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Note: Robert was born in Aurora,Kane, Illinois on Easter Sunday, April 23, 1916 to Mary Katherine Linden and Robert August Fermazin. Robert was the middle of three children. Robert was known as ÏBuddy?? in the family and as Fermy by his friends. Lola was his older sister who preceded him into eternal life in 2001 and his sister Irene Mabel who died in infancy in 1921. Robert was preceded into eternal life by the loveof his life Grace Worthing Fermazin, who passed in April 2001 Robert met Grace in 1941 and married her six months later on February 7, 1942at St. PaulÌs Lutheran Church in Aurora,Kane, Illinois. Robert worked at Thor Power Tool Company and the C, B, & Q Railroad in Aurora for many years. Robert also owned the Across Town TV Company in Aurora. Robert served in the Army in WWII. In 1959 Robert and Grace and their two girls moved to Fullerton, California. where Grace retired and became a homemaker enjoying the California sunshine, her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. They lived in Fullerton. Buena Park and Brea for many years and then retired to Homeland, California in the 1980Ìs. In 2000 Robert and Grace moved back to the Anaheim area tolive closer to family and friends. Robert was a veteran of WWII. Robert was a member of the American Legion and the pool club for many years. Grace and Robert enjoyed camping in their motor home and used tobe big Western fans and even had CB radios. He enjoyed garage sailing on weekends for vintage radios. Robert is survived by his daughterNancy of Buena Park, his daughter Mary Gaouette of Fort Mohave, Arizona, grandsons Kevin Peralta and wife Stella of Alta Loma, California, Dwight Sterling of Twenty-nine Palms, California and Brice Sterling ofSan Francisco, California. He is also survived by his great grandsons Peter and Nicolas of Alta Loma California and his niece, Karen Mahrenholtz of Carol Stream, Illinois and many cousins, grand nieces and grand nephews in California and Illinois.
Robert grew up during the Great Depression. The crash came in 1929 when he was 13 years old. During the depression, the family pooled their resources. Grandpa worked in a machine shop one day a week, Grandma kept house and cooked and cleaned and raised the kids. Buddy or Robert went to school. In grade school he ice skated along the streets from 5th Avenue to Sacred Heart School and in the summer he roller skated to school. There were no buses in those days.
As Robert Buddy got older he worked the greenhouse in the day time for a $1.00 a day and set pins at the bowling alley in the evening. On weekends he wasn't idle. He caddied across the street from home at the golf course. Aunt Lola worked in the corset factory and made $ 15.00a week during the depression.
Robert's duties included changing the mulch for the roses. He and the other guys used to go out in the country of the surrounding area and get fresh dirt to bring back to replace the rose beds. Prior to going out for new dirt they emptied the rose beds. This was done once a year. One time dad was given the job of "mulching" the rose beds. This job meant taking a big bag of steer manure around to all the roses and reaching in with your bare hand and pulling out a handful of manure and putting it by each rose. Robert refused to do this job so he was given the permanent job of going out and digging up fresh dirt and replacing the beds.
Besides working at the nursery Robert set bowling pins and picked up golf balls and caddied during the depression. His sister Aunt Lola worked at the corset factory for $ 15.00 a week. At the end of the week they both turned all the money over to Grandma who used it for necessities of life. Grandma gave Robert and Lola each a dollar on Friday night to go out on the town. That was when gasoline was 2 gallons fora quarter and they thought that was EXPENSIVE!! and bread was 10 cents a loaf and milk 12 cents a quart.
For food in the depression, the family ate lots of carrots and home grown vegetables. Grandpa and Buddy used to go hunting for squirrel, pigeon, and rabbits and in the winter time they trapped and caught swamp rats (muskrat). Grandpa shot them with his rifle. he was a dead eye and known for a bulls eye with each shot. He was so good he couldhear them flies walking on the electric lines. Got em on the first shot. As for the rabbits he never missed. He shot them in the head. Buddy remembers his first game rabbit. He shot the rabbit with a 410 shot gun 10 feet away and wouldn't you know it he blew it to smithereens. Too close.
In 1927 Buddy bought his first car, a 1923 Model T. He saw it sitting idle and paid a whole $ 3.00 for it. Had to go on the weekend with grandpa to pick it up. They pumped up the tires and got it startedfor home. In those days cars had three pedals, one for forward, one for reverse, and one to stop. Sometimes when stopped you had to push all three pedals down.
In the 1930's Robert worked at the nursery in Aurora for $ 1.00 a day. His duties included changing the mulch for the roses. He and the other guys used to go out in the country of the surrounding area and getfresh dirt to bring back to replace the rose beds. Prior to going out for new dirt they emptied the rose beds. This was done once a year.One time dad was given the job of "mulching" the rose beds. This jobmeant taking a big bag of steer manure around to all the roses and reaching in with your bare hand and pulling out a handful of manure and putting it by each rose. Robert refused to do this job so he was giventhe permanent job of going out and digging up fresh dirt and replacing the beds.
Besides working at the nursery Robert set bowling pins and picked up golf balls and caddied during the depression. His sister Aunt Lola worked at the corset factory for $ 15.00 a week. At the end of the week they both turned all the money over to Grandma who used it for necessities of life. Grandma gave Robert and Lola each a dollar on Friday night to go out on the town. That was when gasoline was 2 gallons fora quarter and they thought that was EXPENSIVE!! and bread was 10 cents a loaf and milk 12 cents a quart.
After Robert and Grace were first married they lived at 942 6th Avenue, Aurora,Kane, Illinois with Grandma and Grandpa Fermazin. After this they moved to a house on Dearborn and Trask Avenue across from Gordon's Junk Yard. Rent for this place was $25.00 per month. The people who lived upstairs from them were Mr. & Mrs. Bob Stehly. Interestingly the Stehly's were married same day same year as Grace and Robert.They used a ton of coal a week just to heat the downstairs. Every time the trains went by the house shook and shook. After this they moved to 251 Hillside Avenue, Aurora, Kane, Illinois where they purchased a house on the GI bill for $ 6200. After they purchased the house they had to wait for the hot water heater and the furnace and the paint because of WWII. The payments were
$ 42.00 per month and taxes were $16.00 per year. "Uncle Louie" (as we called him) Ludwig Hansen lived with us there. He was Grace's step father, first husband of Nancy Theo Ames and Blanche Hansen Stevens' father.
Robert and Grace and Nancy and Mary moved to Fullerton, California inAugust 1959. They lived at Jensen Way, Fullerton, California. In 1960 they bought a house at 7690 Lantana Drive, Buena Park, California. Later they lived in Garden Grove, Brea, Homeland and finally settled in Anaheim, California.
Information obtained from Robert F. Fermazin to his daughter Nancy Fermazin on November 1, 2000.
FERMAZIN, ROBERT F.
DATE OF BIRTH: 04/23/1916
DATE OF DEATH: 11/05/2005
DATE OF INTERMENT: 11/07/2005
BURIED AT: SECTION 45 SITE 3085
RIVERSIDE NATIONAL CEMETERY 22495 VAN BUREN BOULEVARD RIVERSIDE , CA 92518
(909) 653-8417
PVT ROBERT F FERMAZIN
ROBERT FRANCIS FERMAZIN
ÏFERMYÓ
Some things that may have occurred in Robert's youth................
Hey Dad," one of my kids asked the other day, "What was your favorite= fast food when you were growing up?"
"We didn't have fast food when I was growing up," I informed him. "All = the food was slow."
"C'mon, seriously. Where did you eat?"
"It was a place called 'at home,'" I explained. "Grandma cooked every= day and when Grandpa got home from work, we sat down together at the = dining room table, and if I didn't like what she put on my plateI was = allowed to sit there until I did like it."
By this time, the kid was laughing so hard I was afraid he was going to = suffer serious internal damage, so I didn't tell him the part about how = I had to have permission to leave the table. But here are some other = things I would have told him about my childhood if I figured his system = could have handled it:
Some parents NEVER owned their own house, wore Levis, set foot on a golf = course, traveled out of the country or had a credit card. In their later = years they had something called a revolving charge card. The card was = good only at Sears Roebuck. Or maybe it was Sears AND Roebuck. Either = way, there is no Roebuck anymore. Maybe he died.
My parents never drove me to soccer practice. This was mostly because we never had heard of soccer. I had a bicycle that weighed probably50 = pounds, and only had one speed, (slow). We didn't have a television in = our house until I was 11, but my grandparents had one before that. It = was, of course, black and white, but they bought a piece of colored plastic to cover the screen. The top third was blue, like the sky, and = the bottom third was green, like grass. The middle third was red. It was perfect for programs that had scenes of fire trucks riding across someone's lawn on a sunny day. Some people had a lenstaped to the front = of the TV to make the picture look larger.
We didn't have a car until I was 15. Before that, the only car in our= family was my grandfather's Ford. He called it a "machine."
I never had a telephone in my room. The only phone in the house was in = the living room and it was on a party line. Before you could dial, you = had to listen and make sure some people you didn't know weren't already = using the line.
All newspapers were delivered by boys and all boys delivered newspapers.
=
I delivered a newspaper, six days a week. It cost 7 cents a paper, of= which I got to keep 2 cents. I had to get up at 4 AM every morning.On = Saturday, I had to collect the 42 cents from my customers. My favorite = customers were the ones who gave me 50 cents and told me to keep the = change. My least favorite customers were the ones who seemed to never be = home on collection day.
Movie stars kissed with their mouths shut. At least, they did in the= movies. Touching someone else's tongue with yours was called French= kissing and
they didn't do that in movies. I don't know what they did in French movies. French movies were dirty and we weren't allowed to see them.
If you grew up in a generation before there was fast food, you may want = to share some of these memories with your children or grandchildren. = Just don't blame me if they bust a gut laughing.
Growing up isn't what it used to be, is it?
MEMORIES from a friend:
My Dad is cleaning out my grandmother's house (she died in December) and = he brought me an old Royal Crown Cola bottle. In the bottle top was a = stopper with a bunch of holes in it. I knew immediately what it was, but = my daughter had no idea. She thought they had tried to make it a salt = shaker or something. I knew it as the bottle that sat on the end of the = ironing board to "sprinkle" clothes with because we didn't have steam = irons. Man, I am old.
Ice Skating Memories
In October, as the beginnings of winter lurked around the corner, my sister Mary and I became excited in anticipation of skating on the make-shift pond in front of our house. ìDaddy, Daddy! When are you going to fill the pond for us?î we would begin asking at Halloween after the first snow flurries, as the weather turned cold. The slope in front of our house on Hillside Avenue would freeze over with a little help from dad
who filled it with water every winter. Our corner lot was 100 feet by 100 feet and flat
except for the front three feet where it sloped on an angle to Hillside Avenue and wound its way around the corner along Coolidge Avenue, giving us 200 feet, the perfect practice ìrinkî for after school until the weekend. My sister, Mary and I skated around the mini pond, enthusiastically, speed skating, practicing figure eights. That we did well! I fantasized skating on ice like Sonja Henie. On weekends we walked three miles to Phillips Park Lagoon. I liked to go early in the morning on Saturdays as the afternoon was too crowded. On Sundays, we went after church. In the beginning, I went with my friend Jane, but she gave up because she had flat feet and they hurt after too long on skates. After that, I went by myself or with my sister. I wore woolen slacks and sometimes leggings over the slacks, a sweater and jacket, a babushka and a red plaid scarf wrapped around my neck and of course gloves. I walked from home to Farnsworth Avenue, up New York Street to Hill Avenue and Ray Moses Drive, ending
two and a half miles later at the Lagoon.
I was nOt very good at jumps, ice dancing, or going backwards but I managed to skate well and fast forwards. My favorite game on ice was Crack the Whip. I was always part of the whip and I wasnít scared of that! Crack the whip was a simple outdoor game that involved groups of about twenty to thirty players. One player was chosen as the head of the whip and skated around the ice randomly with subsequent players holding on to the hand of the player in front and behind, whipping around the ice. There was much more force on the person at the end of the tail and this person held on tighter. As the game progressed most players fell off the tail. Sometimes they would get back on, moving up before the others could reconnect to the whip giving them a more secure position. There was no objective to this game other than sheer enjoyment.
Skating was a popular winter sport in Illinois. Dad told us he was a great speed and figure skater. According to my dad, Robert Fermazin, he was the Aurora city ice skating champion in his youth. My dad bragged to us over the years about his speed and figure skating prowess. The stories were collaborated by Aunt Lola, Oma and Opa and the lonely trophy which sat on the shelf of the cherry wood hutch cabinet. We haven't found the newspaper clippings to confirm this yet, but I don't doubt him.
One Sunday, Dad, took the challenge. Mary and I were 8 and 11 in 1954, watching our hero, our Dad, prove his skating talent to us on Lake Mastodon at Phillips Park.
Dad was only 5í6î tall and weighed about 150 pounds with bright blue-gray eyes and dark thick, wavy black hair, parted on the side and combed back from his forehead when he wasnít sporting a crew cut. This particular Sunday, Dad took us to Lake Mastodon about two o'clock in the afternoon when the temperature was a frosty twenty-eight degrees. I remember this like it was yesterday. My sister and I watched with awe and amazement. He skimmed effortlessly over the frozen surface of the lake on this blustery, January day, with the collar on his jacket turned up and inward hugging his neck, cold air blowing off the lake into his face sending his hair straight up flapping in the wind over his ear muffs and black leather gloves warming his hands as he skated. He was as light and graceful on his feet as dancing was to Fred Astaire doing it all using an old rusty pair of clamp-on skates. Mary and I had pretty white shoe skates with striped red and white laces adorned with jingle bells on the top. And, oh how he could skate! ...moving with a grace that was wonderful to behold....gliding effortlessly on the ice...making figure eights and jumping with precision and twisting and turning in the air, skating backwards, then forwards... a look of sweet pleasure on his face. His large hands were clasped behind his back and his head tilted to the side as if he were listening to sounds from another time and place. We watched with glazed eyes, magically spellbound, not taking them away from Dad as his performance dazzled us. He was so proud.
Skating backwards was difficult for me. I bent forward at the waist, pushing off with my legs bent at a forty-five degree angle, but was never able to get up the momentum. It looked so easy when you watched the professionals. I skated fast, forwards and was able to do figure eights with ease. Jumping and twisting in the air was not in my repertoire. Dad did it with ease. In the beginning (of our ice skating days), Dad helped us get ready to skate. He would say, ìHere honey, let me help you with that.î as he knelt in front of us taking the laces from our hands. He pulled firmly on the laces to make sure each skate fit snugly, wrapping the laces around our ankles, neatly tucking the ends in so we would not trip. Then he folded the tops of our wool socks over the edge of each skate's boot and gave us a gentle pat, saying, "There you go, girls", and stood so he could take our hands to hold us steady while we got upright. With ankles wobbling in the beginning years as our feet adjusted to the narrow blades we made cautious steps. That's my girls. You can do it.î With that, Dad left us self-confident to skate on the ice returning a few hours later to pick us up for the ride home. Even if you were a klutz on ice, you could still have fun. We played Crack the Whip, Red Light, Red Light, Stride and Glide and just skated and skated, round and round at the lagoon. In Red Light, one skater stands at the end of the ice with his back to the rest of the skaters counting out loud. Then, all at once he yells red light and you have to race back to the starting line, tagging it. Stride and Glide was where you took a few strides and then glided on the ice with the winner being the one who glided the farthest. Some times as a challenge, we glided on one skate. Not me.
We received lots of exercise skating. After a few hours of fun on the ice at the lagoon, with sore ankles, legs heavy, and toes starting to burn from being too cold and cramped, a scarf covering our mouth, bright red cheeks, eye lashes stuck together with ice crystals and nose dripping we would trek to the enclosed pavilion. The inviting embers burned in the pot belly stove and a full mug of hot chocolate piled high with whip cream awaited us. The invigorating afternoon was over and soon we would be home. On Saturdays, when I got home, I had lunch and a nap - walking into a warm house after being out in the cold had a somnolent effect.
Ice skating was a large part of our winter life growing up in Illinois and generated fond memories of by gone days. In door ice rinks have replaced the outdoor ice skating ponds. The lagoon remains, but it is fenced off and houses three resident elk. The pot bellied stove and the benches are gone, and the pavilion serves as a concession stand on weekends.
Love at First Sight
"She's gonna cry
Until I tell her that I'll never roam
So Chattanooga choo choo"
ìWow mom that is quite a story! Just think you and dad are celebrating fifty years of marriage. That ís a long time. How did you meet?î
ì That was the year of one snow fall after another. I remember it well. It seemed like it snowed and snowed and snowed. Aurora received more snow that year than in the forty previous years. December was cold. January was cold and in February there was a blizzard. The Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor the day before we became engaged.î
Excitement and energy were bursting in the air at the Fermazin family home. Robert finally took the big step. Robert was engaged! They were sitting around the Philco console radio in Robertís home when President Roosevelt addressed Congress that day, saying: ìYesterday, December 7, 1941 - a date that will live in infamy - the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan ... Hostilities exist.î For Grace and Robert that was just like yesterday.
Mom remembered the flurry of excitement shopping for her diamond engagement ring that weekend, snow or no snow. There was snow, slush, and drifts piled high along the highways on the outskirts of down town, Aurora, in driveways, and backyards all over the city. The snowfall was constant from the end of October to March. Winters in Aurora were renowned for their wind and cold. However, this year was the snowiest December in the last forty years in the Chicago area. At five degrees below zero, the Fox River began to freeze over. The snow crunched under your feet and the wind blew through your hair causing you to shiver as you walked down Broadway. Store windows were aglow with Christmas lights and decorations lined the sidewalks. Holly and glittering silver and blue lights wound around the tall street lamps which illuminated the sidewalks with glowing warmth. The radios pounded out big band leader Glen Miller's Chattanooga Choo Choo withTex Beneke singing: ìPardon me, boy. Is that the Chattanooga choo choo...? So Chattanooga choo choo won't you choo-choo me home
After a courtship of one month, with the uncertainties of the future, the Great Depression behind them, Robert and Grace became engaged. They met on a blind date arranged by Robertís best friend, Walt Ahlgren and his fiance, Dorothy. (unbeknownst to Robert, Grace and Dorothy were great friends) It was love at first sight. Robert and Grace came to know one another by enjoying many activities in a short time: movies, family get-togethers, parties with friends, and ice skating on Lake Mastodon at Phillipís Park. Robert was the city champion ice skater for many years as a pre-teen and teenager so he enjoyed impressing Grace with figure eights, skating backwards, jumping and twisting on ice along with many other moves.
Robert Linden Fermazin was the middle child of a first generation German and Luxembourger family. At times you could hear German spoken in the home when the older generation wanted to talk privately and most assuredly hear Luxembourgish spoken by his mother, Mary, when talking to her sister, Lena. This was a loving home. They were a close knit family having weathered many uncertainties during the depression. Robert resembled his mother in looks and build. He was short at 5í7î, 160 pounds; black naturally curly hair and mischievous blue gray eyes, sometimes blue and sometimes granite gray depending on Robert' temperament. For most of his twenty-six years, Robert was care-free and happy-go-lucky. Robert or Buddy as he was known to family and Fermy as he was fondly nicknamed by his friends was a known prankster and the life of the party. When Robert wasn't partying his serious side held down a full time job at Thor Power Tool Company as a journey man machinist.
Robert wasn't always so care free or well off. During the depression he ice skated three miles along the streets from 5th Avenue to Sacred Heart School and in the spring he roller skated. There were no buses in those days. As, Buddy got older he spent the summers working in the greenhouse during the day for a $1.00 a day. Once a year, Robert's duties included changing the mulch for the roses. He and the other guys used to go out in the surrounding countryside and bring fresh dirt back for replacement in the rose beds. Prior to going out for new dirt, they emptied the rose beds. One time Robert was given the job of "mulching" the rose beds. This job meant taking a big bag of steer manure around to all the roses and reaching in with your bare hand and pulling out a handful and placing it by each rose. Robert refused to do this job the next time, so he was given the permanent job of digging up fresh dirt and replacing the beds. After a long day at the nursery, he set pins at the bowling alley each evening.
On weekends he wasn't idle. He caddied across the street from home at the golf course. At the end of the week, he turned all the money over to Mary, who used it for necessities of life. Mary gave Robert a dollar on Friday night to go out on the town. That was when gasoline was 2 gallons for a quarter and (they thought that was EXPENSIVE!!) bread was 10 cents a loaf and milk 12 cents a quart.
For food in the depression, the family ate lots of carrots and home grown vegetables. Buddy and his dad used to go hunting for squirrel, pigeon, and rabbits and in the winter time they trapped and caught swamp rats (muskrat). Robert recalled his dad was famous for a bulls eye with each shot. He was so good Robert recalls he shot them in the head. Buddy remembers his first game rabbit. He shot the rabbit with a 410 shot gun 10 feet away and wouldn't you know it he blew it to smithereens. Too close.
Grace Worthing, on the other hand, was a shy, quiet, twenty-five year old orphan, having lost her mother at age twelve from a brain tumor and her father at age sixteen from cancer of the pancreas, lived in Aurora for about seven years before meeting Robert. Grace met Robert officially on a blind date, but she knew him from his reputation of motor cycle antics up and down Broadway on Saturday nights. She would not have chosen him on her own to date. Grace was 5í tall, petite, weighing eighty-nine pounds, of Welsh descent, with medium length, dark brown-black hair, and gold green hazel eyes which turned green when the sun hit them. She hailed from the romantic area of Truro, Iowa and the covered bridges, later made famous by Clint Eastwood and Meryl Streep. Truro was a town of two hundred, nestled in southwestern Madison County Iowa. At age sixteen, she moved from Truro to a farm in the village of Birds Run, Ohio to live with her step-brother, Walter. This did not work out for personal reasons and Grace moved into the city to live with her cousin, Eppie, where she cooked, cleaned, and baby-sat for her room and board which prepared her for her future job as nanny and housekeeper. At age eighteen, she moved to Aurora to live with her half-sister, Blanche. By the time she met Robert, life had stabilized. She had a few close friends and one best friend, Marie Vaghey. Grace worked as a live-in nanny and housekeeper for a wealthy family in town.
Promptly the next day, after President Rooseveltí's speech, Robert and Grace became engaged, as life ís uncertainties, the war in the background, and the thought of the draft were now present. A paradigm shift occurred suddenly for them. Life changed for all the day the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Robert and Grace did not know what their world was going to bring. Christmas and the merriment of the season and their engagement excitement changed.
A major set back occurred in their plans. Grace was Baptist and Robert was Catholic. They went to the priest to make the wedding arrangements, but he insisted they attend marriage counseling first, Grace take instructions, and wait one year before marrying. He refused to marry them. Well, they didn't let this stop their resolve. They were madly in love, they had also survived the Great Depression and determination was part of their make-up. Robert and Grace refused to wait. Thirty years ago, Robert's parents encountered a similar situation. His father was Lutheran and his mother was Catholic.
Robertís father solved the dilemma. He took them to meet with Pastor Miller at St. Paul's Lutheran Church. The pastor agreed to marry them if they both attended St. Paul's and pledged to raise their children in the Lutheran faith. They agreed. They set the wedding date.
Exactly, to the day, two months after the United States declared war on Japan, Robert and Grace were married. Mom remembered that as the day a late snowstorm moved into the area, about 4 AM dumping four inches of snow setting a record for the largest amount of snow recorded on that date with at least six inches more predicted for the weekend. The wedding went on as planned. They were married on a cold, cloudy day, the wind whistling in the air with a light flutter of snow blanketing the ground. Grace was bundled up in a brown fur coat, wrapped tightly around her thin frame to keep warm with Robert wearing a dark gray suit and hat with wool lined, black, ankle length overcoat covering his small frame for the trip to the church.
Addendum: One year later Robert and Grace were married by the Catholic Church. The priest relented after Grace completed instructions in the Catholic faith. They had their first daughter a year later in 1943 and she was raised Catholic. Grace attended the Catholic Church for many years with Robert and the children but did not convert until 1955. This union lasted fifty-nine years until Graceís death in 2001.
My Dad
Robert was born in 1916
Robert grew up during the Great Depression. The crash came in 1929 when he was 13 years old. During the depression, the family pooled their resources. Grandpa worked in a machine shop one day a week, Grandma kept house and cooked and cleaned and raised the kids. Buddy or Robert went to school. In grade school he ice skated along the streets from 5th Avenue to Sacred Heart School and in the summer he roller skated to school. There were no buses in those days.
As Robert (Buddy)got older he worked the greenhouse in the day time for a $1.00 a day and set pins at the bowling alley in the evening. On weekends he wasn't idle. He caddied across the street from home at the golf course. Aunt Lola worked in the corset factory and made $ 15.00 a week during the depression.
Robert's duties included changing the mulch for the roses. He and the other guys used to go out in the country of the surrounding area and get fresh dirt to bring back to replace the rose beds. Prior to going out for new dirt they emptied the rose beds. This was done once a year. One time dad was given the job of "mulching" the rose beds. This job meant taking a big bag of steer manure around to all the roses and reaching in with your bare hand and pulling out a handful of manure and putting it by each rose. Robert refused to do this job so he was given the permanent job of going out and digging up fresh dirt and replacing the beds.
Besides working at the nursery Robert set bowling pins and picked up golf balls and caddied during the depression. His sister Aunt Lola worked at the corset factory for $ 15.00 a week. At the end of the week they both turned all the money over to Grandma who used it for necessities of life. Grandma gave Robert and Lola each a dollar on Friday night to go out on the town. That was when gasoline was 2 gallons for a quarter and they thought that was EXPENSIVE!! and bread was 10 cents a loaf and milk 12 cents a quart.
For food in the depression, the family ate lots of carrots and home grown vegetables. Grandpa and Buddy used to go hunting for squirrel, pigeon, and rabbits and in the winter time they trapped and caught swamp rats (muskrat). Grandpa shot them with his rifle. he was a dead eye and known for a bulls eye with each shot. He was so good he could hear them flies walking on the electric lines. Got em on the first shot. As for the rabbits he never missed. He shot them in the head. Buddy remembers his first game rabbit. He shot the rabbit with a 410 shot gun 10 feet away and wouldn't you know it he blew it to smithereens. Too close.
In 1933 Buddy bought his first car, a 1923 Model T. He saw it sitting idle and paid a whole $ 3.00 for it. Had to go on the weekend with grandpa to pick it up. They pumped up the tires and got it started for home. In those days cars had three pedals, one for forward, one for reverse, and one to stop. Sometimes when stopped you had to push all three pedals down.
Robert gets married in 1942
After Robert and Grace were first married they lived on 5th Avenue with Grandma and Grandpa. After this they moved to a house on Dearborn and Trask Avenue across from Gordon's Junk Yard. Rent for this place was $25.00 per month. They used a ton of coal a week just to heat the downstairs. Every time the trains went by the house shook and shook. The people who lived upstairs from them were Mr. & Mrs. Bob Stehly. These two couples became life long friends. Interestingly, the Stehly's were married same day same year as Grace and Robert.
In 1946 Robert and Grace moved to 251 Hillside Avenue, Aurora, Kane, Illinois where they purchased a house on the GI bill for $ 6200. After they purchased the house they had to wait for the hot water heater and the furnace and the paint because of WWII. The payments were $ 42.00 per month and taxes were $16.00 per year.
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