CHAPTER 1
My Resume of Experiences
From humble beginnings, I was born in Curwensville, PA in 1920, a little town of 5000 people in Clearfield County.
My father came to the U.S. in 1905 and worked as a skilled stone mason, working on many of the stone bridges and buildings in and around Harrisburg, PA. My family consisted of seven boys and two girls. I was the youngest boy and it was a close knit family – very loving and warm.
My recollections of growing up in a small town had its advantages. Everybody knew everybody. You knew the doctors, the lawyers, and the priest of your parish. You knew the druggist and everybody knew you and your family and you were jealous to protect that structure and integrity.
I graduated from St. Francis High School in Clearfield at the peak of the depression when jobs were hard to come by. If you wanted to go to college, good luck! You were on your own. Nobody had the money to send you. So you had to wing it, it was all up to you!
I had in the back of my mind that I would like to study law, so I dreamed of entering Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA., which I learned was a good school for pre-law. But, remember, the country was preparing to enter the war. There was talk of Hitler and the German influence intimidating the world scene. It seemed for the US to remain neutral was probably an impossibility. By the spring, Hitler was moving and stirring all of Europe. If you had any plans it was hard to prepare for them.
Explaining to my family that I would like to study law, in 1939 I entered Franklin and Marshall College. I came to Lancaster to stay with a cousin, (no money, little hope), but I continued to enroll. The first day, I found a job at the Old Brunswick Hotel running the elevator at night and got a job in a retail store during the day. I figured if I worked hard I would be able to pay the $700/year for the tuition.
The War Beckons
In 1940 the talk on radio was the war in Europe. Germany and Britain in the news every day about what the Germans were doing stirring trouble with Nazism. Well it didn't take long for Hitler and Germany to stir trouble in the world. Germany involved Poland, then France and was soon bombing Britain and me being of the ripe age of 18. I expected the worse for my future. America would soon be at war.
It didn't take long. America was asked to enter the war, which we did. Everyone was talking draft. Before they would call me, I decided to join the Army in 1940. First I asked my Dad who said no. Then I confided to my mother, who said yes.
It was mandatory to sign up for the draft – it was a law. Every able-bodied individual was subject to the draft – I did not want to be drafted. So in 1940 I went down to the draft board and heard that if you enlisted you had a chance to enter the service with some kind of choice. It was my thought that since I was an advanced amateur photographer with my own Leica camera, "Why not ask for photography?"
When I went to enlist I asked the officer if they had any place that I could go to become a photographer in the service. He pointed out that the Army had a photo school at the Army War College in Washington, D.C. (now Fort McNair) that had a few openings. This really appealed to me and I enlisted for the first class in photography in September of 1940.
Imagine now a frightened eighteen year old leaving a family of six other older brothers and two sisters. It was a secure fam
