Living in Aberdeen

Living In Aberdeen. There was a territory at the Aberdeen Proving Ground which was another 15 miles further from the branch. The CE there was John Wayne. We kept in touch and when necessary would exchange calls to help each other. It was a good arrangement that I enjoyed. However, one day John was severely injured in an auto accident and was out of work for a long time. There was no one else available to cover John's call, so I picked up that responsibility also. This was a challenge that really kept me running. John had not been a strong advocate of preventative maintenance and many of the calls were emergency situations. I decided that whenever possible, I would handle the call and then try to perform something extra before I left. After a while this action began to reap some paybacks as the calls started to be more scheduled instead of emergency. This allowed me to comfortably be able to handle both territories. Therefore, I was left alone to run them both as I saw fit. It was a good challenge and I had some great customers who helped me with the territory operations. The branch left me alone and only checked on me on very rare occasions. The changes were good but required a 30 mile drive to and from the customer accounts. We were still living in our 2nd trailer and so we decided to move to Aberdeen. We found Wrights' Trailer park that had been built on part of the Wright's family farm. It was quite new and inhabited primarily by army and one navy families. It was also only about a one mile to the Proving Ground gate. We were on the back side of the park and faced a playground and a cow pasture. We moved and settled in. It turned out to be a good move. The trailer park was run by the son of the farm owner who also ran a Texaco gas station on the corner. After awhile I started working around the park doing routine maintenance. The father and son decided to go in trailer sales and I became involved in getting units ready for sale and delivery. It was fun and helped bring in a little more money. Our next door neighbor was a sailor who had a Japanese wife and two children. Mom became good friends with Mitsuka and the children played with Karen. One day we found that her husband, Al, left her for another woman. This was a shock as she had no family or other friends that could help. We pitched in and were able to help and to also help her get some outside assistance. Pastor Austin of the Lutheran church and Mom became good friends and he would often stop by for coffee and to chat. When he became aware of Mitsuka's problems, he provided considerable help to keep things going. By this time my transfer had been in for more than a year and on my next visit to my manager I asked about the status. I was told that these things are hard to do, but they were working on making it happen. The next time I asked, he told me the branch manager wanted to talk to me. The

session amounted to a long discussion about why you should never put your family ahead of your job. He told me how he had done that and it really impacted his career opportunities. I wasn't that impressed and told him that I still wanted them to work on the transfer. At that time I was accompanying Mom to church but had not joined any church. Pastor Austin and Mom decided that I needed some motivation. They were very effective and before long I was enrolled in an adult confirmation class and then became a member of Saint Paul Lutheran in downtown Aberdeen. Mr. Wright (senior) was a great guy who loved to play practical jokes. One day he stopped at the trailer and gave Mom a bag of corn. When I came home she showed me the corn and it did not look like any corn that we had eaten in the past. It was white with small kernels and very irregular rows. I assumed that he had given us some field corn as a joke. But we decided that we had to go along with the joke and cook it for supper. Mom prepared it and we were ready for a very un-tasty vegetable. I picked up an ear and after one bite I realized that it was the best corn that we had ever tasted. We found that this was "Shoe Peg" corn that was grown in the adjacent fields by a canning factory. The factory timed their picking and canning to meet the best flavor. When they picked the corn you could go to the factory and buy corn from the trucks as they came in from the field. From then on we were spoiled and to this day we have never had such good corn. We took advantage of the corn harvest whenever we could. Uncle Paul and I were very good corn eaters. At family gatherings we could each eat 8 to 10 ears at a time. When the Suby family came to visit us in Aberdeen, I told Paul that we were going to treat him to some new corn. We went over to the factory and I asked Paul how many he would want. He said that he was hungry, so we bought 2 dozen ears. We cooked them up and ended up getting full after only a few ears. He also was very impressed. After leaving Aberdeen we were never able to buy any corn that was as good. After Sam was born we needed more room and I built a bunk bed in the back bedroom. Karen had the top bunk and we put a crib mattress on the bottom with some cabinets on the end and a sliding overhead gate for Sam. Mom and I moved into the middle bedroom which was supposed to be a built-in double. It worked but it was very close quarters. The Army had built a large group of apartments for the families. However, many of the soldiers decided that they did not want to stay on the base, which resulted in a number of vacant apartments. They decided that they would rent to any interested civilians. When we heard about that we decided to sell the trailer and move to an apartment. Most of my work was on the base so it worked out quite well. We stayed there for at least a year until the Army decided that they wanted to bring the service families back on the base. At the beginning of February 1960 we were told that we were going to be evicted by the middle of April. By this time the transfer request had been in for almost 4

years. Mom and I decided that we had waited long enough. I went to the branch manager and told him that I was going to the Midwest with or without IBM. He was not encouraging, but within two weeks I was told that they had an opening in the Rockford branch and that I was to report there by the middle of March. We knew that we were going to move to Janesville and temporarily move in with Mom's family. Therefore, we had to find a place to store our furniture. Uncle Henry worked for a moving company that was a Wheaton Van Lines agent. We decided to put our stuff in their warehouse. We also made the decision to use a Wheaton agent to haul the goods. The moving day came and we were struggling to get ready and because this was going to be our first real move, we were not progressing very well. On moving day I looked out and saw the moving van parked in front of the apartment. The doorbell rang and when Mom opened the door she let out a scream. There was Uncle Henry with a big grin on his face. It turned out that he had just finished a job in Philadelphia and decided to head back to Wisconsin. When he called his dispatcher they told him that there was a job in Aberdeen. He knew that it was us and he volunteered for the job. Henry had the skills and packing materials, so we got excellent professional help and excellent care. It turned out to be a very nice move. We didn't realize it at the time, but six years later he would again move us. This time, away from the Midwest to Raleigh.