Memoirs of Ruth O’Rorke

The “family portraits” below were written by Ruth O’Rorke (1925 - 1997), daughter of Amelia Drawe and Bernard O’Rorke. Originally sent out to her “cousins” for comment, she eventually started circulating them around to the rest of the family. I believe that she worked on it right up until the time she passed away in August 1997.

Chris Lesieutre, Salt Lake City, Utah

If you're interested in the O'Rorke family, Chris would like to hear from you. Contact him at: cles@wallstcom.com

HI COUSIN!

This is written especially for the benefit of my nieces and nephews with the hope that they will be encouraged to keep better track of their cousins than I have of mine.

There are many ways that people have been classified: my favorite is:

“Things People”

“Idea People”

“People People”.

It’s understood, of course, that we each are a combination but that one category will dominate. In recent years, the “people people” of the younger generation have been lobbying for a printout of the FAMILY data stored in my personal data banks. This won’t be easy as I’ve always had a talent for forgetting names and of distorting my memory of faces so well that I’ve failed to recognize my own sister Margaret when meeting her at an appointed place at our appointed time. Ditto for my sister Wushername at Metropolitan Airport.

So, let’s get on with it. I won’t swear to the truth of anything written here; names may be garbled and facts distorted or confused with the trash left over from daydreams. Consider this a starting point, to be edited by you if your memory is better or your source more reliable.

I can’t claim any first-hand knowledge of my great-grandparents but there were a couple of stories passed on that you might like to hear. To begin with though, this is who they were: David Henderson and Rose LaFlamme (the parent of Edna Rose Henderson); Bernard O’Rorke and Mary McEvoy (parents of Charles Henry O’Rorke, Sr.); Bartholomew Roi and Rufina Lemay (parents of Mary Eugenia Roi) [Note: this is a mistake that somehow has been passed down. Wife of B. Roi was actually Reine Marie - when I asked Ruth about this she said that she got the information from her mother and believed that it could well be wrong]; William Drawe and Amelia Koster (parents of William Jos Drawe).

Bartholomew Roy and Rufina Lemay [actually, Reine Marie]

These were French Canadians making their home on the Ontario side of the Detroit River, in Amherstburg. There may be many records of this extended family but who would be able to sort them all out? Gramma told of cousins and aunts, nieces and nephew, surnames of Roi, Roy, and King all related and in the same classrooms in school. Bart and Rufina seemed intent on adding to the general confusion by naming all seven of their daughters Mary.

Our old photo album used to have a picture of two couples in turn of the century clothing (19th to 20th) standing in an orchard and captioned “Ma and Pa, Aunt Rose and Uncle Al, picking grapefruit in Florida”. That’s my only clue to Aunt Rose. Ma and Pa referred to by Gramma and Grampa - William and Mary Eugenia Drawe. Genny loved her trips to Florida and used to talk about the bougainvillaea and other tropical flowers. As for her own home, she had large pink roses growing on trellises on the back porch. When she was through washing the dishes, she’d open the back door and throw the dishwater on them. (There were no detergents then.) There was a Tree of Paradise in the backyard and a “caster oil” plant by the side of the house. When I knew her, she was primarily a housewife, a mother and grandmother, a member of the Altar Society and a neighbor. But she was from a family of seven daughters. With all those Roy daughters at home some of them would have had to go out and work. Gennie’s choice of work seems unusual even in our time - she was a tailor. Not a dressmaker, a man’s tailor. That probably explains how the nice German boy and the French Canadian girl met and married. Both were tailors.

Aunt Alice is the only Great Aunt that I remember anything about. After she visited one day, my mother was very amused because, she said: “Aunt Alice smokes but won’t smoke in front of your grandmother because she knows she’ll get scolded.” Aunt Alice was gray haired and afraid! Alice and her husband had no children of their own so they adopted one. Her name was Veronica. Veronica, in her turn had no children so she and her first husband adopted a boy. I’d love to hear anything you can add or any changes you can suggest and I’ll revise as necessary.

William Drawe and Amelia Koster

This William Drawe may have been born in “The Old Country”, Germany, and came over here as a young man. He was, may have been a tailor. At any rate, when son John was learning the craft, it was important to William that John be sent back to Germany to apprentice.

Amelia Koster was probably born in this country. Her mother was a fun loving young woman married to a strict Protestant German. His redeeming quality was his habit of retiring early and sleeping soundly. Amelia sometimes took advantage of these facts and slipped out of the window on nights when there was a dance in town. William Drawe and Amelia Koster surely would have met each other at one of the dances.

Drawes settled around Port Huron and Marine City, Mich. A friend of mine, Lou Murphy (founder of the Detroit Catholic Worker) was from Marine City and told of one Drawe family whose breadwinner, a ship’s captain, suddenly found himself with no income and no prospects (very likely as the result of the stock market crash of 1929) and of how the whole family then seemed helpless and adrift until a daughter who’d always been considered too delicate to do anything harder than cross-stitch, rose from her chaise lounge, put on her walking suit and went out, got a job and proceeded to support the household.

I recall going to visit Marine City or Port Huron a couple of times. The things that made the strongest impressions were: wading at a stony beach; getting a warning to keep away from a parrot said to be bad tempered; a croquet game on a huge lawn; and good natured cousins to play with.

William’s branch of the family settled in Marine City, and that’s where he and Amelia settled, too. Young William Joseph also became a tailor but he learned his trade in Michigan. Though John was said to be the finest tailor in Marine City, young William was said to be the best dressed. Young William was my grandfather. Even when he was old and rather frail, he took a daily walk outside, weather permitting, nattily attired in a three-piece suit, a white shirt with a well starched collar and cuffs that peeked out from his coat sleeves. A gold watch chain draped across his vest. He wore gray spats, carried a cane and wore a hat. He did walk slowly but always stood up very straight. When he felt it was time to come back indoors he’d take out his watch and look at it and then turn his feet in the direction of home. Grampa had a respiratory problem which was attributed to long years of working a s tailor not to his occasional pipeful of Prince Albert (yes, it came in a can: the cans made lovely penny banks). Gramma gave him his medicine every day and once in a while she gave me a teaspoonful of it. It was thick, brown and pleasant. Grampa died of pneumonia. I missed him.

Of the other children of William and Amelia, Cousin Rita Drawe Gridd remembers that Aunt Settie wore high-topped black shoes with a built-up sole on one and who used a cane. Settie may have been married to a Perrin or ?. We don’t recall anything about Benjamin.

David Henderson and Rose LaFlamme

These are only names to me, so I’ve taken the liberty of inventing a background for them: I think of David as one of the many orphans whose fathers were part of the expendable infantry recruited in Scotland to do battle in Canada and whose mothers lacked the stamina to survive in a harsh land. At age eleven he’d been apprenticed to a craftsman and at fifteen he’d have been freed and expected to support himself. Rose LaFlamme; the name conjures up a rather romantic picture, doesn’t it? Who was she? Really? Well, Rose might have been one of the numerous young women who’d tearfully left their families and ventured to the new world: To a place where a dowry was less important than a willingness to work. How and where did she meet David? We only know that they were married and settled on the States’ side of the Detroit River.

The first thing that I remember about great-uncle George is his wooden leg. A real peg leg that he strapped on with shiny leather straps. (That was the only kind of artificial leg we ever saw before WW2.) He told us some wild tale of how he got it but, probably, the truth was more mundane. War? Diabetes? George’s wife and daughter may have succumbed to the flu epidemic of 1918-1920 and his candy and tobacco shop to the depression of the 1930s. There actually was a time during the depression when he stayed with us (his nephew Bernard’s family). One day, during this time, my sister Margaret and I were on the streetcar going by Navin Field and we passed him. We got so excited that when we got home we eagerly told our mother: “We saw Uncle George down by the Ball Park, he was selling pot holders on Trumbell Avenue.” We only thought of that as something fascinating, not a sin - after all, lots of people were selling things along the streets in those days. Mother got all excited too, but not the way we expected. She was humiliated by the idea that people would think his nephew’s family couldn’t take care of him and said that he was as good as begging. If he wanted to stay with us, she told him, he would have to give up the potholders. He packed up and moved out not long afterwards. We never spotted him again.

I know nothing about Charles and Eddie and suspect that these names may not belong here.

There were at least three girls in the family. Min, Zoe, and Edna. All three married and had families. (I may have put Zoe and Min with the wrong children.)

Zoe was quite old (through a teenager’s eyes) and nearly blind by the time that she went to live with their daughter Frances’ family. I recall seeing her sitting quietly in a sheltered alcove sewing strips of material and braiding them to make rag rugs. Once in a while one of her grandchildren ran to her side to examine the work and to ask if she needed anything.

Min was semi-invalid and living with her daughter Bernice the last time I saw her. I have no details about her life.

The youngest child of David and Rose Henderson was Edna and she was my Grandmother. She was called “Tunne” my most people - probably a nickname given to her by her siblings - and her grandchildren called her “Aunt Tunne”.

Some of the things I remember about her - She ventured out to California with her younger son Charlie and his friend Russ. We used to have large postcard-sized photos taken on the trip and they showed that, in the 1930s, driving out to California meant pitching your own tent for an overnight stop, roads weren’t even paved with macadam - much less gold - and there were still orange groves in Lose Angeles County. Through the years, she sent back souvenirs to us: chunks of petrified wood with a face polished to show colors and grain; sands of the painted desert used to “paint” landscapes in glass domes for use as paperweights; blocks of redwood that came apart into doll house furniture (they were like puzzles); large shells that held the sound of the ocean, other shells lined with mother-of-pearl; find baskets that were handmade on the Indian reservations.

Grandma and Russ married and settled in Whittier, California. He’s not really part of the family tree but we all loved him enough to want to include him in any family history. The last job that Russ had was with the California Highway Department and it lasted at least 30 years. When he first started on the road, it was literally ‘on the road’. Some stretches of highway had just been paved for the first time and he was with the crew putting the stripe down the center. He used to tell of miles and miles of unbroken road and how the crew had to record their overnight stops by designating the crossroads they were at and of how they often had to invent the names for the imaginary crossing roads - generally using the name on the last mailbox that they saw. Then they’d pitch a tent, build a cooking fire and fix dinner. Sometimes they’d do some hunting and have fresh rabbit or squirrel for dinner.

Meanwhile, back in Whittier, Grandma used the time that Russ was gone taking instructions and learning crafts. If Russ expected to be off on a long trip, he’d set up the big loom in the dining room and thread it before leaving. She wove really beautiful items: drapes and stoles, napery and fingertip towels, for example. She won many blue ribbons with her weaving, metal and glass etching and lampshade design.

(I was hoping that my Uncle Charles would read these notes and straighten out my “facts” before they got sent around but he’s had them quite awhile and hasn’t replied, so my apologies for any misinformation enclosed….let me hear from you if you have ANY comments.)

Bernard O’Rorke and Mary McEvoy

According to Maud Helson (an older woman that I worked with briefly in 1949), some of the O’Rorkes who had settled in Rochester, NY were presented with the opportunity to farm in the vicinity of Ann Arbor, Michigan and moved there for a while. After a trial period, they found that they preferred urban life and moved back to Rochester. Bernard had been attracted by the opportunities offered in the automotive industry and after moving back to Rochester with the others, he decided to return to Michigan. He and Mary moved the family to Detroit and settled down. Their last residence was a home on 20th Street. Great-Grandfather Bernard worked for a foundry until he was 72 years old and was forced into retirement only because he fainted in the shower while cleaning up at the end of his shift at Kelsey-Hayes (?) Wheel Co.

Was it hearsay or could it be true that Great-Grandmother Mary often smoked a clay pipe and usually ate her dessert at the beginning of a meal? (A sensible precaution for any mother of eight!)

The eldest of Bernard and Mary’s eight children was the Rev. Francis. One of his assignments was as an assistant at Most Holy Trinity Church in Detroit and his name is included on a plaque in the vestibule. That was called to my attention by Father Clement Kern who was the pastor at the time that I was associated with the parish. He also said that the old records noted that Fr. Frank was not only a musician but also a composer who had scored the music for his own funeral mass.

Eldest daughter, Margaret, never married. She had been engaged but when her fiancée died, she settled into the role of the spinster daughter helping to run the household and caring for the old folks. I think she was well liked by a fairly large circle of friends, since she seemed content with that role….

I know nothing of young Bernard, of Frederick or of Edwin.

Young Mary was always referred to as Mamie, even after entering the Convent. (She always denied being the Mamie O’Rorke of the song.) As a Religious of the Sacred Heart she taught in Sacred Heart Convent schools in the eastern U.S. When she celebrated her Golden Jubilee, many of her former pupils traveled all the way to Albany, N.Y. to be with her for the day. (I once asked her how long it had taken for her to get used to getting up at 5 in the morning and she said she’d never gotten used to it.)

Eugene was rather a mystery. Mamie may have been in touch with him through the years but we had no idea of what he was doing. The first time that I met him as through Father Kern - when Gene was living in the Cure of Ars Co-op in Corktown. (The Co-op was set up by and for retired men who were living on set incomes. Each man was expected to contribute cash and labor for the upkeep of the house making it possible for them to live together fairly comfortably and fairly cheaply.) Father Kern took me over there one day and introduced us by saying: “I think you two may be related.” Gene answered: “I doubt it, I spell my name O’Rorke” and then he turned back to the chore he was working on - cleaning a fireplace.

One day, Eugene confided in me that one of the things he found most satisfying after he retired was being able to apply for a job, then, when the interviewer started to ask personal questions, saying: “I don’t think that’s any of your business”, and walking out.

One day I went back to see him and found that he no longer lived there. He’d been voted out of the house - for fighting. He was by far the oldest man there but was given the dirtiest and heaviest chores. One day when he complained, he got into a fist fight with another man and knocked him down. That was the incident that determined the vote to oust him. He didn’t leave a forwarding address for me. When he died, Fr. Kern made the preliminary arrangements for his burial and then remembered to call me so that the family could attend the funeral. Sadly, the space in the family plot that was originally intended for Eugene had been divided years before to hold a child, an infant, so there was only a half space left when it was his turn and he’s in a single grave elsewhere. It was Eugene who tended the family plot and he took care of it as long as he could.

Charles was the youngest. He married while he was still in medical school and was doing his internship in New York City when he decided to change careers. (That dismayed not only his family, but also the surgeon that he was studying under.) He’d gotten caught up in the union movement and became a “Walking Delegate” traveling to different cities. He worked for years as a gravure printer and I’ve heard that he was considered one of the best. One day, when he was 70 years old, he fell from a high press and was forced to retire: he was nearly blind in one eye, cataracts. After retirement he joined a couple of retiree clubs. The Four Leaf Clover Club at Most Holy Trinity Parish in Detroit was one of them and that’s where we met. Father Kern did the honors again. Grandpa turned out to be an old softy, a sentimental Irishman who could get tears in his eyes reminiscing about the ‘good old days’. Trouble is, ‘good old days’ meant times of riots in Chicago with men being thrown over factory gates, etc. At one of the Senior Citizens’ Clubs he met Eva Green, a widow, and, at age 72, he remarried.

William J. Drawe and M. Eugenia Roy

William and Eugenia

Will and Gen to each other, Ma and Pa to their children, Aunt Genny and Uncle Will to some, but always Gramma and Grandpa to me. They must have been the models that pictures of loving, doting grandparents are limbed from. I can’t remember a show of anger or real impatience. Even so, that doesn’t mean that Gramma never spanked me or didn’t confine me to the bedroom until I was ready to say, “I’m sorry”. Too, I was made to understand that there were to be no interruptions while Father Coughlin was on the air or while President Roosevelt was giving a Fireside Chat. The mood was less serious when Fanny Brice - that nasty Baby Snooks - or Ed Wynn, The Texaco Fire Chief, was on the air. Those were their programs; mine was The Lone Ranger.

They liked to play cards and taught me to play Casino, occasionally letting me play with them evenings so, when I started school I could add a bit and county all the way up to King (joke). Grampa played solitaire, once in a while peeking at the under cards. It seemed a strange thing to do at the time. Why would anyone want to cheat at solitaire? (Now at 70 years old, I understand a lot better.)

When I stayed with my grandparents the small couch in their living room was my bed. The apartment was a simple one; three rooms that were the rear portion of the lower flat of their two-family. (It’s on the corner of N. Cavalry and Gaynor Court in Detroit.) The other part of that flat and the upstairs flat were usually rented out. (My own Mother and Dad sometimes rented one or the other and my sister Margaret and I were both born in that house.) The basement was finished off as well and divided to make living quarters. There were two main sections, each one holding a furnace. (We had steam heat. Easy to remember that as once in a while a boiler would overheat, steam would come whooshing out and people’d run around yelling until the steam stopped.) One half was made into an apartment with a kitchen in the furnace area; the other side had a large utility room with the second furnace. Next to the furnace was my Uncle Ralph’s workbench with a small last and an adult-sized last for repairing shoes, and a vise. There was a storage area for the stock of pipes needed in his plumbing work. On the opposite side of the room were laundry tubs and a shower stall. A stairway went to a back exit and past there to the upper flat. The fourth wall had a hallway leading off to three or four bedrooms, which were my uncles’ before they married and left home. At the end of the hall was another door with a root cellar and a cupboard with the canned goods. I think that’s where the crocks of sauerkraut were kept, too. (Gramma was French Canadian but being married to a man of German heritage she learned to cook for him and they make their own kraut.) Canning was down in the basement kitchen. Fresh fruits and vegetables were bought from “Mister Joe” a farmer who drove up and down the neighborhood at least once a week selling produce from the back of his truck. (He had a horse and wagon when he first started.) He would cry out his wares and prices as he inched his way down the street. “Strawberries….three quarts for a quarter…strawberries.” Gramma made jars of chili sauce in mason jars with twist-on lids and glasses of grape jelly with Paraffin tops: sometimes she made salt-rising bread and sometimes a white loaf with stuffed olives and strips of sweet bell peppers. That looked Christmassy when it was sliced. (every-day bread was bought at the bakery shop up on Fort Street.) The dinner table in the basement kitchen was large enough to be used as a general-purpose table - handy for laying out patterns, cutting cloth, setting up the sewing machine, etc.

Three of my uncles were still living in that house when I was very small and one or another would occasionally take me out of Gramma’s hair for a couple of hours. Uncle Ralph might walk me to Clark Park to ride on the swings or wade in the children’s pool while he played checkers with some of the old men who spent their days at the park. If I had a couple of pennies to spend he’d let me lead him to the little candy store where there was an endless array of penny candy. I remember that one of my uncles would point out places of interest as we went along…for example: There’s a blind pig being kept in the bakery shop on Fort Street; Look! Blood stains on the sidewalk where there’d been a fight two days ago.

Uncle Louis once took me to visit some of his friends; some nice pretty ladies who gave me milk and cookies and visited with me in their beautiful parlor. (A movie with a Detroit locale made a few years ago had a close duplicate of that room in it.)

Everyone should have uncles. Uncle Pat made whistles out of twigs; Uncle Ralph used a buttonhook to re-attach arms and legs on my dolls when they got “broken”. Uncle Louis was able to take the dried peas that Gramma soaked overnight and put them together toothpicks to build a Ferris wheel - just like an erector set. Aunt Velma said that she and Aunt Alma used to take me to the Wednesday Matinee at the Hollywood or the Lincoln Square to try to impress the uncles. It didn’t hurt. Velma married Pat and Alma married Bill.

My favorite uncle was Uncle Ralph. Uncle Ralph was a bachelor who kept a permanent room at the house. He had an old sedan that he used for his plumbing work. The rear doors were wired shut and there were pipes and tools in the back. He wasn’t a very tall man but he was muscular, usually had a deep tan and, like most Drawes, had a great head of hair. He wore high-topped work shoes with reinforced toes, could spit his chewing tobacco into a spittoon, and his drink was the Boilermaker.

When Uncle Louis got a car with a rumble seat it was the joy of the neighborhood. In later years he had more practical cars and took us for rides. At Christmas time he drove us around to see the lights and decorations on the houses on West Grand Blvd. In the summer, he’d take us out to the lake to visit Alma and Bill and family. Lois worked as a truck driver and drove steel trucks for at least 23 years. The one I saw him driving was a flatbed carrying three huge rounds of steel. An accident as his truck was being loaded once left him with a broken leg and his biggest complaint was that they made him work in the office until it was mended. He was well read; the overnight stops on long distance hauls made time for book reading. Even though there was nothing polished in his manner, I had the feeling that he could give Queen Elizabeth a little pinch and she would just simper and say: “Mister Drawe! You shouldn’t do that,” and giggle.

My other uncles I leave to other cousins to draw.

More about Gramma: When I started school she seemed to feel personally offended by some of the things that the Sisters were teaching us. We had some lessons in French and Gramma corrected it, insisting that potatoes were “potats” and not “pommes de terre”. English was another thing: “ain’t” was a good word that she’d used all her life and why was I changing the way I pronounced radiator and root? (She stopped after Uncle Louis said, “Ma, leave the kid alone, you’re confusing her.”

More about the neighborhood: The milkman - his truck was horse-drawn. The Sheeny - a couple of times a year the sheeny would drive down the alley sitting high on the seat of his horse-drawn wagon, blowing his sad sounding ram’s horn. It was the signal the neighborhood was waiting for. He had his scales at hand, ready to weigh out the old irons or other scrap metal that he was ready to salvage. He bought precious metals too and may have bought papers and old clothes as well. Someone did. The ice box - in the winter time there wasn’t much need for an ice box because most people set a box on the windowsill to make use of the winter air. In the summer, ice was bought at the ice house just down the street on the other side of the railroad tracks.

Bernard Cecil John O’Rorke

Mother and most people usually called him Bernie, although Mother sometimes used Bernard. A few people, like his bowling buddies, know him as Barney. To Margaret and I (Ruth), he was Daddy up until the time that we were teenagers. Then, of course, he became Dad.

At first I thought; what can I write about Dad? He was a background figure who came to life one evening, set aside his newspaper, took off his glasses, stood, and said, “STOP.”

The load active interplay between his wife and five daughters was shocked into motionlessness silence. “I don’t care what you are doing, I just want to know what is going on!” That was Dad.

Thinking back, there is much to tell about him. During Christmas time in Detroit, the whole downtown became a wonderland. He’d take us to the Thanksgiving Day Parade to see Santa arrive at the Hudson store. On another day, he’d take us up to the 12th floor to visit Santa, then we would walk around and look at as many of the toys and displays as we could take in; his own favorite seemed to be the model trains. Afterward, he would take us to a funny little restaurant (we weren’t to tell mother) which was very narrow, it didn't have stools at a counter or tables and chairs, just a service counter at the back, and chairs side by side against one wall. The chairs had one arm like a big tray, looked like lab chairs, with places to set a cup and bowl built into the arm. I think it was soup with oyster crackers that they served. It was our secret. I wish I could remember the name of the place.

One year when I was a bit older and he knew I didn’t believe in Santa anymore, he took me with him on his Christmas Eve shopping trip. This was a serious trek through Hudson’s toy floor. He showed me how some items had price tags marked “Al” with the original price crossed out and a new one written in; sometimes the new price had been dropped to only a few cents. I was told to look at the item very carefully for sometimes only the paint was scratched and the toy was still 100% usable, but it was not a bargain if you could not use it. Now don’t criticize him for that. Back in those days, there wasn’t much union influence, so there wasn’t any workman’s comp. There were auto plants that laid off for a short time without pay, right around Thanksgiving (I think), anyway; He had to make do with what he had.

A couple of happenings from my early years: Dad was just getting ready to leave for work, the afternoon shift, and mother gave him a sandwich for his lunch bucket. There was a knock on the door, so I answered it. Dad asked who it was. I replied, “It’s a man and he wants something to eat!” Dad walked over to the man, looked at him face on, and handed him his sandwich. Mom reminded him that here was nothing else to make a sandwich with. He said he’d do without lunch.

Another evening, we were gathered around the radio with Grandma and Grandpa Drawe and Uncle Louis with his German shepherd, when Dad and (possibly) Hoyt came in carrying a big orange something with dials on it. It was about 8 inches high and 20 inches wide. It turned out to be a new radio with fine-tuning. Dad went bonkers over it. We listened to One Man’s Family in style that night on a Super Heterodyne radio.

In the area of the house on Cavalry and Gaynor Court in Detroit, there were three theaters. The first-run theater was the M? And the third-run theater was the Rex. Dad used to give bridge lessons and one of the students was the manager of the M? Once in a while, when he gave us free passes, we would go to the Saturday matinee.

Dad also subscribed to The Book of the Month Club. He took night school lessons on something like “How to Make Friends and Influence People”.

One of his proudest memories was being made a 4th degree Knight of Columbus. He had even saved up enough for a tuxedo for the occasion. Between wearings it was carefully folded up and put away.

The long bad days of the depression were over only at the expense of peace. WWII brought the economy back to life. Dad still wore his blue clothes when he went to work as a “Stock-Chaser” in the factory, and his suit with a white shirt when he went to work in the personnel offices at Graham-Paige, interviewing, fingerprinting, and taking ID pictures of new employees. While working at Graham-Paige, he joined the bowling league and really got hooked on bowling and saved up to get his own bowling ball.

After he retired, hanging around the house got a bit boring, especially since he and Mother were living over the stores on Grand River in Detroit.

He got a part-time job as a night clerk at the motel attached to the downtown bus (Greyhound) station. He was held up (robbed) regularly and had instructions to let them have the money. Once he was held up just as he was starting to do the money count at the register. He told the robber that he was just going to have to wait until he finished; he went ahead counting and listing the bills on each denomination, same with the Canadian currency. Dad was able to give a perfect description of the man and perfect listing of how much was taken. The police were able to make the arrest.

He later got a part-time job at the bowling lanes. While there, he organized a league of retirees who bowled one afternoon a week.

His special loves were:

1. The Detroit Tigers. When he was young, there were a few stores that posted the scores on blackboards in the windows. Little boys would hang around and when the scores changed, they’d run off to tell certain people about it. Signals went out from the ballparks via telegraph. If you could read Morse code, you could “listen” in. Even after the radio was delivering the whole game, it came by Morse code from other cities; thus you could hear it in the background as Ty Tyson relayed it through the radio.
2. The Detroit Red Wings, but only after he retired.
3. The Pun. Nothing was sacred if it opened itself to a pun.
4. The latest little fun item. One year he gave me a Silly Putty egg for Christmas. It was just right. The most interesting present I (Ruth) had been given in years.
5. The opera from the Met on Sunday afternoons. This was a serious love. When the ones I also loved were on, we’d listen together. He’d sometimes close his eyes and conduct a little. The voice on the radio would tell us the story very quietly, when the house lights were dimming, Aid or Mime, or that Japanese girl would be on stage, etc…. In his younger days, Dad sang (tenor-baritone) with the Detroit Opera Company and had a newspaper clipping as a souvenir of one occasion in particular.
6. Shana and Marie. Shana was his granddaughter by Michele (Franny), and Marie was his great granddaughter by Sara and Bob Mader, Margaret’s son.

************

Bernie had a younger brother, Charles. Charles needed extra care since he was a hemophiliac and could easily bleed to death from a simple cut. Thus, it was Bernie’s job to watch out for him and make sure nothing happened. If in fact Charles did get hurt, Bernie would be punished for letting Charles get into trouble. That must have been the reason Margaret got punished when the two of us made too much noise after lights out. He’d give us a warning and if we didn’t stop giggling and laughing, he’d open the door, roll up his newspaper, and swat Margaret on her backside. I was younger, so it was up to her to take care of me.

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