Foreword The reasons why someone might be compelled to write an autobiography are complex and mostly personal. There are perhaps even some reasons for someone to write a biography. I did not consider writing either, nor did I feel that I could write either, because it seemed like a lot of work and research, tedious processing, and rummaging through old records and memories. Nor did I think myself worthy of an autobiography. Writing a memoir (so I thought) might be casier and perhaps demand less. I was wrong. It was time consuming and challenging. But doing so made me dig into myself and my old papers, and it made many things more clear. Too, the format offered the writer a bit more forgiveness in memory lapse! I chose this route and am not certain if it actually was less work. But it was good fun, even though more complex than I thought at the outset. To begin, I had to try to determine what had greater impact on my growth as a person and personality. Are we who we are because of who someone else was? Someone who sired us or the groups of others with whom we were thrust: family, community, friends, teachers, leaders? Or are we who we are because of other factors? And I wondered how much of who we seem to be derivative of descriptions we hear from others. After a relatively long life and the marvelous experience at being a husband, father, grandfather and great-grandfather, coupled with a fascinating and wonderful career and exposure to a wealth of experiences, I am still not sure. What seems clear is that we are a combination. As we move from one stage of life to another almost seamlessly, we collect knowledge and the ability to process things and we meet opportunities, often not identified as such. We learn by dint of hard work, observation, perhaps by osmosis of some sort. We are exposed to and presented with choices, with challenges, with change. These grow out of circumstances beyond our immediate circle, often because of curiosity about the \"path less traveled\" or arising from our own acts undertaken for reasons both stated and implicit or innate. In any event, I thought it would be fun to pull together the elements of my life - family, career, central issues of the times - into a story. I have enjoyed working on this memoir... well, most of the time! My ambition was
to describe a life that began in Midwestern Canada in a family that cared and pressed for curiosity; that spanned eight decades; that held a happy and wonderful marriage; that produced six human beings of strong character and social convictions. And also to describe a life in an international experience that took me to all continents except Antarctica and took my family to live on three of those continents. I have verified all things stated as facts, I sought recollections of others on some elements of the story, but they are not responsible if I erred in recording them. I am grateful to many for letting me learn from them over time in a variety of circumstances. I am also grateful to all those with whom I chatted a bit about something I was considering, and they will forgive me for not listing them. I asked a few to read chapters, and each was strengthened by that additional look. Because of the passage of time and the shortage of notes, I asked my brother, Morris, to look at the first couple of chapters and his solid critique made the text better. In the end, however, I am responsible for what is written. Much of my thrill in the story was the opportunity to meet and work with exciting personalities, challenging characters and significant leaders, and to do so in many places on this fascinating globe. I feel that I owe more than I may have given. In the end, I still am not certain what the answer to my earlier nature-or nurture question is, I wonder if there is one ... or now whether it matters! We are who we are; we are responsible for what we become. We are confronted with challenges requiring choices. I've had a good time in life. I had a good time in writing the story. I hope it entertains others. This enterprise began in mid-1995 and Lynn was able to help a good deal. Up to the early end of her life, she read all that she could and introduced changes and challenges to the end. She offered me more than that over all the years as a steady and sure partner with a straightforward clarity of human behavior. A word or two about style. I chose to include references aller each chapter rather than a long list at the end. I tried to tell a tale, not write a text. Some references were valuable more than once and they are repeated where appropriate. I have no pretensions that this is a \"good\" book. I do hope that it is a good story. David P. Haxton Greensboro, N.C. 2011
Chapter 1 Getting Started \"...And one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being of seven ages. At first the infant...\" William Shakespeare, \"As You like it Maybe I was predestined to live in a wider world. I come from a family of immigrants. My father left home in Scotland as a young man in 1909 to stake out a new life in Canada. My mother, born in England of Irish parents, made her way to Canada and a fresh start in 1912. It was during the World War I years that they met in Winnipeg, and there they were married in 1926. I came along two years later. I was born in Winnipeg at our house on Fawcett Avenue, delivered by a midwife. We moved a short time later to Brandon Avenue, to a home with a small front porch where my mother would put me in a crib for a nap, winter and summer, in the first months of my existence. Later the porch became a parking lot for my tricycle and a jumping platform. At the time, William Lyon Mackenzie King was in Government House in Ottawa; John Bracken was premier of Manitoba; Calvin Coolidge was in the White House in Canada's neighbor to the south. We were all mutually oblivious of one another. Both Canada and the U.S. were in the midst of terrible economic times of which I would get a glimpse later. But we were fortunate since Dad always had a job and we lived comfortably and seemed to have all that we needed. Dad was the driver of the six-horse Clydesdale team owned by Patrick Shea, head of Shea's Breweries. Part of his job called for travel to Scotland every two years to buy horses, and in late 1928 he and Mother took me with them on the ship. They often told me how rough the seas were; since I was just a babe in arms, I have taken their word for it. On the return trip, to make it all legal on the cattle boat, Mom had to sign on as the nurse and I was signed on as the cabin boy.
My earliest recollections are a collage of memories that blend and merge and overlap like autumn leaves, sometimes in a pattern, sometimes each in stark relief to all else. I suppose I recall them in a different order than they occurred. I do not know exactly, for example, when I first saw my father take the wheels off our Model T Ford, jack it up, and cover everything well before the onset of the long, cold winters. It was a necessity since we had no garage to protect the car. Come spring, he would reverse the process. In winter, the streetcar was the transportation of choice. A line ran on Portage Avenue, just a few doors away from our house, and Dad took it to work every day. I rode with him a couple of times on Saturdays when he went to the stable to feed the horses, but I hated the sound the driving snow made when the trolley passed through an underpass. I was convinced the noise made it colder! In summer, getting ready to travel to Carman to visit old friends was an exciting time as Dad readied the car for the long and adventurous journey of 40 miles. The roads were paved in the city, but Carman did not get a paved road connection with Winnipeg until many years later. The Ford and its passengers had to withstand the dust and potholes of a gravel road while wondering whether oncoming cars had room to pass. Travel was best on damp days when there was less dust. We made these treks fairly frequently to visit Thomas and Jeannie Stout. After migrating from Scotland, Dad had worked as a harvester at their farti in Homewood near Carman, and it was there now that we spent long weekends and some summer holidays. I called Mr. Stoul \"Uncle Toin,\" but it was with Aunt Jeannie\" that I had a special relationship. Sitting at the big, round table in her living room, with coal oil lamps flickering while she worked the crossword puzzle in the local paper, was a special time for me. Aunt Jeannic worked a puzzle every evening after the battery-operated radio had transmitted the news. How I wished that I could do that! I thought it wonderful that she knew so many words and how to spell them. She also had the hang of adjusting the oil lamp, a task I was afraid of because I had burned my fingers too often. Their farm seemed huge to me (though the \"lake\" of my memory turned out to be a small duck pond when I returned to the site many years later). Magnificent climbing trees offered all the adventure in space I needed. I made the rounds with Aunt Jeannie as she collected eggs from the
roosts. She let me pick up some, but I could see she worried about the safety of the egg! The milk separator she cranked at the end of each day seemed like advanced science as milk came down one spout and cream, another. I watched while the cows were milked but was not brave enough to try. My brother, Morris, and I were more underfoot than anything. Voyaging to a New Life My mother, Agnes Haughey, was born on the first day of September in 1892 in a house on Ribton Moorside in the parish of Preston Quarter in Hensingham, Cumbria. This was the town of Whitehaven on England's west coast near the sea, a famous coal mining and exporting town in the 19th century. Her parents, James Haughey and Arnie Tait Haugliey, were Irish-born, hailing from the town of Banbridge near Belfast in what is now Northern Ireland. James moved his family to Yorkshire about 1890 or 1891 to look for better work in the coal field. They lived in an area between Barnsley and Doncaster and later settled in Holmfirth near Huddersfield, the place that Mom remembered best. Some of my cousins still live there.1 Mom was the fourth of six children and was quite young when her mother died. The oldest sister, Margaret (\"Maggie\"), consequently stepped up to be surrogate parent to her three sisters and two brothers2. From family letters and hearsay evidence, Grandfather Haughey seems to have been a selfish and self-centered person. After my grandmother's death, he 1 Communications with our Scottish cousins have waxed and waned over the years. Duncan Haughey, however, has been a good correspondent though left a paraplegic following a terrible auto accident. One of our cousins, Brian, was captured and held as a prisoner of war while serving with the British Army in Burma. When released, he married a Burmese lady from the family that befriended him before he was caught. ? 2 I have not been able to track Maggie further. I know more about the other siblings. Anne, born in 1884, married Bracken Wood and they settled on Prince Edward Island, Canada, before WWI. Mom visited them a couple of times after the war. James settled in Winnipeg, and he and wile Nem had three children: John, Victor and Kathleen. The boys served in WWII and landed at Dunkirk; Kathleen settled in Pembroke, Ontario. Minnie settled in Holmfirth, Yorkshire, and raised a family. Thomas, the youngest brother, apparently never married and lived out his life in Yorkshire.
married at least two more times and produced more children, but exhibited no interest in them or their welfare. At 20 years of age, and with two small children from a broken first marriage, Mom left Holmfirth and immigrated to Canada. One can only wonder about the emotional challenge and strain of picking up and taking a ship across the Atlantic under those conditions; it's also safe to assume that accommodations in 1912 must have been primitive compared to today's standards. She chose Winnipeg because her brother James was there. He and Aunt Nem had what I thought a wondrous place at the very end of a streetcar linc on which the streetcar itself seemed to rock dangerously as it sped along To Morris and me the ride was great sport. The rear of the house faced what I thought was a forest, and we had marvelous adventures in the trees and bushes. Uncle Jim served in WWI in France, where he survived a gas attack on the Western Front and needed a long recuperation. A Man, a Horse and a Dream My father, Andrew Haxton, left home in Scotland in 1909, at the age of 20, Again, the simple expression of that fact does not reveal the emotional struggle of separating at that age and moving, not just down the road or to a nearby village, but to a new country and continent. All of the Haxton men were in the horse business and my dad had a horse, which he felt was part of his capital moving to Canada. One can only imagine the ship accommodations for a young lad and a Clydesdale, Dad was born in Turfhills, Kinross, Fifeshire, on November 15, 1889. Haxtons, and people with similarly spelled or pronounced names, have lived in Fifeshire for centuries, My grandparents, Anne Page and John Carter Haxton, were born there in 1850 and 1848, respectively. My grandmother came from a large family, The Pages of Tilliochy.\" Anne and John were wed in 1875 and had nine children: five boys and four girls, including a set of twins. The family lived on a small dairy farm that John had inherited from his father, Alexander Haxton, but the farm
simply could not support all of them. As a consequence, most of the children left home. 3 Leaving became common in Scotland. There were inheritance limitations and limited opportunities. Pervasive poverty was the near norm of the day. Over the years, one of the great exports of Scotland was human power. One finds Scots in most outposts of the globe, and my family is no exception. Our branch was rooted in Fifeshire, but immigrated by forced labor or military service or a quest for a better life to places in Asia, the Caribbean, Africa, the Middle East and later the Americas. Most of the relatives I can trace with any accuracy are in Canada and Australia and buried in Calcutta, India. Most cousins of mine and their offspring live in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan in the U.S. and in Alberta, Ontario, and Nova Scotia in Canada. Mom was always proud that her father had served in the British Army in South Africa and India. Dad never talked much about military adventures nor of relatives who had served in some capacity. But knowing the history of the family and that of Scotland, it is unlikely that any generation escaped some role in military service. Mother worked as a cook at a hospital for soldiers in Winnipeg in WWI. Dad served in the First Battalion, Manitoba Regiment Canadian Expeditionary Force and was discharged on the last day of March in 1919. Life in Winnipeg Mom and Dad were wed the spring of 1926 at Grace Episcopal Church on Ellice Avenue in Winnipeg, and after the wedding Dad adopted Mom's 3 John, Dad's older brother, moved to Canada and married, he died about 1932. (While he was in line for inheritance, John seems to have preferred to gamble on a new life in Canada, Margaret, the only sibling not to leave home, was next in line.) Thomas died in Vancouver in 1933. Tina married Gordon Smart and remained in Fifeshire, where she died before WWII. George died in Alberta, Canada, in 1940. His twin sister Anne immigrated to Michigan, married Brody Wallace and they ran a farm; both died in 1957. Jessie married John Morris, a wheat farmer in Zealandia, Saskatchewan, where she died about 1974 David, after whom I am named, settled in Ohio: he died about 1975, Margaret, whom Lynn and I had the pleasure of meeting in her garden when we traveled to Rosythe in 1955.
son and daughter from her first marriage. They had four more children, but two - Jack and Agnes - would die at birth. I was born in 1928; my brother Morris in 1930. I never felt anything but the usual sibling relationships with my half-brother Fred and half-sister Dorothy. There was an age difference, but never to my knowledge any other sense of differentness.\" It was not until well into adulthood that Morris and I were aware of Mom's first marriage, which ended in divorce in 1923 - and we did not much care then, either!4 While Dorothy and Fred were off at school doing what I thought was \"big kid stuff,\" Morris and I found amusement in day-to-day activities at home, such as the delivery of a pile of coal to the sidewalk in front of the house. Dad shoveled the coal into the basement and fed it into a furnace, but it never seemed to satisfy our need for warmth. A small heating stove on the ground floor had stovepipes up through the second floor to an outlet. Occasionally, these got overheated and glowed eerily and we had to cover the pipes with damp cloths to cool them down, causing a good bit of stearn. I thought that was just grand and enjoyed the excitement. On the corner of Portage Avenue and Brandon Avenue was a filling station - we did not get around to calling them gas stations until much later, and the family remembers that I left my tricycle there a night or two to have a checkup just like the big folks did with their transport.. Our house was hall a block from the streetcar line and a bit more in the other direction to the Red River, which ran through the city. In winter when the river was frozen, Dad took Morris and me tobogganing, Climbing the stairs of the slide seemed like mountain climbing to us and we held each other tight, pretending we had no fear of the height or the 4 M y sister and brothers all settled in the United States after growing up. Fred married Opal Green in 1937 and served in the U.S. Marine Corps in the Pacific during three years of WWII. He died in 1978 in Florida, where his widow still lives in retirement. Their daughter, Marjorie, died in the 1980s. Their son, Ronald, lives in Atlanta. Dorothy married Vincent Hayes of Booneville, Missouri, in 1946 after he returned from the war and internment as a POW in Europe. They had a son and two daughters, both of whom reside in Kentucky; Marjorie died there in 1999. Morris continues well in retirement in Connecticut after careers with the U.S. Air Force, NASA Space Center and the University of Texas. He and his wife, Marilyn, had four children, who live in various places in California and Texas.
impending rapid plunge. Dad sat behind us and after a long but fast trip down the slide and over the ice, he would pull the ropes and toss us off, spinning atop the frozen river. We thought this was an adventure, but he was saving a long walk home: The dumping of the bodies took place at the foot of Brandon Avenue! The Red River is vital to the great prairie of Manitoba, the Dakotas and Minnesota and provides great links between the two countries as well as many disputes. It floods regularly and is different from most rivers in North America in that it flows north from Lake Traverse in South Dakota, its source, to Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba. It's a vital support of farming, invaluable to wildlife and dangerous in flood times because of the low-lying lands on both sides, but a pleasure to us as children. Off to the U.S. It was part of Dad's work to present the six-horse Clydesdale team at key horse shows of the time. The Toronto Winter Fair and the Chicago Livestock Exposition seemed to be the most significant, and the Shea Team won more than others in the competitions. August A. Busch Jr., son of the owner of Anheuser-Busch breweries in St. Louis, Missouri, also was a competitor - and he had a magnificent vision of what the Clydesdales could mean for his business. Prohibition, that era in American history when the production and sale of alcohol was banned, ended in 1933, and Anheuser-Busch was looking for a new advertising symbol that would strike a chord with the thirsty public. A longtime fan of Clydesdale horses, Mr. Busch came to Winnipeg, to discuss a deal with Patrick Shea: He wanted to buy his complete cam. The deal included the horses, the harness and the wagon, and he offered the job of driver-trainer at the stable in St. Louis to Dad. It's said that he did this not only because of Dad's training and driving skills, but because the team had been trained to respond to a soft whistle from him- and Mr. Busch had not mastered the code! Dad had some initial misgivings about accepting the offer to replace the respected and well-known driver Billy Wales at the St. Louis stable. \"Every person that comes into the barn gives me different instructions about the team,\" he complained. \"They know nothing of horses and I don't want their advice,\" Mr. Busch guaranteed him one boss and complete
authority with the horses. They struck a deal without putting anything in writing. We were moving to St. Louis! The excitement of packing for the move included us children getting underfoot while others were working. We spent many happy moments daydreaming about the train trip that would take us many, many miles to a new country. We were too young to share the emotions our parents felt about leaving their adopted country, friends and family; those feelings were yet to be learned. We kids shared an upper bunk on the train and found the adventure marvelous - something like a private cave with a curtain, ladder and secret light to read by. The sound of the steward calling people to dinner in the dining car is a lingering memory. Our first house in St. Louis was a small collage on the Busch grounds near the stable, the only structure still standing in its location on Pestalozzi Street. Later we lived in a flat on Arsenal Street where we had an enormous back porch suitable for outdoor sleeping in the hot July months. (Air conditioning was not even in our vocabulary at that stage.) Benton Park was a block away and many people sought refuge from the heat by sleeping on the grass there, a thought that would undoubtedly strike terror in our hearts today! Our icebox kept food fresh, and Mom placed a sign in the window each day to indicate what size block was needed. We always knew when the iceman had delivered it by the trail of drops along the sidewalk and stairs. Near the end of summer, neighbor ladies joined forces to make apple butter in huge, bubbling tubs in the backyards. The porches were packed with women canning the stuff as it boiled up. It seemed that Morris and I were forever watching children leave for school, walking along Salinas Street in happy groups while we were stuck at home. It also seemed that whenever we were doing what little boys do - sometimes just staring into space.- one parent or the other was apt to suggest that we find a book to read, or at least to look at. At long last, however, it was Morris' turn to sec me leave for school. On that first day, I donned new grey short pants, tucked a crayon box in my hip pocket and walked with Mom to Fremont School, about four blocks away. The trip seemed a great distance at the time. A lasting memory of the flat on Arsenal Street is the afternoon Dad borrowed a pair of Clydesdales from the stable to hoist our newly purchased piano up the staircase to the second floor. He had concocted a fascinating rope and pulley system. While the horses pulled on the rope,
Fred and a friend moved boards for the piano to slide upward on. Imagine: two Clydesdales, each weighing about a fon, hoisting that heavy piano up the stairs with nary a drop of sweat or deep breath! For reasons never explained to us, we moved from Arsenal Street to a house nearer the stable, but it was in the same school district. Our new street had a streetcar with an overhead trolley line, and the trolley more often than not slipped off the line as the car made a turn in front of our house. Rain or shine, the conductor had to leave his seat and replace the trolley while passengers waited. The streetlamps were still fitted with apertures for gas light, which had been the norm in the city until the early 1930s. Morris and I walked to school (though neither of us really wanted to walk with the other!), and the major landmark on the way was the McNair Theater. We both tried hard to memorize the stories of the films as described on the billboards Outside the movie house. Our motive for that was to invent reasons why the parents should let us go see a film on Friday Night or Saturday afternoon with a Tarzan or Tom Mix short feature, Mom did not like movies, but we learned a valuable secret: She liked getting free stuff. The Friday night movie tickets included a free piece of kitchenware, and that helped us convince her to let us go Even so, we could stay only for the first feature because of bedtime. Our Deep Scottish Roots \"The Haxtons are a \"sept\" of the Keith Clan. A sept is a family related to a clan or a larger family, an association created through marriages or for other reasons, such as land deals or a small family's need for protection and security5. The political turmoil that is Scotland's heritage added to this process and often stimulated disputes over principals as well as land. The first legendary Keith Clan leader was Robert, whose brave deeds during a Viking invasion resulted in the King of Scotland bestowing the title of \"Knight Marischal\" upon him. No disparagement is intended in referring to this obvious honor and distinction, but the position did come 5 A ll clans have a unique tartan that members of the clan are entitled to wear. Some septs, such as ours, have their own Tartans and can wear either, usually depending upon the occasion
with some unwelcome consequences for the holder, such as carly death and dismemberment. Over decades of infighting and wars, a succession of Marischals led the charge, and this perhaps accounts for history showing a tendency for short lives rather than long ones. The list of clari chiefs is long; the current chief is the Earl of Kintore. How We Got Our Name In medieval times, people's names derived from the work they did. The records are somewhat vague, but it seems certain that the Haxton name (like so many came from someone who was named a falconer for the king. Names came to be altered over time by changes in work and changes in pronunciation. Thus the names Falconer and Faulkner arose. The land on which my early ancestors lived came to be known as Hawkerstoun, meaning perhaps \"hawkers village.\" In any case, the names Hackston, Hawkerston and Haxton were in the derivative chain of things and always associated with the Keith Clan and with dairy farming. Over time, the name morphed into Hackston, then the more Anglicized Haxton. So, from the time of David of criminal fame (see his story below), the name Hackston and later Halkerston were probably interchangeable. Variants crept into the language; Haxton became common in Fifeshire. One of the major difficulties in tracing all of this with precision is that a good supply of clan documents was burned in the Castle at Rathillet in 1679. The \"First David\" and the Dirty Deed I cannot recall when I heard of the \"first David\" in the family, but it was at an early age and I heard his tale many times. David Halkerston entered the history books by a dastardly deed alleged to be patriotic. Many stories were repeated with reference only to memory or repetition and the tales were perhaps embellished a bit, but from books and records we learn a good bit about David from his trial and conviction in 1680 on the charge of murdering Archbishop James Sharp. There is strong evidence that others actually did the dirty deed, but ridding the country of David seemed a priority of the authorities.6 6
In brief, the story of David Halkerston is this. He was a strong believer that Scotland needed a church of its own and freedom from the domination of England and its authorities, especially that of the Church of England and its hierarchy. His group desired a reformation such as had occurred in England a few generations earlier, but without the structure imposed. Archbishop Sharp had been heavily in the service of the king in establishing the Episcopal Church in England and Scotland. David was a Covenanter of the Scottish Church and a somenter of home rule. He and his fellow Covenanters could not accept that anyone, king or otherwise, could be the head of a Christian church. David was a leader and easily persuaded people to consider the views of the Covenanters, a name arising from the Covenant they claimed with God. They met in open fields for worship and discussion of critical issues, including village life. Such gatherings were, of course, replete with criticism of the established authority and thus frowned on by the government and the establishment church, which was itself suffering the throes of change. Archbishop Sharp, reported to have earlier been a Presbyterian or perhaps even a Covenanter, had joined the Church of England and was a principal in the effort to rid Scotland of the Covenanters and restore order and respect for the establishment. A number of allegations of bad character are made of him, though difficult to substantiate. According to Magnus Magnusson, Covenanters considered him \"Judas Incarnate.\" As most records tell it, on May 3, 1679, Sharp was completing a journey fronti Edinburgh to his home near St. Andrews with his daughter and servants. Just after leaving the village of Magus Muir, a band of riders including David came after him. (The band, led by David's brother-in-law John Balfour, was actually after the Sheriff of Fise, but were happy to have found a more important enemy) They stabbed the archbishop and, as he begged for his life, hacked at him until he was dead. It seems that David did not participate in the killing, but neither did he try to stop it. At a Keith Clan Association reception in North Carolina in 1989, a person eyeing my badge seemed started to see the name and immediately referred to the Covenanter and his reputation!
After some weeks of searching, authorities tracked down Balfour and Halkerston. Balfour died in the lighting, but David was captured and sentenced to a horrible death. First, his hands were cut off; then he was hung, drawn and quartered. For some days, his body was left in public as an example to others, It's said that followers took away one of his hands and that it adorns a tombstone at Rathillet in Fifeshire. David had no known children and there is no evidence that he married. His brother John did, however, and the family continued farming (and occasionally fighting, of course), and their descendents were associated with Rathillet for many years thereafter. A street in Edinburgh, Halkerston's Wynd, was named either after him or John. Someone has said that we exist as long as someone remembers us. The problem in this case is that the records have awkward gaps and are not collected as well as one might desire. So recalling more about more ancestors is compelling but limited. A table of family names gives an impression of people who lived in difficult circumstances, with glimpses from time to time of suggestions that some of them went to exotic places and did unique things. Helenus Halkerston, David's great-nephew, introduced the family name this way in 1772: \"This family is of the greatest antiquity and the name local, from their lands of Halkerston in the south of Scotland, which they have been in possession of long before surnames came to be used. It seems that they have been generally much about the Court, where they were emulous to distinguish themselves for their erudition, as well as for their integrity and loyalty.* Perhaps a bit colorful, but he was not, I suppose, immune to making an easy enough thing look better. Most references mention the family name in association with activities in Dunfermline, Auchtermuchty, Kinross and Rosyth, names familiar to me from listening to Dad talk about his youth and the family. References A History of Scotland, J.D. Mackie, Dorsett Press, 1964, pages 234. ct al. Family Records of Vital Statistics with particular reference to the files of the Fife Family History Society
Halkerston Family Coat of arms. see littp://clan.com/clans.html. History of the Halkerson/Hackston Family of That Ilk, Donald Hackston, 1987 Haxton Genealogy and Allied Lines, C. Vale Mayes and Bertha Clark, 1979, SN 78-7005, Miran Publishers, Fort Worth, Texas. Letter from Scottish Tartan Society and letter from Lesley Hackston (confirming entitlement to use the Haxton Tartan). June 22, 1994, Manitoba Free Press, May 4, 1928, Winnipeg, Canada. Missouri Historical Society, June 2004 (regarding electric lights in St. Louis) Old Mortality, Walter Scott, Chapter 4 regarding David and the murder of Archbishop Sharp) Personal correspondence of Morris J. Haxton and Duncan Haughey, with much appreciation and thanks. Scotland: The Story of a Nation, Magnus Magnusson, Grove Press, New York, 2000, Some Old Stories: A Contribution to Genealogical History of Scotland, Hardy Bertram McCall, Birmingham, U.K. Printed for private circulation, Watson and Ball, 1890. (Copy #70), the Family of Halkerston. \"The Falconer/Falconar/Faulkner Sept of Clan Keith,\" Keith & Kin, Second Quarter, 2002 The Hills of Home: A History of the Municipality of Thompson (Manitoba), Centennial Commission, D.W. Friesen & Sons, 1967. The History of Scotland, Peter Fry and Fiona Somerset Fry, Barnes & Noble, New York, 1995 The Leader, Spotlight on People, September 13, 1978, Carman, Manitoba, Canada. The Surnames of Scotland: Origin, Meaning and History, George F. Black, New York Public Library, Readex Books. Winnipeg Evening Tribune, May 4, 1928, Winnipeg, Canada.
Chapter 2 Growing Up \"... and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.. . Henry Wadsworth Longfellow for members of my generation, the pictures in our heads of the Great Depression are permanent, though I enjoyed a childhood more fortunate than many. Even a child could sense the terrible situation into which many people had fallen in the 1930s, the toll it took on everyday people. It left impressions on me that remain: long lines of proud people seeking help at churches and government offices; factory buildings standing empty with windows broken; people, men mostly, canvassing neighborhoods for daily work. \"Have a piece of bread and butter\" was Mom's response when we asked for a snack between meals. We moaned and complained, but were reminded of the people who could not have cven that. And there were many. Two or three a week came by the house looking for food or work. Mom or Dad always tried to give them something to do: washing windows, cutting grass, shoveling coal, chopping wood. But in any case, there was always a pot of soup on the stove and no one left without a container of it. We noticed this, of course, but it did not register until later what was really happening. No one should have to beg for food, and no one should denigrate those who have to beg for food. Later in life I was to wonder why poverty is considered a virtue ... until one has it. Then, it was viewed as a self inflicted wound. In addition to the unemployed from local industry, St. Louis attracted uprooted farmers from the South and West who had lost everything because of the economic crash and the \"Dust Bowl\" that plagued the rich lands. The lush and magnificent grasslands that had been a staple for centuries were plowed under as the demand for wheat grew and herds got larger with the demand for meat. When the drought hit, the result was disastrous.
Trapped in Despair Along the Mississippi River bank near high stone bluffs, railroad tracks led from the bridges in downtown St. Louis some miles away to destinations in the South of the country. Our house was high on the bluff with a large park separating us from the water. The right-of-way for the trains was a narrow strip between the bottom of the bluff and a sloping bit of land on the river side. We could only see or hear the trains from the top of the bluff, so as kids do, Morris and I often climbed down. Between the tracks and the river, hundreds of families lived in self-erected shelters of cardboard and discarded sheet metal, a sight I was to see much too often later in life in the outskirts of major cities elsewhere. Our walks along the tracks were a child's adventure. The people who were forced to live there had to put up with the noise, the dirt and the danger. I guess some got away from the slum for some work, but they didn't make enough to move out or do so swiftly. Access to public transportation was difficult and distant. We were sad to see these people and speculated about whether the children had to go to school and where they got water. We were glad we did not to live there. The feeling might have been more about being scared. Morris and I picked up odd bits of coal along the tracks and used them to perfect our pitching arms at posts and trees. We stopped that practice when we came to realize that the children who lived nearby were picking up the discarded coal and taking it home to use for heat and cooking. We heard grownups talk about unemployment and hard times,\" but even those Lerms meant little to us. We had a home, and the icebox was always full. Dad had a job the entire time. We were read to, and when Dad came home in the evening, we kids sat on the floor in front of the table-mounted Philco radio and listened to \"Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy\" and \"Amos 'n' Andy\" Dad smoked his pipe in his chair, and then we had dinner. On special days, we ate in the dining room; otherwise, in the kitchen. Our Cub Scout troop met in our basement and Mom was den mother. Fred and Dorothy went off to jobs, and Morris and I filled our days with school and play. Around Town on a Dime St. Louis has many interesting features, most arising from its placement on the west bank of the Mississippi River where early settlers started a fur
trading post. It prospered under the French who founded it, the Spanish who later had control, and then the French again until President Jefferson negotiated the Louisiana Purchase. St. Louis was a thriving city with a multi-ethnic population that gave the city character and flavor, making it an attraction to many. French, German, and Italian neighborhoods sprang up in different areas. The French settled in mid-city and near North St. Louis, Germans made their homes in the south and northern fringe; Italians populated the city's western edge. As Missouri grew and became a state, the boundaries of the city were set with the river on the east and St. Louis County on the west, thus making it a \"city not in a county.\" This forced St. Louis into an elliptical shape: narrow north and south; wide in the center east to west. We always lived in South St. Louis, at first near the Anheuser-Busch stables so Dad could walk to work, then farther south in a totally different neighborhood. On a Saturday or Sunday, I thought it was good fun to spend a dime and take a streetcar trip. I would pick a particular line and ride it from one end to the other, watching the people and getting a close-up view of the many neighborhoods - from Baden in the north where the street names and signs were in German; to \"The Hill,\" where the large and productive Italian immigrant community was centered; to the black communities with their exciting street scenes; to South St Louis where we lived. As long as you stayed on the streetcar, or got a transfer ticket, there was no extra charge to make the roundtrip. One Saturday I got off the car at the Watch Tower in faraway North St. Louis (which might well have been a foreign country to a child from South St. Louis!) and was distracted with some event or other in the park surrounding the tower. When I looked up, my streetcar was gone and I had no transfer. Much worse than that, I had no money. Begging was out of the question, so I walked all the way home. It took most of the afternoon. Throughout our teens, we relied on streetcars, buses and bikes to get around because few had access to a car. Most of the ventures ended at Tower Grove Park or Carondelet Park, where we could watch \"big kids\" play softball. When we were older, we played there, too. We took full advantage of bicycles to explore places and streets and other neighborhoods, all-day adventures requiring lunch bags and jugs of water. We spent a lot of time looking for streets that were level or had downhill slopes, a losing effort.
At Roosevelt High School I belonged to a group (not quite a \"gang\") that formed teams for softball and touch football. We called it the Pirates Athletic Club, and we conducted our football scrimmages in an open space at Tower Grove Park that got the moniker of \"The Toilet Bowl.\" That added a social panache to our endeavors comparable to imagined and elegantly named \"bowls\" in far-off places we heard about on the radio. The Pirates held meetings in the loft of an old livery stable, and we had a moment of glory when the popular national radio show \"Vox Pop\"7 chose the stable for one of its broadcasts. Adventuring Family outings consisted of trips to Towa to see friends who lived on farms, visits to the St. Louis Zoo in Forest Park, and picnics in a local park. The live music we enjoyed at the park also gave jobs to unemployed musicians, subsidized through grants to education and culture. We also took a trip or two across the river to Illinois to look at Mound City, the ruins of a settlement of people who had inhabited the area hundreds of years earlier, The summer drives to Iowa were hot and tiring for us in the backseat. But the adults seemed just fine, sitting up front with the windows rolled all the way down. The road we took had one lane each way, and there were deep ditches on both sides to help break the snow drifts in winter and handle water runoff the rest of the year. The highways had no bypasses around towns and cities, but they did have \"Burma Shave\" signs with their humorous pitches, My favorite was: \"They kissed at the turn / the car was whizzin’ / the fault was her’n’ / the funeral hizzen” The last stretch to the farm was a dirt road, and if it had rained or was raining, we had to follow the ruts in a jagged, toss-and-bounce motion the last few miles, At home, Morris and I kept ourselves entertained with games such as playing cork ball in the alleyway that ran behind houses. While the alley was narrow, it did not hinder the game because we used bottle caps instead of balls. (We were being thrifty! The balls cost money, but we got the caps for free from soda boxes at stores and filling stations.) Roller skating was a fun activity, too, but confined to the sidewalk because the 7 \"Vox Pop\" was a sidewalk radio quiz show made popular by Parks Johnson and Wally Butterworth on NBC
cobblestone streets were a hindrance. And in any case, the adults in our family spent a lot of time telling us how dangerous it was. Mom didn't want us to get hurt; just as much, she didn't want us to damage our clothes. At some point, I had worked up the courage to suggest that wearing short pants to school was embarrassing. Surprisingly, she agreed and bought me some over-the-knee knickers with matching long socks. It was what the boys were wearing at Fremont Grade School and gave me quite the \"growing-up\" feeling. However, admonitions were regular about damage. Scuffing a knee in falls was one thing putting a hole in the pants was quite another. Mom never changed. Years later, when I fell down a flight of stairs almost head over heels, she came to the upper door, saw me in a pile, and asked, \"Are you hurt? Did you break your glasses?\" During the summer, our folks would sit on the front porch with neighbors to escape the heat of the house. Those hot evenings, Morris and I had the task of trotting off to the corner saloon with a tin bucket for some beer. We walked that becket home very slowly to make sure the foam stayed on and the beer didn't slosh out. We sneaked a taste from time to time, taking care to wipe the evidence off our faces before we got home. During those sultry months we were more fearful of polio than at other times, Going to public swimming pools was frowned upon and done with great caution. Newspapers were regular informants of tragedies befalling people with polio, replete with photos of victims - usually young people - in horrible contraptions called iron lungs. We read of Dr. Salk and his vaccine experiments and later of Dr. Sabin8. We also read of the work of Sister Kenny of Australia (who we thought to be a nun until our parents made us to understand that \"sister\" was a designation for \"nurse\"!). The Gentle Giants From the time I was about 10 until nearly through high school, I spent a great deal of time at the Anheuser-Busch stable with Dad and the horses. I didn't have a job at the time, of course, and it is only now that I understand how fortunate I was to gain entry to that wondrous world. I 8 I was privileged to meet both of them later; Dr. Salk in Bombay, India, where we shared the podium at the Indian Association of Pediatrics; Dr. Sabin in Peru and Brazil.
watched the men braid the Clydesdales' manes with artificial flowers and long rolls of crepe, polish and fit the harness, and hitch up six or eight of these majestic, perfectly groomed animals to a team. I still gulp a little when I see the Budweiser Team. Clydesdales originated in Ayrshire and Lanarkshire, Scotland, developed from a breed that was in great demand in the Middle Ages as warhorses, prized for their size, stamina and courage. Knights rode them into battle, the horses as well as the riders clad in protective armor.9 Between wars and as the mode of warfare changed, Clydesdales were used widely in farming and hauling. Cities were growing, and improved freight and hauling services were needed to serve them. Animals in teams began to be used to open new land and make existing acreage more productive. As the migration of people increased to places like the U.S., Canada and New Zealand, many took their animals with them. When he first arrived in Canada, my father was able to parlay his Clydesdale into revenue through breeding services and farm help before gaining a position with Shea's in Ottawa. The Clydesdale is a formidable force in full trot, with high-stepping feet and flying mane. Each weighs about a ton and wears shoes made from 12-inch bars of steel.10 But as enormous and powerful as they are people who work with these horses know them for the gentle giants they really are, and I can attest to that. Dad always held the view that if a Clydesdale stepped on someone; it was usually that person's own fault. I never felt afraid to walk into a stall with one on a halter at the trough. But I was careful to heed Dad's advice. First, he said, you need to talk to them so they know that you are there, and then you touch them firmly so they know exactly where you are (since they have to turn their heads to sec things). Second, you do not interrupt them when they're feeding. 9 A steed that could still gallop with that load was a treasure, but it was no simple matter for a knight in armor to mount an armored horse. Much help was needed, often including a mounting ramp. 10 As children we thought it fun to try to play with discarded horse shoes, but they were just too heavy to toss very far! We did have a pair from a champion horse, however, plated and framed at home.
A special experience was traveling with the eight-horse team to the Illinois State Fair in Springfield in a railroad car that was especially fitted for the horses. In the exhibition ring at the fair, the thundering team would trot around the show ring and do figure-eights with Dad at the controls. Standing at the ringside rail, I found it all quite breathtaking. Sometimes Dad let me ride on the wagon during these exhibition drives. I had to sit still, stay quiet, and lean back almost prone when he made a sharp right turti. A Sicilian donkey was a pet of the team and Sam the Dalmatian rode on the wagon. It made me feel very important when I was asked to help attend thein. Being able to spend time with Dad (and to be underfoot, to be sure) helped me gain a better sense of who he was. Observing him at his work, watching how he related to others and they to him, and hearing how they spoke about him gave me a good picture of the man. He was kind and considerate, often absentminded. He always had a story to tell, and most usually the tale was pertinent to what was happening or being discussed. He used the technique of storytelling a lot. Sometimes, it deflected problems but mostly it illustrated essential points in telling or humorous ways. He was generous and could always locate a penny or two for a treat. Dad held strong views on social equity and fairness. Too, he held strong views on how the horses should be treated, how they should be used and not exploited. He often ignored us if he was busy hitching the team and talking lo the horses. He said to do otherwise would confuse the animal. The Busch family built the stable on their property in the 19th century to accommodate the horses and wagons they used for personal transportation. It was large enough to comfortably house the 10 to 15 animals that were on hand at any one time. There was also an exercise track, and the team was hitched and driven around it daily for an hour or so. I was allowed to play in the hayloft of the stable, where I could look down on the remarkable spectacle of the horses being fitted with their enormous steel shoes. The last mansion on the estate was destroyed in the mid-1930s,11 but the magnificent stable with its stained glass ceiling still stands today, a National Historic Landmark. 11 The mansions came down to make room for the inevitable expansion of the brewery and because younger members of the Busch family had moved to the suburbs.
Listening In Clues to how children learn things seem obvious now. A whole professional study is devoted to the subject and properly so, there is no better social and personal investment to make than in assuring that every child has access to learning and the opportunity to achieve his or her potential. Still, I suspect that children today are like we were: We never noticed how we learned nor that we were learning from nearly everything we did, heard or observed. We noticed, for example, when adult talk had changed - when the tone had become serious or confidential. Discussions of job loss, for instance, were always a bit circumspect and the tone somber, When my parents knew the people who lost jobs, there was also a certain tone that implied bad luck and uncertainty about how to help them. They also talked of the events taking place in faraway Europe and Asia, using tones of alarm and worry about how it would affect loved ones there, or us here. Opinions about neighborhood matters were usually offered in muffled voices - so as to shield us from the temptation to spread gossip! It was considered bad form to gossip, and penalties were swift if we let something slip that we had overheard. Idle gossip was frowned on. Children also learn by sorting out the explanations adults give in answering a question. Sometimes the response is short, usually implying impatience or attempts to deflect; sometimes it is long, perhaps in an attempt to obfuscate! The answers my parents gave were often accompanied by tales from the past and personal experiences, which made things fun and added a sense of adventure and desire to learn more. In any event, I came to realize much later in life that children already have learned a good deal before they even start school. By the age of 6 they have learned about hierarchy, negotiating and making appeals, how to talk and communicate their wants; and basic mathematics and physics. Perhaps primary school might best be described as a long-term practice ground for refining, ordering and embedding the essentials. Dad was a great influence on us, frequently making comments about the importance of learning. It was more important to fill your head with good stuff, he said, than to be overly concerned with how much money you
made. He held the view, simplistically put, that what one learned was a value for life; what one eamed might be temporary. He prodded us to read, and I'm so glad he did. Taking refuge in books opened new worlds to think about and made faraway places and events more real and somehow closer. They opened vistas and made me wonder about things. Many years later, when I had the opportunity to travel and work in Central Asia and Mongolia, I said a silent thank-you to Marco Polo, who had walked through that part of the world, and to Roy Chapman Andrews, whose explorer books I enjoyed as a lad. I read to find out who I was, and in the search developed a sense that what I was inside was private and what I needed was to be \"normal\" outside. The reserved, almost puritanical, stances of Mom and Dad reinforced my tendency to be reserved and, as a result, people took me to be a bit more stoic than I really was. Separated by Race White people and black people lived in separate areas of St. Louis during the 1930s and '40s, and because children went to schools in their own neighborhoods, we saw sew black children and they saw few of us. This racial separation was not a point of any discussion in any crowd to which I belonged. It was considered the norm and \"had always been that way.\" Perhaps it seemed normal because St. Louis was made up of separate ethnic neighborhoods - the \"Italian section,\" \"German South St. Louis,\" etc. There was racial tension in the city from time to time, and that tension filtered through to us as teenagers, but I do not recall much about the topic when younger. As we talked among ourselves and in discussion groups in high school, no one seemed to care whether high schools should admit students regardless of race. No one I knew was opposed to the idea; it just didn't seem realistic. Going to school in your own neighborhood was the way it was. We were not clear about how neighborhoods were formed; they just were there. I'm not suggesting there was no prejudice, segregation or \"separateness.\" There was. We saw it at baseball games and at movie houses, in local stores and barbershops, and on the playgrounds. To our shame, we saw it but did not react - I think we did not recognize it for what it was: blatant social discrimination and unjust. We did little except talk about it, I guess,
because we did not know personally how hurtful the separateness was. The issue became more in focus for me after I entered the Army. To the credit of St. Louis, religious leaders undertook to suggest a plan for undoing the decades of separateness and a process for starting integration in the schools. By that time I was gone from the city. Civil rights leaders took their cue from this approach - not without some turmoil, but with a determined effort. The design meant a 12-year span to correct the situation. Too long ! Work, Work, Work! Everyone had chores at our house. I helped unroll the clothes line while Dad stretched it between posts in the backyard. When I became tall enough to reach the hook on the post, a \"promotion followed and Dad found other tasks to do. On some wash days, I helped Mom feed larger items through the hand-operated wringer on the washing machine - not neatly, but with persistence! We could have had milk delivered to our door, but Mom held the opinion that the product from the dairy store a block and a half away was better, so I became the family milk man. With a canvas bag, I trotted off each morning before school and brought back two bottles of milk. Cleaning up the dinner dishes was a job split between Morris and me. He washed; I dried. Later, I cut the grass and parlayed that technique into rather lucrative after-school and Saturday work around the neighborhood - 50 cents to mow a lawn, 75 cents if I also trimmed the edges. The real money maker, however, was in scrubbing porches. Many feel that in South St. Louis, people are happiest when they find something to scrub and clean. Front and back porches were mostly made of cement, and scrubbing them was the preferred method of cleaning. I made a dollar for each large porch, 75 cents for smaller ones. I furnished the pail, scrub brush and squeegee. The scrubbing was hands and knees work; the drying was stand-up. I was no different from any other teenager. I always needed money. Throughout those years, I worked various jobs. Dad gave me a modest allowance when I was at the stable (though I'm not really clear what I did for it). I sold newspapers on the corner near our house. In summer I sold watermelons, breaking too many of them for the owner's liking. Some in
my group worked at Speth Electric Company, where I had an afterschool job for some years repairing armatures for automobiles. Fred worked with Dad and the horses. Dorothy worked in a factory that made wooden heels for women's shoes. During a sit-down strike at her factory, I was assigned the task of taking her lunch, wrapped in waxed paper and placed in a pail. Dorothy dropped a line with a hook on it from her window on the second floor, I attached the hook to the bucket, and she hoisted it up. This kind of work stoppage was common in St. Louis at the time. Trade unions were being formed. Social legislation covering a range of matters was under vigorous debate. I recall wondering what the National Recovery Act poster with its soaring eagle picture was doing in the barber shop. A Christmas Adventure We always had a dog at home. While Dad had an affinity for animals, mostly horses, Mom was a dog lover. She especially liked fox terriers,12 but she was also attracted to Sam, the Dalmatian mascot of Dad's Clydesdale team. One Christmas morning, after discovering that Sam would be spending the holiday at the stable (though assured that he would be very comfortable in his own box stall), she sent me there with clear orders to bring him to our house so he wouldn't be lonely. I got Sam on a leash, and the big dog proceeded to drag me home. At the door, I undid the leash and he plunged into the living room with long tail waving wildly in excitement. This made short work of the Christmas tree. Then he moved to the dining room, where he wreaked considerable damage to the table for the holiday meal. That did it. Mom ordered Sam back to the stable, and away he and I went once I could get the leash on him again. Our childhood was happy. We were not rich, but had no concept of being poor or deprived or \"middle\" or any other class. We played, listened to Dad tell stories, attended school and studied, had adventures. Some evenings, our entertainment was listening to music from the player piano. Or one of the parents would wind up the record player, the music first coming out of cylinders and later flat disks, all fragile. 12 M ost of the fox terriers we had were named \"Buster\" or \"Mitzy, depending on their sex.
Reis Department Store was one of Mom's favorite places to shop. It was a one-story dry goods store with a large number of tables, each piled high with various kinds of clothing, Mr. Reis offered free trimming of the pants, which were always too long. But the fascinating thing for me about the store was the contraption the two clerks used to send money to the cashier and get receipts back on the return trip. It was a round container on a wire, and after the clerks had stuffed cash into it and sealed it, they would give a healthy pull on the cord and away it flew to the cage where the cashier sat. I thought that was just grand. I used my wagon to tote groceries home from the neighborhood store. In most weather, vegetables and fruits were displayed in outside bins, and there were live chickens and geese in small metal cages where customers could inspect them. Early on in my school days, I became fascinated with foreign lands. In geography classes. I made it my task to look up what form of government each country had and the name of the current ruler. I guess that was the start of a lifelong interest in world affairs and how things work internationally. Of course, I did not know In primary school the differences between governments with kings or generals or emperors, but I did know where they were and what their names were. Mom Sets the Rules It did not occur to me until much later that perhaps all of the travel that Dad did with the Budweiser horses had an effect on Morris and me. I suppose that it did, but it is hard to say just what it might be. We took it as normal that Dad had to travel and that Mom had to stay home. We did not spend a lot of time contemplating the influences that had on our behavior or demeanor. Surely it had an effect on Mom, who was never an outgoing person at best. It must have been very trying for her to be single handedly in charge of raising us and managing the house and community activities as well, especially so since she never seemed happy at moving to St. Louis.13 I spent a good bit of time looking for ways to penetrate the rules that she laid out, usually in a casual, often arbitrary fashion. The basics were solid: Don't lie, don't steal, don't cheat, be polite. But those messages on what to do and how to do them often seemed to thwart our efforts to become 13 After Dad retired, they moved back to Canada. Both he and Mom lived into their 90s and are buried in Carman, Manitoba.
part of something beyond the family circle. It was okay to play sports, but Mom had no interest in the game or its outcome. It was okay to seek and have friends, but they were judged by her strange (we thought) ways of sizing up people. The long separations did not, I hasten to add, have much effect on her cooking Meals were always the same - for better or for worse - whether Dad was home or not. I do not recall being cager about Mom's cooking, Dad, because he was who he was, praised it highly. We had other views. I laughed a lot - out loud, everi - at things I thought were humorous but that others didn't. Too often, what I saw as funny didn't tickle Mom or Dad at all, and the differences between us got me in trouble more than once I kept other emotions pretty much to myself and developed ways to keep a lot inside. It seemed better not to express some things and equally important to be clear when I felt strongly about anything. A lot of who we are seems defined by how others perceive us. Inside, I was bashful and shy and not sure of many things. To others i was an extravert. In the teen years, this became particularly acute, I wanted to be popular and accepted, but that required things I could not do- or do well - such as dancing and asking for dates. No one seemed interested that I had good report cards and spent my time in the library. I found it hard to seek dancing lessons, and only learned to dance much later in life. I've always regretted the lost time. To compensate, in a way, I made it my thing to memorize all of the words to the popular songs of the day, something no one else seemed interested in doing. St. Louis was a home of jazz and I carne to like the sounds and later to appreciate the special music that it is. Mom, contrary to her reactions to many other things, actually liked to watch jitterbugging. She thought it was just great. The Gathering Storm The U.S. pulled out of the Depression as war heated up in Europe and the demand for armaments and food products increased. President Roosevelt and his teams had inaugurated a literal alphabet soup of programs to stimulate the economy, put people to work, and develop a safety net against future such calamities. FDR was in the White House so long that many grew up feeling he was our only president ever!
My family's deep links to Scotland and England made our household a bit more concerned about the situation unfolding in Europe. We overheard the grownups talking about Hitler, Chamberlain, Munich, the invasion of Poland, mobilization in Britain and Canada. And at the end of each day, we listened to the news on the radio, Tuning in Edward R. Murrow's Sunday evening broadcasts from London soon became a regular event. Father Coughlin had a weekly radio program that broadcast his views on \"America First.\" Dad dumped him when he began to rank more as a rabble rouser fundamentalist than a solid observer and commentator. A couple of these irrational fundamentalists seem to arise every decade or so, They never have a proposal for change to the good, only claims of disaster for what others are thinking or doing. For the most part, they depend on the support of the uninformed and unread. There was reported activity of the German American Bund and the America First Party, but those groups did not get as much traction in the large population of people of German extraction. In 1940, Mom, Morris and I took a Greyhound bus from St. Louis to visit friends in Manitoba. At the border authorities advised us that, if we continued, any non U.S. citizens might not be able to get back in the country. That was a problem for Mom. Though Dad had become a U.S. citizen the year before (which also conferred citizenship on Morris and me), she was still a Canadian citizen. We couldn't take a chance. So we waited for the next bus and returned to St. Louis. Our link to relatives in England and Scotland was a periodic exchange of letters that reinforced the news of gas mask drills, food rationing and the evacuation of children from London to avoid German bomb raids. We learned of relatives being conscripted into the Canadian Army, two of whom later survived the Canadian British expedition to Dunkirk, a precursor by some years of the Normandy invasion. Mom and Dad were in Chicago at the annual livestock show and Dorothy was taking care of Morris and me at home on December 7, 1941, when we heard the frightening news that Pearl Harbor had been attacked. We had a telephone, but it was a party line, and we had to wait our turn to place a long-distance call to the folks. We later learned that were doing the same thing. The U.S. was now at war. Gasoline, poultry, meat, eggs and cooking oil were all rationed, and everyone got a ration book. Purchases were limited by the number of coupons in the book based on age, occupation and
whether you lived in the city or out in the country. Fred joined the Marines in January 1942 and left for the Pacific. Dad and the Anheuser-Busch team shifted from exhibition drives to delivering beer14 as a gesture to save gasoline. To speed the delivery of mail between families on the home front and loved ones overseas, the government put into effect a new mode of messaging called \"Victory Mail\" that involved microfilm processing first used in Britain. We joined civilian defense groups and spent a couple of evenings a month monitoring the neighborhood in practice \"blackouts,\" a job that gave teenagers a voice to tell adults to close their curtains more securely! We also spent a few hours a month at city hall studying airplane silhouettes so we could tell the good guys from the bad. Every few months there was a drive of some sort – collecting aluminum pots and pans for recycling, metal scraps for steel manufacturing, clothing for war victims. People who had a bit of land grew Victory Gardens/ Victims of the terrible sea warfare that raged in the Atlantic included a shipment of Clydesdales ordered by Mr. Busch. Their ship was torpedoed and sank, with the loss of crew and horses. Dad normally went on those buying trips, but this time he did not. The disaster was a major element in Mr. Busch's later decision to begin breeding his own horses in the U.S. A Wrenching Move When I was in high school, Dad and Mr. Busch had a falling-out over some aspect of the work with the horses. The reasons are obscure, but the impact was clear: Dad lost his job. He was quickly hired by a breeder in Downingtown, Pennsylvania, however, and we moved there to Lanes End Farm about 20 miles outside of town. I recall that Dad had to appeal for additional gasoline rations to make the long drive. It was a social upheaval for Morris and me, two teenagers forced to leave behind longtime friends and move across the continent. But we adjusted and became integrated into our new surroundings rather more easily than expected. Our new school was a smaller place than Roosevelt High in St. Louis, so we were each able to get involved a bit more than before. I was never much good at sports, but I tried out for football and made the team. What I most enjoyed, though, was the debating team. We won 14 ..as was done before the advent of the automobile
competitions throughout eastern Pennsylvania.15 Much of my free time on the farm was spent painting things - the house, both inside and out - and Mom always seemed to find more things. I have hated that chore since. One memorable highlight during our time on the East Coast was a car trip to Atlantic City and my first look at the Atlantic Ocean. I joined the Army right out of high school and was sent off to Fort Dix, New Jersey, for basic training and then NCO school. Immediately after graduation, 1 shipped out to Japan. The journey included a brief stop in the Philippines, where Manila was still recovering from the war. Though the city had escaped being bombed, having been declared an \"open city,\" there was considerable damage and destruction, mostly from infantry and artillery fire. I was assigned to the 24th Division Artillery and became a staff sergeant in charge of supply. This was my first real attempt at managing anything and I learned a good number of simple things that stayed with me. It was a wonderful experience to be able to visit small towns and sec how people lived and how they survived the war. On a train trip to Tokyo, I tried to get permission to stop at Hiroshima or Nagasaki, where the A-bombs were dropped, but the areas were restricted. I wish that I had concentrated more on learning the language because it's a fundamental key to understanding people -- how they feel about things, why they do what they do in the way that they do it, and how they look at the same issues you might but reach different conclusions and have different reactions. Off-duty and leave time offered a bit of exposure to Japan and its people, but not enough to grasp an understanding. Fraternization was not encouraged between the troops and the populace. In any case, not much was really possible since language separated us very effectively. On a short trip to Shanghai and Tsingtao, China, I had my first experience with leprosy patients. Seeing people mangled by this terrible affliction was later a factor in my decision to work with UNICEF. Even a short trip revealed differences between China and Japan. The impact of the war was evident in both, but violence continued in China. 15 The major topic at one point was to debate the merits of a permanent draft for a standing army. I was on the negative tearn and still hold that a volunteer force in peacetime is more acceptable and efficient. But full wartime conditions would derriand a change to assure equity.
Inflation was so bad in China that we often played cribbage for one million yuan at the Army barracks in Shanghai, The differences and intricacies of the societies made me promise myself to return and try to learn more. References All the King's Horses: The Story of the Budweiser Clydesdales, Alix Coleman and Steven D. Price, Viking Press, 1983. Missouri Historical Society, correspondence with the author. St. Louis: A Concise History, William Barnaby Faherty, Print Graphics, St. Louis, Missouri, 2004 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, various editions covering the period. The Forties: As Reported by The New York Times Book, Arleen Keylin and Jonathan Cohen, editors, Arno Press, New York, 1980. The Handbook of Texas Online, Vox Pop,\" http://www.tshaonline.org/ Under the influence: The Unauthorized Story of the Anheuser Busch Dynasty, Pewter Hernon and Terry Ganey, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1991.
Chapter 3 Reaching Out \"... and that made all the difference ....\" Robert Frost, \"The Road Less Traveled\" Upon finishing my two-year hitch in the Army and returning to the U.S., I took a bus from Seattle to St. Louis through the picturesque Northwest across Idaho and Montana, with stops in Wyoming and Colorado, and then across the vast prairie to Missouri. The natural majesty and beauty of the West, especially the strength of the mountains, remains with me and I still feel more comfortable when I can see mountains. As part of discharge procedures, the Army treated us to an orientation on national defense posture and the need for a large standing army and reserve force to avoid being unprepared like we were before World War II. I thought it a persuasive argument and signed up as a reservist, opting for the \"inactive group because I did not want to play soldier every couple of weeks and commit vacations to training trips.16 It took a bit of effort for this young man to make the shift from Army discipline to having flexible hours, a few dollars in my pocket and evenings free to spend with old buddies (some recently demobilized). The folks had moved back to St. Louis, where Dad was reincorporated into the Anheuser-Busch system, and living at home during my change to civilian life helped a good deal.17 The recovery from the war was in full swing and with it a renewed focus on the production of civilian goods; new cars were rolling off the production line. I needed a car but couldn't afford a new one. Instead, I shopped around and found a 1929 Model A Ford for $100. It was old-fashioned but ran like a top on thimbles of gasoline. While it lacked the speed and design of the new models, it also had fewer parts to break, 16 I was to learn the actual differences in dramatic fashion and rather soon 17 I remain today as ill-informed about why he returned as to why he had left a few years earlier
bend or buckle and got me where I needed to go very inexpensively. It was a sound investment. Four years later, I sold it for $115. I enrolled as a full-time student at Washington University, studying economic history, political science and international relations. And because I needed to support myself (the GI Bill helped, but wasn't enough), 1 also signed onto a full time job at the brewery. I attended classes five nights a week and worked during the day, plus the midnight shift on alternate weeks. The hours were convenient to schooling and the pay was good, but when I look back at the nearly seven years it took me to graduate, I question my rationale. It was a grind! Perhaps I could have given up the job without much loss, but at the time I enjoyed the work and the associations and seemed to thrive on the pressures and intricate scheduling. In hindsight, I might have made a different decision, but the experience and double exposure to learning and business practices were enormous benefits later, Convoluted scheduling, multiple assignments and obligations became a pattern of my life. From inventory clerk, where my main task was to count the empty barrels that distributors and other customers returned for refilling, I made quick progress to the planning department and to the title of senior production planner. The challenge here was to review customers' orders, compare them to available inventory, and plan production for the next period on the dozen or so units for two or three different sizes of bottles, a couple of sizes of cans, and draft beer in kegs. In addition, there were three kinds of product. It was a constant juggling act and a bit nerve-racking, The Bevo Plant, the building in which all bottling and canning took place, had all of the heavy filling equipment on the top floors. The finished product was sent by conveyor and elevator belts to be put into cases, which in turn were conveyed to lower floors for storage until orders processed them for delivery to the waiting trains and trucks on the ground flours and in the basement. Learning the Hard Way I always saw this employment as temporary until I found what I really wanted to do, but at the same time it was fun, rewarding and challenging.
I learned the keys to production planning, the constant need to balance inventory,18 and the speed and capacity of the production lines. One of the strict regulations the government put on beer-making required that taxes (often differing state to state) be paid in advance of production. Thus the bottle cap or the tax stamp (sometimes both) were inventory control items that identified both the product and provided evidence of payment. A loss meant more than flushing beer down the drain! The intricacy of the operation demanded full attention to a range of components or disaster occurred. One evening, I ordered a car to be loaded from the inventory area and sent on its way down the conveyor, After some minutes, I found that I had not ordered a crew into the car to offload the beer, which was being unceremoniously dumped onto the floor in a mass of liquid, broken bottles and mangled containers. The mess took hours to clear up. I atoned for these blunders with more diligence. While that helped, good senior management and supervision did as much to improve my performance. I learned the trade from J. Marvin Hart, John Gebken and Anthony Dohr, all good friends. My work experience expanded, and the night school hours became routine. The brewery crowd in the planning office was a social group and once a month had a party in one place or another. A Date to Remember The only blind date I ever had was arranged by a school chum, Ray Seybold, and his fiancée, Jeanne Alexander. He was a postman and she worked at the Union Trust Company. A picnic was being planned by her bank, and they arranged a date for me. The lady in question was a friend and co-worker of Jeanne's and, like me, was going to be in Ray and Jeanne's wedding party. I gave my blind date a call, and since neither of us had a car we made arrangements to meet at the bus station at 7:30 a.m. on the day of the picnic. The bus station was downtown, midway between her home in North St. Louis and mine in South St. Louis. 18 Beer was produced and stored according to state and tax requirements, since the tax was paid at the production site
That is how I met Lynn, and I was struck by her immediately. The introductions began with her contagious sense of humor and ready, unforgettable laugh. She asked to borrow my belt since she had forgotten to wear one! We started talking about things ... all kinds of things ... and we never stopped. Lynn changed my life in ways I could not then imagine. She was constantly curious about everything - people, events, how things worked. In addition, she was pretty and had a quiet, warm dignity about her: People genuinely liked her and they also respected her opinions and thoughts. My parents took to her at once. Lynn made everyone comfortable. Not just friends close to home but everyone we would later meet all over the world. It was a gift that only got better over the years. Lynn was a native of St. Louis. Her family, on both sides, had been in St. Louis for generations. Her grandparents, Ada Blanche Page19 and Samuel Joseph Hennessy, ran a small grocery store in the city for many years. Both the Pages and the Hennessey were established families in the Irish community before the Civil War20 on her father's side, the Konetzky family began arriving from Europe after the Civil War and settled in the city's German community. Lynn's father died in 1936 and her mother was left to raise three daughters - Ivanelle, Gwendolyn and Marilyn (\"Lynn\") - on a limited, fixed income during the Depression. She did an admirable job, turning out three cultured and fine ladies21. Regrettably, Lynn's mom and I did not catch on quickly or easily. One reason was religion, another was differing opinions on political and social issues. Many years passed before we felt close. Lynn's work hours and mine did not mesh very well, but our courtship was busy and exciting. I was in school and active with the Jaycees, and later I was also arranging activities for the St. Louis Council on World Affairs. At the same time, we were keeping up with Lynn's circle of friends and her 19 I t is interesting that both Lynn and I had a Page in the family, but no record is al hand that shows a connection of any kind. 20 These families were connected by marriage to the Kehoe and Grapevine Families, also old established names in St. Louis. 21 No male heirs appeared in either the Hennessy or the Konetzky family except for Lynn's father, so the names of the families in the genealogical table will disappear.
activities. We went to parties, the theater, symphony concerts, jazz sessions in murky places, had quiet dinners alone, get-togethers with the brewery gang, outings arranged by the Jaycees, and more formal events with the Council. Lynn loved all kinds of music and gave me an education about jazz. I learned to listen and hear the nuances in tones as one instrument played off another, And she later made me understand the sounds and style that Indian sitar music and American jazz had in common. We both enjoyed symphony music at kiel Auditorium and got the cheap tickets when we could. Life was grand! A Wider World A few friends had joined the St. Louis Junior Chamber of Commerce, and I became interested, too, seeing it as a way to be active in the community and expand my contacts and connections. I was accepted for membership and immediately gravitated to the Education Promotion and International Relations committees. As belīts the oldest Jaycee chapter in the world22, both were well established activities. I was the first Anheuser-Busch employee to join the Jaycees, and they were generous in their support, giving me time off for meetings and committee work, After a year or so, I approached the company to sponsor memberships as other businesses in town were beginning to do. They readily agreed, and a number of young men 3 joined and moved up the ladder in the company as they advanced in the Jaycees. The younger Mr. Busch himself was a member for a period. Many of our educational projects were directed at primary school-age children in poorer neighborhoods, with a focus on retention in school and stimulating after-school activities in library work and sports. I gradually got more involved in the International Relations Committee and opened an extensive correspondence link with other chapters. 22 The St. Louis Jaycees organization dates to 1915, when Henry Giessenbier got together with 20 or so young men from the community to discuss how they might be more active and productive in civic life for the benefit of the city and how they might use community action to improve their leadership potential in business and commerce. The idea quickly caught on, and more chapters sprang up in nearby towns and cities and then around the country and beyond.
Our major objective was to help advance interest in world affairs among city leaders and our own members. To that end, we associated ourselves with other groups in town that had similar interests, such as the Council on World Affairs, League of Women Voters, veterans associations and the Chamber of Commerce. In collaboration with those groups, we entertained foreign visitors sent to St. Louis by the U.S. State and Commerce departments, seeing to it that they were introduced to companies and industries in the area. We also brought in speakers once a month to talk about international topics. Both of these activities inspired me to travel to the state and national Jaycees conventions. The U.S. Jaycces were leaders in forming an international organization; the idea of being associated with young leaders from abroad a popular one.23 But progress was slow, delayed first by the Depression and then WWII. Finally, in 1944, Junior Chamber International (JCI) was formally established in Panama, and it got its footing following the World Congress in Mexico in 1946. It was difficult to translate ideas suggested by the international body, via the secretariat, to practical and accepted local activity. Not only were the organizational interests different, but perceptions of the issues were not easy to reconcile. This challenge of melding the layers of international interests, desires and resources with cohesive national and local actions remained a central part of my work for many years. Fifty years later, when I was working as a consultant to UNICEF in Mozambique, the issue was present again: how to reconcile \"global goals\" with national sovereignty on priority needs and national aspirations. But at that time in St Louis, we got an injection of enthusiasm and a new outlook when the president of JCI, Peter Watts of New Zealand, paid a commemorative visit to our chapter, did not fully realize the role he would soon play in my life. Reviving the Spirit of St. Louis By far the most exciting civic venture our chapter was involved in was a massive plan to reconstruct the City of St. Louis. Since 1877, St. Louis 23 The U.S. Jaycees limit membership to people between the ages of 21 and 36; the International Jaycees have an upward age limit of40.
had been ari independent city, not part of any county, and the city's tax base suffered fronti the fact that a good number of people earned their livelihoods in the city but lived outside the city limits. Moreover, the city's economic base was croding for lack of productive investment. It could no longer be a \"Gateway to the West,\" dependent on river and rail traffic, fur trading or manufacturing alone. The post-war economy was changing and creating new demands, and St. Louis was not keeping pace. Slums were growing faster than nearly anything else. The city was ridiculed in some circles as \"first in shoes, first in booze, and last in the American League!\" The city had a forward-looking mayor at the time in Raymond Tucker, a former professor at Washington University. He presented a challenge to business and commercial leaders to design changes that needed to be made, Icad the effort to pass bond issues to support them ... and make it a priority. Mayor Tucker was used to challenges. He had been \"Smoke Commissioner\" of St. Louis in 1940 when air pollution was so bad we could feel the soot; we lived in a perpetual haze. Tucker studied the issue and then persuaded business and civic leaders to ban the use of certain types of coal and switch to other forms of energy So when confronted with a dying city, he again approached it head-on, with good planning and an inclusive management style. A \"Committee of 100\" accepted the challenge and came up with a plan to attract new business and investment in the city. The extraordinarily broad plan called for tearing down about a third of the city and rebuilding it; renovating things like the art museum and parks; building roads and improving the waterfront and the sewer system. Each activity required a separate bond issue that had to be voted on, a major challenge when considering the fate of bond issues over the years. The Jaycees' task was to muster public support for them. I doubt there is a record of the number of meetings we attended, or speeches we made, or telephone calls placed, or mailings arranged. But in any event, on Election Day, it was all worth it. All of the bond issues passed. These reconstruction efforts gave new life to the city and a renewed spirit. It helped to renovate pending large ideas, like the concept of a Jefferson Memorial Park on the riverfront that had been dormant for a decade.
I learned from this that politics is a process of persuasion and compromise - making the desirable doable. Civic life became real through participation in the Jaycees, as we learned how to muster the energy of young people behind good things without spending a lot of money. I moved up the ladder of responsibility in the organization. Korea Puts Me Back in Uniform On Sunday, June 26, 1950, North Korea sent its army across the 38th parallel, and the president of South Korea, Syngman Rhee, sent an urgent plea to the United Nations and the U.S. for help. A world away, my happy life in St. Louis was about to be turned upside down. To help stem North Korea's advance until the U.N. Security Council could act on a resolution condemning the aggression, the U.S. redeployed troops it had stationed in Japan for the post-WWII Occupation. This gairied time to muster forces from the regular and reserve Army and Navy back at home. On that Sunday when we heard the news coming out of Korea, Lynn and I had a date for a picnic. I told her it was likely that the inactive reserves would be called and that I was nervous about it. President Truman had mobilized some existing organized units, but to fill vacancies in units - caused by understaffing after the war and mounting casualties in Korea - he soon began to mobilize inactive reserve volunteers individually, of which I was one. The call was for bodies, not units. The first troops to join the fray had been brave, but untested and underequipped. Military leadership. prowess and fighting skills were rusty and untried. Except for NCOs and middle-level officers, few had combat experience Losses were heavy in the first months of fighting. The advance slowed, and then halted, at the Pusan perimeter, a 200-mile enclave on the coast where our forces literally had their backs to the sea. Units were constantly shifted around to persuade the enemy that there were more troops than there actually were. I left for Fort Lewis, Washington, in July for what was euphemistically called \"refresher training,\" but I kept my rank of staff sergeant, which helped a bit. We landed in Pusan just before General MacArthur's bold and dramatic counterattack through the western coast of Korea at Inchon in August.
Building Bridges and Blowing Them Up In my earlier military service, I was a supply sergeant in a field artillery unit. This time, the mysterious ways of the U.S. Army personnel system assigned me to an advanced engineer battalion (the 844), whose home base was in Oklahoma. The task of the 84th was to blow up bridges that the enemy needed and to build bridges that we needed. Sometimes I was not sure if we were ahead of advancing ground troops or just behind them. Aller moving forward from the line at Taejon and Taegu, our unit advanced up the central road to meet with the other forces at Yong Dong Po, across the Han River from Seoul. On our first camp stop on the Han River, our group was assigned guard duty - some to protect a huge stack of grain and animal feed from looters, the others to guard an abandoned brewery from everyone. This was part of the major thrust to the north up the major road, building bridges all the way so that the major attack units could cross the dozens of ravines and rivers. As we moved north, there was wide speculation about whether or not U.N. forces would cross the 38th parallel. But on reflection now, we probably never really doubted that General MacArthur would order the Eighth Army to stop. Days and nights became blurs of activity and movement. It was bitterly cold. Even with stoves in our tents - when we could use the tents - we were freezing and constantly changed socks to protect our feet. Villages along the road were mostly rubble and villagers were on the edge of desperation for food, water and shelter. On top of that was the frustration of not being able to work in the fields for fear of landmines. Lines of people trudging along the gravel and dirt roads, their belongings in bundles on their heads and children in arms or held by hand, became a common sight. Each group seemed to be led by a papasan in a tall, distinguished-looking hat. My battalion undertook reconnaissance from time to time, mostly to determine the safety of bridges, and it was usually routine stuff. I did a lot of these scouting missions since I had no actual engineering skills that kept me busy otherwise. On one occasion, my partner and I were sent out to look at a bridge, He was driving, so after getting out of the jeep, he took the left side and I proceeded to the right. At the abutment, he stepped on
a landmine. Since that time I have not been able to say enough in opposition to this insidious weapon. About the first of December, when things seemed to be going our way, we received some heartening news in a broadcast from the supreme commander: We should be home for Christmas! But it wasn't to be. North Korea, feeling threatened as U.N. soldiers approached their border at the Yalu River, crossed the river with a huge, well-equipped force. We had a new war on our hands. My unit built bridges during the day and moved on at night, making our way on terrible and treacherous roads in twisting patterns up and down mountains. They were often crowded with people trying to escape the advancing Chinese Army, which had joined the war on the side of the North. We had to blow up bridges behind us and then push on to rebuild those still needed! Everything was made difficult because of the frigid temperatures. Tools broke, vehicles wouldn't run, we were cold all the time. There was snow, sludge and mud everywhere. We carried our own rations and ate when and where we could. I will never forget the cold. One night, we moved into an abandoned two-story schoolhouse and set up our cots inside rather than in tents. There were some stoves, actually large converted steel drums with ventilation punched in the sides and sed by a portable oil apparatus. That night I wrote a seven-page letter to Lynn. She wrote ine everyday and I tried to do the same. This letter would be the longest one yet, and I was proud of myself. It would be posted in the morning. I took off my boots and got into the sleeping bag and slept. About 5 a.m. we were roused by calls of \"Fire!\" The entire wooden building was aflame with timbers falling from the roof. I saved my boots, overcoat and rifle ... but the letter did not survive.24 We spent the remainder of the pre-dawn hours emptying the ammunition tent nearby before it became a disaster. And then we were back into the cold. 24 24 When I told Lynn about the fire and what had happened to that nice, long letter I intended to send her, I never knew for sure she believed it! But it was a true story!
The War Grinds to an End At last the lighting began to favor us, making it certain that we were secure. Only months before, there was fear of being pushed into the Sea of Japan; then elation at the rapid advance to the Yalu; then a significant retreat. But at last we held, and all across the peninsula the line was solid and well armed. There was now no doubt that we could advance. The line of battle was, more or less, the 38th parallel. We worked on repairing or building bridges over the Han River25 and the Imjin River in locations that were rural, cold and void of night life. Policy decisions called for a negotiated settlement, and long, drawn-out discussions began at Panmunjom. The negotiations were sticky on a lot of points, but the most prominent one was about the exchange of prisoners. To the credit of the U.S. and the U.N., no enemy soldier was returned home from a U.N. POW camp against his wishes. This was a sticking point for many months in the talks while the fighting - and casualties - continued on. There was much moaning and groaning about the protracted talks, but most of the people I served with understood and supported the issue. I did. At last the ceasefire agreement was reached. One comes away from this kind of experience a changed person. Back at home, it was relatively easy to have discussions with fellow soldiers, probably because we had our own ways of describing things. Explanations and descriptions were not needed or demanded. I asked a master sergeant once: \"When is one a veteran?\" He replied, \"When the other fellow shoots at you and misses!\" Talking to civilian friends and family about the issues was difficult. Perhaps for this reason, perhaps for others, when pressed about something relating to Korea. ! changed the subject. The Army released me in 1952, just before my 24th birthday, and returned to the U.S. to a renewed and wonderful courtship with Lynn and back to school at Washington University and to work at Anheuser-Busch. I was one of the fortunate in the group that had left St. Louis together. Most of them did not come back. One died a prisoner; one was killed by a landmine. Some were ill for a long time. I learned a profound respect for, and fear of, land mines. Both the Chinese and the U.N. forces planted them. They were a constant menace to the people who lived there and to us, as we moved up and down roads 25 15 The bridge at Seoul still stands, a relic from our time there.
and across rivers. Mines do not stay where they are planted. In rice paddies abutting the narrow roads, it was not uncommon for a farmer to be blown to bits tending his crops even after hostilities had stopped. Most victims were (and still are) innocent men, women and children - not soldiers. A Great Opportunity, but Risky? Having been mustered out of the military, this time for good, I turned my sights back to my goal of working in international affairs. I had a focus on this in studying economic history and political science. In business I learned to develop an entrepreneurial approach to problem-solving. The Junior Chamber offered many learning opportunities and windows of insight into political management. I enjoyed being associated with Anheuser-Busch, but when an opening came for the post of executive director of the St. Louis Council on World Affairs in 1953, 1 applied. I had been a member of the Council and attended many of its functions. It was (and still is) an organization of business and civic leaders and ordinary citizens interested in world affairs and committed to learning more about international relations. This intrigued me. Three of the Council's leaders - Leo Fuller, chairman of Stix, Baer and Fuller; John McCutcheon, an independent stockbroker; and R. Walston Chubb, an attorney - interviewed me. On the first day of September in 1953, I was appointed to the position, Job security, especially with a large company, was uppermost in young people's minds, an inclination arising from the days of the Depression. Many wondered why I would leave a major corporation for a non-governmental group that was dependent on voluntary contributions to operate. In addition, the impact of the actions of the House Committee on Un-American Activities and a Senate committee headed by Joseph McCarthy were felt in the community. There was a good deal of fear termed \"The Red Scare\" that presented international affairs as complex plots to undermine the country. These bodies took full advantage of their strong fundamentalist base to create fear - a fear based mostly on ignorance of international affairs, history and geography.26 At the same time, the John Birch Society, a group with 26 A t times, they even opposed adding fluoride to drinking water, alleging it to be a plot for mind control
limited vision, loud voices and fundamentalist outlooks, lurked in most communities. So the decision to quit my job with the brewery to join the Council - and I was also still a student at the time - was seen by family and friends as risky and perhaps not too bright! The going was tough, but I never regretted the decision. The Council's function was to offer the community a forum for nonpartisan discussion of international issues and to expand education on those issues. This was undertaken through luncheon and dinner meetings with speakers of note from abroad and from national leaders and activists in foreign policy formulation for the U.S. The many discussion groups we fostered also helped educate the public on the issues. A bureau of the Council placed qualified speakers before a range of civic and business groups in the city, about two a week. We were successful in obtaining significant speakers for Council public events, among them Austrian Chancellor Julius Raab; Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, the vice president of India; U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles; U.N. Secretary-General Trygve Lic, and U.N. ambassadors from many countries, including U.S. envoy Eleanor Roosevelt. In addition, we offered discussion programs on U.S. and Russian foreign policies prepared by the Foreign Policy Association (FPA). Each group (there were about 10 throughout the city, met for an hour a week with a trained discussion leader and read selected readings prior to each session. The course was a great success, not only in St. Louis but across the nation. Based on that, the FPA created the \"Great Decisions\" program, a discussion course of six to eight sessions. These were serious outreach programs that met in schools, churches and community centers in all districts of St. Louis.27 Along with these successes, we also had challenges. On one occasion, an envelope came in the mail marked with the U.S. Senate franking privilege. It was from Senator Joseph McCarthy, and I guessed that it contained a book. I called our legal advisor to learn if senators were allowed to use the franking privilege for anything other than othcial mail. He cautioned me to open the envelope only in the company of a witness, 27 T he \"Great Decisions\" program is going strong today. I still lead a discussion in Greensboro, North Carolina.
which I did, and we found it contained a book the Wisconsin senator had written and was currently on sale in bookstores. Because it appeared the use of the franking privilege for private income could be a violation of law, we decided to file a complaint. The result was that for a long time afterward, our organization felt pressure from the senator's local supporters when we announced programs or appeared at functions. At about this time; McCarthy was also being investigated by the Senate on allegations he made about subversion in the U.S. Army. The Army-McCarthy hearings were broadcast on national television, and we watched them, nearly spellbound, over lunch every day. City Connections The Council also sponsored, with the Chamber of Commerce and others, a \"Visit St. Louis\" effort that welcomed foreign visitors and groups of students sent by the U.S. Departments of State and Commerce. There was a special schedule of events for each, so they could see and experience the ideas or businesses they had a professional interest in - everything from boiler-making and chemical fertilizers to legal issues, local government and art museum management. It gave St. Louis an opportunity to know the leaders in these activities from a growing number of countries and offered the visitors home hospitality, high-level access and open discussions of their issues. The U.N. was new and there was considerable interest in how it worked and what it was charged to do by its members. We sponsored annual trips for students to visit Washington, New York and the U.N. Three hundred students accompanied by teacher-chaperones made the trip every year, riding on a special train arranged through the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. The students met senior State Department officers, visited the sights in Washington, took in a musical in New York City, visited a museum and had a full day at the U.N., including discussions with senior officers and agency representatives. I got to know some officers in this manner, and it helped a good deal in arranging for speakers for the Council on subsequent occasions. Having the same number of high schools in the St. Louis area as there were members of the U.N. General Assembly encouraged us to sponsor a Model U.N. General Assembly. We assigned a country name to each
school and asked them To prepare position papers on two or three key issues to be discussed at the mock assembly. The chair of the United Nations Day Committee that year was J.S. McDonnell, president of McDonnell Aircraft which was headquartered in St. Louis. An enthusiastic supporter of the U.N., he was instrumental in ensuring that our plans for the assembly were financed. He opened many doors for us. Together we worked to get the president of the U.N. General Assembly for that year, Madame Lakshmi Pandit Nehru of India,28 to preside over our function. She was the sister of Jawaharlal Nehru, India's first prime minister. We had more than 600 students and faculty participating in front of 1,500 people at the Washington University Field House. Using the experience as a base, we sponsored a Model U.N. Security Council because of the happy coincidence that the number of colleges in the St. Louis area equaled the number of seats on the Security Council. We had the good fortune to conduct some of these on the new medium of television KSD-TV also offered us five minutes of air time just prior to the evening news three times a week. We used it to interview visiting dignitaries and inform the city of the events taking place that were connecting St. Louis with the wider world. There were no rehearsals and what little script we used was written by me often before I even had a chance to meet the guest! The effort required substantial homework. but surprises and glitches were still a common occurrence. One guest asked me on camera, \"What is the man standing behind the camera doing waving his fingers in the air?\" It was at the Model Security Council that I learned of the UNICEF greeting card endeavor, an inventive way for a UN agency to reach the general public everywhere, keep people somewhat informed, and raise considerable resources through the marketing of a quality product. 28 Later when I served in India, I called on Madame Nehru at her home in the foothills of the Himalayas and asked her to write a piece for the history of UNICEF based on her work as a delegate to the U.N. She replied that her lasting memory of the U.N. was good, but the strongest negative memory was of \"small rooms with too many people smoking cigarettes.\"
New Job, New City, New Bride! During this hectic but wonderful period, I also took the Foreign Service examination and was on the verge of taking the train to Washington for additional studies at Georgetown University where I had been accepted. But discussions with leaders at Washington University, our wedding plans, and family considerations persuaded me to stay on in St. Louis. About a year after making that decision, I was invited to apply for the position of secretary general of Junior Chamber International (JCI). After a complex interview process and election by the board, I was appointed and took up the position in September 1955 in Miami Beach just after the opening of our new headquarters. I moved to Miami Beach and looked for an apartment that would suit a pair of newlyweds. Lynn and I were going to be married in just a few short months. We worked through the many details in long-distance telephone calls and the indispensable interventions of interested family members. The U.S. Jaycees had an annual event at which \"The Ten Outstanding Young Men\" of America were honored at a formal banquet. In 1956 the function was held in Springfield, Illinois, and I drove up from Florida to attend. It was just before Lynn and I were married, and she was able to join me at the banquet and ceremonies, including a reception for the guest of honor, Richard Nixon I introduced the vice president to Lynn, and then she and I traveled to St. Louis for our wedding. References Council on World Affairs newsletters, 1952-53, Family trees of Hennessy, Konetzky and Kehoe families. Foreign Policy Association, \"Great Decisions\" program: In Mortal Combat: Korea, 1950-1953, John Toland, William Morrow, New York, 1991. Men of Vision, a history of the Junior Chamber of Commerce, William Brown, JC International, 1976. On to the Yalu, Edwin P. Hoyt, Military Heritage Press, New York, 1988. St. Louis Post-Dispatch, various dates during the period.
The Pusan Perimeter. Korea, 1950, Edwin P. Hoyt, Military Heritage Press, New York, 1984.
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