 1c1124b54e487bdaae2d49492063d4c1 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veteran’s History Project Interview World War II Maurice Buskers Length of Interview (00:25:47) Pre-enlistment (00:00:21) Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on April 15, 1925 Father worked in the furniture factories in Grand Rapids Had three sisters, two older and one younger Grew up during the Depression • Only one other person that lived on his block, a man who worked for the government To make ends meet, his Father did odd jobs and his Mother did house cleaning Graduated in 1943 from Ottawa Hills High School in Grand Rapids Remembers Pearl Harbor happening (1941) • Felt that he would become a part of the war, eventually Enlistment (00:2:13) Two weeks after graduating, 1943, Buskers enlisted In high school, he took tests which determined whether or not he could get into a V-12 Program (officer’s training) Ended up in Central Michigan College for two semesters of basic training If Buskers had graduated from the V-12 Program, he would have become an officer in the Navy Transferred into the Air Corp. instead If he hadn’t passed the test into the V-12 Program, Buskers would have enlisted because he did not want to be drafted into the Army Held an interest in boats so he joined the Navy • Would often go boating in the lakes around Grand Rapids when he was a kid �Training (00:04:25) Schooling from 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM • Wore Uniforms • Was paid by the Government because he was enlisted In order to switch into the Air Corp. and out of the V-12 Program, Buskers may have taken tests that would prove him physically able to Sent to Groselle Air Station to warm airplanes up for cadets already flying • Located south of Detroit, Michigan Buskers lived on the base A lot of physical and mental training • Navigation, engines, mechanics of an airplanes, “Rules of Flying” • Did not fly, only warmed up the planes for other cadets Stearman’s (the planes used): open cockpits, bi-planes, (reputation with being easy to fly) • One seat for the instructor and one for the cadet Instructors were people who had earned their license and were good pilots; no civilians as instructors Spent three months a Groselle Navy Training (00:08:13) Transferred back to the regular Navy because they didn’t need more pilots Sent to Great Lakes for four weeks of boot camp • Boot camp was more “severe” than his officer’s training • Many of the men in Buskers’s Company were previously part of the Navy, “washed out” pilots Was given tests for assignment into something suitable Did very little while waiting to be assigned, took four weeks • Went to Chicago every weekend to watch games at both baseball fields �Submarine Base (00:10:12) Assigned to a Submarine Base in Key West, Florida where he took training as a Soundman (Sonar) • Arrived there by a troupe train, took three days to go from Chicago to Miami Was a submarine operating base (00:11:25) • Foreign submarines would come in from France and Britain; for repair or refueling His job was to watch movements of other ships by tracing the echoes of the sonar “pings” sent out by the submarine (00:11:50) Went out on wooden ships, minesweepers; prevented mines from detonating due to lack of metal (00:12:25) • About 60ft long; strictly for training For training, submarines would be sent out, then training ships. A dirigible would follow from above to watch the ships (used to spot submarines) (00:13:06) • Some ships had “anti-submarine” equipment for training • Trained Buskers to be an operator on Sonar gear for a Destroyer or a Destroyer Escort Buskers once picked up a submarine echo that wasn’t supposed to be there and a 1st Class trained officer figured it was an enemy submarine; it got away after being chased up the East Coast (00:14:16) South of Key West, conveys would form and sometimes they would be destroyed by enemy ships (00:14:52) • Still some enemy (German) ships out in the Caribbean; 1944 and early 1955 (00:15:05) Off Duty (00:15:33) Would often swim in the ocean, attend theaters (Truman’s White House, name of theater during war) Was still at Key West when Roosevelt died and Truman was elected At home on leave when the war (WWII) ended (00:16:11) Air Corp. (00:16:32) In between Pre-flight training and flying, Buskers had been transferred back into the Air Corps. �Attended University of Iowa • Trained in Navigation, positions of stars and constellations, all the basics of flying • No flight simulators, just taking classes If the war had not ended, he would have continued to learn primary flying in Iowa Was able to get back into flight-training due to the increase of deaths of pilots during the war Early 1945, when he had begun flight-training End of Service (00:18:28) Had the choice of staying in the Air Corps, going back to the Navy, or discharging when the war ended • Wanted to continued flying and was signed in, but changed his mind into discharging 30 minutes before the deadline (12:00 PM); had three buddies that decided this (00:18:45) • Thought about home and didn’t want to stay an additional three years Regrets not staying in flight school but wanted to stick together with his buddies (00:20:13) Experience (00:20:45) Feels like everyone “grew up” after going into the service; young men now-a-days should go into the service to gain discipline Helped Buskers learn how to get along with all kinds of people and the many outlooks they have on life Side Stories (00:22:00) Knew a man, from Central Michigan College, who was listed as MIA (missing in action) because he had been on a ship that had sunk; hadn’t known he was MIA When he arrived home, the man’s mother fainted • Communication was not as it could have been, this happened periodically Buskers became a Soundman because a school band teacher gave him “Doppler Tests” that he always passed with “flying colors”; correlated with his later training as a Soundman because of his acute hearing (00:23:09) When World War II first started, Buskers’s History class would listen to the radio; he would also watch news reels in the theater (00:25:12) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Buskers, Maurice (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Buskers, Maurice Description An account of the resource Maurice Buskers enlisted into the Navy after graduating from Ottawa Hills High School in 1943. He was originally a part of the V-12 Program that would have made him an Officer of the Navy, but he decided to transfer into the Navy Air Corps instead. He was to become a pilot but was sent to Great Lakes for Navy training because there were too many pilots at the time. Buskers never saw battle because World War II had ended before he finished training. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Navy World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-03-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BuskersM Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1bac57a49cc290f3ae24df22bab0f995.mp4 de4732265ece703cce4acd90ad6b63c0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/81ea3c9f213b63f4f758da1ca4665ff0.pdf 75b1bbd3240fc8a28a90cca438ff699f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Donald Buteyn (01:46:00) Introduction (00:16) Family and childhood (01:46) • Buteyn mentions that he grew up in Wisconsin, about 20 miles south of Fond du Lac. His parents were both trained morticians. He mentions that after a while his dad took a job working for a casket company in Milwaukee, WI and that he was on the road for 52 years. Buteyn briefly describes his family history. Tells of how his grandfather on his dad’s side had been a Dutch immigrant who had originally been a guard guarding the Haag. Also mentions that his grandfather on his mother’s side had been a pacifist in Belgium and had immigrated to the wilderness of Wisconsin in the 1870s. (0:02:40) • Pre-enlistment (0:02:41) • Graduated high school in June 1942. Buteyn shares his thoughts about the Nazis invasion of Poland back in 1939. Started college in Ripon, WI where he joined a fraternity of 39 guys. (0:04:37) Buteyn mentions that the day of Pearl Harbor he was listening to FDR’s speech on the radio. Shares his grandfather’s thoughts on Pearl Harbor and the Dutch Navy. Afterwards, he talks about how he and his frat buddies joined the ROTC at Ripon College. Briefly describes Silas Evans, college president, and the type of man he was. Buteyn mentions that they started training with broomsticks and eventually received 21 World War I Enfield rifles and practiced with them. • • Enlistment and Training (0:07:29) • In December, 1942 Buteyn mentions that he and his frat buddies enlisted and were sent to Great Lakes Naval Base where they received their medical shots. • Buteyn describes his time at Great Lakes Naval Base and the short visit to his parents to Milwaukee. Was stationed there for 10 days. From there he boarded a train to Denver where he changed trains and took another train to Fort Warren, Wyoming. (0:10:33) • While at Fort Warren he describes his basic training in some detail. He mentions learning how to march and fire a gun. Was stationed there for about �a year. (0:12:45) Also, mentions his time at Fort Worth for 3 months where he did more training. • First started training with water-cooled machine guns and mortars when he served with the 303rd Reg., Company M, at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. Buteyn describes how he would have to crawl on the ground under barbed wire while getting shot at. (0:14:10) • It was at Fort Leonard Wood that Buteyn mentions becoming a cadre (trainer for other recruits). Recounts a story of a man’s encounter with a rattlesnake while practicing being under fire. (0:18:11) Was based at Leonard Wood for 9 months. • Tells of an encounter in St. Louis while on leave of where he served as a firefighter to put out the blaze at Mark Twain National Park. (0:19:21) • After 9 months there, he was sent to San Luis Obispo, CA in the spring of 1944 where he and 20 others were interviewed for an ASTP assignment at the Univ. of South Dakota in Vermillion, SD. Briefly describes his 8-month stay at the Univ. of South Dakota where he got math and science credit. (0:24:08) From there he was sent to Camp Cook Army training Base for amphibious training under Marine commanders. • Buteyn mentioned that after 6 weeks there they were at the Marine base near San Diego conducting amphibious exercises aboard the USS Hunter Liggett off St. Nicholas Island where the navy would practice with them in how to storm an island. (0:27:58) In December 1944 they were supposed to be transferred to the Pacific from Los Angeles but then got orders telling them that they were being shipped out to New Jersey by train. • Buteyn mentions how he spent Christmas in New York City. He describes shipping out on New Year’s Day, 1945 out of New York Harbor with 53 vessels and describes their 13 day voyage across the Atlantic to France. • While crossing the Atlantic, Buteyn recounts how they lost 3 freighters to Uboat attacks and how they dropped depth charges to scare the U-boats off. Then Buteyn mentions his arrival in Le Havre, France and the sinking of his ship in the harbor in January of 1945. (0:32:33) France (0:32:34) • While stationed near Le Havre, rations were short and guards were assigned to guard the cook tent. From Le Havre, Buteyn mentions boarding an old freight car and being shuttled through Brussels, Belgium to the edge of the Netherlands. �• Buteyn described how during the 1st week of February the British had tried crossing several rivers with no success because of German artillery. Also mentions finding 88mm shell casings in the apple orchard ¾ mile away from the church he was at. Further mentions that for a short time his company was under British command, U.S. 7th Army, and then U.S. 9th Army. (0:37:04) • After this experience, they were moved to the west bank of the Rhine near the city of Bonn at the end of February 1945. Rumor had it that Eisenhower had told Bradley that the Germans were evacuating their trucks over the bridge at Remagen into Germany. (0:39:01) • Detailed description of the events that took place at the Remagan Bridge and the crossing into Germany. Buteyn explains the condition of the bridge and the difficulties involved in crossing it, as well as observing engineers construct pontoon bridges for vehicles to cross. (0:42:05) He mentions that it took them 4 to 5 days to get their equipment over the Rhine. Germany (46:07) • Buteyn describes how for several days he and his company stayed hidden while the Germans on the 700 foot bluffs shelled their position with heavy artillery. Afterwards, more help arrived and Bradley got the go ahead from Eisenhower to push forward which they did and got down to the city of Calhoun. (0:46:07) Briefly tells of how the Nazis instituted slave labor in their factories. Buteyn mentions that he was part of the the force sent south from Remagen to surround large numbers of Germans, who then surrendered to them. (0:50:28) Buteyn describes the poor conditions of the German veterans and young German high-schoolers who surrendered. • While in the city of Cologne, Buteyn mentions that they were ambushed by SS troops who were held up in closed houses. With a few bazooka rounds they silenced their guns. (0:56:05) • On the march to Dusseldorf, Germany he tells of how SS troopers set up antiaircraft guns to fire shells which would explode and unleash shrapnel on U.S. soldiers. Buteyn mentions that his squad was separated from their platoon and ran into two wounded Germans. • Buteyn describes how his unit was pinned down by enemy artillery and how he went back across a muddy field to get more ammo. On his way back to his men, he describes how he was wounded in the right ankle by a piece of shrapnel. Later mentions that 3 men carry him back to safety and take him and the two Germans back to a house. (1:00:51) They were held up in that house for two days. �• Buteyn describes in brief detail his involvement in Germany in liberating over 200 Nazi-occupied concentration camps. He remembers that while liberating the concentration camp at Flossenburg [ed. note: probably a different camp— Buteyn was wounded before US forces reached that camp] he learned that Dietrich Bonhoeffer had been hung. He describes the horrific experiences that he witnessed while librating people from Nazi concentration camps. Relates how he had nightmares about his experiences later. (1:24:42) • Buteyn mentions an encounter with a man in one of the concentration camps who came up to him and told him, “Jesus Christ will prevail.” Later on he mentions running into this same man at a lecture series about concentration camps at Berkeley CA in 1960. [ed. note—Buteyn met Martin Niemoller in Berkeley, but Niemoller was not freed by allied forces until May, and was not at the camps in the area where Buteyn was.] (1:29:17) • Buteyn tells of an encounter with a German widow who let them borrow her short-range radio and from that heard that FDR had died on April 12, 1945. (1:02:53) Buteyn then mentions being picked up by an ambulance and taken to a German field hospital. Recuperation Period (1:09:01) • While at a field hospital in occupied Germany, Buteyn remembers seeing 122 men with at least one amputation. Also mentions in some detail how he was the only American there who escaped surgery. Was there for 5 weeks. (1:09:01) Afterwards, he mentions being sent to an English hospital across the channel for 4 to 5 days and then transferred to Cambridge hospital where he was until the war ended. • Buteyn describes the victory celebrations and parades that the English people in Southampton threw the night the war ended. Fully expected to be sent to the Pacific but instead was interviewed by a colonel and asked if he wanted to become a part of a program aimed at forming a British-style West Point. Buteyn mentions that he ended up in command of 13 dance bands and all military cinemas in Britain. He mentions briefly his stay with a British family during Christmas, 1945. (1:15:04) From June, 1945 to March 1946 he was involved in this special program. • After this experience, Buteyn was stationed in Southampton where he was assigned to process British war grinds. (1:17:02) Going Home (1:17:03) • Upon arriving home in El Pan, WI he was discharged. From there Buteyn boarded a train and met up with his parents at a little junction called South Beaver Dam, WI. Spent 2 weeks at home. Then went back to Ripon College �for a semester. After a semester there he transferred to Hope College where he joined the ministry. Shares his thoughts about joining the ministry. After the war (1:30:01) • After this experience, Buteyn briefly describes his 55 years as a pastor and 8 yeas as a professor at San Francisco Seminary. Describes in some detail the events of the student uprising at Berkeley in 1968 where he was a professor. Buteyn mentions his involvement of quelling these uprisings. Describes in great detail how the city council of San Francisco handed authority over to the church to restore authority to the city. • They set up a rally where over 15,000 people from various groups like the Young Socialist Alliance and Communist groups came. Buteyn mentions that after 6 months there was no more rioting. Also shares his thoughts about the lessons he learned from the war. (1:46:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Buteyn, Donald (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Buteyn, Donald Description An account of the resource Donald Buteyn served in the US Army from 1942-1945. He served as an infantryman in the 303rd Regiment, and saw action along the Dutch/Belgian frontier early in 1945 and took part in the crossing of the Rhine at Remagen. He later participated in the closing of the Saar pocket and in the capture of Cologne and Dusseldorf. Before being wounded in April, he participated in the liberation of three concentration camps for political prisoners. His wartime experiences helped him to decide to go into the ministry after the war. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Veterans Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-01-08 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ButeynD Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c5d678573174e5abfc69f3360eb7a31f.mp4 a4e4cdd5f7876a5d18fcdd64ad0332d0 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/bfc2dc422cdf5ecbfebc2fefa3d3f950.pdf 2875fe76f690880c2d5b176f1e5194f3 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Charles “Chuck” Butkus Korean War Total Time: Childhood and Pre-Enlistment (00:30) • • • • • • • Born in Waukegan, Illinois, in 1930 Father was an electrician Remembers getting information from the radio during World War II. Finished high school. Attended college to become an engineer. Entered Marquette University, however learned that he drew a low draft number for the Korean War. Decided to join the Air Force. Training (04:52) • • • • • • • • Attended Basic Training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, and while he was attending the training there was a huge influx of men who needed basic training, and the base became quite crowded. During the winter, they were in temporary tents. They were given 3 choices and he chose meteorology. (06:45) He was sent to Chanute Air Force Base and had to wait around for several months for a spot to open up in the meteorology program. When they did finally get in the school was 16 months. (08:25) He was then trained to use weather balloons, which involved more training. They would send up the balloons with gauges and measuring equipment that would send back a signal to the ground so that they could be recorded. Stayed at Chanute for 7 months total. He was able, on several different occasions, to hitchhike home from the base, as they were very close in Central Illinois. Active Duty (12:30) • • • Was shipped to Camp Stoneman, and was then sent to Hawaii by boat. They were shipped on the USS Mauer. And it took them 4 days to get across. In Hawaii, he was based at Hickam Air Force Base until his clearance passed and he was able to. (15:15) He was then shipped to the Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands, where they were assigned to take weather observations. They took four readings a day. They were doing this for general weather observations. �• • • • • • • • • • (20:05) They were there in for two nuclear tests, where he had to run weather tests every three hours. He experienced the tests first hand from ships that were far out at sea or on the islands. He was then moved to Hawaii to be a drop sonar operator. These operators would drop instruments from planes rather than from balloons. (26:05) Their squad flew retrofitted B-29s which were made specifically for their weather observation duties. (28:50) Their real objective, rather than weather, was radiation. They monitored the air for radiation to figure out whether the Soviets. He lived in barracks during his time in Hawaii. His missions were 3 day missions. The first day, they would prepare the instruments, the second day they would do the flight, and the third day they would analyze the data. The flights would usually take 14 hours and they would normally fly 2 missions a week. (35:00) After 18 months in Hawaii, he spent another 18 months in Eniwetok for the Castle Thermonuclear Test Project (38:29) He ended up being exposed to radiation during the tests. He volunteered to go back to the test island to relieve the other weathermen on Bikini. His job while there was to take basic weather readings. He did that four times, and took heavy doses of radiation. He ended up having cancer in several places and melanoma, which might be traceable to this radiation. They never collected the film radiation test strip that they gave him to measure his exposure, which he still has. There were six Hydrogen bomb tests done during his time there. After this service, he was discharged in Hawaii as a Tech Sergeant. Post Service (43:37) • Went home and bought a car once he got back. • Worked as an IBM programmer for a year after he got back. The computer took up a floor of the Great Lakes Naval Station. • Worked in the Telecom industry for 20 years. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Butkus, Chuck (Interview outline and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Butkus, Chuck Description An account of the resource Charles Butkus served in the Air Force as a meteorologist during the Korean War. He was born in Waukegan, Illinois, and his father was an electrician. He completed high school and some college before he joined the Air Force due to his low draft number. He specialized as a meteorologist, and served in the South Pacific during the atomic testing program and in Hawaii taking readings from weather balloons. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Byron Area Historic Museum (Byron Center, Mich.) BCTV Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings United States. Air Force Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-02-03 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ButkusC Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d438cecd013cf731506e26c92f4d4de2.pdf cd38dd1a6f4c85db7071d9cc57238f82 PDF Text Text � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/fab6c64c0e9044b499c7f286e8db4971.pdf 42de61e4a5cf5ebb70414c737f9b0ee3 PDF Text Text [Page 1] Boston. Nov 11, 1874 My Dear Mr. Sargent: If my friends were as little troubled as I am by the griefs and paper pellets of the brain of the poor curs who honk at me through the press and otherwise, they would certainly lose no sleep. Thanking you for your kind note. I am yours truly Benj. F. Butler � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Civil War and Slavery Collection Subject The topic of the resource United States--History--Civil War, 1861-1865 Slavery--United States African Americans United States--Politics and government--19th century Description An account of the resource A selection of correspondence, diaries, official documents, photographs related to the American Civil War and to the institution of slavery, collected by Harvey E. Lemmen. The collection includes a selection of documents from ten states related to the ownership of slaves and abolition, correspondence and documents of soldiers who fought in the war and from family members and officials, diaries and letters of individuals, and a collection of mailing envelopes decorated with patriotic imagery. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Lemmen, Harvey E. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/472">Civil War and Slavery Collection (RHC-45)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/470">John Bennitt Diaries and Correspondence (RHC-43)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/471">Nathan Sargent Papers (RHC-44)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/478">Theodore Peticolas Diary (RHC-51)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/476">Civil War Patriotic Envelopes Collection (RHC-51)<br /></a><a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/479">Whitely Read Diary (RHC-52)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1804-1897 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg; application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image; Text Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1804-1897 Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-44_NS1-15463 Title A name given to the resource Nathan Sargent from Benjamin F. Butler, November 11, 1874 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1874-11-11 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Butler, Benjamin F. (Benjamin Franklin), 1818-1893 Description An account of the resource Letter regarding Butler's treatment by the press. Subject The topic of the resource Sargent, Nathan, 1794-1875 Clayton, John M. (John Middleton), 1796-1856 Fillmore, Millard, 1800-1874 Burr, Aaron, 1756-1836 Clinton, George, 1739-1812 Tompkins, Daniel D., 1774-1825 Van Buren, Martin, 1782-1862 Sergeant, John, 1779-1852 Frelinghuysen, Theodore, 1787-1862 Johnson, Richard M. (Richard Mentor), 1780-1850 Whig Party (U.S.) United States--Politics and government--19th century United States--Officials and employees United States. Office of the Vice President Whig Party (U.S.) New Castle (Del.) New York (State) Massachusetts Virginia Pennsylvania Maryland Delaware New Jersey Illinois Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/471">Nathan Sargent papers, (RHC-44)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c1540986baa190a277b57abeef0d3ba0.mp4 ebe4fe2afd45e57885642f16de73d087 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7b817637ef06a9f082b0f7fc7d3cb57f.pdf e49988b9d683ebb07543b6ca4a5f04ab PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project James Butler (59:05) (00:11) • Born in Cleveland, Ohio 1946 • His father was in the Navy in World War II. • His mother worked at the bomber plant in World War II. • When he turned 17, he had began getting calls for the draft. • Drafted into the Army. • There was a two-week period where he could join another service, he decided to join the four year Navy. • He began basic training in 1965. • After basic training he was promised to be sent to school. • He was placed in the seabees. • He was trained with the Marine Corps for combat training. • Went to California, and learned how to operate heavy equipment. • He was assigned to M Seabee Six, Which was serving in Da Nang, Vietnam. • After he was finished with Basic, he saw that there was a notice for volunteers to go to Antarctica. • He decided that penguins couldn’t shoot, and decided to take the assignment to go to Antarctica. (03:48) Draft Notice • Right after high school, his entire neighborhood was sent draft notices, including seven boys who received them on the same day. • His basic training was at the Great Lakes training facility. • Doesn’t remember basic training being very hard. • Believes the military gave him a lot of organizational training. • He was in basic training for twelve weeks. (05:58) • It was more intense, because the marines do not like the navy men. • It was also more intense because it was all combat training. (06:30) Antarctica • He was scheduled to fly to Da Nang in a couple of weeks, when he saw the notice for the Antarctica trip. • Because of his acceptance to the Antarctica program, he did not have to go to Da Nang. • He worked construction in McMurdo, Antarctica. • They built buildings and warehouses for storage. • He flew to Antarctica. It took two weeks. • They flew to Rhode Island, to California, to Hawaii to Pago Pago, to Tahiti, to New Zealand, • He spent six months in Antarctica. • His unit, Seabee Unit had about 100 people. �• He rebuilt tunnels in Byrd Station, Antarctica. • At Byrd, the highest temperature was 20 below zero. (10:50) School and Second trip to Antarctica • Went to Blasting School after Antarctica in 1967. • He became a blasting expert for the Navy. • He went back to Antarctica on a coast guard ship. • He spent his six months in Palmer Station. • Built a scientific station in Palmer, three stories high that could house thirty people. • He used explosives to make piers and docks for ships. • Only dealt with British and New Zealanders while in Antarctica. (14:45) Vietnam • Was about to go back to Antarctica, and was sent to Vietnam. • He was married, and then three weeks later sent to military training to go to Vietnam in 1968. • He was flown from California to DaNang. • Remembers DaNang smelling absolutely horrible. • Most of his time in Vietnam was spent doing construction. • He built mainly roads and piers. • More bombing began to occur after the end of the bombing campaigns in the north. • The airbase had been hit, delaying his return to the United States. • He believes he had a pretty decent experience in Vietnam. (17:50) Time in the Military • Enjoyed the four years he spent in the Navy. • He made good friends while in Vietnam. • He has Antarctica reunions every other year. (19:00) • Went to Baldwin-Wallace College. • While in school, he joined the Naval Reserve program. • He stayed in the reserve for two years. • After graduation from Baldwin-Wallace, he applied to be an officer, which he was denied due to staff cuts. • He then joined the Army Reserve and spent four years at an Army hospital unit, the 256th hospital unit. He was also denied an officer position there after four years as being a Staff Sergeant. • He joined the Coast Guard as an enlisted man. He applied for the OCS school and was accepted. After graduating from OCS school, he was commissioned as an officer. • He worked in Muskegon as the coast guard group, and then was transferred to Grand Haven. • He worked in both administration and search and rescue programs while in the Coast Guard Reserve. • He retired from the Coast guard as a lieutenant commander. (23:06) Vietnam Continued • He lived in screened barracks. �Showers were provided. It was very hot in Vietnam, reaching 120 degrees. He would work at a catholic orphanage in DaNang helping the orphans during their free time. • They spent Christmas with the orphans. • Some of the Vietnamese nuns could speak English. • He worked with many Koreans while in Vietnam. • They worked with him on construction. • His unit was awarded the civil action ribbon. • They saved some children from being burned to death in a trash fire. • He would write letters to his wife, and she to him while he was in Vietnam. • Compared to Antarctica, where he could speak to his wife via Ham radio. • He went to Hawaii for R&R with his wife, and then had to go back to Vietnam, he describes this as the worst part of his service. • He had Sundays off from work, and would spend those days either on the beach or in the orphanage. • He was able to listen to news while in Vietnam. (32:46) Work and memories of the Coast Guard • Spent 24 active years in the military over a 33-year span. • While he was not in the military, he worked construction, but there was very little work. • He also worked in materials purchasing and sales for construction companies. • During his search and rescue work in the command center, the entire west side of Michigan had to report to his office. • His most memorable search and rescue experience included a couple that skinny dipped off the side of a sailboat, and could not keep up with the boat as it moved through the water. They were in the water for a day and a half, but were rescued. • • • � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Butler, James (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Butler, James Description An account of the resource James Butler served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. He evaded earlier tours of Vietnam, by serving on two missions to Antarctica as part of a construction crew. However, he eventually served time in DaNang, Vietnam, once again as a construction member. After his active service, Butler served time in both the United States Naval Reserve and the United States Army Reserve. After failing to secure an officers position in either branch, he joined the United States Coast Guard Reserve. He became a Lieutenant Commander and served until his retirement. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource McCauslin, Kelly (Interviewer) Spring Lake District Library (Spring Lake, Mich.) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-03-22 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ButlerJ Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1155a9d4773db85aa02a013cdc7fb358.mp4 d11dd6b82bbe313910ea848b75e5c71f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0adecce799b2165c21d6710609f08ef5.pdf 80f0ee8aa0e667e7dfa937edd920ac14 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Oliver L. Butler (29:49) (00:06) Grand Rapids Michigan • When Pearl Harbor was hit, Oliver was working at Imperial Metal Products • Oliver enlisted in the military after the attack (00:37) South Pacific • He was stationed throughout the Pacific Theatre • He flew over enemy installations and took pictures of the targets and then returned to bomb them • He said he flew combat missions but didn’t serve in action where the bombs were being dropped • Oliver was a Staff Sergeant at the time • Oliver was attached to a dive bombing squadron and on call with them whenever he would need to go take pictures of a strip or camp that needed to be bombed • He had 5 brothers that were also in the military • Oliver first found out about the Atomic Bomb after it was dropped (4:10) Midway • The food was brought in from Australia, mutton, and boiled in big pans. He said that there would be inches of lard on the top and raw meat still below. He will not to this day eat mutton. • He said the guys tied together gas cans and created a boat to go on the ocean and they would drop grenades and grab the fish that came up to eat them. They had to be careful because there were sharks out there also. (5:50)VD and VJ Day • They were very happy about the end of the war that they stayed up and danced all night long. This was also when he and his now wife set a wedding date • Everybody was very happy about this. He states that he would not join the war today if he was the same age when he entered World War II because the politics of war have changed. • During The Korean War, he was in reserves and missed being called into war because he was in the service recovering from malaria. He said that during the Korean War they couldn’t make bullets fast enough to fight against them and it was realized too late. �• • • (8:30)Oliver says he lost at least half of his friends to the war. Very few came home but luckily for his mother all of her sons came back alive. After the war ended it took Oliver 4 months to get back to the states Oliver went through photography school in Pensacola, Florida (11:00)Midway • His unit spent 4 hours on and 4 hours off patrolling the island. He was detached from his squadron so he was not associated with the targets that he pictured to be bombed. • His primary job was escorting the submarines into Midway and would take pictures if needed • On one mission they couldn’t get the wheels down on the plane so they landed ‘belly up’ and he rolled out over the wing and messed up his knee. They sent him to Pearl Harbor for 6 days to recover and then back to his squadron. He states that he couldn’t get back in the plane when he returned so the captain came out and put him back in the plane. • (12:50) Mail was delayed many times, so receiving it was rare. • (14:30) Oliver talks about his opinion on the war we are in at this time and talks about the inadequate training being given • During Korea he was a Training Sergeant in the reserves in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and the trainees had no respect for the Sergeant over them. (16:00) Pictures are shown about his squadron • He talks about diving in a plane at 15000 feet saying that your nose will bleed, your mouth will split blood, and your eyes will be in pain. They call it 14G’s that the pull is so strong you can not raise your fingers up. • Curtis Helldivers, A25,’s is what he flew. He shows pictures of this also. • (19:26) Newspaper article showing the 3rd wing that Oliver was attached to in the Grand Rapids Haerald (newspaper) It was the 3rd wing that he was attached to when in was in photography school. The article was about a guy in the service that committed suicide because of the pressure during the war • (20:20) Clipping when his squadron went over Truk. They were the first squadron to take pictures of Truk before they dropped the bomb on Japan. • Oliver’s pictures made the maps of the strips all over the island that showed the positions of everything from the terrain of the island to the defenses they had to protect the island for the military • (21:49) He has a piece of mail that he explains how they had to address the letters when they wrote home. • (23:15) Oliver spent a total of 13 months on Midway Island �• • (25:00) He says that he didn’t get home for about 3 years and neither did two of his brothers who were both as active in the war as he was. One was on a LST ship which Oliver calls a sitting duck ship because they were a major target during the war. (25:39) Something that happened to his Commanding Officer of the Polish Squadron, BMSB 332, he was on loan till they formed the 9th Marine Division, he talks about something that happened to Commanding Officer Christenson off camera ��������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Butler, Oliver J (Interview outline, video, and papers), 2004 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Butler, Oliver J Description An account of the resource Oliver Butler was an aerial photographer for the Marines during World War II and was based on Midway Island. He spent 13 months here taking pictures of terrain and enemy defenses. He remained in the reserves during the Korean War where he was a Training Sergeant. Photographs appended to interview outline. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Snuder, Britany (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) Video recordings United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans United States. Marine Corps World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2004-05-24 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ButlerO Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/910c404055ad9cc6aba776fa8261b45f.m4v e3aae25b042c8a6680d13d3d22e5eaaf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3070292a276d4d1f635717a201446d77.pdf 3ff89ef56bbf09e84a415c3b86ca60a2 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Jimmy Butt World War II 46 minutes 51 seconds (00:00:11) Early Life -Born in Tippo, Mississippi, on October 13, 1921 -Lived on a cotton plantation until he was 16 years old when his parents died -Moved in with an uncle living in Wetumpka, Alabama -Graduated from high school there in 1939 -Attended Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama -Great Depression hit Tippah County hard -Virtually every farmer lost their property -Cotton had been estimated to sell for 30 cents, but it only sold for 6 -Farmers had to take out huge loans just to survive -They couldn’t pay them back, and their farms failed -Parents had had a 600-700-acre plantation (00:02:22) Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) -Two years of ROTC was mandatory for male students at Auburn University -Before Pearl Harbor, he didn’t pay attention to the fighting in Europe or Asia -Trained with horse-drawn artillery pieces -Enjoyed drilling and marching -Easy to hitchhike home because of the ROTC uniform -After two years of ROTC, he applied for advanced ROTC -Paid $21 per quarter -Extremely helpful since he was paying his way through college -$400 per year for tuition -Note: In 2017, this would be equivalent to $6,938 (00:04:00) Start of the War -Accepted into advanced ROTC in spring 1941 -After Pearl Harbor, the ROTC cadets knew they would be called for service at any moment -Decided to stop studying and enjoy themselves until they were called to service -Military science professor told them to keep studying -Didn’t get called up until after they had been graduated -Graduated from college in February 1943 -Had been forced to take summer classes to accelerate his education (00:05:11) Officer Candidate School, Survey School, & Extra Training -Upon graduation, he was inducted as a corporal in the Army -Sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, for Officer Candidate School -Also the location of the Field Artillery School -Awful transition for a college graduate �-Had never been in such a strict environment -Total uniformity in everything (the way they stored uniforms and made beds) -Frustrating requirements -Trained with a mix of ROTC graduates and men who had enlisted in the Army -Men with military experience taught ROTC cadets how to dress and assemble rifles -ROTC graduates helped teach the military men about artillery -He had studied artillery during his time in the ROTC -Trained with mechanized artillery at Fort Sill -Had used 75mm guns in ROTC, and trained with mechanized 105mm guns at Fort Sill -After OCS, he was commissioned and sent to Survey School -Had background in surveying in college -As a survey officer, he went out to the field with a piece of paper and an instrument -Figured out where to place guns and how to create an effective field of fire -Got within a few hundred yards of targets to create reference points -Used by forward observers to call in shots -Completed OCS on June 23, 1943 -Went to Survey School for a month -Sent to another school for a month (00:10:30) Stationed at Camp Van Dorn & Assignment to 63rd Infantry Division -Assigned to the 63rd Infantry Division at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi -Being from Mississippi made it easier to rent a room for him and his wife -Got married on June 22 so she could pin the lieutenant bars on him for commissioning -Got to Camp Van Dorn in September 1943 -Group of recruits came and he helped train them -That first group was combat ready by early 1944 and they were deployed -Got another group of recruits and did six more months of training with them -He was in the 863rd Field Artillery Battalion -When the first group deployed, all the enlisted men went over to Europe -Most of the noncommissioned officers went, and a handful of officers too -He was happy to get to stay with his wife for another six months -In the mornings, he did survey and fire direction training -In the afternoon, he went to the field and trained or oversaw gas training -Note: Gas training was to prepare soldiers for the eventuality of gas attacks -Technically, he was only scheduled for one night off the week -Created a system that allowed to go home more than one night a week -Focused on training, but knew the Allies were winning the war (00:14:25) Deployment to European Theatre -In the fall of 1944, he received his deployment orders -Infantry left in October 1944, and he left on Christmas Day 1944 -The infantry fought at the Colmar Pocket (November 1944 – February 1945) -Took heavy casualties -He departed from New York City, sailed south, then sailed across the Atlantic Ocean -Went over on a former luxury liner �-Packed with soldiers -Everyone got seasick on the voyage -No lights allowed at night -The officers took turns going into the hold to be with the regular soldiers -Entire hold smelled of vomit -Stayed in a room with six other officers (only meant to house two people) -Took eight days to reach Europe (00:17:07) Arrival in Europe -Landed at Marseille, France -Had passed through the Gibraltar Straits and was escorted by two destroyers -Supposed to take a torpedo if a U-Boat attacked them -Disembarked at Marseille and taken to a raised area like a plateau -Got to Europe in January 1945 -It was bitter cold, and they set up tents -Had to stay in the tents for a week waiting for their artillery pieces (00:18:39) Fighting in Saar River Area -Once they got their guns, they went north through France to Saarbrucken -Went on the frontline there -Joined the rest of the division there -Started intermittent fire missions immediately -Firing at random positions to disrupt the Germans and keep them awake -Working on straightening out the frontline by eliminating pockets of German resistance -During this time, a forward observer was killed, which led to him becoming one -Stayed in Saarbrucken until early spring 1944 (00:20:23) Fighting on the Siegfried Line -Had perfect maps, so they didn’t need survey officers -Assigned to forward observer duty on March 13, 1945 -Assigned to the lead platoon in an infantry company -Went with them in case they needed artillery support -During one fight, they got pinned down by a machinegun -He called in artillery and neutralized that position -Bracketed that position -Dropping shells to left and right and narrowing down to target -Took several days to punch through the Siegfried Line -Artillery bombardment preceded the ground assault -First long range, then medium range, then short range artillery -The culmination of artillery sounded like a freight train in the sky -Bombardment lasted 30 minutes -Started advancing toward Siegfried Line and encountered a German pillbox -Got pinned down and too close to call in artillery -Felt like an eternity -Still dark and the Germans used flares -He would dig, then stop when a flare went up �-He was about 50 yards away from the pillbox -One soldier tried to charge the pillbox with a white phosphorous grenade -Shot and went down, and the man was engulfed in flame -Germans eventually surrendered -Shot after they surrendered as revenge for the burned soldier -One of the worst firefights he experienced -After the fight at the pillbox, they were allowed to hang back and let other units advance -Germans had fortified the Siegfried Line -Concrete-reinforced pillboxes, trenches, and Dragon’s Teeth (concrete blockades) -Continuous line they had to punch right through -During one firefight, he and another officer figured out they were firing at each other -Took two or three days to get through the Line -Tanks showed up and helped them pursue and disrupt the German retreat (00:28:23) Crossing the Rhine River & Advancing through Germany -Advanced to the Rhine River and crossed it on a pontoon bridge -Occupied as much territory as possible to disrupt the Germans -Turned south and advanced toward Austria -Relieved by the 36th Infantry Division, who captured Hermann Goring -The 63rd Infantry Division liberated the Landsberg Concentration Camp -He wasn’t there to see the liberation -Encountered pockets of resistance as they moved through Germany -Remembers being on a hill overlooking Forchtenberg -Surveyed the area and didn’t see any signs of German movement -Received orders to call in a strike on the center of the town -As soon as he did, the Germans opened fire on his position -Watched the infantry take the town -Passed through the town after it was secured and saw wounded civilians -Got to the Autobahn and found some German jet engines hidden in the woods -Missing their engines -The nearby town had been working on building the engines -Didn’t see many German civilians -Started seeing large numbers of German soldiers that had surrendered near the end of the war -Remembers the mayor of Heidelberg coming to the general of the 63rd and surrendering -Passed through the town without a fight, and left it unscathed -Passed through numerous cities without any organized resistance aside from random snipers -Took weapons and gear from prisoners then directed them toward the rear for processing -Some were in good shape, but many were old men and young boys -Liberated three or four labor camps -Men, women, and children covered in lice -Had a special medical unit to delouse them -Let them leave and go to the rear, but robberies and rapes started to happen -Had to gather them back up and place them in the camp until rear troops arrived -Slave labor from Yugoslavia, Russia, Poland, and France �(00:36:29) Occupation Duty Pt. 1 -After Germany surrendered in May 1945, he became part of the Army of Occupation -Anticipated an organized insurgency led by the SS and Gestapo -Charged with occupation duty in a county -Set up in a German industrialist’s mansion -Huge living room with piano, swimming pool, and horse stables -Went horseback riding in the mountains in the morning -Swam in the pool in the afternoon -Sang around the piano at night -Quartered there for six weeks (00:38:05) Living Conditions in Europe -During the war, he got little to no sleep -Managed to catch an hour or two of sleep if they occupied a house -No baths or showers -Lived on energy bars and the occasional C-ration -Had field kitchens in the Saar area when he joined the rest of the division (00:39:09) Occupation Duty Pt. 2 -After initial occupation duty, they went into the field to prepare for the invasion of Japan -After a day or two of training, the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan -Once the Japanese surrendered, it was just a matter of waiting to go home -Didn’t have enough “points” to be sent home immediately -Note: points awarded based on rank, combat, length of service, and dependents -Transferred to the American military government in Germany -Started in the Food & Agriculture Section in Karlsruhe -Going to food facilities and estimating damage -If there was minor damage, they reported it and got it fixed -If a facility was beyond repair, it was abandoned -Did that for a few months until that section was closed -Assigned to run an Officers’ Club in Karlsruhe -Planned parties and kept the bar stocked -Impressed by the Germans’ cleanliness and their hospitality -Felt like being home -Shocked by the amount of devastation he saw in German cities -Entire cities reduced to rubble -First time he saw that, after the war, was in Stuttgart -Served there as a message center chief until turned over to civilian control -Directing communications since networks had been destroyed -Able to call home -Wrote a letter to his wife telling her the day and time he would call (00:42:55) Coming Home & End of Service -Left Germany in late summer 1946 -Got back to the United States in September 1946 -Travelled on a slow boat filled with returning soldiers �-Left out of a port in northern Germany (possibly Bremerhaven) -Landed at New York City -Took a train to Fort Bragg, North Carolina -Discharged from the Army there (00:44:00) Life after War -Returned to Auburn, Alabama -Wife had bought a house for them and she got a job there -Got his master’s degree at Auburn University on the GI Bill -Joined the research faculty at Auburn University -Did that from 1948 – 1956 -Got a job in Michigan -Has lived there ever since (00:45:15) Reflections on Service -Impressed by the unity of America during the war -Everybody helped in some way -Feels that farmers get overlooked despite how much they contributed to the war effort -Farmed with old equipment -Managed to feed the country, the Allies, and the Soviet Union -After the war, it was a good, economically booming time � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_ButtJ2091V Title A name given to the resource Butt, Jimmy L (Interview outline and video), 2017 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-01-10 Description An account of the resource Jimmy Butt was born in Tippo, Mississippi, on October 13, 1921. He was in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps at Auburn University and graduated in February 1943. He attended the Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and was commissioned as an officer on June 23, 1943. He completed Survey School a month later. In September 1943, he went to Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi, and joined the 863rd Field Artillery Battalion of the 63rd Infantry Division. On Christmas Day 1944, he sailed to the European Theatre and in January 1945 joined the rest of the 63rd near Saarbrucken. He participated in the fighting on the Siegfried Line and the eventual crossing of the Rhine River into Germany. He was with the division as it advanced through Germany and witnessed the liberation of multiple slave labor camps. After Germany's surrender in May 1945, he was part of the Army of Occupation and served in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart. He left Germany in summer 1946 and was discharged at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in September 1946. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Butt, Jimmy L, Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0590b43d105665fb98c56a08ca477a75.mp4 381caa12ab6472827e6840ad233a676e https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6aba79fdc8dcbdd35340bdc4ea9edd79.pdf 8d9aa4bee0d9cf24e6b244991de80b24 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Name of War: World War II Interviewee: Russell Buys Length of Interview: 00:44:30 Background  Born December 27th, 1922  Served in the Army during WWII  Highest rank was platoon sergeant  He enlisted in the Army [Michigan National Guard, 126th Infantry Regiment] in 1940, because a couple of his friends had joined the armed forces.  He originally wanted to join the coast guard, but his father said no. Then he suggested the Navy, but his father said no to that too. So, they decided to join the Army.  After they graduated from high school in June 1940, they signed up and were sent out to Camp McCoy, Wisconsin, to train for the summer.  While they were there they heard rumors that they were going to be activated. After they got back, in October, they were activated.  He was aware of what was going on in Europe, especially when he was started training. (2:10)  When he went in, he became a cook for two and a half years. Eventually though he was reassigned.  After [during?] the Buna campaign [New Guinea, 1942-43], he decided that he wanted to do more than just cook. (3:15)  One day, when he went to go look for rice, he walked right into a firefight and got shot in the shoulder. Training (4:50)      He would describe training as crude. When he joined the Army in 1940, they were still using WWI equipment. His first uniform was something that looked like it came from WWI. After they got activated, then they began to use more up-to-date equipment. He was in heavy weapons when he first went in, and they would practice using an old stove pipe because they did not have any equipment. They lived in tents and their kitchen stoves were all wood fed. No one knew what they were getting themselves into at the time and he found the experience very adventurous. He did not mind at all. Active Duty (6:15)   After he was activated, he would go to Australia [May 1942]. He landed in the southern part of the country, and they would be headed to New Guinea. �                          He took a train all the way up the coast [and camped for some time near Brisbane], and took a boat to New Guinea. While they were at sea, the Coral Sea Battle broke out [this was earlier, when they were going to Australia]. (7:05) They would escape it by going around it. When he arrived, he thought Australia was quite a strange country. (7:40) Everything there was years behind the United States. He remembers being in a hotel where they still had barrels of beer. They were not so far behind us, but it was interesting. The people there were wonderful and treated them very well. They knew what they were over there for, but no one had any idea of when they were going into combat, or what it would be like. (9:00) After he left Australia, he would go to Port Moresby, New Guinea. Their battalion, the 2nd battalion, 126th Infantry, 32nd Division, would go be part of the Ghost Mountain Boys, who would cross the [Owen Stanley] mountains in New Guinea in order to fight the Japanese. It was terrible. The equipment was very heavy and difficult to carry. They did not have any food either. Any food that was sent to them would go down the mountain and they would not get it. The trip was terrible, but he’s happy to say that he made it. Once they made it over the mountains, then the real combat started. (10:30) That was very traumatic. You would be doing your job, and suddenly the guy standing next to you would just fall down, because he got shot. One of his friends got shot and he picked him up and got him out of there, but he would die two hours later. That was their introduction to what combat is. Those were the kinds of memories that stayed with him forever. Nowadays they call it PTSD; then they called it TS, tough shit. McArthur, who was a very controversial figure of the time, would do a lot of island hopping. He would chase the Japanese, and when they vacated the island, the Americans would take it over. (12:00) When they would get to a new island, they would take control of the ports, so the Japanese would not be able to get supplies. Consequently, many of them would starve. After finishing in New Guinea, he would go to the East Indies; to Leyte; to Luzon. They were defeating the enemy as they went, which was their ultimate goal. He has no special memories or recollections of his time in the military. (14:25) He would be awarded a Bronze Star, but did not know it. It was not until he got back to the States and after a few years, someone had pointed out to him that he had earned a Bronze Star that he knew he had one. He would get a copy of the paperwork and talk to his congressman and eventually get his award. They were fighting a battle in Luzon, earning the award. But by the time they had gotten the award down, he had already gone home. He would also win the Purple Heart twice and a silver star. He would also earn an award for courage. �                          The Japanese fought much differently than the Americans did. (16:45) They would fight at night, while the Americans would not come out of their fox holes at night. One of the last gun fights he was in was a banzai attack, in the middle of the night. They came up over the hill, just screaming, trying to scare the men. I had worked for some. While they were fighting in the Philippines, they had to fight in the mountains, which were completely different from their jungle fighting, which they had been used to via training and his previous combat experience. He would start out as a private in the Army and would eventually work his way up to a platoon sergeant. (9:05) He would be in charge of the 3rd Platoon of his company. They never had a full platoon. Instead he would be in charge of 30 men most of the time, though sometimes it would go way down. He would keep in touch with family through letters. (21:10) Sometimes it would take a while, but he was patient. They army would also go through the letters and sensor them. One time his buddy had died, and he wrote the man’s wife a letter. He would get it back, with a lot of it scratched out. He learned to keep his distance from the other men, just in case something happened. (22:35) He said that it was something you had to learn, because you spend every day with these men, and they were suddenly gone. It was terrible, but you had to live with it. There was nothing lower than infantrymen. Even when he had gotten some time off, it would not last. When he did get time off he would play cards. They also had baseball, boxing, horseshoes, and write letters. (24:30) He would see Bob Hope while he was there, and he was bored to death. There was someone else who came, but he can’t remember. They also had movies to entertain them and church services to attend if they wanted to. They would also do more training in down time as well. He would say that morale was high amongst the men. (26:50) He did witness some tension between the officers and soldiers. The stress would begin to get to both the soldiers and officers, and some of them would begin to kill other soldiers and people. One soldier started to go a little crazy and he sent the man to the medic. One officer there was doing awful stuff to him men, so they got the word out and he was taken away to have a couple days off. He saw men get hurt, but the saddest thing to him was seeing men lose their minds. (29:05) Some of them would keep a personal diary, but he did not. He would read a diary of one of the men he traveled with, and he remembered some stuff that he had forgotten. He would receive his discharge papers in June; the war would end in August. He saw that the war was coming to an end by that time. He never felt the advantage going into battle, but they had confidence. �Post Duty (32:45)                   After he left, he was put on a Navy ship and they stopped somewhere, can’t remember where. Then they would go through the Panama Canal, and landed in West Virginia. He smiles when he came home and remembers the parades and welcome home that he received. (33:10) From there he was shipped to Fort Sheridan. And from there he was given $25 and told to find his way home. He would take a train to Milwaukee and then take the Clipper to Muskegon. When he finally made it back to the USA, he was happy to get back. But that ran out of gas soon after. He was told to run a patrol, but he really didn’t want to, so he tried to talk his way out of it. His folks had picked him up and his mom had his bedroom all ready when he got home. Of the six children that his parents had, five of them were in the service, all at the same time. He was the first one home. One brother was in Hawaii, another was in the Air Force in Mississippi, another was in England on D-day, and the other was in the infantry in Okinawa. (36:20) Then when he got back, his younger brother would join the Navy, so there were still five of them in there for a while. It was somewhat difficult to readjust to civilian life. The hardest thing was adjusting to a sleep schedule. When he got out, he was free. So he and his buddy bought a convertible and saw the country. He would go into construction, and work with his dad. He stays in contact with other veterans who served, but there aren’t very many left anymore. They also keep in contact with wives and widows as well. (39:10) Most of the guys who had gone in with him were older, so many of them are not around anymore. After reading some of the stuff that historians got it right, he finds they were pretty close. (40:00) He can’t read anymore, because of bad eyes, but he used to read a lot, mostly about the war stories that people wrote about. He enjoyed military life. In 1950, he had a chance to go back in the guards, and he would make 1st sergeant pretty quickly. He would serve again for 3 years. He has a grandson who serves in the Air Force. Been there for 12 years now. (44:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Buys, Russell (Interview outline and video), 2010 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Buys, Russell Description An account of the resource Russell Buys enlisted in the Michigan National Guard shortly after graduating from high school in 1940. A few months later, his unit was activated and sent to Louisiana to train. He initially served as a cook with the 2nd Battalion, 126th Infantry Regiment, 32nd Division. He sailed with them to Australia, and was then shipped to New Guinea, where he and his battalion marched over the Owen Stanley Mountains toward Buna. Toward the end of the Buna campaign, he decided that he wanted to do more than cook, and became a rifleman and got himself wounded in the shoulder. He recovered and stayed with the unit through further fighting in New Guinea and the Philippines before rotating home in 1945. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Bolthouse, Marvin (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Video recordings World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2010-05-27 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context BuysR0060V Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0323733507bec532e6f0c4dbde246aa7.mp4 02862ee9e8066b7e043424929d7f9c93 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/253ddd4017871d9a7fcada255597d0e1.pdf 257dfb62691e9413babfdb2973c990c5 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Steve Byers (00:17:12) (00:34) Retirement from Service • • • • • Steve retired from active duty in August of 1997 He entered the Navy Fleet Reserve and could be called back to duty at any time Steve officially retired from the Navy in 2000 He was sad when he left the service and knew that he would miss many of the friends that he had made He had to adjust to a new way of life after his time in the service (2:00) Going Back to Work • • • Even at work it was hard to adjust to civilian life In the military, you always knew where you stood and who you could trust He became an aircraft structural mechanic (3:40) Experience in the Service • • • • • • Steve found that time in the service allowed him to have more of an open mind He traveled from the far East to the Mediterranean to Mexico, experiencing many different types of cultures He can now more easily relate to other’s experiences Steve thinks the news is highly sensationalized He feels more empathy for people in desperate situations Regardless of his political views, he will always support US troops 100% (6:15) Lessons Learned in the Service • • • • • He found that safety is a high priority Every young man in the US from 18-20 should have mandatory time in the service Steve acquired new and useful skills from about 50 different Navy courses that he took He gained respect and has worked in many exciting jobs There are better conditions in the Navy than the Army, and it is even better if you go in with a college education � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Byers, Steven R. (Interview outline and video), 2008 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Byers, Steven R. Description An account of the resource Steve Byers had been in the Navy for 20 years when he retired in 2000. He discusses the benefits of military life and some of the differences between military and civilian experiences and attitudes. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Byers, Zach (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Veterans United States. Navy Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2008-04-23 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ByersS Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/89178933013f4019c6fdb8ff257d0b69.pdf cb5031c1aa558df4d19712edcad28135 PDF Text Text Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department Larry Byl Interview Interviewed by Walter Urick June 18, 2016 Transcript WU: My name is Walter Urick, and I'm here today with Larry Byl. We're at the Hart Area Library in Hart, Michigan. The date is Saturday, June 18th, 2016. And the purpose for this meeting is to obtain the oral history of the Byl family. The oral history’s being collected as part of the Growing Community Project, which is supported in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Program. Larry, I just want to thank you for taking this time to talk to me today. I'm interested to learn more about your family history and your experiences living and working in Oceana County. Now, your full legal name is what, Larry? LB: Walter Lawrence Wesley Byl. WU: And your date of birth and place of birth? LB: Date of birth is March 7th, 1957. And the location was Grand Rapids, Michigan. WU: Now, do you have any siblings? 1 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LB: I have three brothers and one sister. WU: Would you name each one for me? LB: Sure. The oldest was Margaret, followed by Paul, me, brother John, and then Tom. WU: And let's talk about your parents for a few minutes. Your father's name? LB: My father's name is Peter Byl. No middle initial or no middle name. And my mom was [?] Byl WU: And her maiden name? LB: Her name. Her maiden name was Westers. WU: Tracing the background of your parents and may get you to your grandparents… LB: Yep. WU: Sort of describe, as best you can, how your family eventually ended up in Oceana County and where did we start? LB: Sure. WU: In the Netherlands or some other part of the world? LB: Sure. I'm going to go way back because I think you might find it interesting on my mother's side, if you go back far enough, back when Napoleon was the ruler in France, they conscripted soldiers, including a fellow from Algeria, which would have been a great-great-grandfather of mine. And he, I'm going to say, abandoned… he didn't see eye to eye with Napoleon, so he deserted them, Poland's army, before Waterloo and went to Holland because the Netherlands was one location that accepted people regardless of race and religion. While his name, they couldn't pronounce it, so they called him France, which is French [?], which means outcast. So, my grandmother's maiden name was [?]. And so I come from a varied background. He obviously fell in love with a Dutch woman and they got married. And my dad's family came from the northern part of the Netherlands called Friesland. And in Friesland, they're known as either farmers, predominantly dairy farmers, because there's a lot of grass there or they were known as a fisherman. So, my dad's family came and they're also known as being hardheaded. So, my mom and dad actually didn't meet until 1948 in a boat coming from the Netherlands to the United States. And I'm going to give you a tiny bit of background to that. My dad's family was farmers and my mom's family... my grandfather was a Christian school principal and he moved around to several different schools. Well, you have to understand, during World War II, Germany occupied the Netherlands for about five years. So, my parents were both in their early teens during the war, which would have been a horrible time. And so, they both knew what it was like to live under martial law. And also, they knew what it was like to not have food all of the time. My parents, my grandparents, this would be my dad's mom and dad, their farmhouse on January 1, 1945 was accidentally bombed by the allies. What would happen is the Canadians and the Americans and the British would fly into Germany and if they had any bombs left over, they would look for opportunities to let those bombs go. And it just so happened, my grandparents lived fairly close to a railroad track. So, they let the bombs go and they missed the railroad tracks and accidentally hit my dad's house. So, for six months to a year, they had to live with another family. They were able to salvage the bricks and rebuild a smaller house like the typical Dutch. But you have to understand, they had nothing. I mean, they had two cows, I think, at the time of 2 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department the war. And the night that their house was bombed, one of the cows was killed and taken away. So, but, I never heard my grandparents complain. But in 1948, they had an opportunity. A man by the name of George Welch, who was the mayor of Grand Rapids, was visiting the Netherlands. And he was doing that because he was, I believe, the president of the United States Mayors Association. And he was looking at the rebuilding of Europe at that time. And one of his business partners was a lady by the name of Margaret de Groot. George Welch and Margaret de Groot owned a newspaper in Grand Rapids and she owned a farm just east of Grand Rapids in the Rockford/ Lowell area, and she was in need of some crop farmers to share... to work that farm and share the crops with her. So, my dad's family, when they met George Welch, they set up an interview and within three or four weeks, they went through all of the process. And because their house had been bombed by the Americans, they were put on a fast track to come to America. Well, my mom had just finished college in the Netherlands and she came to the United States to spend six months with some of her [?] family members who were... WU: Can you spell that name? LB: No, I cannot. WU: All right. I know the recorder/ transcriber is going to have difficulty with that, but continue on. LB: It starts with [?]. WU: [Laughter] LB: And they... she went to Chicago to stay with some cousins for six months because she really had a traveling bug. So, she had finished her college and she met my dad's family on the boat. So that's how my mom and dad met. WU: Was your dad on that boat, too? LB: My dad actually had flown to America just before the rest of the family because my dad had an invitation to join the Dutch army and fight in Indonesia, which was seeking independence. And they said if you leave now, you do not have to join the Dutch army and fight in the jungles of Indonesia. So, my dad was already over at the... what we call the Marcadia Farm, and that would be the farm located at 992 6 Mile Road, Rockford, Michigan. And that's where my mom met my dad because my mom enjoyed my dad's family. And when she went to Chicago, they said, well, gosh, you're close enough. Why don't you spend a month over there? Because she always enjoyed rural living. And this got her out of Chicago for a month. Well, she fell in love with my dad, but what happened then was she had to go back to the Netherlands because she applied for a permanent visa and they said that there's a quota. We only allow so many Dutchmen in the United States at any one time. So, she had to go back to the Netherlands for two years. She did and just about the time her two years was over, my dad, this would be 1950, had an invitation to join the U.S. Army and fight in Korea. So, my dad was in the U.S. Army, but instead of being stationed in Korea, he was stationed in Germany because he knew German, Dutch, English, and he was a medic there in Germany with the U.S. Army. So needless to say, my mom then came to America and she actually worked with my grandparents on the farm at Rockford for two years until my dad got out of the army. So, they got married and within the next seven years had five children. WU: Now, the farm in Rockford, as best you know, what type of crops or what kind of farming activities were involved that your dad apparently had to participate in or... 3 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LB: My grandfather and father were both dairy farmers from the time they were little. This was... we considered it a huge dairy farm. There were between 30 and 32 cows that they milked. And it was a pretty modern farm with all of the tractors and they raised most of their own crops. And it was a wonderful place to live. My mom, on the other hand, hated the idea of being tied down twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. My mom loved to travel and explore, so she convinced my dad because my dad took over that farm when my grandparents, after working the farm for five years, had saved enough money to buy their own farm. She convinced my dad to let her go back to college with five little kids at home and she went to Calvin College because that was very close and also because they could read the Dutch transcripts from her college days in the Netherlands. So, they gave her about two years credit and over the course of the next five or six years, she got her teaching degree from Calvin College. And in about 1966, they purchased an eighty-acre fruit farm in the western end of Oceana County. WU: How did it happen that they got to Oceana? Was there a story behind that or is it just they found it somehow? LB: Now, how did they find… did they run out of gas as they were heading up north? I think it came down to they asked friends from their church. Many of the Dutch, especially the Dutch, they came to America, go to either... either went or currently attend Reformed and Christian Reformed churches. And that's been the case from about 1860 on. And so, I'm sure my parents were talking with other friends in church and they were put in touch with some friends in New Era Reformed Church. And one of the first area farmers that they met was Gord Vanderslice’s parents. And there was a farm for sale. There were several. One was in Ferry Township and one was in Benona Township. The one in Benona was owned by an estate of Pete Burmeister and they looked that over. They asked Mr. Vanderslice to look it over and he said, wow, a lot of blow sand and it's not the most productive, but it was pretty. There were a lot of old apple trees. My parents didn't realize the old apple trees weren't necessarily an asset, but it had peaches and sweet cherries and they could see a future. And more importantly, my mom could see that she wouldn't be tied down to the farm seven days a week. WU: Did away from the cow situation. LB: The cows, where you had to milk twice a day every day. And so, my parents, I told Mrs. de Groot they had purchased their own farm. So, there actually was an auction sale and the equipment on the other farm was sold and the cattle were sold. Other than my dad could not get away from cattle altogether. So, when they moved to Oceana County, my dad brought one cow with him. Now you'd have to realize how much milk one cow produces. Even with five kids and with cousins staying with us most of the summer, that cow was producing so much milk that my dad would make buttermilk. Well, you make buttermilk by taking sour milk and churning it. That was a lot of work. My dad, actually, and mom had an extra washing machine, so they used that extra washing machine to churn the sour milk and turn it into buttermilk. And then there's a dish. It's called [?]. And I'm sorry, Walter, I can't spell that either. But [?] is a Dutch buttermilk pudding. And I just remember when I was ten years old having [?] for breakfast, lunch and supper. And to this day, I can't stand it. And so, that's how my parents got started here. And within the following two years, between 1966 and ‘68, they purchased another hundred acres of agricultural land from a neighbor by the name of Leo Dzur, D-Z-U-R, and Leo was an immigrant from Germany, and he had two daughters who had both moved out of the area and it was time for him to 4 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department give up farming. So, that's how my parents got really started. And my mom, true to her word, started teaching that fall the year that we moved here. WU: Where did your mom teach? LB: My mom taught in Ferry’s school for the first two years and then moved to Shelby’s school, where she taught for seventeen more years. WU: Did she teach actually at Shelby or out at Benona or? LB: She taught right at Shelby itself. WU: And what... LB: Fourth and fifth grade. WU: So, she was the fourth and fifth grade teacher. LB: Yes. WU: That's quite a story. So now, let's see, you had an eighty-acre farm and a one-hundred-acre farm. LB: Yes. WU: So now your dad is in charge of one hundred and eighty acres, correct? Did that... all I want to do is briefly trace the farming experience of your father before we go further. Did he acquire more land or was one hundred and eighty acres basically his farm? LB: My dad was able to, over the next ten years, acquire another forty acres at the end of Shelby Road and Scenic Drive and another 40 on Woodrow Road next to the Dzur farm. And that was pretty much it until my oldest brother, like a lot of farms, the oldest son stayed on the farm and farmed with their father. My brother Paul went to Michigan State University for a two-year Ag. degree, and when he took over then fifty percent ownership, they acquired some additional land after that because obviously farming became even more mechanized as more modern sprayers, faster tractors and things like that. WU: OK, so basically, he had probably over three hundred acres that they actually owned. LB: Yes, by 1975 he had three hundred acres that they owned. WU: So, he had about three hundred acres they actually owned. I don't know if he went out and leased property? LB: He did not. WU: Okay, so what I'd like you to describe is the type of farming activities that were involved in this three-hundred-acres. I'm not sure if it was asparagus, cherries or the whole nine yards. You sort of describe it. LB: Yep. And, Walter, if it's okay, I might describe a little bit, too, us boys, the Byl boys, because there were four of us, from time to time, we could work for a neighbor by the name of Vernon Bull, who was one of the pioneer food processing and growers from Casnovia, who bought a second operation in Oceana County next door to my dad. And over the course of thirty years, when my dad would try and buy a farm, invariably Vernon would be there and once in a while they'd have to flip a coin to see who 5 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department could buy it or try to outbid each other. It was a relationship that was OK, but I'm sure there were times when it wasn't the best. But Vernon was able to hire us, along with a number of other young men in Oceana County for both horticulture purposes and for cherry processing. He had one of the first cherry processing plants along the lakeshore. And I remember asking Vernon why he wanted to get into the food processing business when just raising crops was a full-time job. Vernon explained to me in his particular case, he was largely along Lake Michigan, which meant that he was about a week later than the cherry crops closer to Hart and Shelby. Typically, along the lake, it's a little bit cooler and that holds back the fruit in the springtime and then the summer. It might be eighty degrees in town, but it'll be seventy degrees close to Lake Michigan. What Vernon had a problem with since he was on the tail-end of the production, if he brought his cherries in at that time to either Hart or Shelby, but if the processing plant had fulfilled their contract, they were no longer interested in processing more fruit. So, by Vernon having his own food processing/ cherry processing plant, he felt he could then market the processed fruit. He ended up building freezer plants to go along with the food processing plant so that he could store it. So, my dad was able to take advantage of that from time to time, as well, because that's the one thing we found out. You really want to have multiple food processors as opposed to being so reliant on only a single food processor. And basically, you're at their mercy. WU: Well, I'm going to want to talk to you more in detail about your youth and working for Vernon Bull. But before we get there, I want you to describe as best you can your father and maybe your brother’s farming operation at its peak. What are you producing or growing? And approximately how many acres, if you know. LB: Yeah, my father, when he first started in Oceana County, he had to learn everything. I mean, everything from the standpoint of what we call stone fruit here, peaches and cherries. He was used to corn and hay and cattle. There's a difference, but it's not all that great. And, you know, we had a wonderful neighbor with Vernon Ball. One of his employees helped us if my dad had questions. And of course, the chemical dealers were always happy to help you and sell product. My dad's main crops the first few years, when we bought the farm, there were probably twenty acres of apple trees with probably twenty-five different varieties. You had varieties called “Snows.” You had “Kings,” you had apples that we would call them today, vintage varieties. And like the snow apple, for instance, would be a lot like a Macintosh. But when you bite into it, it's really white on the inside. And that apple’s specialty was as a caramel apple because once you had caramel and you bite into it, it was really wonderful to see that white. Now, Pete Burmeister, when he had all of these trees planted, had his own little packing plant and would bring apples to various vendors. Well, my dad didn't have the patience to learn about all of the varieties. And at that time, cherries were becoming a bigger and bigger thing because cherries in about 1966, when we moved here to Oceana County, you really started seeing more Shaker's. Now, what the shaker did was it took away your need to have hundreds of pickers to harvest the cherries. So, my dad planted a lot of cherries. We had probably fifteen acres of peaches, largely Clingstone. A Freestone peach would be the type of peach that you would sell in the store. A Kingstone peach, we used to sell to Gerber's and that was used for food processing. My dad also, on the whole, Leo Desoer farm, the one hundred acres, he ended up planting asparagus when he bought that, it was open and old cherries. Over the course of about six or seven years, he removed the old cherries and we planted all of that into asparagus. My dad was probably one of the larger asparagus growers in the early ‘70s. 6 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department WU: So, cherries... peaches, and asparagus… LB: …peaches and asparagus. And really moved away from apples completely until maybe ten years ago. WU: Well, now I want to take you back to your boyhood days and give an idea, first, what it was like growing up and what kind of farm chores, if any, you had to participate in. First, maybe at home and then maybe Bull Orchard? LB: At home, when we moved to Oceana County, the biggest job was, of course, harvesting of the fruit. And we were not large enough to own a cherry shaker. So, all of our cherries were harvested by hand, starting with about three to four acres of sweet cherries, which doesn't sound like very much today. But that job kept us busy for probably two weeks and then we moved to the sour cherries. Then, of course, just before that was thinning the peaches and then the harvesting of the peaches. And by that time, we were just so happy to have school started. We were... most of us were happy to get off the farm and back to the school. WU: So, basically what you're saying is you're one of the harvesters. LB: Yeah. WU: And this is at an age of ten or eight? LB: Yep. WU: As you get into your early teens, did your father have to hire harvesters outside of family and neighbors and so forth? LB: Because my mother's family, she has four siblings and they all moved to the Grand Rapids area. And I have probably twenty-five cousins, about the same age as our family, little younger. And most of those cousins in the summertime spent two or three weeks helping harvest. WU: So, this was a family - extended family - effort. LB: It was very much an extended family effort. We, at that time, we saw quite a few migrants, including some blacks that maybe came up from Chicago, but our farm did not employ it. It's not that we wouldn't have, but we had enough family members where we were able to harvest with our family. WU: Do you have any vivid memories, good or bad, of when you were a kid working on the farm, that you would care to make part of our interview here? LB: Sure. One of our cousins would not like me sharing this, but I had a cousin by the name of Peter Westers and he was one of the youngest cousins. He was two. Now, these were the days when you had the whole family out in the orchard. My aunt, typically my aunt and all of the kids, several aunts. And Peter was two and he was very fond of eating cherries. The problem was he would eat cherries, pits and all and he was still in a diaper. And about ten or eleven o'clock in the day, he would start crying because as he was sitting, those cherry pits would become very uncomfortable. So, we always used to tease Peter about that. Another memory that I have was our first year here in 1966, Vernon Ball had purchased some existing orchards in close proximity and those orchards were being transitioned - this was a cherry orchard - to 7 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department mechanically harvesting. So, what you had was, we call it a double incline shaker, with a little limb shaker - didn't shake the whole tree, just the little limb. But in order to get the tarps underneath the trees, you had to cut the lower branches. Well, before they cut the lower branches, they asked all of the neighbors if we would go and, for fifty cents a bucket, pick the lowest limbs. Well at fifty cents a bucket, I remember one day as a ten-year-old picking like twenty-five buckets and earning an ungodly amount of money, at least from my perspective, and my mom keeping all of us in toll and which was a whole lot nicer than picking my dad's orchards, which required a ladder and to reach all the way to the top. WU: Well, I'm going to switch subjects and go on to your educational background. Starting in elementary, I’m not sure if you ended up in the village of Shelby or if you were out in the Benona schools. I assume it was the latter, but… LB: Yep, I am fortunate. I say fortunate in that for my first three years of school, I actually went to a tiny one room schoolhouse. This was back near Lowell... Talbot. And we had around eighteen students and four of those eighteen were Byl kids. And I tell my children and now grandchildren that I can still name all of my classmates in first, second and third grade, both of them. So, when we moved in 1966, we went to Benona school, which had around twenty kids per class and some classes had two grades, most had one grade, and that went through eighth grade. And some of my fondest memories there were you didn't have to try out for the basketball team, you automatically made it. And we had the most fun on Wednesday nights playing against New Era, New Era Christian, Weare, Golden. We didn't play against the big schools of Shelby and Hart, but we played at the State Street gym here in Hart and gosh, I was just very... those are fond memories for me. WU: Any teachers in your elementary years that stand out in your mind that maybe helped mold you or mentor you in any way? LB: I had very decent teachers in Benona. Probably the best English teacher I had was a lady who... Mrs. Hammond. And she was one of those individuals who was very frank with you. And this is in seventh and eighth grade. She taught English and spelling and some of the others, but she hated math. So, she and Dennis Tucker traded places for those classes. And I remember her giving me a dictionary, which I still have. And she said, “Larry, you're smart, but you can't spell worth a damn. I want you to look up your words whenever you have a question so that you don't get it wrong.” And that was probably a very good thing in the seventh or eighth grader to have a teacher be that honest. And I still have that little dictionary. WU: So Benona schools took you through the eighth grade. Is that what you're telling me? LB: Yes. WU: Okay, so you finished the eighth grade and where did you go from there for high school? LB: From there I went to Shelby High School with a class of about one hundred and ten kids and I took your normal classes, except I did take various what I call FFA - Future Farmers of America - classes. Shelby had... Hart had a very good auto mechanic class where some of my friends went to Hart for two hours a day for that with Larry Wagner. Shelby had a very good Ag. program and a shop program with Tom Carey, a woodshop and a metal shop. So, they really had some very good vocational training back then between the two schools. WU: Between the two schools… 8 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LB: Yeah, between the two schools. So, I took agriculture classes my last three years and FFA became a bigger part of my life along with my brother. And I learned parliamentary procedure and I took a forestry class which I didn't do real well in. But, in general, it was... I enjoyed it immensely and it served me well. WU: In terms of your high school experience, again, is there a high school teacher that stands out in your memory or is special? LB: In high school, I would say I had a… it's amazing how you connect with people that are close to your age. And we did have a single female teacher who by the name of Becky Gill, and she taught English and it seemed like most of us really could relate to her. And then also another English teacher by the name of Shirley Haeg. And one reason why I could connect with Shirley, her maiden name when she was first at Shelby High School was Bylsma. So, there was a little bit of kindred spirit there and she taught drama. And so, for plays, I had her and again, just a very good teacher. And she ended up becoming a minister. She was a minister at the church here in Hart Congregational for several years. WU: Her last name is… LB: Haeg, Shirley Haeg. WU: Yes, that’s interesting. Before I get you into college, I want to go back and visit the Bull situation and your work experience there. Just briefly, what you and your brothers were doing for... LB: Sure. The first time we worked for the Bulls was, of course, when Vernon Bull purchased this orchard close to our farm. And we got it as ten, eleven, twelve-year-old kids picking all the low branches. So, we thought Vernon was the best because we always didn't get paid when we worked for our parents. So, we really wanted to work for Vernon. Vernon, in 1971, there was a pretty big cherry crop and he needed more people to work in the cherry processing plant. And that was about three weeks, three and a half weeks, worth of work. And at age fourteen, he first of all, grabbed my brother Paul, who was sixteen. I was fourteen. So, I went there the next day asking him if I could work. And then he ended up hiring my brother John, who was thirteen at the time. I was... the only criteria, Vernon said, was if anyone asks, tell them you're 16. So, I got to work, what they called an IQF, which is an individual quick freeze. And what that would do was take the sour cherries after they're pitted and a certain amount of those cherries went through the IQF machine and I was to box them up and to keep it running. And so, I filled boxes and stacked it for about three and a half weeks. And then my brother, John, was able to run the cooling pad with the forklift outside and Paul was running one of the three shakers. WU: So, the Byl boys were running this plant that... teenage years, basically, with some adult supervision. LB: Some adult supervision. And of course, we felt very special because I was working with folks like Kim Griffin from Shelby and another fellow who I think is an attorney or a judge in Kalamazoo, Doug Burmeister. And so, they were all older than us, but they treated us... as long as we did our job, they treated us as an equal. WU: Well, briefly, describe your years, your educational years after Shelby High. From there you went where? LB: OK. From Shelby High School, I went to Hope College. And, actually, by the time I was sixteen, I worked on Dad's Farm and Vernon Bull and I have a little bit of my mom's blood; I wanted to do some 9 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department exploring. So, I asked my parents if I could go out west and work for an uncle who was the head gardener for Henry Kaiser from Kaiser Steel and Aluminum, who had a summer estate in the Puget Sound off Seattle. And it was probably a three-hundred-acre estate with seven homes and greenhouse. And I was one of seven gardeners. And I got to use my farming skills, which was spraying, weeding, mowing, and I really enjoyed that. WU: This was the summer of your junior year or going into your senior year? LB: I actually worked out there for three different summers. WU: OK. LB: So that gave me just a little different perspective because like a lot of kids, when you’re sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, you know, mom and dad isn't the brightest. At least they didn't seem that way at the time. And you want to spread your own wings. And I just really credit my parents for saying, OK, as long as Paul stays because he's the most gifted in terms of driving a tractor and helping out with the farm. But I know my interest was not going to be the farm. At least I thought that was the case. And so, then I went to Hope College for four years and got into real estate my sophomore year of Hope College. WU: What type of program were you on at Hope from an educational standpoint. LB: Econ and Poli Sci. WU: Okay, and then you started to tell me about getting interested in real estate. So, let's pick it up from there. LB: Sure. My sophomore year at Hope College, I talked to Pete Wickstra, who I knew from church, and he had a son a few years older than me who had dropped out of law school and had gone back into their family real estate business and was obviously doing very well financially. And that looked like something of some interest to me. And Pete Wickstra was interested in mentoring someone who could work with Jim Wickstra and so that was the start of what would eventually become a partnership. And then eventually I bought out Jim Wickstra as he retired early. WU: So that's what you ended up as your life's work, basically? LB: My life's work was real estate. But an interesting aspect if we get back to the agriculture... WU: Yes, that's where I was hoping... LB: In ‘91, ‘92, I was involved in my largest development project. I, and two other partners, purchased a Girl Scout camp at School Section Lake, and we subdivided that into forty waterfront lots and cleaned that up and sold that. And I did very, very well in that project. Now, what I did with the profits from that project, I turned around and purchased a one hundred sixty-acre asparagus farm in Walkerville. So here I went from couldn't wait to get away from the farm to wanting to purchase a farm and recognizing how capital intensive a farm is because in addition to the land, you either have to have trees or in my case, asparagus roots, which is going to cost you another ton of money and then the equipment and then making sure you have labor to harvest, which might mean housing. So, I got into a pretty good-sized asparagus operation and one of the reasons was I had three young children and I realized my children did not have to work. I had to work growing up. There was no... never any question. If we wanted to eat, if we wanted a bicycle, if we wanted anything, we had to work for it. My children did not have that 10 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department luxury. I mean, they were… I'm not going to say they were born with a silver spoon, but how could I say we can't afford to buy you a new bike? So, by purchasing this asparagus farm and intentionally I stuck with asparagus because pretty much by the Fourth of July, you're done with the crop. You're done harvesting. You've closed it and there's still some minimal upkeep, but it's not like cherries and peaches where you're slaving and working hard all summer. This still gave... I expected my kids to work hard and I paid them well. And being the Dutchmen that I am, by paying them well, they could then pay for part of their college. I could deduct the amount that I paid them and write it off as an expense. WU: And they reported income at a lower bracket. LB: ...at a lower bracket. So, it worked out well. Plus, if I would have simply paid for their education, which I could have done, it… I don't think they would have appreciated it as much. Now, they had their own money to decide, “Hey, do I really want Hope College.” And my three kids went to Hope college, and one went to Northwestern in Chicago, and my daughter went to Syracuse. Now the one that went to Northwestern was about double what Hope College was and Hope College was fifty percent more than U of M, where he had been accepted. But Northwestern just had the feel for him and for him that was the right choice. But he knew he would never have a car while at college like my son, oldest son, did at Hope. You make sacrifices and that's okay. WU: Probably to fill out your family tree, so to speak, you were married when? LB: I graduated from Hope College and got married in 1979. WU: And your wife's full name? LB: My wife's full name is Ann Chase Davenport. And now, of course, Ann Chase Byl. WU: Right. LB: And she is from New Jersey. Her father... she's the youngest of four children and her father was a CPA at Rutgers University. And Mom was a stay at home mom who ended up doing some tax work later in life. WU: And you met Ann where? LB: At Hope College. WU: And was she in your class or? LB: She was in my class. WU: So, both of you graduated about the same time from Hope. LB: Yes. WU: And right from college, did you come back to Oceana immediately or was there an interlude there? LB: No, because I was working in the real estate business in the summers. By the time I was a senior at Hope College, I had a Monday night class, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday; Thursday night I was back here in Shelby working real estate Friday, Saturday... WU: With Wickstra? 11 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department LB: With Wickstra. WU: Okay. LB: So, I was working three days a week at Wickstra and my wife was a business major and right out of college she got a job at Silver Mills Food Processing in Accounts Payable. WU: Henry Perlowitz [?] and his gang came to town. LB: Yes. WU: Gosh, Dan Bernson [?] was a great friend of mine and I really miss Stan. [?] He's still alive, but I just don't get a chance to socialize with him like I did once upon a time in my life, but that's an aside. Why don't you name your children and best you can, at least, the years they were born. LB: Sure. I have three children. My oldest is Ben. He was born in or around 1981. Then I have Jacob. Jacob was born around 1983. And then I have Christa, who was born around 1986. WU: And all these children, I'm sure, are out of the nest now. LB: They are all out of the nest. They are all married. My oldest, Ben, went to Hope College and this is going to tie in with the farming. WU: Okay. LB: Ben graduated with a history degree. Now, why my kids were liberal arts instead of having something practical, I don't know. But he was a history major and out of college, he really didn't know what to do. So, he actually went into the Peace Corps and was in Madagascar for two and a half years where he worked in ecology, they called it, and in agriculture. And that really stirred his interest in that area. So, when he got back, he asked me to continue with the farming operation. In fact, we bought another 40 or 80 acres in just east of Shelby for fruit production and Ben then went and enrolled in a two-year master's program at Michigan State in Ag. Research, Fruit Tree Research, and started farming full- time and met an absolutely wonderful gal from Kent City, Amber [?], whose parents are big apple growers and neighbors of Vernon Bull. And so, Ben, today... she, Amber, was also in the Peace Corps and they had met at a Peace Corps event. And so, Ben is farming with his father-in-law, which allowed me to, as I semi-retire, I ended up selling my asparagus farm two years ago to Ryan and Chris Mahlberg. [?] I was holding the farm back in case Ben wanted to farm full-time, recognizing it’s so capital intensive. If there isn't some help from the parents, it's never going to happen right away. WU: Right. But at this point, it's more or less working. Did he marry this gal? LB: Yes, he married this gal; that is his wife. WU: And so, he's working with his in-laws? LB: And he's working with his in-laws. He puts on a lot of miles with his little S-10 pickup. He still has the eighty-acre farm here in Shelby, and that's largely cherries and apples, some cherries. And so, he and his wife, she works for Gordon Food Services buying products, especially fruits and vegetables for them because of her background. And they do a Farmer's Market on Fulton Street and in Rockford on Fridays and Saturdays. And they help run the family farm at Kent City, as well as the Shelby farm, 12 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department WU: Well, I'm going to lead you into community activity because I know you're very much involved in that. And then we'll see if there's anything special you want to say and items that I haven't touched, at least for the purpose of today. Just briefly, you're involved in your County Commissioner to begin with, correct? LB: Yes. WU: And you've been there for how long? LB: I have been a County Commissioner for around thirteen years. Before that, I was on the Shelby Village Council for about twelve years, including Village President. WU: And are you from a church or a service club situation? Why don’t you describe that? LB: Within the church family, I'm a member and the chairman of the Deacons of New Era Reformed Church. And for organizations, I am a member and have been for over thirty years to Shelby Rotary Club. And I'm a member of, of course, Farm Bureau, member of MSU Extension Advisory Committee. And that would be a four-county committee. And part of being a County Commissioner also puts you in with other activities. One is I'm a member of the Michigan Works and that would be the West Central and that would be a total of six counties. I'm one of three members representing Oceana County. So, we look and we have an office here in Oceana County and Shelby and we work hard to get enough employees with the farmers, which is becoming a bigger problem. WU: Just to get the help needed. LB: Just to get the help needed. And part of it is, when I was in high school, all high school kids worked. Today, that isn't the case. I'm not saying they're lazy, but they've got band camp, they've got football camp, they've got cross country camp, they've got basketball camp. They've got all kinds of things going on. WU: And in what ways have you seen our area change since your boyhood days? LB: Since my boyhood days, I would say when I was in school, I'm happy to say we've always had pretty good race relations. And that, what I mean by that, is the Hispanics that were in my high school class were friends and they still are friends. But that probably represented five to ten percent of the class. Today, I think both Hart and Shelby, probably forty to forty-five percent of the student population would be Hispanic. I'm not saying that's bad or good, but, you know, that's probably the biggest change. And what I have found, Hispanics - in general, and I'm generalizing - but they really value hard work. They don't value education. You're going to see a lot of the parents will encourage the boys at sixteen or seventeen: Why continue with school if you're going to... if you can work elsewhere. WU: And make some money right now. LB: Right. WU: Well, if someone listens to this interview or reads the transcript that eventually will be made, say, thirty or forty years from now. What would you most like them to know about your life and the community? LB: Well, one of the things... I'm going to borrow a phrase from my old or former Shelby High School or Shelby School Superintendent, John [?]. John said he couldn't wait - as he was growing up on a farm - he 13 �Growing Community: Oceana’s Agricultural History Project A project supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant Project Director: Melanie Shell-Weiss, GVSU Liberal Studies Department couldn't wait to get away from burning wood. He said it seemed like every Saturday we had to go out, chop down trees, cut wood. And he said, you know what happened? Of course, he started building homes in the summer. And he said, as I got older, I went back to burning wood because I needed the exercise and I enjoyed it. And I think back probably my least favorite thing to do in the wintertime was cutting wood on Saturday, using a two-wheel drive pickup, getting stuck, and having to cut wood with my dad and brothers and not liking that at all. Hey, the last two or three years, I’ve really enjoyed cutting wood and stacking it and burning a little wood along with my gas. WU: Well, is there anything that you would like to share that I may not have asked you about? Sort of an open-ended question... LB: Sure. WU: ...to give you a chance to say something that you think is important to, as part of this interview. LB: And again, this interview primarily ties in with agriculture. I am hopeful that we will continue to remain to have a strong, viable agriculture community. Obviously, we have the food processing plants, Gerber is very important, Peterson is important. But when I first moved here, in fact, when I graduated from college in ‘79, there was no such firm as Peterson’s Food Processing. Things are always changing and embrace that change. And hopefully you will get some dynamic people like an Earl Peterson who will continue to invest in the area and that we have smart enough government officials that basically stay out of the way when you have a responsible person like Earl who's willing to invest. And you can go through history over the last one hundred and twenty years, those individuals have stepped up. And it just seems to me like government is doing what it can to put a harness and hold back some of those folks. And I'm hopeful that in this area will continue to see people - again, I use the word “responsible” people - who won't leave a legacy of pollution like they did in the White Lake area. But that will continue to employ people, buy products here, and do what we call value-added services to our agriculture. WU: Well, I see the time that we had allotted is about to expire here. Larry, I just want to thank you for your time and for sharing your memories with me. And this formally concludes our interview. Thank you very much. 14 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c816ace3fec8a9d7c1ec5c3235a0d7d9.mp3 25f7e47e9ff6887f4a4bcd689b9622db Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oceana County Migrant Labor History Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Shell-Weiss, Melanie Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Growing Community: A Century of Migration in Oceana County." This project was a collaboration between El Centro Hispano de Oceana, the Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society, and Grand Valley State University funded by a Common Heritage grant from the United States National Endowment for the Humanities. The materials in this collection document the history of communities in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville and explore themes of migration, labor, religion, family, belonging, national and cultural identities, regional, national, and international connections, and citizenship. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Oceana County (Mich.) Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Special Collections and University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource El Centro Hispano de Oceana; Oceana County Historical and Genealogical Society Relation A related resource Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage project) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf image/jpeg audio/mp3 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Image Sound recording Language A language of the resource eng spa Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016 Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Hart (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Migrant agricultural laborers Hispanic Americans Account books Diaries Oral history Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-06_Byl_Larry Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Byl, Larry Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2016-06-18 Title A name given to the resource Byl, Larry (audio interview and transcript) Description An account of the resource Oral history interview with Lawrence (Larry) Byl. Interviewed by Walter Urick on June 18, 2016 in Hart, Michigan. English language. Larry Byl was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan in 1957 as the son of two Dutch immigrants. Larry and his family moved to western Oceana County in 1966 and created a life for their family on their eighty-acre fruit farm, which over the years grew to become a three-hundred-acre farm. He attended Shelby High School where he took Future Farmers of America classes, and later graduated from Hope College in Holland, Michigan before finding his life’s work in real estate. Larry also served many years as County Commissioner and Village President for his community of Shelby, Michigan. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Urick, Walter (interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oceana County (Mich.) Shelby (Mich.) Farms Farmers Fruit growers Future Farmers of America Hope College Audio recordings Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Growing Community (NEH Common Heritage) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2936481b9f3c3edc981ef2e89f915675.m4v 34e9da770026ccee2d79d9017e315593 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/632784532d231613c909ad14fe7d04ad.pdf 255aaca7751a2f4dbd6f5ec3899b33ad PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans’ History Project Dr. Edward Byrd Vietnam War 1 hour 24 minutes 28 seconds (00:00:12) Early Life -Born on January 26, 1940 in Birmingham, Alabama -Moved to Washington D.C. and grew up there -His father started several businesses -Most successful one was an air conditioning repair school for WWII veterans -His mother worked for the Federal government -She worked in the Commerce Department and then in General Accounting -Attended Calvin Coolidge High School -Graduated from there in 1958 (00:01:27) George Washington University -He was able to secure a scholarship to George Washington University in Washington D.C. -He majored in zoology which led to him going on to medical school -He was able to get into medical school after only three years and passing the MCAT -He was able to complete medical school -He was able to avoid the draft because he was in college -Graduated from college in 1965 -During medical school a high ranking Army officer came in and addressed the students -Told them that they would all spend two years doing some sort of military service (00:03:37) Awareness of the War -When he was young he saw a gory WWII propaganda picture in a magazine -It made him never want to go to war, or be involved with anything like that -When the Korean War occurred he was still too young to pay any attention to it -When the officer addressed his class he knew that there was no escaping the Vietnam War -Remembers seeing a picture of Hanoi post-bombing in 1964 in the Washington Post -Drove home the severity of the situation in Vietnam (00:05:47) Beginning of Navy Service -He was given three options: -Graduate from medical school, do a one year internship, then enter as a lieutenant -This is the option that he chose -Graduate from medical school, do an internship, then begin specialty training -Graduate from medical school, complete specialty, and then go in with a higher rank -At the time he wasn’t ready to decide on what his medical specialization would be -Eight days after completing his internship he was called to report for duty -Completed his internship at George Washington University -He was sent to Annapolis Naval Academy, Maryland -He was given a uniform, a brief lesson on the history of the Navy, and protocol -Training lasted only two weeks -There was no physical training, or discipline conditioning �(00:08:28) First Assignment to a Ship -The first ship that he was assigned to was the USS Truckee (a fast fleet oiler) -The commander of the fast fleet was aboard the Truckee -Navy wanted a doctor close to the commander -Reported to the Truckee in Baltimore, Maryland -At the time the ship was being repaired and wasn’t ready for him -He was sent to a ship in Norfolk, Virginia called the USS Chikaskia -It was going to be part of a group of ships to pick up astronauts in the ocean -They were getting ready to sail when there was a technical problem -Forced them to return to Norfolk -Stayed with the Chikaskia for about two or three months -Eventually rejoined the USS Truckee -During the time of those two assignments there were no medical duties for him -If there was an emergency there was a Naval hospital nearby -Mostly played golf during downtime (00:12:08) Mediterranean Cruise -He was assigned to a ship called the USS Altair -Sailed to the Mediterranean Sea on her -NOTE: What follows may have been on the USS Altair, or the USS Truckee -During the 1967 Arab-Israeli War (“Six Day War”) he was in the Mediterranean Sea -Part of evacuating American citizens from Alexandria, Egypt -His ship was sent to aid the USS Liberty after Israel attacked it -Gave the ship medical supplies -During the time of the Six Day War his ship was never fired upon -Went to Naples, Italy to refuel and resupply -While docked in Naples he got a chance to visit Italy -Didn’t really have any encounters with any Italians -Attributes that to the language barrier -All toll spent one month in the Mediterranean Sea (00:16:49) Medical Duties and Downtime -Prior to the Vietnam War there were really no medical duties on the ships he served on -Crewmen were young and healthy and didn’t require medical aid -The most “serious” injury that he experienced was a broken finger -Bought a camera to film the ship’s basic processes -Examples: resupplying, refueling in the ocean -Found the processes fascinating -Remembers watching numerous crates being accidentally dropped into the sea -The crew didn’t seem too concerned and just ignored it -Thought it was bizarre how tons of goods were lost and it wasn’t a problem -Watched gunnery exercises being conducted with the ships antiaircraft guns -The gun crews would shoot at a target towed by a Cessna propeller driven aircraft -They never hit the target -Realized that they had no real defenses against modern, jet powered aircraft (00:19:47) Relationship with Crewmen -Served with a very interesting group of people -One sailor that he served with had served with the Merchant Marines �-Knew how to use a sextant and navigate by the stars -Valuable because that was a skill that had been mostly lost -He was also a good storyteller and all around a funny guy -A number of the older officers were career soldiers -He found the officers to be interesting -They were always up to date on world events -Knew that a crisis in the world may directly impact them -They tended to be politically conservative -Hardworking men -He worked with three enlisted men who were his subordinates -One of those enlisted men was a corpsman that had served in the Korean War -They took their job seriously and he respected that -They helped him to mature and be a more responsible person (00:23:23) Volunteering for Vietnam -He left the USS Truckee in July 1967 -He returned to his parents’ home for a month of leave -He was originally told that he would serve a year abroad, then a year stateside -Another doctor told him that he should consider becoming a neurosurgeon -At the time becoming a neurosurgeon really didn’t appeal to him -Part of the deal was going to a hospital ship off the coast off of Vietnam -It would ultimately become a five year commitment to become a neurosurgeon -He had to convince his parents that he would be safe and that it was a great opportunity for him -They weren’t happy about his decision, but didn’t forbid him from doing it either -There were not a lot of doctors volunteering to go to Vietnam to become a medical officer -Before being deployed to Vietnam he was not given any orientation (00:26:55) Arrival in Vietnam -Flew out of the United States in August 1967 on a commercial airplane -Landed at Tan Son Nhut Air Base in Saigon, South Vietnam -Recalls that the first thing he noticed was how hot and humid the weather was -Remembers seeing palm trees everywhere -He was taken to a place called Hotel Annapolis -Drove through Saigon and saw the old French buildings -Recalls that Saigon was crowded and full of people on mopeds or in small cars -Hotel Annapolis was a three story, cinderblock building -Guarded by an armed soldier -Stayed there overnight -Shortly after arriving at Hotel Annapolis there were multiple attempted attacks on the guard -A Vietnamese couple pulled up and attempted to shoot the guard -Their pistol misfired and they drove off -The guard wasn’t able to retaliate because there were too many people around -Introduced him to the idea that you couldn’t tell who was friendly and who wasn’t (00:30:57) Assignment to the USS Repose -After staying a night in Saigon he took a helicopter up to Da Nang -From Da Nang he was driven to the docks -Remembers on the way seeing crates stacked along the road that were 10-15 feet high -The stacked crates extended for at least a few miles �-Material for the war effort -He boarded the USS Repose and was assigned to a ward that dealt with tropical diseases -He treated both soldiers and civilians -Primarily treated malaria and parasites -He was able to assist the neurosurgeons onboard occasionally -It was always satisfying for him to treat malaria because usually the treatments were effective -There was a large hospital in Da Nang as well which aided in the treatment of soldiers -Treated the civilians that worked on the U.S. base at Da Nang -They were aided by translators aboard the ship -Always seemed grateful for the aid that they were receiving -The parasites that he treated were roundworm, tapeworm, and amoebas found in the water -Soldiers were supposed to treat the water with a chemical -They chose not to because it made the water taste bad -As a result they would ingest parasites -Remembers one soldier with a case of cerebral malaria -His brain was inflamed and swollen -Ultimately died because of the malaria (00:36:53) Assisting Neurosurgeons -Assisted the neurosurgeons occasionally by using an electrified tool to control bleeding -Slowed the bleeding in the brain during surgery -Over time other neurosurgeons began to ask for his help -After a while his primary job was no longer the ward, but to assist neurosurgeons aboard ship -Ultimately learned faster on the ship than he would have in the civilian world -He helped in treating head trauma and spinal trauma -Different than the average civilian head wound -Learned that artillery fragments tended to cause the most damage (00:40:15) Relationship with Doctors and Crewmen -Some of the doctors were career soldiers while others were just civilian doctors -Some of the doctors he served with had a family, a mortgage, and a private practice -Being drafted made it increasingly hard to support their family, or pay their mortgage -Most of the civilian doctors did not want to be in Vietnam -They were skeptical that it was going to be an ultimately good policy for the U.S. -Feeling increased after the Tet Offensive -Despite those feelings they still did their duty -He had a close relationship with his corpsman and the head nurse -Got along well with them (00:42:54) Tet Offensive -During January 1968 he remembers the Repose getting a high number of paralyzed soldiers -His job was to escort the soldiers to Bethesda Hospital in Maryland -During the mission got to spend a night with his parents -Took a flight from D.C. to California -Got stuck in California for five days due to the USS Pueblo Incident -Large amount of forces being diverted to South Korea -Got a flight out of California to Elmendorf, Alaska then from there to Saigon -Arrived in Saigon at 1 AM -When he arrived in Saigon he could see tracer rounds being fired �-Landed in Saigon and was told he could be taken to Hotel Annapolis -Decided to just stay in the terminal until morning -All through the night he could hear American artillery fire -Every thirty seconds a round was being fired on the Vietnamese -At 4 AM the action intensified -Automatic weapons fire, artillery fire, and flares being deployed -Learned that the Viet Cong had broken through the perimeter -He was placed on a bus and evacuated to a safer position at Tan Son Nhut -There he learned that all of South Vietnam was under attack -The next day he was placed on a Huey helicopter bound for Da Nang -Remembers that the pilot had to stop in the jungle to refuel -There was an absurdly placed self-serve pump in the middle of a clearing -Landed at Da Nang and returned to the USS Repose -Immediately had to get to work due to the high number of casualties -The Tet Offensive was his only exposure to combat while in Vietnam -The Tet Offensive happened halfway through his tour of duty -He and the rest of the Repose was busy during and immediately after the Tet Offensive -Surgeons would go two to three days without sleep -Surgeons would try desperately to save even the mortally wounded soldiers -Received everything from minor wound to fatal wounds -The majority of soldiers they received survived their wounds -Believes that it was due to advanced medical care and the helicopters (00:54:04) Downtime in Vietnam Deployment -Every five-six weeks the USS Repose would go to Subic Bay, Philippines -He was able to take a few R&R trips -Remembers one trip to Hong Kong -They were supposed to go to Sasebo, Japan -Cancelled due to the Tet Offensive -He enjoyed playing golf during his downtime -During his visit to Hong Kong he was able to visit a local golf course -During the visit an officer was taking pictures of Chinese farmers -They became visibly upset about this (00:56:32) Dennis Lobbezoo Sculpture -During the Tet Offensive a wounded Marine infantryman was evacuated to the Repose -His name was Dennis Lobbezoo and he was from Grand Rapids, Michigan -He had been hit by mortar shrapnel in Khe Sanh -Lobbezoo was then treated by Dr. Byrd -Byrd was able to dig out the shrapnel and help heal Lobbezoo -During the course of treating Lobbezoo he got to know him -Byrd always hoped that Lobbezoo would make it back to the U.S. -On Byrd’s last day in country he was reading the military newspaper Stars & Stripes -Learned that Dennis had been killed in action -The loss hit him hard -He came back to the U.S. and saw how Vietnam veterans were being mistreated -He received some harassment, but was more concerned about the injustice for the vets -Always wanted to do something to counteract that mistreatment and to honor them �-He retired from medicine when he was 58 and went to college to study art -The end goal was to learn how to make a sculpture for Dennis -He wound up making a bronze sculpture of a wounded soldier, dedicated to Dennis -He got into contact with Dennis’s ex-fiancé, Joyce Washburn -Together they looked for a place for Dennis’s statue in Grand Rapids -Able to get in contact with Henry Matthews at Grand Valley State University -The statue was put up at the Richard M. DeVos Center at GVSU (01:02:42) Drug Use, Racism, and Sexism on the USS Repose -He was never aware of drug use on the ship -He learned about drug use in the field later -He didn’t see any racial tensions on the ship -His observation was that everyone was so stressed and focused no one cared for race or drugs -In Vietnam it was the first time that there were female nurses on the ship -Caused morale and discipline issues -There were 29 females and 600 males -Most of the men were scared, lonely, and single -Relationships did develop over the course of his tour -When they ended either the male or female was hurt which was demoralizing -If a male pursued a female and was decline then there were morale issues -The nurses were great workers -All in all there were some gender problems caused due to the stress and proximity (01:08:28) Various Memories of Vietnam -He remembers that there was a rash of terribly burned soldiers evacuated to the Repose -Armored personnel carriers would carry a gasoline tank beneath the crew compartment -If it was hit and exploded then the soldiers were cooked alive -The only way to remotely save them was to skin them -Most of the fatally wounded soldiers were calm and accepted that they would die -He remembers treating one captain who had received 100% burns -Said that he would survive because he had a wife and baby to live for -Asked for a drink of water and then laid back down and died -Everyone relied on psychological defense mechanisms to stop from going insane -If they got to close to a patient it could psychologically cripple them -He remembers a doctor weeping openly only once during his time on the Repose (01:14:07) Coming Home -He knew, to the day, when he would be going home -He was given a little plaque saying that he had served on the USS Repose -There was a small farewell party for him -He got off the ship in Da Nang and stayed in the officers’ quarters in Da Nang -Arrived in the U.S. at Edwards Air Force Base in Washington D.C. -He had flown from Da Nang to Tokyo, Japan -Stayed in an empty ward at an American hospital -Ward was preempting casualties from Vietnam or a 2nd Korean War -To him the logistics seemed unreal (01:17:22) Life after the War -He was discharged and went back to George Washington University for neurosurgery -He was sent to the Washington D.C. veterans’ hospital for his general surgery internship �-After that began his neurosurgery internship at George Washington and affiliated hospitals -He completed his neurosurgery training and moved to Hagerstown, Maryland -Seventy miles from D.C. and he started a private practice there -Worked in Hagerstown until he retired -Moved to South Carolina with his wife and took art classes in Charleston -Got a degree in art history and in studio acting (01:19:01) Reflections on Service -He had never had any intention of going into a surgical specialty -The Navy played a large part in changing that direction of his life -His experience aboard the USS Repose led him to become a neurosurgeon -He respected and appreciated the organization and hierarchy of the Navy -Noticed that civilian doctors without military experience lacked some of that respect -His Naval service taught him to be more selfless and more concerned about the “unit” -He thinks that the Navy helped him to grow up and be more selfless and independent -Learned that it is a tough, impersonal, and unfair world and that you need to survive in it � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27_ByrdE1704V Title A name given to the resource Byrd, Edward (Interview outline and video), 2014 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2014-11-10 Description An account of the resource Dr. Edward Byrd was born in 1940 in Birmingham, Alabama and grew up in Washington, D.C. He attended George Washington University and was accepted into the medical school there graduating in 1965. All medical school graduates at the time were expected to enter the service, so he joined the Navy,completed a short training at Annapolis Naval Academy, Maryland and served aboard the USS Chikaskia, USS Altair, and USS Truckee and took a cruise to the Mediterranean Sea taking part in aiding the USS Liberty during the Six Day War in 1967. In 1967 he volunteered to go to Vietnam to gain some experience with neurosurgery. In August 1967 he arrived in Vietnam and was assigned to the USS Repose off of Da Nang. He was originally in charge of his own ward aboard the ship treating tropical diseases until he began to assist neurosurgeons. In Vietnam he aided in treating a myriad of casualties from minor wounds to fatal wound and saw the immediate effects and aftermath of the Tet Offensive in late January 1968. He returned home and trained and worked as a neurosurgeon. After retiring he took art courses in Charleston, South Carolina and graduated with a degree in art history and studio art. He created a bronze sculpture in memory of one Dennis Lobbezoo, a soldier he treated in Vietnam that died in 1968, that was placed in the Richard M. DeVos Center of Grand Valley State University. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Byrd, Edward Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American United States. Navy Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Veterans Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Moving Image Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project collection, (RHC-27)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/">In Copyright</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/x-m4v application/pdf https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5c72c78f01c9cc46812a3cc44993f890.jpg d41593ffd16ba97c1843832df5dfb26f https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/0bb69e56dd402ff3c1a3dfae0134dfcb.jpg b87219d2fa387f1cbb0fd04536cc6ca6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Summers in Saugatuck-Douglas Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Stories of Summer," supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant. The collection aims to document the twin lakeshore communities of Saugatuck and Douglas, Michigan, as they transformed through the state's bustling tourism industry and acceptance of minorities. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1910s-2010s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Various Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Saugatuck (Mich.) Douglas (Mich.) Michigan, Lake Allegan County (Mich.) Beaches Sand dunes Outdoor recreation Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Saugatuck-Douglas History Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Stories of Summer (Common Heritage project) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource English Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-07_SD-Walsh-J_0033 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource C. R. Childs Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952 Title A name given to the resource The Club House of West Shore Golf Links, Douglas, Mich. postcard Description An account of the resource Postcard featuring a landscape view of "The Club House" at West Shore Golf Links in Douglas, Michigan. The postcard depicts a clubhouse with an active hillside golf course out front. To the right of the building there is a water tower nearby. The back of the postcard has no handwriting other than the date "1952." Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Douglas (Mich.) Allegan County (Mich.) Postcards Outdoor recreation Golf Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Digital file contributed by Jerri Walsh as part of the Stories of Summer project. Relation A related resource Stories of Summer (project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/894a83dc0f8ef898383c9d13ad0e5526.jpg b0b0a304ec58a406256aa574ee38ce7b https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1fa9761eadedc4fea4ff0ccaf8fed0db.jpg b38b15eb1816c71211f5232d1920f02b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Summers in Saugatuck-Douglas Collection Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. Kutsche Office of Local History Description An account of the resource Collection contains images and documents digitized and collected through the project "Stories of Summer," supported by a National Endowment for the Humanities Common Heritage Grant. The collection aims to document the twin lakeshore communities of Saugatuck and Douglas, Michigan, as they transformed through the state's bustling tourism industry and acceptance of minorities. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1910s-2010s Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Various Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Saugatuck (Mich.) Douglas (Mich.) Michigan, Lake Allegan County (Mich.) Beaches Sand dunes Outdoor recreation Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries. Allendale, Michigan Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Saugatuck-Douglas History Center Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context Stories of Summer (Common Heritage project) Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Text Language A language of the resource English Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2018 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-07_SD-Walsh-J_0037 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource C. R. Childs Co. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1952 Title A name given to the resource West Shore Golf Links, Douglas, Mich. postcard Description An account of the resource Black and white postcard of West Shore Golf Links in Douglas, Michigan. The postcard depicts the first tee of a golf game and has many individuals on the course. The back of the postcard has no handwriting on it other than the note "1st Tee 1952." Subject The topic of the resource Michigan Douglas (Mich.) Allegan County (Mich.) Postcards Outdoor recreation Golf Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Digital file contributed by Jerri Walsh as part of the Stories of Summer project. Relation A related resource Stories of Summer (project) Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/UND/1.0/">Copyright Undetermined</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Language A language of the resource eng Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c1ce1873439142931fc4ed0507976604.jpg 1ebd77a77bfa2fb5ec8d70a93cae7a12 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Seidman Rare Books. S411 .R87 no.10 1923 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0195 Title A name given to the resource Manual of Tree Diseases Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource C.S. (Designer) Description An account of the resource Binding of Manual of Tree Diseases, by W. Howard Rankin, published by The Macmillan Company, 1923. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1923 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/097358ed1084d885033c30ecf4d7f53e.jpg 86b74f7585a16fb6598d6eb20a3162ff Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Seidman Rare Books. S411 .R87 no.11 1919 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0196 Title A name given to the resource Manual of Home-Making Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource C.S. (Designer) Description An account of the resource Binding of Manual of Home-Making, by Martha Van Rensselaer, Flora Rose, and Helen Canon, published by The Macmillan Company, 1919. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1919 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/90fa340e493f9ccbcc15f4abf284dfd2.jpg 6f2b291de8a18191a98030441f050b3a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Seidman Rare Books. S411 .R87 no.13 1920 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0197 Title A name given to the resource The Nursery Manual Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource C.S. (Designer) Description An account of the resource Binding of The Nursery Manual, by L.H. Bailey, published by The Macmillan Company, 1920. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1920 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/8ddfb520e4705c84d7c30b9ed99c42a2.jpg 1de058ac21643149dccda0240294a143 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Seidman Rare Books. S411 .R87 no.15 1924 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0198 Title A name given to the resource Manual of Tree and Shrub Insects Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource C.S. (Designer) Description An account of the resource Binding of Manual of Tree and Shrub Insects, by Ephraim Porter Felt, published by The Macmillan Company, 1924. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1924 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/d19a3560f88cb4222762c791988e8eab.jpg cadf593335025fd3fbacf1ecc5ab0112 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Decorated Publishers' Bindings Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Description An account of the resource From the early 1870s to roughly 1930, many publishers issued their commercial book covers with a remarkable variety of graphic designs and illustrations. This sixty-year period saw many artists and designers contributing to this art form. While some can be identified from their style or initials, others remain unknown. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Seidman Rare Books Collection Michigan Novels Collection Regional Historical Collection Lincoln and the Civil War Collection Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-08-30 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>, <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpg Language A language of the resource eng Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01 Still Image A static visual representation. Examples include paintings, drawings, graphic designs, plans and maps. Recommended best practice is to assign the type Text to images of textual materials. Source Seidman Rare Books. S411 .R87 no.12 1924 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context DC-01_Bindings0201 Title A name given to the resource Manual of American Grape-Growing Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource C.S. (Designer) Description An account of the resource Binding of Manual of American Grape-Growing, by U.P. Hedrick, published by the Macmillan Company, 1924. Subject The topic of the resource Book covers Covers (Illustration) Graphic arts Publishers and publishing Pictorial bindings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/NoC-US/1.0/?language=en">No Copyright - United States</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Image Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource image/jpeg Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1924 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/2e33d53e7013aa24d4c7566ada18a85c.m4v 0dd3a7d8d927c1b14e437c0a135907b3 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/92c152dc2fc473078b0a4117896abf80.pdf 8b7f2d67bd3e1feebbd5eb820b289c2f PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University All American Girls Professional Baseball League Veterans History Project Interviewee’s Name: Mary Lou Caden Born: Oaklawn, Illinois Resides: Hot Springs Village, Arkansas Interviewed by: Gordon Olson on September 26, 2009 in Milwaukee, WI at the All American Girls Professional Baseball League Reunion. Transcribed by: Joan Raymer March 24, 2010 Interviewer: “I like to start with some basic background information. Where your home was, where you were born, a little bit about your parents and family and then we will ease on into baseball.” Ok, I was born in Oak Lawn, Illinois, which now is just a suburb of Chicago and my dad was a harness maker. He had a shop in the stockyards and he made leather goods-saddles, bridles and we boarded his rented horses out on the farm. I had seven brothers and I was the baby and the only girl and I wasn’t spoiled—I had to fight my way through life. My dad got killed in an accident when I was five and we moved to the city. There were four brothers at home plus me and my mom. I was never much for feminine things because of having all the boys around, so I more or less learned how to do everything that a boy should learn how to do. My mother taught me how to cook, embroider, sew and things a girl needs to know and I swore when I grew up I would never iron kitchen towels again, which I don’t do. I competed with my brothers in sports in the neighborhood. We didn’t have equipment like they have now and we would come home from school and change—put your school clothes away and put on your play clothes and find a vacant lot and go play ball or whatever was in season. Interviewer: “And the popular kid was the one with the ball, right?” 2:14 Right. The brother closest to me, the seventh son, he wasn’t too athletic, so he was always kind of like the last one picked for a team and he always complained to my mother, “why doesn’t she go play with the girls?” He felt bad about that. Interviewer: “You were picked before he was?” Yeah, so my mom told me, she said, “you better go find someplace else to play, Tommy feels real bad about this”, and I could understand when I got older you know, but I started going up to the park and I had a glove, my sister-in-law got me a glove or my brother did, and I went up to the park and started playing with the fellas who were practicing. Pretty soon I got to play practice games with them, but I couldn’t play in the park league games, they didn’t allow girls, but I got enough practice games in and I really enjoyed it. 3:15 Interviewer: “How old were you about?” 1 �I was about fourteen. Interviewer: “The park had a league for boys, but nothing for girls?” They had volleyball and dancing and stuff like that. Interviewer: “Not your favorite activities.” No. Interviewer: “You’re about fourteen at this point, so how do you get from there to playing on a team? What was the transition?” 4:45 The athletic director of the park had a couple of girls ask him about playing softball, so he got the advertisements in the paper and he got enough girls come out to start softball teams, fast pitch, but I still played with the boys whenever I got a chance. The Chicago Daily News hired Rogers Hornsby to go out to the parks and conduct baseball clinics. When he came to Marquette Park I was out there with the fellas. They told everybody to be sure to show up because they got a big shot coming to teach you how to play and being the only girl, I got a lot of attention and a lot of publicity in the neighborhood. Rogers Hornsby was a friend of William Wrigley, who started the girls league in 1943, now I’m talking 1946, so he went back and told Wrigley about the fella in Marquette Park that had girls playing and they contacted this fella, his name was Lenny Zintak, and they got him to organize farm teams. 6:03 He sent out notices to all the parks for tryouts. They had tryouts on the north side of Chicago, a tryout on the south side and he had over 120 girls show up. He picked out the best and he had four teams, two on the north side and two on the south side. We played twice a week; we played anywhere they had lights, sometimes we would play on a Sunday afternoon if we could find a place with lights. 6:31 Interviewer: “You couldn’t play on Saturdays because the boys were all playing?” Saturdays were usually real busy with other activities, so he tried to keep it one week night plus Sunday afternoon. We got a lot of experience and we had a lot of fun doing it, we had chaperones, the same as the league did. In fact, my chaperone picked me up because I was only fifteen and I couldn’t drive and another gal from the south side was only thirteen, she picked her up, and that girl went on to play one year with South Bend, but her mom thought she was too young for all that traveling, so she brought her back home. 7:24 Interviewer: “I bet that was hard for her.” Yea, it was. I got an offer to go to Cuba spring training in 1947 and boy I was in seventh heaven when I opened the envelope and read this. I showed my mom I was going to Cuba and she looked at it and said, “that’s in April”, and I said, “Yea” and she said, “Well, you’re in school until June”, and she wouldn’t sign, so that was the end of that. Interviewer: “How old were you at this point?” 2 �Fifteen, so old fashioned family—you live in my house, you follow my rules and we did that. I played every year in the farm system and got a lot of experience. I started out playing shortstop and then I broke my ankle, never did learn how to slide right, and I played outfield and when they went to side arm and overhand pitching, Lenny switched me to pitching because I have a strong arm. 8:25 Interviewer: “You’ve been a shortstop for one thing, so you had more experience throwing overhand than maybe even some of the underhand pitchers had.” From playing outfield too. I graduated high school in 1949 and had an appendicitis attack, so I was able to hold that off until after I graduated. I had a job at the First National Bank of Chicago while I was still a senior in high school, because it was a part time job at the bank and I had to wait until I could be covered by hospitalization to have my appendix taken out, because we didn’t have money or a doctor and that was in 1950. 9:12 I managed to play the tail end of the season in Chicago in 1950 and then my manager, Mitch Skupien, was contacted to come up and manage the Grand Rapids Chicks, so he came over to the house. He was Polish and I’m Bohemian and he could talk to my mother and they understood each other and he said, “ma, I’m going to take Mary Lou with me to Grand Rapids, she’s going to pitch for my team”, so mom said, “ok, go ahead”. Even though I was of age, you still waited for your parent’s permission to do these crazy things, because a girl playing baseball was crazy. 9:52 I went up to Grand Rapids in 1951 and I played there in 1951, 52 and 53 and they traded my contract to Fort Wayne because they had dropped down to four teams and they wanted to try to even off the teams. They sent me a contract and they said, “we pooled the players and you will now be playing for Fort Wayne and you will be making sixty dollars a month less”, and I said, “not on my boat”, because I had a good job at the First National Bank, I was a bookkeeper. Interviewer: “The rest of the year and the bank gave you release time all summer to play baseball?” I had a real terrific boss, he was sports minded and I’d leave in April and come back at the end of September and it worked out fine for three years, but when they wanted to cut me sixty dollars, I was making more money at the bank and being Bohemian that meant a lot to me. 10:57 I said, “no way, I’m retiring”, and I didn’t play in 1954, which was the last year the league survived. Interviewer: “By the end of 1954 there wasn’t a lot left.” They weren’t making—they were losing money. Interviewer: “Let’s back up a little bit and use that outline to talk about some specifics. Among other things, what’s your recollection—you did some spring training before the season started. First of all, where did you do the spring training and what was it like?” 11:34 The first year we trained in Battle Creek, Michigan I think. 3 �Interviewer: “So it started a little bit later—we think of spring training now as almost a winter activity.” It was April and I had the distinction of being the only Grand Rapids Chicks that gained weight at spring training. We met for breakfast, they brought sandwiches and milk to the ballpark at lunchtime and we met for training table in the evening. Well, a lot of the girls didn’t eat oatmeal; they wanted eggs and stuff, so I said, “Aren’t you going to eat that oatmeal? Pass it down”. At dinner a lot of them didn’t eat salad, so they would pass them down and I gained ten pounds and Mitch, the manager, he said, “how did you sneak out for hamburgers and milk shakes and stuff?” I said, “I didn’t spend a penny, I didn’t spend a penny”. 12:40 My teammates knew it. Interviewer: “There was other food to be had and that’s good. They put you through a pretty rigorous spring training then. You were up for breakfast and then out on the field. You stayed at the field at noon?” We stayed at the field at noon and I think we had an hour break. We sat in the bleachers and ate our lunch and then we started out again. I worked pitching, naturally, and then we would all do calisthenics together in the morning and then we would break for infield, outfield, pitching practice, and then the pitchers would run and we would shag fly balls while the outfield was throwing in to first, second, third, you know, with the regular fielders and stuff, but we were kept busy all day long. 13:34 Interviewer: “ The coaches you were dealing with, these are former major leaguers in a lot of cases?” Major leaguers. Interviewer: “Men?” Yea. Interviewer: “They had experience with baseball and coaching, so they gave you pretty much the same routine, pretty much, that you would expect to find in professional baseball at other levels.” True, and the next year, 1952, Woody English was our manager. They started out the season, because English accepted a contract from Muskegon, Michigan and they brought in Jonny Gottselig, who was a former Blackhawk hockey player and for some reason he wasn’t going to stay the whole season, so they brought in Woody English in 1952. 14:25 Woody was great, he was really great, I mean he knew baseball and he was a perfect gentleman. People ask us about the movie, A League of Their Own and Tom Hanks, I think Woody and what a perfect gentleman. He would walk out to the mound when I was pitching and when I was in trouble and he would say, “M.L. how are you feeling?” He was real concerned like a father would be and when they had Tom Hanks portraying this drunken manager, it was such a slap in the face for fellas like Woody who really did their job and gave a hundred and ten percent. 15:06 4 �Interviewer: “You’re not the only former Chick that talks that way about Woody English. He did his job—he was a professional too. He had a good career and then he continued to conduct himself as a professional. I have a letter at home—after the 1951, my fourth year, I won twelve games before I lost one. I had a hard time winning number thirteen, so my record was 15 and 5, so in 1952, when I got my contract, I got a little raise, but it wasn’t much and I talked to Woody and I said, “I think I deserve more money than that”, so Woody said, “I’ll tell you what M.L., if you win fifteen games, I’ll give you two hundred dollars”, so he wrote it out and signed it and I still have it, it’s precious. Well, I won twelve and I lost thirteen, so I didn’t make the two hundred. 16:03 Interviewer: “It sounds like maybe your teammates didn’t give you a lot of support.” Well yeha, it proves out because on my baseball card I had a nice low earned run average, so it wasn’t a hundred percent my pitching, I had a little help losing. Interviewer: “Yea, you can get beat one to nothing and pitch really well that’s for sure. Do you remember your first contract and how much you got paid?” My first contract, I got three forty five a month and then on the road, they paid our hotel and we got dinner money, I forget what it was. 16:46 Interviewer: “Do you remember your chaperone?” Dotty Hunter, absolutely. Interviewer: “Was she good?” A wonderful woman yes, 1952 we were playing in Battle Creek and you would swear it was December—it was cold and I was pitching that night, so I lathered myself up with red hot, sweatshirt, uniform and I went out there and I sweated up a storm warming up, pitched a game and in between innings—the rest of me was freezing—my arms were burning, but the rest of me was freezing. Well, I caught a cold and I kind of sluffed it off, but it settled in my kidneys, so for I think maybe a week after I pitched, I started feeling kind of groggy and I would sit in the dugout and fall asleep. 17:50 Dotty Hunter came up to me one time in the locker room, I was sitting there waiting for the players to shower, I wasn’t in any hurry, I was tired, I didn’t do anything, but I was tired. Dotty Hunter said, “M.L. you’re not drinking are you?” I said, “no, I don’t feel good”, and she made me go to the doctor the next day and I had to give a urine specimen and they found out that I had a cold that had settled in my kidneys, so they gave me prescriptions and took me to where I was boarding. I was living with a widow, she had a son and a daughter and I was boarding there. They told her that I was sick and I medicine and she said, “I’ll take care of her”, and she nursed me just like a mother would. 18:40 She made me get up in the morning, drink juice, clean up, eat soup, all soft good stuff, made me take my medicine and stuff like that and after about a week my mother called because I hadn’t written to her every day and she didn’t know what was the matter, so she just told her I was sick, but getting better. She knew something was wrong and Woody said 5 �to me, “you know, I was worried about you, I didn’t think you were the type that would do something like that”. Interviewer: “He knew something was wrong though. That was the case with a lot of the players, wasn’t it? They lived with families?” Oh yeah, we all did, all the cities. I know in the movie they showed all the girls living in a boarding house, but no, that wasn’t true. Some places there would be four girls that would stay with one family, sometimes a widow would have a couple extra bedrooms. 19:51 The ball park people, in different towns, would interview people that were interested in putting up the girls and they picked out people that were suitable and could pass the muster, so it worked out real well. Interviewer: “So that was a good environment and made your mother a little more confident that you were in good hands.” Absolutely and I will tell you this, the gal that was my chaperone in Chicago in the farm system, convinced my mother she had to come and see me play ball. They came down to South Bend and South Bend had a pitcher, her name was Jean Faut, she was top notch and about a week before we had played South Bend in Grand Rapids and I was pitching against Jean Fout. I’m up to bat and Jean Fout throws a fastball inside and I jump back, the next pitch she throws a curve inside and I’m thinking it’s a fastball and I’m not going to look chicken again, so I stood there and it whacked me in the inside of my thigh, so a week later I’m down in South Band and I’m scheduled to pitch, so I come out with the catcher just before the game started to warm up and I was black and blue and purple and green 21:13 and my mother’s sitting up in the stands with out chaperone and she sees that and she says, “my god, you would think she would wash her legs”, and I didn’t know this until I came home in September when the chaperone came to see me and told me about it. Then she said to her, “those guys in the black, what team are they on because they all got the same black?” I had to kind of explain baseball to her. 21:48 My mother was forty-three when I was born, so by the time I was twenty, she was sixty-three and there was no sports in our lifetime and there was no television, so she didn’t have the opportunity to learn about the game of baseball. Interviewer: “But her daughter was playing and she went to see it.” 22:06 Oh yeah. Interviewer: “You mentioned Umpires and this is a good chance to ask you about the Umpires in the league a little bit. How good were they and did you have any problems with them?” They were mostly pretty good, but we had a few that were kind of borderline. I disagreed with one guy and I got fined ten dollars for my disagreement, but Woody paid it for me. He said, “I know you can’t afford it, I’ll take care of it”, but it was just a call, third strike or a ball four and I lost it, so I kind of disagreed with him. 6 �Interviewer: “When you say kind of disagreed, it sounds like maybe you got in the Umpires face a little bit.” Well, I walked up and I said, “why did you call that”, and he told and I said, “you’re full of---“, and that was it. 22:59 Interviewer: “Take a seat. Do you remember the first game that you played when you went up to Grand Rapids?” Yes I do. Interviewer: “Tell me about it.” Well, I was nervous actually and I didn’t want to seem to cocky, being the new kid on the block, but we had a lot of players that were very supportive, Connie Wisniewski, Doris Satterfield, Alma Ziegler, Inez Voyce, Corky Olinger, short stop and when I was warming up and when I came out you know, “Ziggy”, she was the captain of the team, she came out to the mound and said, “ok M.L. let’s get ‘em”, like there was nothing to it and I kind relaxed a little and as they started striking out and grounding out easy grounders, I kind of got a little confidence and we won the game and I felt real good, but I didn’t feel cocky. 24:09 I just felt good because the team had played good too. I remember one game I lost and I thought, “I’m going to kill everybody before this night’s over”, they were bootin’ the ball all over the place and “Ziggy” walked over and handed me the ball after we finally got one out and she said, “hang in there M.L.”. You know teammates, everybody has good nights and bad nights and it just happened that five teammates had a bad night on the same night. 24:38 Interviewer: “They don’t go out there to deliberately miss the ball.” No, but all and all I felt really good about it and it gave me a lot of confidence that my teammates were behind me. Interviewer: “What kind of a hitter were you?” I could bunt. I really could bunt. I use to practice bunting at home. I would have anybody I could find throw a ball so I could practice to bunt and I forget who he had come up to teach us how to bunt. I know we had Maury Wills come out one time to teach us how to run bases. Interviewer: “Really?” 25:21 In Grand Rapids, I think that Woody English got him out. I’ll never forget that because I saw Maury Wills one time at a fan fest and when it came time for the audience to ask him questions, I asked him how he felt about base runners today and I asked him, “were you ever uninjured?” He said, “no”. I said, “I know you were hurt a lot”, and he said, “You played hurt”. 25:55 Interviewer: “You played hurt because you’re sliding around out there without---“ 7 �If you didn’t play, there was somebody waiting to take your spot, so if you wanted to stay in the game, you played hurt. Charlie horses, and all the gals that did a lot of sliding., but being a pitcher, I didn’t really have to slide, but I could run bases, I was a good base runner. I did learn and to this day I’m amazed at girls in baseball. I’ve gone out to watch quite a few games. Fast pitch, softball, and baseball and you get there early and you sit in the stands and you watch them practice or play. We were impressed with the idea that you watch your opponents to find out what their weaknesses were. Lenny Zintak taught us as kids, Mitch Skupien enforced it and Woody would always say, “did you see that she couldn’t hit a high ball in batting practice?” You learn how to keep your mouth shut in the dugout and pay attention to what was going on. 27:12 Today you go to a game and watch and the girls are talking and laughing and talking to people in the stands and I don’t know how they do it. Interviewer: “Today you go to a game and watch major leaguers and they’re not paying attention.” They’re blowing bubbles and it’s kind of pathetic and especially with the men, they’re making big money. They get caught off base and I don’t want to criticize athletes, but give me a couple million and man I’ll show you stuff. If you’re watching a pitcher, you can pick up their weaknesses when they’re in their stretch position. What are they doing? Are they lifting the back heel, are they bending their knee, are they twitching their shoulder, what are they doing signaling their going to throw home. They don’t watch that anymore. 28:11 Interviewer: “They don’t seem to.” I can’t blame the athletes, I blame the coaches and I blame the guy paying those salaries. If you work for a company and you don’t do your job, the boss says, “hey, straighten up and live right or else we got somebody else waiting for your job”, but now days they get so hooked on the publicity and all the crazy stuff. 28:36 Interviewer: “They market them like they were in Hollywood.” Yeah. Interviewer: “What’s the best game you ever pitched? I’m sure you remember it. You had several good ones.” I can’t really pin one. Any time I won a game, I felt that was the best one, but I don’t think there was one more than any other. I had a one hitter and I never had a no hitter. I had a one hitter and it didn’t really phase me and when the game was over they said, “Hey M.L. you had a one hitter”, and it was no big deal. We won and that’s what counted. 29:22 Interviewer: “Did you pitch in the playoffs? That’s a different atmosphere.” Yea, I think we played Rockford, in fact, White Taylor owned the team and White Taylor also owned the only factory in the United States that made wooden propellers, it was 8 �Flowtorp Corporation and he flew me and whoever would have been a relief pitcher across the lake from Grand Rapids to Rockford because we had a game that went overtime and I was due to pitch the next night and I think it was like eighteen hours on the bus from Grand rapids around the lake to Rockford, so we got a plane ride across. 30:09 Interviewer: “One of the few times that players were delivered by air in the league. I know the Flowtorp propeller company because I’m from Grand Rapids.” Are they still in business? Interviewer: “No, but they were through the period you’re talking about. They made those wooden propellers, you’re absolutely right. Did you have any interactions with the owners of the Grand Rapids Chicks?” 30:37 No, not really. Interviewer: “How about the community? Did they expect you to go out in the community and do any kind of appearances?” The people were great. A lot of people would invite us over for dinner and when we had a rainout or something, I think it was the Phillips family, they owned a jewelry store in Grand Rapids, they had a cabin on the lake and the cabin was always available for us to go. We would go out there fishing and have cookouts on the sand. They were really good to us. The fans were always good to us. 31:19 Interviewer: “You had some pretty good crowds in Grand Rapids too. You would have played at South Field, but also out of Bigelow.” Well, Bigelow is the one that burned down. I’ve still got a picture of me and Janie Crick climbing through the ashes looking for our uniforms and our gloves. Our stuff all burned up and we never got a penny out of it. We had to buy our own spikes and our own gloves. Interviewer: “You had to get reoutfitted in a big hurry.” I don’t know - they got uniforms from somewhere. Interviewer: “Somebody told me, I think, that the uniforms they got had longer skirts on them than you guys were use to, so they were difficult to play in until you could get them tailored a little bit. That was in 1953 or something?” 32:09 No, that was—I think it was 1951. Interviewer: “Yes, it was earlier—I was thinking it was later, but you’re right and the story is that Bigalow was a good size field and the grandstand basically is what burned.” Yes, actually your clubhouse is under the grandstand, so it all burned up. 9 �Interviewer: “Uniforms and everything and you had to replace your own equipment?” Yes. Interviewer: “That’s not right.” No. Interviewer: “How about rivals? Did Grand Rapids have any particular rivalries with any other teams?” Well, I always thought that South Bend was more or less our rival because it seemed to me that they played the toughest, but it was hard to tell because a lot of the girls had been in since 1943 and when you’re talking 1951, that’s a long time. These girls had played together, got traded, transferred, so there was a lot of friendship going on between them. 33:25 Interviewer: “They knew each other.” Yeah, and you couldn’t really sense the rivalry in their actions before and after the games. It was just during the games—everybody was business. Interviewer: “You’re a pitcher—I got to ask a couple of questions because during that time you were playing, pitchers had a reputation for sometimes doing a little extra to make the ball twist and bend the way they wanted it to. Do you have any knowledge of people working it?” Well, you couldn’t help that, that was just nature. 34:00 You had to be careful because if your fingers are wet that ball could slip too, so you had to know what you were doing. Interviewer: “I forget who it was now, but someone once suggested to me that there was one team that may have put the balls in the ice box before the game, so when you hit them—“ That’s knowledge to me. Interviewer: “There were suspicions?” Yeah. Interviewer: “You didn’t do that?” Nope. Interviewer: “What pitches did you throw?” 34:33 My best one was my fastball because I threw straight overhand. If you throw a fastball overhand and you hold the seams, when it comes off it’s going to hop. You talk about curve balls—if you throw a fast pitch directly overhand and you pull down, that ball comes in like this. 10 �Interviewer: “It gives you the impression of actually rising, it’s not, and it’s holding its level better.” You see it coming and it’s going like that. That was my best and I threw a heavy ball, I threw a heavy ball. Interviewer: “Ground balls.” Yeah. Interviewer: “Curve Ball?” So-so, but I had a good changeup, a good changeup, but like I say, I relied on my overhand fast pitch, it really did the job. Interviewer: “Some people still argue that it’s the hardest pitch to hit in baseball, a good fastball,” 35:27 I think so, because a lot of those girls, they started out pitching fast pitch underhand and then went to sidearm, then went three quarter, and we came along and we had been playing overhand, so we had the advantage of the experience of that pitch and they weren’t used to that. Interviewer: “It makes a difference.” Sure. Interviewer: “Who among the hitters you face do you remember?” The toughest? I would say the Weavers. Interviewer: “They were models for some of the players in the movie, right?” Yeah. Interviewer: “The sisters.” 36:20 Well Jeanie Fout, for a pitcher, she was tough when she was up to bat. I really can’t think of their names right now. I’m seventy- eight and we’re getting a little short minded besides short winded. Interviewer: “You’re confronting what I heard from some of the others about these tough hitters. Faut, people do recognize her as pretty much all around, she could pitch and hit. How about on the “Chicks”, your own team mates?” On the “Chicks”, Connie Wisniewski and Doris Satterfield—they were tough. Connie had pitched for many years, but then when they went directly overhand, she didn’t want to hack it and Sadie was just a natural hitter. Sometimes I would pitch batting practice and boy you could be throwing them up there three quarter speed, you know for batting practice you’re supposed to, and they were whacking them and sometimes I would get mad and really line on in there and they would whack it. 37:47 11 �Interviewer: “The good ones can.” Those girls were really good. Interviewer: “Once again I’ve heard others say the same thing. For three years you played and then you didn’t want to take a pay cut and you moved on as they say. Did you continue playing ball though?” Oh yes, softball in the Park District in Chicago. I played with a team that was sponsored by Tava and we won the championship three years in a row and they asked us to move to a different park. They wanted some fair competition. 38:28 Interviewer: “As an overhand pitcher, you had to move to a different position or were you an Umpire?” I went back to shortstop for softball. My first husband died in 1970 and I got remarried in 1972 and in, I think, 1974, it was Sunday afternoon and my husband was there, I have three daughters, and I hit a long ball trying to stretch it into a home run, but I had to stop at third base and in the next game I made the third out and as I walked over, my oldest daughter said to me, “Ma, you better sit down, you’re red in the face, you look like your going to have a heart attack”, so my husband just looked at me and shook his head. It was about a hundred degrees, it was the middle of July, so after the game I thought, “I better hang ‘em up” 39:29 Interviewer: “Here’s your sign. Were your daughters ball players too?” Well, they tried. I coached the church team and they tried, but I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown, so we didn’t play the second year. The two youngest ones are great swimmers and the youngest got into field hockey in college and liked it. Interviewer: “They’re athletes, just not ball players.” They all wound up being swimmers, which I was never a swimmer, but I did take lessons. 40:15 Interviewer: “That’s good, that’s good, so you retired from baseball and finally from softball. Did you continue working at the bank during that time?” I left the bank in 1962 and I went to work for the Chicago police department as a fingerprint technician. I was working at first National Bank in downtown Chicago and there was an ad in the paper for people to apply for a position with the Chicago police department, so I went to the address and as long as I was a Chicagoan and I worked thirteen years in a group—I didn’t realize that was city hall’s address and I picked up an application for the job, filled it out and later I got a postcard to report to a high school where they were running tests. Ten thousand people took the exams at four different high schools in Chicago, so I took the exam on a Saturday morning and a month later I got a card saying that I had passed the test and that I was chosen to be one of twenty-five people that would go to the police academy to be trained. 41:44 I went to the police 12 �academy, we had to go to the board of health for a physical exam and they had a policeman, two policemen train us in how to read and classify fingerprints and after six weeks at the academy we went to the first district headquarters where the records were and we started classifying and searching fingerprints and I worked there twenty eight years until I retired. 42:15 Interviewer: “Did you crack any big cases?” I wound up as supervisor and I worked nights from eleven thirty at night until seven thirty in the morning because that worked out the best with my children and I didn’t have to worry about a housekeeper because I was home all day. I slept from six until ten at night and to this day I can get along on four hours sleep. Interviewer: “It’s what you get use to I guess.” Yes, I identified a lot of fingerprints on big cases, but nothing spectacular, but my boss was a great guy. I was lucky—in baseball and in my jobs, I had great bosses. At the bank I had a boss that loved sports and at the police department I had a great Lieutenant who became a Captain and then became a commander of a district and he was a fingerprint expert. I don’t know if you ever remember reading in the paper where a fella killed a bunch of nurses—Wayne Gacy—no, Richard Speck—well, my Lieutenant went out to the scene and he lifted a fingerprint form the outside window where Speck had tried to get in—came downtown to our files and manually searched the files and he had found Richard Speck’s fingerprint card. 43:48 At the same time someone called from the Cook county Hospital where Richard Speck had gone for treatment because he got hurt. I don’t know if it was an intern or a doctor that recognized him back from the all wanted and called the police. At the same time my Lieutenant was going to his office to notify them 44:17 Interviewer: “They matched them up and they had him. I do remember that case.” He was the greatest—when I first got on the job, I was still married to my first husband and I had marital problems and I had to get off of nights and work days, so he was a Lieutenant at the time and when I asked him he said, “well, I can’t do that”. We worked civil service and you couldn’t play favorites, so I said, “well, I’ll have to resign”, so he explained to be and he said, “well, if you resign get your name reinstated on the civil service list and when there’s an opening we give a call and you can turn it down twice. The third time, your name comes off the list”, so I got called twice and the third time he called me I had already separated from my first husband and I made arrangements for someone to take care of the kids. They came over and slept nights and I said, “If I can come back nights, I’ll come back”, and he said, “Well, I can guarantee you six months”. Well, six months came and went and I stayed for another twenty-four years. 45: 40 I got remarried, Commander Degee retired and I went to his retirement party with my new husband and after all the speeches he came over to our table and he said to me, “are your six months up yet?” 13 �Interviewer: “He remembered.” Yea, I introduced him to my husband and he sat down and talked to us for about a half hour and it was great. Interviewer: “That’s great. It’s nice to be in those situations where you have that good relationship.” 46:14 I can’t understand how people can gripe about their jobs. Interviewer: “You had good ones and that’s a good thing. I want to ask you a few things about after your playing days. Did people know you played in the league?” When I coached the girls at church, I use to say, “when I played ball”, and it was no big deal—you know how kids are. Two of my brothers were real proud of me. The companies they worked for had magazines that came out monthly and they were always putting in stories about their kid sister and the neighborhood—I had the newspapers from Grand Rapids sent home and as soon as my mother got them she went to the butcher shop and showed them to the guy at the butcher shop and she showed them to the guy over at the Kroger store, so when I would come home in the fall and go shopping for her they would say, “tell us about this game. Your mother showed us the paper”, but outside of that, not too much. A few times when I would be going out on a date with somebody from the bank one of the guys would say, “hey, watch out for her, she throws a mean fastball “, and they would look like, “what’s he talking about?” 47:31 I didn’t want to get into it , so I just let it go. It wasn’t until we got accepted at the Hall of Fame that more people found out about it, neighborhood papers ran stories and then after the movie came out, I had moved from Chicago down to Hot Spring Village Arkansas, so the movie came out and all of a sudden it’s playing on television and people from my church would call me up all hours whenever that movie was on. “Your movie is on”, they would say and hang up. 48:18 Interviewer: “It’s nice to be recognized though and remembered.” A couple of months ago, in July in fact, there’s a fella that lives in the village, he played in the negro league, so one of the reporters for the village paper interviewed him and he said to Bill, “how does it feel to be an ex major leaguer?” Bill talked to him and he said, “you know you got a woman here that played in the girls league”, so this fella called me up and he said, “Bill McCreary told me all about you and I would like to interview you”, and I said, “Jeff, they’ve had my story in the paper three times in the past. I’ve been here nineteen years and people are tired of reading it.” 49:04 He said, “I’ve been here seven years and I never saw your story. I want to do it”, so he did a nice interview and gave me a DVD and a VHS tape, the whole shot. My State Farm insurance agent cut the articles out and put them in a folder and laminated them. On the front it says, WE SAW YOU WERE IN THE NEWS—real nice. I go to the store and people say, “You’re the ball player”. It works to the good. We have a community near us where three hundred people got laid off. I don’t know if you’re familiar with the Weyerhaeuser Corporation, the timber company. 14 �Interviewer: “I certainly am.” 49:47 They laid off three hundred people. They closed down their operation in Mount Pine, so I wanted to do something to help and I was talking to Jane Moffet, one of our ball players, and Jane said, “why don’t you ask the girls to send you gift cards to Wal Mart?” So she spread the word and the girls helped out. I have one daughter that was working selling radio advertising, she called me up and said, “Ma, I got a two hundred and fifty dollar bonus check”, and I said, “good, send it to me, I need it for Mount Pine”. She sent it to me—I raised three thousand dollars, gave out gift certificates and the people that didn’t show to pick them up—we went to Wal Mart and bought food and a fella from the food pantry came with his trailer and picked it all up, so people in the village read the article that I was doing this and they helped by sending me gift cards in the mail. “Here’s another gift card for you from Wal Mart”. 50:49 I’ve heard that people go to Wal Mart for everything. They can get gas, they can get food, and they can get medicine, so we gave out Wal Mart gift cards. It worked out real good. Interviewer: “It didn’t hurt at all that you had some recognition to lend to it.” This time I bought ten baseballs and I had as many girls as I could find sign them and I’ll auction them off when I get back and raise money for the food pantry when I get home. It works out and it helps to have a little publicity once in a while. 51:20 Interviewer: “It does if you use it properly. That’s the key to the whole thing too. Do you enjoy getting recognized?” I use to be kind of--, but now it’s old shoe. Maybe it’s because I’m old. Interviewer: “do you get cards or letters from young girls once and a while?” Yeah, I got a box full. I’ve been saving them since I moved to the village. I had a bunch in Chicago, but you know when you move you get rid of a lot of stuff. 51:51 Since I’m living down there, and that’s nineteen years now, I started saving them and on the envelope I write that I replied and the date. I got a request from Germany for a picture, baseball card and what not, so I had to go to the post office for something and I said to fella, “how much does it cost to send something to Germany?” He said, “What are you mailing?” I said, “maybe something like a birthday card and some pictures”, and he said, “three dollars and something”, and I said “ok”. If they don’t send me a stamped envelope, I don’t send it back because that could get kind of costly. 52:39 I got cards from people saying, “will you please sign these two blank cards”. I don’t sign anything blank. I sign a baseball card, one card, and send it back to them. A lot of them buy our cards and send them to us. They send us three cards, they bought them, fine, and I’ll sign them and send them back. They have a son or a daughter and that’s fine. 53:05 Interviewer: “Those that want the blank cards, they’re buying and selling autographs.” We were advised not to sign anything blank. Interviewer: “I’ve heard that from people in sports and all over, don’t sign the blank ones.” 15 �We get requests from different outfits. There’s some catholic school, I think it’s up in Maine or Connecticut and they had a friend who knew a girl ball player and she donated a couple of pictures and they auction them off to raise money, so he got a hold of our addresses, I don’t know how and asked of we had any memorabilia we could donate for auction. Every once and a while we get something like that and I check it out and call them up. 53:57 If they don’t leave their number, I call up the chamber of commerce in their city and check them out, but usually they’re on the up and up. Interviewer: ‘When you look back, what do you see, the league you played in and all of that, do you see it as part of the changing perspective that our country has about the role of women in society? In other words, were you a pioneer?” Yeah, looking back we were pioneers, because it was an awful long time after our league folded before any women got any recognition in sports, so in our own way we were pioneers, but like they will all tell you, we would have done it for nothing. We got paid for doing something we loved. 55:00 That’s why we have a hard time assimilating with sports figures today, but it’s just the way things are. They won’t let women play in the major leagues, but I for one can understand it. I don’t think women should try to compete against men. You might have a woman that’s five ft. seven and a hundred and seventy pounds, muscular and all that and you have a guy that’s five ft. six and one hundred and fifty pounds playing short stop, but there’s a different mentality, there’s a different physical structure completely and I was always against teams touring and playing against men’s teams. It’s not right. 55:53 If they could have a league, like they’re starting all these baseball leagues now, women play against women—that’s beautiful. That’s the way it should be and there’s a place for women in sports and it is not competing with men. If you’re going to compete with men in baseball then let’s— you know when a woman has a baby and the guys say, “there’s nothing to it” and we say, “Well, why don’t you try carrying one?” “Be reasonable, he’s built different than you honey”. Don’t try to compete with them on that and don’t even try to make a comparison. I feel the same way about sports, there are sports for women, women golfers, women tennis players, women swimmers, basketball, fine, but play against women. 56:43 Show your competition the way it should be shown. Interviewer: “It seems to make a lot of sense. To me it does. Interviewer: Any of you guys think of something else? I would like to know more about the Grand Rapids championship season. They actually did win the championship in 1953. Was that season any different than any other or did you just get lucky?” 57:12 I think we just played harder. If I remember right, we had a lot of injuries in 1953. I don’t know if Corky Olinger was back, I know that she had broken her ankle—we had a lot of injuries in 1953, but everybody was clicking as a team, plus woody was a great manager. 16 �Interviewer: “How did you do when he flew you out to Rockford?” Good. Interviewer: “You were ready to pitch the next day.” Yeah. I got a lot of ribbing about it, teacher pet and all that good stuff. Interviewer: “If you win the game, that’s what matters.” Interviewer: “Thank you very much.” 17 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Interviews Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The All-American Girls Professional Baseball League was started by Philip Wrigley, owner of the Chicago Cubs, during World War II to fill the void left by the departure of most of the best male baseball players for military service. Players were recruited from across the country, and the league was successful enough to be able to continue on after the war. The league had teams based in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan, and operated between 1943 and 1954. The 1954 season ended with only the Fort Wayne, South Bend, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, and Rockford teams remaining. The League gave over 600 women athletes the opportunity to play professional baseball. Many of the players went on to successful careers, and the league itself provided an important precedent for later efforts to promote women's sports. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-58)</a> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Sports for women World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives Oral history Baseball players--Minnesota Baseball players--Indiana Baseball players--Wisconsin Baseball players--Michigan Baseball players--Illinois Baseball for women--United States Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University Libraries, Special Collections and University Archives, 1 Campus Drive, Allendale, MI, 49401 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-58 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Language A language of the resource eng Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-10-02 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-58_MCaden Title A name given to the resource Caden , Mary Lou (Interview transcript and video), 2009 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Caden, Mary Lou Description An account of the resource Mary Lou Caden (née Studnicka) was born in Oak Lawn, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. She grew up in the Oak Lawn area and started playing softball with the neighborhood kids and transitioned to playing for local teams. She played as a short-stop in her amateur career and eventually was contacted by Mitch Skupien in 1950 to play for the Grand Rapids Chicks. She played for the Grand Rapids Chicks from 1951 to 1953 when she was traded to Fort Wayne and due to a pay cut decided to quit baseball and return to her job for National City Bank. During her time with them she played positions such as pitcher and second base. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Olson, Gordon (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) Video recordings All-American Girls Professional Baseball League--Personal narratives Baseball for women--United States Baseball Sports for women World War, 1939-1945 Baseball players--Indiana Women Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2009-09-25 Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/484">All-American Girls Professional Baseball League Collection, (RHC-55)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/5362f3df21b05f7d53403f09c5aa84fb.mp4 995e68668a21ff729e5fc15375325269 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/88da67e21346c0a589e2d0e787a07382.pdf 3dfcd81395126ccd983fec0fce723a40 PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Keath Cady (00:43:24) Introduction • Lived in Illinois prior to war. Worked at Kroger’s grocery store. Entry into Service (1:56) • First days in service were horrible. Went to a train station in Chicago, and was put in charge of getting group of people to Fort Sheridan for testing. After testing he was sent to Texas for basic training. (2:39) • Had 13 weeks of medical training in South Carolina as was certified to work in surgery and with the ill. (3:54) South Pacific (4:49) • Left San Francisco on a ship that had been dry docked for 25 years and traveled to a French island in the South Pacific where a lot of people had malaria and stayed 3 days. • When Cady arrived at Guadalcanal, malaria patients were left out in the rain. Seabees set up a large tent to house patients. Cady talks about the treatment of malaria. (5:48) • Cady talks about the back-and-forth nature of the fighting on Guadalcanal and attributes the Japanese numerical superiority there to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Briefly talks about treating wounded soldiers (6:46) • Japanese were left to starve, due to U.S. bombing of Japanese supply ships. Japanese on the island would eat bananas, hunt for wild pigs, and fish. When Japanese soldiers were very hungry, they would try to get in the mess line where they would be wrestled down by other soldiers, and sent to the stockade. (7:50) • Japanese would often yell at soldiers that they were going to cut their throats, and would sneak in at night and do so. (9:10) • Cady recalls the food being horrible except at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Cady states that there was no milk for months until some could be brought from New Zealand. The soldiers ate lots of raw coconuts, chocolate bars, and hardtack. (9:46) �• Cady talks about the Potsdam conference (11:23) • For fun the men played softball and ping-pong. Every weekend they could send V-mail. (12:22) • On Christmas, Thanksgiving, and December 7th, turkeys were brought in from New Zealand. (13:02) • Cady talks about pre-war American attitudes about themselves and the Japanese as well as God looking out for America (13:49) • Cady mentions having had 30-day furloughs if had been in the army for a while. (15:07) • Cady talks about the Philippines, General MacArthur, and the Bataan Death March (15:29) • Cady made close friends during the war that he kept in contact with, but doesn’t attend reunions because they mainly drink. (16:43) • Talks about soldiers dying from drinking a beer made from coconuts, (17:56) • Cady discusses being aboard ship and describes an opposed landing. (18:35) • Mentions that during basic training they were made to sleep with their guns if the guns weren’t clean. (19:40) • Served with 1st Division medical corps. Participated in 11 invasions. Would disembark from LST’s in waist-deep water, and pick up wounded for transportation back to ships. (20:28) • Cady says that when U.S. forces build installations on British and French Islands in the South Pacific, they had to pay a fee of $50 per tree. (21:45) • Cady describes setting up medical stations and equipment, and the duties of the Seabees. (22:37) • Describes living conditions on Guadalcanal with four men living in a tent adorned with Japanese skulls. As well as a visit from Eleanor Roosevelt who demanded that the skulls be removed and the bathrooms covered. (24:28) • Men would back water from Manila in helmets which could hold a gallon of water. Once a week on Mondays a van would come so that the men could take showers. (25:35) �• Cady tells about delivering a baby, right after which an air raid occurred. (27:02) Germany (29:15) • Cady contracted malaria in the Philippines and was sent home. After he recovered he was sent to Germany as part of the occupation force where he met his wife. • Army had taken over school and turned it into hospital. In the morning they treated soldiers, and in the afternoon civilians. When civilians wanted to work with the American government, they had to have shots and tests. At the time, if a person didn’t work, that person didn’t eat. (30:10) After Military Service (32:48) • Most memorable moment was wafting to be discharged. Cady was discharged at Fort Hamilton in New York, and was given 10 cents a mile to get home. • Cady recalls that there wasn’t any work when he got back. He worked at a Kroger grocery store, and then went to work at a drug store for $35 a week. Military Anecdotes (34:36) • Cady tells about having a pair of shoes stolen, but he couldn’t get replacements unless he had the old ones to turn in, and was told to steal some to turn in. • In the Philippines, Cady was a Staff Sergeant, and had a pass to travel 50 miles in any direction from where he was stationed. (35:50) • Describes a day in Army life (36:36) • Cady tells a story about having unexploded Japanese ordinance turned into an ashtray (37:53) • Cady gives his thoughts on U.S. foreknowledge of Pearl Harbor and the Japanese ability to conquer the island. Cady also talks about Japanese spies, the USS Arizona, and the Bataan Death March. (39:00) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Cady, Keath (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Cady, Keath Description An account of the resource Keath Cady served in the medical corps during WW II. Cady was on Guadalcanal and the Philippines and describes conditions there. After the war, he served in the army of occupation in Germany. In this interview Cady talks about treating malaria patients and setting up medical facilities during amphibious invasions. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Ruiz, Olivia Mercedes (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American United States. Army. Medical Corps Philippines Guadalcanal, Battle of, Solomon Islands, 1942-1943 Veterans Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-05-29 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CadyK Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/1d25988b78112f383b782a9c0d3fa7d5.pdf 86e8d15230b019482198d0841fc064b5 PDF Text Text Young Lords In Lincoln Park Interviewee: Alfredo Calixto Interviewers: José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez Location: Grand Valley State University Special Collections Date: 2/8/2012 Biography and Description English Alfredo “Freddy” Calixto belongs to a family who were among the first Puerto Rican families to move to Chicago in the early 1950s. Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, Mr. Calixto lived through the displacement of Puerto Rican families from La Clark to the Lincoln Park Neighborhood where he grew up. Both of his parents and several of his many siblings became involved in the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de María. His father also spent time with the Hacha Viejas (Old Hatchets), a social club that was active in the neighborhood. Mr. Calixto describes struggling with discrimination in Lincoln Park and how these early experiences inspired him to commit himself to advocating for Latino youth. He has served as the Executive Director for Broader Urban Involvement and Leadership Development (BUILD), a non-profit community organization in Chicago that was founded in 1969. He is currently the Vice President for Institutional Advancement at St. Augustine College, the only bilingual institution of higher education in the Midwest. Spanish Alfredo “Freddy: Calixto es parte de la familia quien fueron unos de los primeras familias que se movieron a Chicago en el principio de los 1950s. Nacido en Caguas Puerto Rico, Señor Calixto vivió por el �desplazamiento de las familias Puertorriqueñas de La Clark hacia Lincoln Park, donde creció. Sus padres y la mayoría de sus hermanos fueron parte de la Caballeros de San Juan y Damas de María. Su padre también trabajo con Hacha Viejas, una organización social que era activa en el vecindario. Señor Calixto describe su pelea contra discriminación en Lincoln Park y como esas experiencias lo inspiro a dedicarse a la lucha para los jóvenes Latinos. También a sido parte de la Executive Director for Broader Urban Involvement and Leadership Development (BUILD), una organización sin lucrativa en Chicago que fue creada en 1969. Hoy, Señor Calixto, es el vicepresidente por la Instiutional Advancement en St. Augustine College, que es la única institución bilingüe en el medio oeste de educación mayor. �yl_Calixto_Alfredo ALFREDO CALIXTO: Freddy. Okay, my name is Alfredo Calixto. I go by So, everybody knows me as Freddy Calixto. born in Caguas, Puerto Rico on February 28, 1956. I was And my dad took myself, my older sister, and my mother to the States probably before the end of 1956. brother. [Huiso?]. His name is José Luis Calixto. I had an older We call him And he, for some reason, my dad -- I don’t know if he couldn’t afford everybody, but he left him in Puerto Rico, in Caguas, in Barrio San Salvador. And he ended up staying there, getting raised my grandparents. He never made it with us back to Chicago, where we came from -where we went to, Chicago. The family, as I mentioned, I was [00:01:00] not even one years old before I even landed in Chicago, and my family moved. We lived -- the first place we lived when we were in Chicago -JOSE JIMENEZ: AC: What was your dad and mom’s name? My dad is Luis Calixto Cruz. Jiménez. My mother is Juana [Roldán?] They’re both from Caguas; both born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, from the Barrio San Salvador in Caguas, in Borinquen, Puerto Rico. Anyways, well when we came to Chicago, we went to live in what’s known as Chicago South Side -- currently today, the University of Chicago 1 �property. They -- we used to live on 63rd and Ellis, and that was a primary Puerto Rican community back in those days. A lot of people were living there. I remember living in a very big building with a lot of apartments. [00:02:00] It was like what you would consider a courtyard apartment building. And they were all -- everybody was Puerto Rican there. And there was buildings there. Woodlawn; it was all the way 63rd and Woodlawn. Was That was all where my aunt, we were always there and that was the -all Puerto Rican, the whole community back then. I was there probably till I was about five, maybe five years old. And by the time I was five, we moved, My father moved us, our family, to the north side into what’s known today as Lincoln Park. We moved to Halsted Street. Halsted and Armitage -- Halsted and Willow. We were on And we lived on Halsted Street between North Avenue and Armitage for, I don’t know how many years we lived there. different apartments on that block. We moved to From 1960 till 19-- probably 1970, or ’69 [00:03:00] or ’70, when we moved from that pocket of the neighborhood to another area, in Old Town; to North Avenue and Mohawk there. What I remember, you know, growing up in Lincoln Park, one of the first things was that, you know, being raised in a Puerto Rican home, you know, we spoke Spanish. My parents were, you 2 �know, spoke Spanish. They didn’t know English. And us, as children growing up in the household, we all spoke Spanish ’cause that’s all we knew, you know, till we went to school. My first experience with school in Chicago public schools was Newberry School on Willow, and -- between Orchard and Burling. And I remember slightly, you know, I was six years old when my parents put me in school. didn’t do the five-year-old thing. Commented [SC1]: Spelling corrected They So I was already six years old when I went to Newberry and they put me in first grade. Commented [SC2]: This was spelled wrong And because I was six, I went to first grade and not kindergarten. And to me [00:04:00] it was -- I was traumatized ’cause that’s the first time I heard English. And I was like, “Oh my God, what is this?” You know, I was very, s-- I was crying and scared and all that. But eventually, you know, in the school system, I eventually adopted fairly quickly, I’m assuming. I don’t -- you know, ’cause I know that I stayed in first grade for another year because of the English. I didn’t know English, and so they kept me in first grade for another year till, you know. And I think whatever they did that second year, first grade, it did whatever they wanted to do. ’Cause that’s -- by that time, I started to adapt to the American lifestyle, and then English, and all that. And I went to -- from first grade, I remember goin’ to third grade, not second, 3 �’cause I stayed there twice. And then from third grade, I went to fifth because by third grade, that’s when they had already taken all the Spanish out of me. ’Cause, you know, they -- at Newberury School, they said that it was bad. Spanish was bad, so that’s how we were taught. And so we were, you know, doin’ our [00:05:00] best to get rid of the language in our lives, you know. Not -- my parents, I had still came home and had to talk Spanish to my mom and my dad. But outside the home and the neighborhood -- when I was hangin’ out with the fellas -- the neighborhood or back in school, it was always English. And by the time I got to fifth grade, it was totally English, you know, and I went home and talked English. happen, you know. And that’s what started to When we came from Puerto Rico, it was me and my sister and, as I mentioned, we left a brother in Puerto Rico; so there were three of us. My family is total of 11, so all the other ones were born here in Chicago from -- after me. They were all born in Chicago. And all of ’em -- I think, ex-- yeah, I think most all of ’em. I think my sister, [Migdalia?] was probably born in the South Side -- and Victor -- were at the South Side Cook County Hospital, was the place that my mother went to give birth. All the other ones were born in St. Joseph Hospital [00:06:00] when it used to be on Belden, over there on 4 �Halsted. Hospital. That used to be St. Joseph -- the old St. Joseph That’s where all the other ones were born at. So living in the community -JJ: How was the culture thing between your parents and you, now you’re speaking mainly English and [they’re?] speaking -- AC: Well, I think what it was, it gave us as young -- as kids, we were able to, you know, try to hide things from the parents by using the English language. And the, you know, the parents responded, you know, with their Spanish. And then eventually, you know, throughout the years, they would start to pick up the English language and they start responding in their English -- Spanglish, you know, to us. And the, you know, and they would just say, you know, get upset and all that. So it was a little, I think we used it as a way of getting around certain things in the house. And eventually when you needed to talk English or Spanish, you would have to, you know, they would force it on you. But, what I saw happening to me and a lot of people -[00:07:00] with my friends, and of course all my siblings, ’cause they came after me -- and so they were all English only. They didn’t have Spanish ’cause by the time they came around, they were just speakin’ a lotta English already. My mom was -- and dad were adapting to the English language, so they had more -- or less experience -5 �of exposure to Spanish than I did. So that’s what I think was happening in the household, you know, the... Whenever you wanted to hide something from mom and dad, you used English. knows.” Until finally you started realizing, “Oh man, she You know, ’cause she knew -- then she started getting, you know, becoming aware of things. Our parents started to say, “Well I better learn a little bit.” And they started pickin’ up certain things here and there, so that when you told us -- talked about something, they knew what you were talking about. But not everything, so they - - you were able to get around a lot of the things. And a lot of the culture that was outside the house was completely different, you know. Growing up in the Lincoln Park community, when I lived on Halsted, when I [00:08:00] got to -- I finally -- we moved to Willow, right in front of Newberury School. We used to live at 711 West Willow, right in front of the school. of years. Commented [SC3]: Delete? So we lived there for a lot There was a family that lived up -- we lived in the first floor. Upstairs was the Martinez family, Herbie and his family, you know. And so, that’s when I started to experience the gang culture in the community ’cause, you know, Herbie used to be a Trojan. the Trojans. He was the President of And so his brother and I -- Harry -- we wanted to be junior Trojans and, you know, we were in fifth 6 �grade I think at the time. So we picked up the name and we were, you know, junior Trojans, but not really, you know, not really into the gang [cult?] thing, you know. Just doing it ’cause, you know, we saw it there with them and people in the other blocks, you know. We lived between Burling and Orchard and there were Trojans and there were other gangs in the other areas. And then as you grow, you know I went to -- shortly after that, after s-- I was in Newberry. From Newberry fifth grade, you graduated [00:09:00] from Newberry -- or not graduated, you passed. From fifth grade, you went to sixth. And back then, it was -- you had to go to Arnold Upper Grade Center, which was in Armitage, in Burling. And there, you went for sixth, seventh, and eighth grade before you graduated and went on to high school. So I passed from fifth grade at Newberry and went up to Arnold. cultural shock. And then Arnold was another Because now, you know, growing up in the little pocket neighborhood, you’re meeting other people from other parts of the neighborhood: from Armitage and Sheffield, from Bissell and Armitage, and from Dickens, all meeting up at Arnold. different people. And so there we met a lot of The same kind of thing happened. started picking, you know, everybody picked a group. became somebody. We We We -- I remember we were the Little Red 7 �Devils. Then that’s when I started to see the -- notice the real gang beginnings there. of the neighborhood there. The Latin Kings were part The older guys like the Young Lords, and the Paragons, the Black Eagles were there, [00:10:00] but they were way older there than me. not part of that till later on in years. So I was And then my father moved the family from Willow -JJ: You’re talking about when they were a gang, when the Young Lords were a gang? AC: Right, this was early on, right. 1969. So when I -- we moved in We moved over to North Avenue in the Old Town neighborhood out of the what, you know, we call the Lincoln Park into the Old Town neighborhood by St. Michael’s Church. All through those years, we were members of that church, St. Michael’s. Caballeros San Juan. church. My father was a member of the My mother wasn’t really much into the Think she used to go to the church, but she didn’t join the group because she was always dealing with all the kids, all her own children. But my aunt was real big with the Grupo de María -- I forgot what they called them. JJ: (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) de María. AC: And so my mother -- my father was a Caballero San Juan and [00:11:00] Tía [Canda?] was with the Grupo de María. And they were both, the two, what we would call a little 8 �fanatic about the religion thing -- the Catholic Church there. And they were always going to retiros and things like that. And the retiros were like reunions for all Puerto Ricans, like from the South Side. ’Cause when we left the South Side, a whole community stayed there. It just moved from 63rd Street to 55th -- 55th and Halsted. And they were there for a lot of years. And my aunt, my father’s sister, she -- I guess she liked the South Side. ’Cause she stayed on the South Side, and eventually moved to 53rd and stayed there for a long time, until finally that whole community changed. And the same thing happened in 63rd, it evolved from Puerto Rican to African American to Black. The same thing happened in 53rd -- on 55th. then eventually, she didn’t come north. Pilsen. She went to She ended up on Western and 22nd Street. was like saying, “Tía, what’s up? And (Spanish).” And I She didn’t wanna move to the North Side and after that move, finally she [00:12:00] ended up in Humboldt Park. You know, but our family was there for a long time, and he was part of the church scene. That seemed to me as a reunion for them, from all over Chicago. They would see each other at these retiros that they would go to and -- so they stayed connected. Another thing that I saw that connect the families from -- and friends from Puerto Rico was the 9 �credit union. They established the Caballeros San Juan as a religious organization of the Catholic Church, but they also, in the ’60s, established a credit union. I think that happened on 55th Street, when they were the community on 55th Street. And, you know, developed an outlet for the Puerto Ricans to be able to go to a bank, try to get loans. Some of them were able to. Some of them were more successful, quicker than others, and so they were able to buy homes and things like that. And start businesses. So there were some Puerto Rican families who owned businesses in our [00:13:00] neighborhood. remember. Mario Rivera had Del Campos, a grocer on Willow and Halsted. Arroyo. The Rivera family, I And then there was another one on Armitage, The Arroyo family, they used to have a restaurant and a liquor store that I remember. businesses were American-owned. Most of the other I don’t think we -- I’m trying to remember -- I don’t know if there were any Blackowned businesses in the neighborhood at the time. don’t remember any. ’Cause I I know we had some Puerto Rican-owned and most the other ones were white-owned. JJ: You mentioned the Arroyo family, the Rivera family. there other families in Lincoln Park? Were Was it a family situation or how do you describe it? AC: Well yeah, I mean... 10 �__: [Your extended?] family? AC: They were families and people you grew up with, you know. Everybody was a different family. As I mentioned earlier, we had a lot of Puerto Ricans there, but in Lincoln Park, me growin’ up, [00:14:00] it was like a -- what you would see -- like a melting pot. Like what they were calling Uptown, the melting pot of Chicago, well we and my -- where I grew up and I went to school in Newberry. school with Puerto Ricans, back then was few. I went to There were, Puerto Ricans the majority as far as the Latinos. And then some other Latinos from Mexico and other Latin American countries, but very few of ’em. Rican -- from Puerto Rico. The majority was Puerto And then there were the white, you know, from Appalachia, like what we would call the hillbilly families around, gypsies they used to be around the neighborhood, and the African American, the Black. had some Asian people. So we had like a mix. We You look at my old pictures from the different grades in St. Michael’s, it was always a mixture. And that was cool for me growin’ up in that area. And having the different exposure to different races. We, you know, you kinda stuck to your own [00:15:00] and that’s the way it flowed, you know. You joined up with whoev-- Puerto Ricans and Blacks with Blacks and whites with whites. And that’s the kinda thing, the 11 �way the neighborhood separated itself later in -- at the later days. JJ: So it kind of separated, like were people mixed or were they kind of sticking together to a few Blacks at at time or how -- AC: Well -- JJ: -- how did you stick? AC: -- it was -- when we were younger, didn’t matter ’cause we were just kids at school. But when we got become teenagers, that’s when you starts choosing sides. And so you -- that’s when I was, you know, talkin’ about getting involved more with the gang culture of the neighborhood. We had gangs in every block. (coughs) Excuse me. had Black gangs. So you Back then, you had Stones and you had Disciples and mostly coming from the Projects, which were right down the street from us, on the Cabrini-Green. On Orchard, we had a guy that was a leader of the Stones living across the street from the Boys Club, but he was good -- cool with all of us. [00:16:00] And then eventually, you know, I was recruited into a gang called the Latin Saints. And that started in eighth grade. You know, from eighth grade on to I think my sophomore year in high school. But there were King-- there were Harrison Gents on Burley. And there were -- and then the rest of 12 �the neighborhoods back going -- Halsted and west of that was Latin Kings, which is the largest gang in the area at the time. JJ: So you were recruited, what do you mean? AC: Well, as I mentioned to you, I had moved from Willow to North Avenue. But I used to come to the -- I consider that my neighborhood -- I used to come to my neighborhood everyday. I used to walk from North Avenue and Mohawk by Larrabee -- walk all the way down back to Orchard and Willow. That’s where I hung out, that was my neighborhood around the Boys and Girls Club in Burling. And I had a friend on Burling, so I would always go to his house. And eventually, I would cross, you know, [00:17:00] the white gang that everybody on that -- on our side that I lived on, was always fighting against, was the CORP. white group that was west of Larrabee. And it was a And so I would go through that, come through the neighborhood, cross Orchard -- which was Latin Saints -- and then into Burley, which was Harrison Gents. And so every time you walk by there, they would always try to find out, you know, were you in a gang? Do you want to be in a gang? And I’d always would say no, you know, just do my thing and go back. And eventually, friends of mine -- they were friends, people that I went to school with in Newberry -- were Latin 13 �Saints. And so they were just -- kept talkin’ to me about joining up with them. And eventually I did. So I decided okay, you know, I told them I didn’t wanna get beat up, you know, how you get initiated. up.” I said, “I ain’t getting beat And they said, “Oh, you don’t have to. that to you.” So they didn’t. We won’t do So I joined them. This was like around 1969. JJ: Okay, and [00:18:00] the Caballeros de San Juan and Damas de María, what were some of the activities that they were doing at that time? AC: Kinda going back. Well for us, and this I didn’t realize this until years later, of course, was we were members of St. Michael’s as I mentioned earlier. church. But our masses were never in the main You know, I didn’t realize that till later on I said, “Good Lord.” They had a little hall on the side of the main church, and that’s where we used to have, like, we, you know, it’s like fun for us as little kids. We would go there the activities -- the hall had a bowling alley and things like that. But, you know, as you -- as I grew up and thought about I said, “Oh my God.” You know, they really discriminated against us ’cause they didn’t even give us the opportunity to have mass in the chapel in the main church. They said, no you guys the -- you Latinos have to have mass in El Hall, we used to call it “El Hall” 14 �-- the little hall next to the main church. where all the activities were there. mass. And that’s You know, you go to The Puerto Rican masses were you had some -- a mass [00:19:00] and afterwards you socialized. And so that was the thing they did it all at El Hall, the hall. And then the group, the Caballeros San Juan, they would, you know, they had the deacons. They’d go to -- they would start recruiting for people to go to the schools, whatever. I don’t know what they call it, school theology, whatever. But to go to school to become a deacon. So they were starting to recruit ’cause, you know, very few priests were from Latin American countries. They were always American priests that learned Spanish as they became priests. And so we always had a priest that wasn’t Latino, of course, that gave mass. And you had the assistance of a person of a Puerto Rican background. JJ: And the mass was in the hall. AC: The masses were always held for us -- were always in the hall -- the small little hall inside. But the activities of the Caballeros San Juan was they were do, you know. Their activities, I remember dances -- a lot of dances, a lot of parties that they would throw in the [00:20:00] hall there. And they would, I’m assuming, raising money for the church, ’cause I didn’t think they would doing anything 15 �particularly for themselves. But they had -- and they would sell, you know, we would have dances regularly and there would be charges -- they would charge for the dance. You had to buy your beverages and everything there. And the money would go to St. Michael’s. You know, so throughout the years, they did that. I mean, all the years I remember, they were always -- the masses were always held in the little room -- the little hall. And they were in Commented [SC4]: Should this be cleaned up? the main church throughout the years. JJ: And you were also into the school. You were going to the school? AC: Well, by the time I started going to the school, that was the changing of the neighborhood there, you know, the gentrification of the neighborhood. You know, I went to St. Michael’s in ’69 in eighth grade. So, by the time I graduated high school, ’73, we had gentrification in the whole Lincoln Park area. And so, I believe -- [00:21:00] JJ: You’re talking about three- or four-year time period, or? AC: Well, the four years of me graduating from high school, you know, goin’ to high school in ’69. I think I started high school in September ’69, and I graduated in May of ’73. And so there was a complete change goin’ on in the whole area. Not just there, ’cause St. Michael’s was in Old Town so it’s a little different than the old neighborhood on 16 �Halsted and Armitage and Willow where I grew up at. So there was a shift in the whole community there. JJ: What kind -- I mean, can you describe what-- how that kind of started and what kind of shift was going on, or? AC: Well, people were -- one of the things that I noticed, you know, was a lot of us were not homeowners. renting. Everybody was And so that’s how they would -- you would decide where to live: where you could afford to pay the rent. And so families were moving around ’cause of the landlord said, “Okay, I’m raising the rent [00:22:00] (audio cuts out) find another place.” And I mentioned earlier for my family, we were a big family: my mother, my dad and they had 11 -- or 10 children here, then one that stayed in PR. So every time they moved, they had a big group that they had to move to. And so they had to find big apartment buildings, that’s why we were on North Avenue. On North Avenue we had a real big apartment that everybody fit -- we all fit there. And that was on a big building as well, multi-unit, but everybody there was a Puerto Rican family as well, living there. family upstairs. The Peña family was there, the Roya So we had, you know, that was still the neighborhood there, part of North Avenue, probably from Sedgwick down to Halsted. You know, all Latinos up -- mainly Puerto Ricans, up there. But that was the thing 17 �that I saw, when growing up and experiencing the gentrification. They called it urban renewal. And then in -- I went through my high school years not -- I wasn’t into any of [00:23:00] that stuff. ’Cause I was mainly into, you know, just goin’ to school and messin’ around and, you know, hangin’ out, doing things that we did. that people were moving. But I noticed You know, people were moving, we were getting -- on the block that I hung out the most on was Orchard by Willow between North and Willow. (coughs) Excuse me. And by ’73, the Boys Club was the anchor building on the corner, and it was empty from there all the way to North Avenue. you know. They knocked down all the buildings, We were like, “Oh my God.” They were, you know, we used to do things -- crazy things in those buildings when they were emptied and still around, but eventually they started knockin’ ’em down, so they had all this vacant land on that one side of Orchard. intact. The other side stayed All the three-story buildings were still there and eventually what happened. lot of that property. made some big bucks. The Boys and Girls club owned a They sold it, you know, some people It was [00:24:00] kinda illegal because they were on the board of the Boys Club and just couldn’t have do-- it was illegal for them to do that. But they did make some dollars in the sales of that property. 18 �And that eventually turned out to be townhomes. Which today they’re still townhomes in that whole area from where the Boys Club building is at, all the way south to North Avenue. All townhomes. that I saw. So those were the kind of changes A lot of empty buildings, a lot of families moving west, you know. I didn’t learn about the west neighborhoods -- West Side to, you know, I graduated from high school. Well there in my high school years, we used to get in our car and drive up to Humboldt Park, you know. We used to, when we had friends that moved out there, so we’d come visit them. And so we were doing that a lot. Driving around Clemente High School. neighborhoods on Rockwell. Going into My family had family on Rockwell and North Avenue you know. So they were there the Jiménez and Luis Jiménez had owned the property there. [00:25:00] The Valdez family owned a building there on Rockwell. TAnd so we -- they were like anchored there for a lot of years. them. And so we would always come and visit So that was my back-and-forth tracking from Lincoln Park to Humboldt Park and so forth there during that time. Well, I mentioned I went to St. Michael’s I graduated in ’73. So in ’73, I was already a father, you know. My girlfriend was pregnant, we had our son and he was born in March of 1974. And, so of course, the thing was, you know, 19 �you gotta get married, you gotta get a job, that kind of thing. You gotta support your family now, right? wasn’t into that. So, I I was into hangin’ out with the guys and doin’ my thing, you know. (coughs) Excuse me. And so I didn’t take it serious for a while, you know, we would go out as a group. All the guys would go out lookin’ for work and we end up spending the day getting, you know, getting high, drinking, and come back later at night, in the evening. We didn’t find any work. And so eventually you got, you know her family started [00:26:00] getting, you know laying the law down. Well you need to find a job, you gotta support, you’re gonna have a child, this and that. And so they found me a job. They got me a job at Greyhound and that lasted for a little while. JJ: I lost that job. Your family got you a job? (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) AC: No her family. My girlfriend’s family ended up getting me a job. JJ: What kind of work did you finally do when you s--? AC: Well that, Greyhound was unloading the bus. You know, so I did that for a little while, but I, you know, I didn’t last long. So I kept goin’ around with friends lookin’ for jobs. And back then, I went to St. Michael’s [a lot?]. Most of -- all my friends went to Waller. And Waller had a 20 �program where after your junior year, you went to school only half the day. Half the day in this classroom, the other half you went to work in the factory. ’Cause back then Lincoln Park all through Clybourn was all factories. So there were plenty of factories all around there, places to work. So everybody went to work after 12 o’clock. went to school, and then you shot to your job. You And it was part of your credits for school, but it was [00:27:00] labor for the companies that were all around Lincoln Park. It And it went -- it extended into Lakeview, those factories. And a friend of mine’s, Herc Nelson, he used to work at this big plant on Diversey and Wolcott, that -Stewart-Warner. Was humongous, big old plant. And they made the gaskets that they use in a lot of automobiles. And so he used to work there during the two years of his junior and senior year. And so when we were looking for work, he said let’s go back there. And then since they saw that he used to work there, they said, “Oh yeah.” hired him right away. They They didn’t wanna hire me ’cause they -- you know, I had never worked in anywhere. I did a lot -- my jobs were in shoe stores during high school. Throughout high school, I worked in shoe stores and clothing stores, but never in a factory. So when they hired Nelson, you know, they didn’t say -- they weren’t 21 �gonna hire me. And then, you know, Nelson -- we called him Herc ’cause he was, you know, a [00:28:00] big guy. The Rosario -- Nelson Rosario fam-- the Rosario mem-- Eddie Commented [SC5]: Delete? Rosario, you know, they were all -- all of them were big, stocky guys, so. He told ’em, “Hey, what about my friend?” You know, with his deep voice, and the lady said, “Okay, we’ll hire him, too.” You know. So they gave me a job, so that was my first experience of workin’ in a factory. I said, you know, they gave me a broom. And And stewar-- as I mentioned, they made a press that just presses a gasket, and the remainders of the gasket fall to the floor. My job was to keep sweeping’ that access [sic]] part that can fall into the floor. “What? And I said, “What?” Sweepin’ this eight hours?” was in August. I thought to myself, And, you know, this The summer of ’74 in August. And -- no, the summer of ’73 ’cause I had just graduated from high school. And I started, you know, I said, “My God,” you know, I kept thinking to myself, “I can’t do this. can’t, you know, I can’t do this.” You know. remembered about a organization called ASPIRA. I And I had [00:29:00] And they -- I knew that they told me they help people get into school -- to college. ’Cause I know back in high school, we tried to get college into the counselor’s head, and they would tell us, “Oh, no, you directly to the 22 �factories on Clybourn. You know. You can’t go to college. No way.” So that wasn’t even our radar, but I had it in my mind that I did want to do that. So as I was sweepin’ around, I kept thinkin’ about it, thinkin’ about it. Then two hours later, I threw the broom out and said, “Hell, I can’t do this.” And I left. Milwaukee Avenue. school.” So I went and found ASPIRA on And I just told ’em, “Hey I wanna go to And so that same day, I think it was the last day of registration at Northeastern. They got me to Northeastern, they helped me with financial aid papers, and I started school probably the next day or two days later. Classes started at Northeastern so I began college at Northeastern in the fall of ’73. well. And that was a shock as You know, ’cause wanting to go to school and [00:30:00] being prepared to go to school is two different things. And I couldn’t, you know, I wasn’t prepared through all my grade school and high school years. was educated for college. factories, you know. I never I was educated to go work in the And so, when I wa-- we were at Northeastern, we the same thing that we did everywhere else. We clicked. out and we partied. studying. All the Puerto Ricans clicked. We hung You know, we did that, we did a little So we were there for a couple years, we were collecting our financial aid checks. I had a wife and a 23 �son, you know, so that covered expenses and everything. And every summer I did a job. and I would not work. I would not get work-study Should -- I wouldn’t go to school in the summer so I would get a job as a college student summer job. So I did a couple different things throughout those summers. I went to factories on Clybourn. summer in the factory at Clybourn. Grant Hospital buffing floors. CTA bus. I worked one One summer, I worked at And then one summer I drove And then, you know, I remember [00:31:00] getting a college work-study grant and seeing BUILD -- an organization called BUILD on the sheet. And I remember that brought me back my memories to back when I was, you know, like eighth grade, sixth, seventh, eighth, freshman. Hanging out on Orchard and Willow a guy named Lacey Smith. He was a BUILD worker that used to come around and, you know, I didn’t know what he was doing. curious about it. I was always But he would get us together, the guys from Orchard and Willow, and he would take us to CabriniGreen to play baseball or basketball. We’d go to the YMCA on Larrabee and North and play basketball. They would -- he would bring those guys to the Boys Club to play ball there. And we would do field trips. We would go different places - the racetracks, Soldiers Field [sic], things like that. But I was always wondering, “Why, what was he 24 �doing?” I remember going to St. Michael’s and we did some basketball at St. Michael’s and sitting in the bleachers, they’re watching it from far. ’Cause I would say, “Wow what’s this guy up to, [00:32:00] man? He’s got Stones over here, Kings over here, Saints over here. doin’?” What’s he You know, I was always curious about that. So anyways, I remembered it really well when I saw it on the work-study list. And I told him I wanted to work there. And so they said okay, but that wasn’t my first job. gave me -- assigned me Big Brothers Big Sisters. They I did that, and then I had a friend that was working at BUILD so I told him, “Hey, I wanna work at BUILD, let them know.” And eventually I did get a phone call from a guy, Hank Bach, one of the founders of BUILD. Called me up and said, “Hey, I hear you wanna work for us.” So he said, “Come on over, we could start this weekend.” know, the weekend was camp. And I was like, you They were goin’ to Camp Channing, Michigan. And I said, I told him, “Whoa, whoa, this weekend camp?. Wait, no I’m married, I got a son. wife and a son.” He said, “Bring ’em with you.” was my first experience with BUILD. Channing for the weekend, and it baptized by fire. A So that I went to Camp I was like -- I would call ’Cause we went to camp where they had brought like 75 different gang members from [00:33:00] all 25 �over the North Side. You know, Cabrini-Green, the Latin Eagles from Addison, all the guys from Armitage and Halsted around there, and all of the Orchard and Will-- everybody was there. And it was pretty wild, you know. Wild experience ’cause it was -- everybody wanted to goof off and have fun, of course. So they did their own thing, but eventually that weekend I learned what BUILD was all about. You know, bringing people together to get to know each other on a different level, so that they didn’t have to beat each other up, or kill each other, or whatever it would be. And so that was my first beginnings with the organization. That was in ’76. I started working during my school semesters, like fall and spring. there and then get -- and then when I didn’t have work- study I would get a summer job. in the fall again. You know, then come back And I did that for a while until ’79. Then ’79 they hired me full time. years. I would work And I stayed there 30 From ’79 to 2009 did a lot of [00:34:00] diff-- all the different opportunities that they had there for me. worked on the prevention program. I I think I began working as a prevention staff, working with the -- doing drug awareness in schools. with kids after school. And then doin’ sports activities work with gang youths. And did that. Did intervention Same thing, sports, jobs, things 26 �like that, GED programs, and reportings. You know, did a lot of the administration work, then became supervi-- you know did all the positions at BUILD. Executive Director. Till ’94 became the And I was there for 15 years at the Executive Director till I left in 2009. So that’s my experience with work-JJ: Where are you at now? AC: I’m at St. Augustine College. I came here in September of 2009 and the transition for me was educational. ’Cause, as I mentioned, 30 years at the organization doing street intervention and [00:35:00] prevention work with kids; high risk youth and gang-involved and not gang-involved, and working with parents a lot. That exposed me to community work ’cause I [had done?] a lot of work with parents. And it reminded me, ’cause, you know, my goal -- our goal was to go back to your own neighborhood and work with the young people coming up behind you, so that they didn’t have to experience the things that you went through, and avoid some of the negative things that you did or that was around ’em. And so when I went back to the neighborhood and started working with the short-- younger guys in the neighborhood you know, gettin’ them into sports and things like that. And, you know, I remember I said, “My God.” You know, this was like in the late ’70s and early ’80s, and there was a 27 �major gang -- spike in gang violence. And throughout, you know, the whole area of Lincoln Park there, was -- we had a lot of that goin’ on. Not as, you know -- my years were not involved in that situation. banging. We didn’t do a lot of gang There was no guns pulled out on people like that, you know, I had a [00:36:00] couple experiences, but not much. And then when I, you know, the first shooting on Orchard and Willow was one of the [Velez?] family. Which is another large, Puerto Rican family that grew up in the neighborhood. But one of the Velez kids got lit up on -- he shot on right in front of the Boys Club on Orchard and Willow. And that was like our first experience of anybody getting shot there -- from our group, that was growing up from the Latin Saints there. On -- the Harrison Gents had some issues because they were -- they used to fight the Kings. And they had a couple shootings between them on there. But that was, you know, not compared to other neighborhoods, like what was happening in Humboldt Park and West Town at the time. But it reminded me, ’cause, you know, in the media, what you started to see was, where are the parents of these kids? putting -- blaming fingers. Everybody you know, kept And I was saying, “Wait, my mother,” as I mentioned, we talked about the cultural differences. When I left my house, it was -- I was a 28 �different person. I walked different, you know. It was like, you know, Freddy Calixto from the streets, [00:37:00] you know, walked right out the door. door, you were somebody else. When you went out the When you came into the house, you were, you know, Freddy Calixto, el hijo de Luis y de Juana. And you had to, you know, to act like that. you know, you had So they never knew anything about the gang [involvement?], because that wasn’t part of their culture. You know, they -- my father worked, and then his thing was, you know, la familia. You know, hangin’ out with his -- with the family that would visit, or he would go visit. And my mother was at home all the time, you know, taking care of kids. And from the -- and for dad was the church, like a lot of the Caballeros de San Juan stuff that -- back and forth. exposure. But never -- they never had Lot of the Puerto Rican families never had the exposure to how we grew up in the streets, and what we were doing the streets, until, for a lot of people, was too late. So my mom never knew. never knew.” I realized that, I said, “Mom I remember goin’ to -- comin’ out of school at St. Michael’s and I had a Saints sweater on. My -- three of us, David, and Wilfred all had Saints sweaters on. We walked into the house during lunch, you know, [00:38:00] and then my mother said, “Hey, what’s that?” And, you 29 �know, I looked at her and I said, “Ah, it’s from school. My school sweater.” She goes, “Oh.” another question about it. that. You know, never And you know, so I remember And I said to, you know, “Wait a minute.” “Where are the parents?” this stuff. They don’t know anything about And so I, you know, I started developing an awareness program. parents. You know, Eventually became gang awareness for And we started teaching the -- goin’ into schools and talking to parents of the children and saying, “Look, this is -- you guys need to learn this. on the streets.” This what’s going And we started teachin’ them about all this: the gang structures, and colors, and who’s out there, and where they hang out. know that. And the idea was so that they can And if they saw their kids wearing, you know, black and gold, or black and red, black and green, they would know, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, that’s -- let’s stop this right now.” ’Cause some kids were asking their parents to buy them these clothes, and they were doing it, you know. And back then, allowing them to put the laces in the shoes, and the parents were buying it for the kids, ’cause they didn’t know. So this educational [00:39:00] program was very helpful for a lot of parents. And it helped them, ’cause you could -- the way we presented it was, you could stop the young kid from joining and getting in too deep 30 �into the gang. But it would be a lot harder to get ’em out, once they were in. And so idea was to get them before and -- with the prevention program -- and with the parent education program. JJ: So you had a lot of parents involved, or (inaudible)? AC: Parents from all over. It started out in the neighborhood, so we were working with parents in the neighborhoods that we worked in, like in Lincoln Park. Lakeview. We were also in We were back in West Town and Humboldt Park. So we started going into all the schools, ’cause that’s where, you know, parents were at. And we would develop workshops for parents at -- through schools, churches, ’cause a lot of church groups, block clubs, you know, where everybody started; once they found out about it, everybody was looking for it. wasn’t available. They needed that information ’cause it It wasn’t nowhere. putting it out there. it. So we started The police department picked up on They started doing their own prevention program. [00:40:00] And they started, -- they had it, they -- we partnered with them, because they had the graphics, you know. Because of crime scenes, there was always a photograph taken, so they had graphic scenes. The States Attorney’s Office did their own presentation for gang awareness for parents. But they had, you know, graphic 31 �scenes of people being shot, laying in the streets. And they had statistics that they could talk -- give us about, how many shootings, how many murders, how many arrests, and all that stuff that we incorporated to our workshops. And our workshops were from the social work perspective on how we could help you, or your son, or your daughter. For them, it was, you know, lettin’ ’em know, this the problem. We come out here, we’re gonna lock you up, that kind of thing. So a little different perspective. But it was, we were part of them ’cause they had the good information that we could use for our our presentations. So, yeah, we had a lot of groups, a lot of parents. JJ: Now talkin’ about perspectives, right around that same time the Young Lords are [00:41:00] transforming through the gang. You knew them when they were a gang. AC: Right. JJ: And they kinda just jumped [in it?] from the gang into like a political type of group and that. AC: How did you see that? Well, my exposure was the church, you know. The church and the park on Armitage and Halsted -- the People’s Park, and the church on Dayton, you know, ’cause that was the Latin Kings, that was their turf. And we used to walk by there and hang out with them once in a while. something would happen. Every so often, And, you know, it’s -- at Waller 32 �would -- between them, and there would be beefs and -- but, you know, once in a while we were hang out -- go out on Armitage and hang out. then the church. And I remember hanging out there, And you know what was really -- didn’t know much what’s going on here. And that’s why like when I first realized, “Oh, this is somethin’ going on with the Young Lords, and they took over this church, and this is People’s Park.” And I said, “Oh, wow.” interesting, you know. know. It was very This is goin’ on, and then, you So it was like, for me, was like, [00:42:00] just see the beginnings of the exposure to it. Later on, I was older. JJ: How old were you at that time? AC: This -- I was still in high school, you know. And then when I got out of high school, when I, you know, learned more about it and got a little more involved, I remember getting (pauses) the, I don’t know what year it was on Wilton. You had the office on Wilton. That’s where I got -- I came -- I volunteered when you were running for all the men in the area. volunteered. And we were, you know, so I I worked in there, in the office for a while. And hangin’ out with the guys from the neighborhood, they had Eagles there hangin’ out with them for a while, so I did that and so forth. But my years at Northeastern was 33 �like an awakening for me, because I learned about the Puerto Rican culture. You know, as I mentioned to you very early on in this discussion, they took the Spanish out of me by third grade. So for me, when I went to you know, I didn’t know about Puerto Rico, I didn’t know about, you know, nothing about my culture, my history. [00:43:00] knew was that it was bad. thing to be speaking. All I Spanish was a bad wanted to be American. You didn’t want to do that. You But I never felt American, you know, ’cause we always had somebody that told us we weren’t Americans, you know. But when I went to Northeastern, we - - I was exposed to, you know, protests. Puerto Ricans were protesting. Rican studies. You know, the They didn’t have Puerto We wanted -- they, you know, so I joined the Union for Puerto Rican Students. So I was a member of the Union for Puerto Rican Students. And we, you know, we did our thing. We partied a lot, but we go to meetings and hear from some of the leaders, and we were present whenever they said, “Let’s take over this and that.” And so we did a lot of sit-ins, and we took over the President’s office a few times. And we demanded, you know, we wanted Puerto Rican studies. We wanted José López come and become a professor, and so forth, and we wanted El Centro to be established for the Latino community. And all those things 34 �took sitting in their office and not moving until they decided to make it happen. So I got my exposure to the political [00:44:00] (audio cuts out) and then learning more about the Young Lords through that. And that’s when I went out and did some volunteer work in the Wilton office, things like that. JJ: Okay. (pauses) __: AC: Pause it, yeah. So, one of the things that -- when you go back to the urban renewal or urban removal, however you want to call it. It had effect on a lot of things, on the family that lived in the different apartments there. And as I mentioned earlier, there were very few owners. The ones that did own, they really, you know, were ripped off -- basically ripped off because they were selling their homes for eight thousand dollars. You know, this is a community where, you know, you can go that same home that they bought for 8,000 dollars, they probably sold it for 500,000 later on, you know. But these people were getting great deals. If they got eight or 10 grand for a home, they felt like they were millionaires and moving off to Logan Square. [00:45:00] And becoming the first home homeowners in the West neighborhood -- Logan Square, Humboldt Park -- buying little two flats and things like that. But in the 35 �neighborhoods, what was happening was they were, you know, you saw that they, you know, people moving away and they, you know, the gang structure that was, that was there. what was happening, it was being exported. that it stopped. But So it wasn’t You know, the gangs didn’t ended because they changed the neighborhood. They just moved them, and they moved them from the area to area. went, that’s where the gangs were. So wherever they So you saw the spike. There was a lot of gang activity in Lincoln Park. Then you saw a spike of gang activity in West Town, Wicker Park. Because that’s where a lot of families moved to. And then you saw a lotta spike in gang activity in Humboldt Park, ’cause a lot of families moved there. move was west, west, west, west. Lincoln Park. ’Cause the whole And they cleaned out No more gangs in Lincoln Park, you know, ’cause they moved everybody out. But the gangs didn’t stop, they just moved [00:46:00] into another neighborhood, wherever there was a low-income community, where people paid low rents, the gangs were a subculture of that. You know for us, it was band together to defend your neighborhood against other people, other groups. The same thing started happening when people -- when Latinos were moving west. They were confronted with the, you know, the 36 �white guys -- the white gangs: the Gaylords, the PVCs. And they had to -JJ: To banding together to fight other white gangs or Latino gangs or what(inaudible)? AC: Yeah, mainly it was other la-- first, it was the other Commented [SC6]: Delete? white gangs, because they didn’t, you know, it was a racial thing. They didn’t like spics, they just said it straight out, you know, they would come and tell you, you know, “F you, spic.” You know, so you have to be -- either you have to run or you have to defend it. And what started happening, people were saying, “No, we’re gonna click -- “ whoever was there, you know, if it was the Gents, or whoever it was, if it was Latin Kings. You joined up and you you said, “No. numbers.” You got to get it. Now, you know, we’re [00:47:00] And that’s what started happening. You know, the Latinos started outnumbering the other gangs. And so they were no longer, after so many years, there were no longer white gangs to fight against, and they started turning on each other. And all the Latino gangs started fighting with one another, and that’s what we still have today, you know. Latino gangs, fighting Latino gangs. And then the mixture of people that -- it didn’t matter, you know, Lat-- if you were Black, Latin, if you join, you 37 �join. Whatever gang you join. Then it wasn’t so much more racial breakdowns of what gang you joined. JJ: So you’re saying that a lot of these gangs that were pushed out of Lincoln Park went into other neighborhoods. And did they join up with other gangs, start new gangs, how did that work? AC: Well, the Latin Kings, it was really easy for them, because there was Latin Kings already in the West Side. Latin Kings had already started in Humboldt Park, and they -- so they were just Kings moving from neighborhood to neighborhood. Just -- and they, you know, they knew [00:48:00] each other, they hung out. deal. So it was no big Latin Saints, for us, that was the end of them. There were no more Latin Saints. I didn’t even realize -- we didn’t even realize that there was an old Latin Saint gang on the South Side, and I didn’t know that till I used to visit my cousins on 55th Street. At 56th and Peoria. And there were some Latin Souls around there, and they would all say, “I’m gonna tell them you’re a Latin Saint.” You know, that what my cousins used to threaten me with. And I said, you know, “They don’t know me from the Latin Saints.” ’Cause I thought they were talkin’ about us. I didn’t realize that on 47th Street there was Latin Saints there from the ’60s. So there, they were there. They’re 38 �still around. But the Latin Saints from Lincoln Park, they just stopped existing after the move. Everybody moved out of there. The older guys went to Vietnam. Our group graduate. I went You know, we to high s-- to college. all went our own ways, and that was it for that. Younger guys [00:49:00] that were in that neighborhood, moved west and they joined other gangs. You know, that’s what they did. JJ: You mentioned Vietnam. Did that do anything to the gangs when a lot of the soldiers came back to the -AC: Well, from what I saw, the people that I knew that got involved in that, it was a way out. You know, a lotta people went there because they were facing the judge, and the judge told ’em it’s either army or jail. them, of course, chose the army. And a lot of So that’s how a lot of people took off, you know, went to the army. ’Cause they were getting caught up and goin’ in front of a judge and getting the choice. So a lot of them did do that. for a lot of people, it worked. It helped them. I think Because they went there, they got their GEDs, they came back, and they came back to work. Those were the first guys you saw working at Peoples Gas, at Commonwealth Edison, and things like that. But for a lot of guys that went to Vietnam, they got stuck. They got stuck on the heroin. I saw my 39 �brother-in-law, his cousin, friends, everybody that was out there. They all came back with habits. [00:50:00] You know, so they all came back with heroin habits, and they just festered in the neighborhood. Then for us, in our neighborhood around Armitage and Halsted, were a lot of people strung out on heroin. And that whole area, man, that whole neighborhood, they all -- the AIDS virus hit real hard. A lot of brothers died of AIDS ’cause they, you know, they didn’t know any different. They were sharing needles, and a lot of them caught AIDS, and a lot of ’em died. And I would, you know, I would get phone calls every so often and every -- this one guy would call me. time I got a call from him, I knew what it was. telling me so-and-so just died. just droppin’. Every He was And one by one they were And a lot of brothers from our -- that area just died of AIDS. JJ: What happened to a lot of the adults? I mean, what did they move to or what happened? AC: Well, as I mentioned earlier, it was a westward move. So from Lincoln Park -- from, you know, anywhere from Larrabee, Orchard, Halsted, Bissell, Armitage, in all that area. If you were one of the lucky ones that were -- that [00:51:00] owned a home and sold it, you bought -- you were one of the first families that were homeowners in Humboldt 40 �Park and Logan Square, or even Wicker Park, West Town. most families, as I said, rent. But So they move in to a places where they could rent apartments and so that’s what happened. They moved in, I said they first moved into Wicker Park. That was the first area west, and then further west to -- a little further west on the other side of Western to Humboldt Park, and then that’s where people... One of the things I did notice that the urban removal process started -- kinda stopped in Humboldt Park. It took a lotta years before it picked up any momentum. And I noticed, because I was at Northeastern at the time, and I did a project on the whole urban removal, you know, for one of my classes. And I was shooting film of Cabrini- Green, seeing the changes that was happening in Cabrini. I was going back to Lincoln Park and showing all the changes and [00:52:00] the new neighborhoods, the new buildings, the new neighbors. And then coming -- driving into Humboldt Park and showing what I mentioned, that I saw on Orchard, empty lots well on Rockwell. From Rockwell, North Avenue all the way down, they were empty lots ’cause they were burning buildings every night. There was a building on fire, and they were knocking ’em down. And there was plants, the same plants that they did on Lincoln Park were there in Humboldt Park. They were planning to do some 41 �building, you know, high-end buildings there, but they had resistance. The community banded together and resisted that whole move. There was an, or there is an organization there called Bickerdike Redevelopment Corporation, and they came together, and they worked on it, and they stopped it. They said, “No, this ain’t gonna be, you know, high-end living here.” housing. You know, we -- they fought for low-income And they were able to build all low-income housing in all those empty lots. And so that’s what stopped the urban removal process there in Humboldt Park. [00:53:00] It didn’t stop it in Wicker Park. Park, they took over. skyrocketed. rent. In Wicker They, you know, the rent The buildings you couldn’t buy, you couldn’t Unless, you know, you were a white-collar worker making big bucks. And if you didn’t own a home, and you know, people that own homes that had to give -- move out because of taxes. The ones that were able to stay and pay the taxes, they stayed and they kept their homes. was like, I count ’em on one hand. But that You know, some of the families that I know that lived on Bell Street, you know they had two, three houses on the block. else, I don’t think there were any. stopped it. It stopped there. And then anywhere But Humboldt Park And that’s why the Puerto Rican community was there for so long in Humboldt Park for 42 �many, many years, until the ’90s. seeing the change again. started to happen. west again. And so you started The whole new gentrification And, you know, people started moving And then you look at the numbers, the between 10 years, and 10 years, and 10 years later. Everything kept shifting, what further, further west from Humboldt Park. It had stopped for 20 years, [00:54:00] and all of a sudden, it started to see the shift. People were moving out of Humboldt Park and ending up in Belmont Cragin now, where there’s a whole new population of Latinos. The thing -- another big change was the influx of Latin American countries. People from Latin American countries, not -- Puerto Ricans were no longer the majority of Latinos. the numbers of Latinos, they were the minority. the numbers of Puerto Ricans went down. And So then You know, families moving away, a lot of families moving to Florida, moving out to suburbs, moving further west to other communities. So we still have the Puerto Rican community Humboldt Park, but the numbers are very low. The majority of the Latinos that live in Humboldt Park are not Puerto Rican, you know. JJ: (inaudible) AC: They’re Mexicanos. So, and then we had an increase of Latinos from different Latin American countries, you know. So that’s what we have currently and further west. 43 �JJ: Now, what about (pauses) because Bickerdike has done a lot of good work in terms of [00:55:00] getting low-income housing in Humboldt Park. Definitely fought well, [resisted?] well, but the Young Lords also resisted in Lincoln Park, probably because of their status. you see that? How did I mean, did you see that they were just completely defeated, or did they help to bring out any type of awareness, or how did you (overlapping dialogue; inaudible) that whole movement? AC: Well, the movement-- JJ: Did you agree with it, or maybe you didn’t agree with it? AC: -- well, as I mentioned to you earlier, it was early -- I was younger at the time, so I didn’t know a lot of the -what was happening when it was happening. My exposure and my education came later, after I got into Northeastern and started learning about the political agenda that was out there for the Puerto Rican community. But I saw it as an people that didn’t live it, ’cause I could have shared the experience of living it. I learn-- even though I didn’t know at the time, was living it, I could share the experience. I said, “Oh, I saw this. I remember this.” And it was an awareness that, [00:56:00] like any other movement that threatens the, you know, the normal -- what they consider normal, like the city hall considered normal, 44 �you know, there was a threat to that. You know, they saw that, and I saw -- they used their tactics to break it up. You know, to create chaos among the group. Because, you know, I saw the chaos that was happening among the group, within the people. The Latino brothers that were organizing around the Young Lords organization as the political group. You know, they were -- they had a good -- they said, “Alright, we got a -- we got something to, you know, that we want to be part of, and everything.” And eventually, because of that, you know, they were, you know, things started to happen with -- and that started to, you know. For the community, it was good. JJ: What do you mean things were happening? (inaudible). AC: Well, you know, things started happening. They started seeing, you know, the conflict within the group itself, you know, people breaking off. disagreed. They didn’t, disagr-- they just [00:57:00] The drug festered. A lot of those guys that I talked about dying on heroin, they were all part of it. And they started, you know, they got hit with the heroin. Heroin came out of nowhere, just -- it became available to everybody. And a lot of people chose it. They got involved and got hooked on heroin. So we, you know, a lotta... 45 �JJ: So did you see that as a way of somebody trying to stop (inaudible)? AC: That was exactly it, ’cause they infiltrated. You know, you had people that were, you know, saying they were part of this group, but they were part of -- they weren’t part of the group. YThey were -- you could tell they were in there for another purpose. firsthand there. the heroin. And I don’t know, I wasn’t I wasn’t there that I saw the bring in But you know, out of nowhere, the community became a heroin haven. There was so much heroin. Everybody -- so many people were on it, and that’s why, I said earlier, so many died. of AIDS epidemic. saw. Because they were, you know, But that was a [00:58:00] tactic that I And everybody realized, how do we, you know, how do we stop this movement? Because the Young Lords were a movement that created a movement, and that’s what happened. They were able to, what I think was something that was able to happen in Humboldt Park. If it would have been for the Young Lord movement that occurred in Lincoln Park and continue to struggle throughout the years in Humboldt Park, would have been pretty difficult to do what they did. You know, they were not able -- they were able to do that because they saw the experience that occurred in Lincoln Park. They saw the experience that occurred in Wicker 46 �Park, and they had the example to look back to the Young Lord movement and say, “Wait a minute. Bottom line, it was resistance. We got to resist.” “We have to resist. just can’t sit here and let this happen.” happened. We And that’s what You know, they were able to put a stop to the gentrification in Humboldt Park for, like I said, almost two decades, until it started to fester again, to where it’s at today. JJ: Okay, anything -- [00:59:00] that was good (inaudible; laughter). Anything else that maybe we need to add, that you think that we need to -- hold on one second. (adjusts camera) AC: Well, going back to the BUILD organization and my involvement, as I mentioned to you, I kinda saw as a youngster, you know, somebody out there working. But, you know, that history goes way back to the Young Lords and other all the older groups. ’Cause they had some street workers that were part of another program before BUILD, called the Detached Workers Program, that was out of the YMCA. There was a -- on Division and [Action?]. There used to be a Division Street Y, and they they got funding from the federal government. And this was something happening throughout the city of Chicago. ’Cause on the South Side, it was happening with the Blackstone Rangers, 47 �social service organizations getting funding to work with them. And in our neighborhood, it was the YMCA got the funding to do a program, and they called it the Detached Workers ’cause it was on the streets. Streetwork, not in the building. ’em to the building. streets.” [01:00:00] They said, “Don’t bring Just work with them out in the So they had workers out there in Lincoln Park. They were working with Lords, the Black Eagles, and the different groups there. And, like most programs, the Detached Workers, because it was a solely federal funded program, whenever the people sitting around the desk in Washington said, “Eh, we don’t want to fund that anymore, you know. Gangs is not a big issue for us anymore in our - - in those neighborhoods, we don’t wanna. something else.” Let’s do So they pulled the funding. said, “No more funding, no more program.” The YMCA And that’s how Bill got started, because Bob Jemilo and Hank Bach were running the Detached Workers Program out of the Division Street Y. And they said, “Wait a minute, we got a good thing going.” They knew what that program was working. It was getting a lot of the guys -- primarily guys and but it was women as well -- out of the violence and gangs and putting them into college. ’Cause they had a connection with the city college that was right down -- back then it 48 �was right down the street on Milwaukee Avenue, Mayfair College. [01:01:00] And they were just putting guys through GED, through BUILD, and right into city colleges. And, you know, getting -- that’s how people were, you know, movin’ away from the poverty and the things they had going, that gang structure was all about. “Hey, I got some college in me. And they were able to say, Now I can get a job. can go to ComEd, I can go to Peoples Gas. I I can get some - - I can get a job that can I can support my family with.” So that’s how the BUILD model came out. They took it from the Y. They started it. They got funding from the Board of Directors of the YMCA, the people -- the CEOs of ComEd, Marshall Field, Signal Corporation. They, you know, Bob Jemilo was pretty, you know, sharp guy. So he kinda, you know, maintained a good relationship with those kind of people there. And he went to directly to them, said, “I need you to give me money to start to keep this program going. I’m gonna start my own organization. call it BUILD.” I’m gonna You know, they, they came up with the name in a process, but that’s how they started BUILD. JJ: Do you remember similar tactics that they used to get to the street [01:02:00] gang members? AC: It was the same model. The same model it was, you know, you put somebody out in the neighborhood where they grew 49 �up, you know. So the detached workers had guys like Lacey and [Mingo?] that were part of the, you know, they grew up in that, in the neighborhood of Lincoln Park, so they were the ones out there. They started, you know, [droppin’ center?] on Halsted Street. earlier? The one that you mentioned Street. That was on that -- Mingo was running on Halsted I didn’t hang out there. You know, I was born Orchard at that time. JJ: The Concerned Puerto Rican -- AC: The Concerned Puerto Rican Youth Program there. But it was, you know, through the Detached Workers Program that he was able to do that. And then they all became staff of BUILD after ’69 you know. I that I learned. But it was the same tactics that Was, you know, you go out through the neighborhood where you grew up, and you work with the guys, ’cause they know you. They know oh, Freddy used to be a Saint here, before that. So, you know, I’m able to go and say okay, I want to, you know, you use sports as a tool. It’s always -- the tool was sports. softball league. together. I’m gonna run a I need you guys to get [01:03:00] And then you will get somebody in leadership to say, “Okay, I need you to be the team captain and get me all the names.” develop a roster. And you start getting the names, and you So that roster becomes your membership 50 �list, and you start developing on the list. need to tackle? leader here? Who do you You know, I gotta -- let’s see. Who’s the I gotta make sure I get this guy on my side. And you go, you start workin’ with that individual, and you get that guy into school, or you get that guy a job. everybody else wants to do the same thing. And And that’s the tactic that you use, and that’s the model that we used. that was the approach through the Detached Workers. So It was the model that was used at BUILD in -- throughout the years. It’s changed throughout the years, but that’s, you know, the main idea was that. JJ: Did you guys do (inaudible) take ’em all out in the city at all, or? AC: Every fall was a camp. when I first started. The one I told you about where, My first day at BUILD was, you know, Friday, take off on a bus and go to camp couple hours away to Michigan, Camp Channing. year. That was the model. They had it same place every You take ’em out because, you know, you take ’em [01:04:00] to the woods, they’re not the same people there on the streets. different person. Then it was a completely And so they are experiencing that. And then they’re, you know, they don’t have to front, you know. That, you know, they could get along with, you know, Latin Kings can get along with Latin Eagles. You know, but in 51 �the neighborhoods they can’t. could. But in Camp Channing, they They could sleep together in the same bunk room. They could get up and eat breakfast in the same bunk room. And those kind of things develop relationships that I saw firsthand how they saved lives. You know, ’cause you get caught in the streets, and I know I seen people get caught. Like Robert Gonzalez was one of my staff at BUILD, would always tell a story, says, “Man.” ’Cause he went to Lakeview High School, and they -- he was a Latin Eagle. The Latin Kings were their rival. on Ashland by Irving Park. were about to do him in. him from camp. And the Kings caught him And they were, you know, they And then they said -- they knew They knew him from softball. They said, “Oh, that’s Robert Gonzalez, that’s Bulldog. He’s cool. Let him go.” stuff. [01:05:00] They let him go and that kind of That’s the way, that kind of thing. see how that worked, because they weren’t. People didn’t They weren’t really there to see how that kinda, you know, how that saved the person’s life or from a beating or something. But being able to mix gangs and guys together in sports or in trips like a weekend at camp. The weekend at camp is one of the best, ’cause they -- you got 48 hours with these guys together. They get to know each other for real. So when they come back to the streets, you know, they think 52 �twice before they gonna, you know, get on jump on each other, shoot at each other, anything like that. So that does help a little bit. JJ: (inaudible) is there anything else? Otherwise [this?] should (inaudible). AC: That’s it. I think that’s good. END OF VIDEO FILE 53 � https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/b965189f21db9beb38c4d4b0ad06ba4c.mp4 410ac00d330e9fe49872194892e3ab83 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young Lords in Lincoln Park Collection Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Description An account of the resource Collection of oral history interviews and digitized materials documenting the history of the Young Lords Organization in Lincoln Park, Chicago. Interviews were conducted by Young Lords' founder, José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, and documents were digitized from Mr. Jiménez' archives. The Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection grows out of the ongoing struggle for fair housing, self-determination, and human rights that was launched by Mr. José “Cha-Cha” Jiménez, founder of the Young Lords Movement. This project is dedicated to documenting the history of the displacement of Puerto Ricans, Mejicanos, other Latinos, and the poor from Lincoln Park, as well as the history of the Young Lords nationwide. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park collection (RHC-65)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2017-04-25 Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Language A language of the resource eng spa Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 2012-2017 Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Título Spanish language Title entry Alfredo Calixto vídeo entrevista y trancripción Descripción Spanish language Description entry Alfredo “Freddy: Calixto es parte de la familia quien fueron unos de los primeras familias que se movieron a Chicago en el principio de los 1950s. Nacido en Caguas Puerto Rico, Señor Calixto vivió por el desplazamiento de las familias Puertorriqueñas de La Clark hacia Lincoln Park, donde creció. Sus padres y la mayoría de sus hermanos fueron parte de la Caballeros de San Juan y Damas de María. Su padre también trabajo con Hacha Viejas, una organización social que era activa en el vecindario. Señor Calixto describe su pelea contra discriminación en Lincoln Park y como esas experiencias lo inspiro a dedicarse a la lucha para los jóvenes Latinos. También a sido parte de la Executive Director for Broader Urban Involvement and Leadership Development (BUILD), una organización sin lucrativa en Chicago que fue creada en 1969. Hoy, Señor Calixto, es el vicepresidente por la Instiutional Advancement en St. Augustine College, que es la única institución bilingüe en el medio oeste de educación mayor. Sujetos Spanish language Subject terms Young Lords (Organización) Puertorriqueños--Estados Unidos Derechos civiles--Estados Unidos--Historia Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puertorriqueños--Relatos personales Justicia social Activistas comunitarios--Illinois--Chicago Renovación urbana--Illinois--Chicago Juventud--Illinois--Chicago Source <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/491">Young Lords in Lincoln Park (RHC-65)</a> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-65_Calixto_Alfredo Title A name given to the resource Alfredo Calixto video interview and transcript Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Calixto, Alfredo Description An account of the resource Alfredo “Freddy” Calixto and his family were among the first Puerto Rican families to move to Chicago in the early 1950s. Born in Caguas, Puerto Rico, Mr. Calixto lived through the displacement of Puerto Rican families from La Clark to the Lincoln Park Neighborhood where he grew up. Mr. Calixto describes struggling with discrimination in Lincoln Park and how these early experiences inspired him to commit himself to advocating for Latino youth. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jiménez, José, 1948- Subject The topic of the resource Young Lords (Organization) Puerto Ricans--United States Civil Rights--United States--History Lincoln Park (Chicago, Ill.) Puerto Ricans--Personal narratives Social justice Community activists--Illinois--Chicago Urban renewal--Illinois--Chicago Youth--Illinois--Chicago Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video/mp4 application/pdf Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2012-02-08 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/81bf210b02c2ea1177aca9d44852785f.mp4 af2acea543852f468e205aabe1297a0d https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4ab40b382017539d2b65379a4461fb57.pdf 3b0b9eb4f6e82b1c12b5b54fb9000b6a PDF Text Text Grand Valley State University Veterans History Project Interview Notes Length: 1:03:57 Glendle Gene Callahan Korean War veteran United States Army; February 1951 to November 1952 Field Artillery (0:00) Before grade school • Born in Draper, North Carolina in 1930 o Town is not there anymore; now called Eden • When 6 years old, moved near Mars Hill, NC; out in the country • Started school here • Callahan and his family met up with another family and farmed together o About ready to harvest the wheat crop when a big storm came and destroyed the crop o Callahan’s dad never farmed again (3:48) Grade school • Went to school in Mars Hill • One day, rocks fell on school and the school fell apart • Had to hold school in a different building until it was fixed • Before building was fixed, Callahan moved to Flatcreek, NC where he lived until high school • Throughout grade school, played marbles o One day Callahan played against and older boy who ended up winning all of his marbles. Callahan didn’t have his marbles with him so the boy said he would stop by Callahan’s house later to pick them up. Because Callahan didn’t want to give up his marbles, he begged his mom to ask the guy to let him keep his marbles. Callahan’s mom did ask the guy and the guy let Callahan keep his marbles. o During the winter time, Callahan would practice marbles on the bed, on the floor o He was one of the best marble shooters at school (7:35) How to play marbles • Either play ring or bull’s eye; would try to knock the other guys marbles out of the ring (9:44) High school • Played some baseball o Best “sport” was marbles, though • Very involved with theater o Got the lead role both his junior and senior year ƒ Each play was 3 hours long • Didn’t go to prom • Used to have cake walks • Used to love to watch the basketball team; went to many of the games �(17:25) Graduation • Graduated in 1948 • Got sick right before graduation • Rushed to the hospital (20 miles away) the day before graduation • Had appendicitis • The day of graduation, he was operated on • Did not attend the graduation ceremony although he was the Valedictorian; somebody else read his speech for him (19:14) Pearl Harbor • Didn’t have a TV or radio; heard about Pearl Harbor at school • Was sitting by the windows and someone said that Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor (20:21) WWII • Remembers rationing and food stamps • Didn’t have a car so the rationing of gasoline was a non-issue for his family (21:28) First job • After graduating in 1948, got a job at a department store in NC and made $18.75/week o Lived at home and paid parents $5/week for room and board (22:58) The draft for Korea • Went to Nashville, TN for a weekend with his friends • When got home, his dad handed him an envelope with a draft letter inside • Inducted into the Army February 5, 1951 (24:10) Induction • Went to Charlotte, NC and took an exam, then sent to Baltimore by train o Saw lots of guys in uniform there o Stayed there 5 or 6 days and got clothes, etc. • Sent by train to Fort Rooker, Alabama for training (26:15) Boot camp • Did a lot of marching o One day, a large group was told to march across the street double time. Some soldiers did and some soldiers didn’t; Callahan was one of the guys picked out of the group who supposedly weren’t marching double time. As punishment, Callahan and a few other men had to go to bed immediately after dinner and clean their rifles in the bed. (27:31) After boot camp • Volunteered to go to Korea o Didn’t like Alabama because too hot and the other men in his outfit were rough guys from the Dakotas (28:47) Korea • Sent to Washington (state) and marched onto the boat, which was shipped to Korea • Some people got really seasick but Callahan never got seasick • Landed in Japan and Callahan was sent to school to learn to operate a bulldozer o Didn’t want to drive bulldozer because heard too many stories of drivers getting shot at in the bulldozer �o Talked to the guy who was head of the school and said didn’t want to drive bulldozers because he had never owned a car and never driven machinery in his life and was way behind the others school (all of which was entirely true) o The head of the school conceded and sent Callahan to supply school for 4 weeks of training; then Callahan was sent to Korea • Part of Field Artillery o No. 223?, 5th army ƒ Ordered all the stuff needed by the soldiers like alcohol, cigarettes, and other supplies (34:10) Combat • Never saw combat because worked behind the lines • Spent lots of time playing horse shoes • some friends were on the front lines o Callahan met one of his school mates, who was on his way out having been wounded • Callahan got depression when over in Korea • Some days, could hardly do work • Fought depression ever since (37:10) Home • Discharged November 6, 1952, the same day Eisenhower was elected as president • Come to South Carolina by train • Stayed in SC on guard duty for 2 or 3 months (at this time, Callahan was a Sergeant First Class) (39:29) Guard duty • Most people didn’t like guard duty or felt it was necessary to participate • Callahan shares an incident that occurred during guard duty (42:00) After the service • Got a job at Cadillac Motors o day after Christmas Callahan was down at the pool hall when he ran into a guy from school o guy from school heard that there were a lot of jobs in Michigan o so Callahan and his friend drove up to Michigan o got hired by Cadillac Motors • worked there for 36 years o started as a laborer, then apprenticeship, then the die room o he worked in the plastic department as their only die maker (46:54) Marriage • Met wife at church in Michigan • Starting dating at which point he bought a car • Often they went up to Canada together • Dated a little over a year • Got married at her house in Detroit on Alexandrian Street o Her dad was retired from mining (51:26) First years of marriage �• Rented an apartment in Detroit • then moved to various places around MI • had 2 kids – a girl and a boy • he and his wife have been married almost 50 years (55:56) Masonry • Joined the Masons in January 1970 at the Temple Lodge in Detroit • Transferred to a lodge just outside of Detroit because an easier commute • Became master in 1982 (1:02:02) How the military and Masonry affected his life • In the Army, learned people skills • Masonry also helped in this area � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Veterans History Project Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Grand Valley State University. History Department Description An account of the resource The Library of Congress established the Veterans History Project in 2001 to collect memories, accounts, and documents of U.S. war veterans from World War II and the Korean War, Vietnam War, and conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and to preserve these stories for future generations. The GVSU History Department interviews are part of this work-in-progress, and may contain videos and audio recordings, transcripts and interview outlines, and related documents and photographs. Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1914- Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Subject The topic of the resource Afghan War, 2001--Personal narratives, American Iran Hostage Crisis, 1979-1981--Personal narratives, American Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American Michigan--History, Military Oral history Persian Gulf War, 1991--Personal narratives, American United States--History, Military United States. Air Force United States. Army United States. Navy Veterans Video recordings Vietnam War, 1961-1975--Personal narratives, American World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, American Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Smither, James Boring, Frank Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RHC-27 Language A language of the resource eng Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project interviews (RHC-27)</a> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Callahan, Glendle Gene (Interview outline and video), 2007 Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Callahan, Glendle Gene Description An account of the resource Glendle Callahan served in the Korean War in the United States Army from February 1951 to November 1952 in Alabama and Korea. In this interview, Callahan tells of the day he received his draft letter and why he volunteered to go to Korea after being at Camp Rooker, Alabama. Once overseas he attended supply school and became involved in the Field Artillery. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Collins Sr., Charles E. (Interviewer) Collins, Carol (Interviewer) Subject The topic of the resource Oral history Veterans History Project (U.S.) United States--History, Military Michigan--History, Military Korean War, 1950-1953--Personal narratives, American United States. Army Freemasons Veterans Video recordings Language A language of the resource eng Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Type The nature or genre of the resource Moving Image Text Relation A related resource Veterans History Project (U.S.) Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2007-05-15 Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context CallahanG Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/455">Veterans History Project Collection, (RHC-27)</a> Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf video/mp4 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Lemmen Library and Archives