The Old Photo in the Attic

Every time I returned to my boyhood home in Kokomo to visit Mom and Dad I would eventually find myself in the attic rummaging to see what treasure had previously escaped me, or been added.

It was a “cold attic”, meaning the temperature approximated the outside - cold in winter and like a sauna in summer. Insulation showed between rafters, so it was important to watch ones step. A few areas had been covered with boards, and that is where most of the stuff had been stored.

Many of the items were stimulants to memories of things gone by, like the box packed years ago with the first curtains to hang in our bedroom in 1950. They were of leafless trees, black skeletal trunks against a white background, cold and stark - an accurate interpretation of an Indiana winter.

There was the stand-alone floor model ash tray, an “art deco” model with a gaudy red body trimmed in flashy chrome. Don and I had given it to Mom for Christmas in about 1951.The top surface, a circular flying saucer shape with space on the outer edge to set drinks, sat on a conical pedestal with a chrome base. In the center, under a chrome plated handle, were chrome plated grooves for holding cigarettes around the edges of a chrome platted trap-door with a chrome plated button. Push the button, and the door opened to drop ashes and butts into a tray hidden below. For a lot of years it was an out-of-date piece of junk in the attic. Today it would be a sought-after collector item.

I made yet another trip to the attic in about 1992. Back in a corner, hidden behind some boxes, sat a large framed picture turned against the wall. I pulled it out to see a photo of a man sitting with his arm resting on a pedestal and a woman standing beside him. They were staring out toward me, but focused a bit to one side. He wore a beard, striped pants, black coat and vest; she stood in a floor length print dress that had an odd repeating design that suggested zodiac symbols. I guessed the photo to have been taken more than a hundred years before, possibly in about 1880.

My first thought was that it had been something Dad bought at one of the auctions he frequented, and it had been put in the attic and forgotten. He died in 1985 and Mom probably didn’t ventured up there any more. I took it down and showed it to her. She said it was a photo that our cousin, Jake, had brought back to Kokomo years ago. Jake died the year after Dad and the few personal items he left were up there in the attic, most of them in a old trunk.

"Jake" Jacobs, c. 1930, Connersville, IN

Jake had always been close to his Aunt Della (Jacobs) Frank, my grandmother. I think he was the only child of a fragmented family of grandma's older brother, and she "adopted" him. She came to live with Mom and Dad before I was born, and he followed her to Kokomo shortly after the war. Born William Thomas Jacobs in 1903, he was twenty years younger than grandma, and the same age as her oldest son. He grew up near them in Catawba, Kentucky.

He and his wife, Babe, stayed in Kokomo for a year or two and moved to Toledo, Ohio. They were eventually divorced and Jake showed back up in Kokomo in 1951. He got a job at the Stellite factory shortly after arriving, worked there till retirement and lived in Kokomo the rest of his life.

Jake was a eccentric character who stood only five feet tall, wore bib over-alls most of his life and expressed himself in a flow of colorful language, much of it with a blue tint. He rented a single room for many years just eight blocks west of us on Sycamore Street, and frequently stopped by the house. I never saw much of him after Grandma suffered a stroke. That was in 1958, right after my high school graduation, and ten years before she died. Mom said she’d see him from time to time after that. I don’t remember the last time I was with Jake, but he was fairly old and wrinkled.

The old photo Jake brought back from Kentucky was of my Great grandparents, Charles and Julia Jacobs, It measured about 16 by 24 inches. The bottom had some water damage, but the rest was okay. I took it out of the frame and packed it back to Alaska where a photo shop produced a useable image. I salvaged something for posterity, and it was also a great find because I had just become interested in genealogy. The photo is the only one I have of direct ancestors who died before I was born.

Part 5 - Hazel and Friend Bob Visit Alaska

Mom and Bob Eschelman at Portage Glacier, Alaska, 1993 

Mom believed mightily in fate. What was to be, would be, so when a direction was set she generally followed course. I think this was the result of her having been the youngest sibling in a family of three older brothers. She never got the chance to be the lead dog while growing up, and since Dad was older by a year and a half the situation continued into their marriage. 

Bob, Mom and Mary at Garage Sale in Anchorage, Ak, 1993

In 1992 Mom and Bob planned a trip to visit Don and Ellie in California by car, and then to fly up to Alaska to see us. I think she had misgivings about the road trip; probably because of Bob’s drinking. She called when they were about to head west. She seemed subdued, and when we hung up she said “goodbye” in a tone of such finality that I wondered if she thought she might be speaking to me for the last time. They made the trip without incident.

Mom and Bob at neighbors for a Salmon Bake

In August they flew into Anchorage. Mary and I waited for them to deplane at the gate. The passengers filed out, and we stood there as the last trickled by. Then Mom came out trailed by a flight attendant shoving Bob in a Wheel chair. He suddenly rose from the chair, tripped on the foot rest, and fell flat on his face. He was drunker than a skunk, and Mom was beside herself with anger and embarrassment. We got him back in the chair. The attendant informed me that if I didn’t take responsibility she would have to turn him over to airport security. I was tempered to decline the option, but agreed to see after him. It seems Bob had bought two bottles of Absolute Vodka just before departing the Minneapolis Airport. Mom hide them in her purse on boarding, and Bob preceded to have a four thousand mile party.

Mom and Bob in boat returning to Cabin, 1993

I no longer recall how we got to the baggage claim on the lower level, but we soon found the designated carrousel with weary travelers crowded in front of a conveyor laded with rotating baggage. Mom recognized her bags, but couldn’t identify Bob’s so I maneuvered him in behind the first row of people. He spotted his sliding down the shoot, and bolted out of the chair, dived past the people in front and landed on the conveyor belt. He lay there clutching his suitcase in triumph as the conveyor transported him toward the exit. I hesitated for a moment but then extracted him and his luggage before they disappeared behind the curtain.

Bob and Mom at Window all Day

We took Bob to the house, filled him with coffee, and put him to bed. He slept on a fold-out couch in the recreation room, a large open area downstairs. A big wood stove stood near the couch/bed. I pulled the curtains to darken the room. It was August but daylight still lingered long into evenings That proved to be a mistake, because Bob got up in the middle of the night needing to take a potty break. In the alcoholic infused confusion he tripped, fell over the stove, bruised a rib and skinned his nose. He was quite a sight for the next week, but continued to smile in that uncomplaining way even though we limited him to beer for the rest of the stay.

Bob and Mom at window at night

I took them to the cabin in Seldovia for a week. Mostly I remember them sitting at the table before the big picture window, Bob on the left, Mom on the right. They would sit there for hours with heads turned toward the window, chins propped on a hands supported by elbows on the table. The tide would flow from high to low in six hours, sometimes with as much as a twenty-seven foot change in level. The high tide flooded the cove climbing up the banks to where tips of tree limbs dipped into the ocean’s surface. Then it would drain exposing the sea floor with mud flats extending out for hundreds of feet from the shore. They could never get enough of watching it.

Bob, Mom, Joe and Mary at Farewell Celebration, 1993

Mary had planned a garage sale on our return. Those events were always more like parties at our house. It was a big success, lots of friends showed up to meet the soon to be departing couple. Mount Spur blew its top the day before they were to fly home. Volcanic ash covered everything and their departure was delayed for a couple days. Bob seemed more anxious about the interruption, and was more eager to depart than we were to see him go. Things ended fairly well as it was hard to stay mad at Bob.
GO TO: Part 6 - Hazel's Life Without Her Friend Bob

Part 4 - Hazels' Life After She Renewed an Old Friendship

It turned out that Mom’s “boyfriend” was Bob Eschelman, a person I‘d known for many years. I’d met him in the sixties when I bartended at the Moose Lodge, and Bob was one of the two full-time bartenders, working there for many years, possibly till his retirement. He and his wife had been at Dad’s funeral. She died a couple years after that.

Bob was a jovial fellow with a mischievous smile perpetually pasted on his face. He liked to drink, was fun loving, and partied till his dying day. I went with him on one occasion when he run his “trap lines”. That is what he called his daily round of visits to a string of local clubs: VFW, American Legion, Eagles and the Moose Lodge. He had a drink at each one, visited with the bartender and fellow patrons, and then went on to the next. Bob never appeared to be drunk, but did manifest a watery-eyed glow through most of each day. He had a spontaneous nature, and didn’t seem to put much thought into contemplating the consequences of his actions, he just did them.

Mom told me that Bob grew up only child of a prominent family in Anderson, Indiana, hinting that he had been a bit spoiled. He was a wiry little guy, a veteran of World War II, and had served in Europe through most of it. I remember something about the “Battle of the Bulge“. He might have been a prisoner-of-war, though I’m not certain of that. I often wondered if the war might have had something to do with his laissez-faire approach to life, and the uncomplaining toughness that I liked about him .

One time in 1989, after one of my visits to, Mom and I had planned to fly to California to visit my brother and his wife, Don and Ellie. Bob volunteered to drive us to the Indianapolis airport. He arrived a bit late to pick us up, but there was still time to comfortably make it. Kokomo is a long narrow town, measuring two miles on its east-west axis and eight miles north-south. Mom’s house sat on the eastern edge. When Bob pulled out of the driveway he turned west toward the center of town instead of east which would have taken us the half-block to the by-pass and quickly around town. He drove to the center, turned south weaving his way through perceived shortcuts, and finally reached the south edge of town and open road.

It was then that Mom realized she had forgotten her airline ticket. We had to go back to the house. Bob could have taken the by-pass back but retraced his way back through town. Mom retrieved her ticket and Bob started back through town, but I intervened. Now we were running late so Bob sped down the road only to be stopped and ticketed. That took another ten minutes. It did not seem probable but we did make the airport on time.
GO TO: Part 5: Hazel and Her Friend, Bob, Visit Alaska

The Life of Hazel (Frank) Buckingham (1913-1999)

Mom always claimed she would never live long enough to see Halley’s Comet, but 1986 came and went, and she was still here. She said she would never make the Millennium, and proved herself right on that one - she died Cinco De Mayo, 1999. Mom often saw the darker side of things, so her prediction of an early death, at 85, was understandable. She was a nice person, even gentle, but her outlook was fatalistic. She accepted life as something of which she had little control, but was frustrated by her powerlessness. Mom often groused against the injustices and stupidities of the world, and she especially loved to hate politicians.

Happiness is a phoenix with a short life span. There were many times when she was buoyed with a smile or laughing at a joke. She loved to play Euchre and I remember her sitting in a foursome at the Moose Lodge on many occasions. She worked crossword puzzles, and read lots of books. She could be on a high for weeks, but the mythical bird of happiness would eventually crash and burn. She did not plunge into an emotional darkness, but simply leveled off flat after a shallow dive. A lot of people who are depressed can be irritable but it wasn't her way. I never recognized it then but now realize she probably suffered mild depression most of her life.

Mom was born in a railroad car in eastern Kentucky on September 17, 1913. She went by Hazel Mae Frank, but her birth certificate indicated that she was "Mary Frank". She didn't know why that name was on it, and was never given an explanation. Mom once told me that she always felt like an outsider in her own birth family. 

She had three older brothers, Art, Charlie and Joe. The family returned to Catawba Kentucky shortly after she was born. It was her parents hometown, and both their families still lived there. Her maternal grandparents, Charles and Julia Jacobs, died the year before she was born, but her Pop’s parents, George and Mary Frank, were still alive.

She grew up dirt poor because her Pop too often drank up his paycheck. He had a good job with the railroad, but was a bit crazy and several of Mom’s stories about his escapades are hair raising. Catawba was an L&N Railroad creation. There wasn’t much to it then, and it’s not even a ghost town now. The old town is gone, the Jacobs family home was razed years ago, and there is new house sitting where it stood. Their graves lay in a far corner of its backyard.

The family left Catawba in about 1919 and spent a couple years outside Cincinnati before moving on to Connersville, Indiana when she was nine. She quit school after her sophomore year, and was working at the Auburn Auto Company when she met Dad in 1935. They married in June of 1936 and moved to Kokomo, Indiana the following year

GO TO: Part 2 - Hazel's Life in the 1940's and 1950's

William R. Buckingham - Part 5, The Day Dad Died

Mom called in the late morning of April 20, 1985. There was a momentary silence after I said hello, then she said, “This is your Mom. I have some bad news. You father died this morning.” Her voice was matter-of-fact; her words, steely hard, without emotion. There was another silence as my mind fought to reject the meaning of her words. I don’t remember her saying anything more and I tried to fill the empty silence with reassuring words that meant nothing. I ask if anyone was with her. I don’t remember if she answered. I told her I’d get home as soon as I could arrange it.

Mom was in shock. They had been married for nearly fifty years, had shared a life through hard times and good - the Great Depression, World War II, raising two boys, working together at the Moose Lodge, vacations, travel, and the usual bouts of marital strife. Life as she knew it had come to an abrupt end.

Dad passed on a beautiful Saturday morning. He was in the front yard, on the west edge of their house when his heart failed, and he laid down on the grassy yard to die. Mom saw him laying there a short time later. He was on his back with his right arm laying over his chest, his left knee, bent slightly and pointing upward. He looked like he might have been napping, but Mom said she knew he was dead as soon as she got out to him.

I told my classes on Monday that I’d be leaving the next day, and would be out for the rest of the week because my Dad died. One of the students raised his hand and asked if I had been close to my father. I said, “No, not really”, and wondered immediately why I answered in such a way. It wasn’t a truthful answer; it was accurate. In truth, I had a good father-son relationship with Dad; it was accurate in that we had lived 4000 miles apart for the last eighteen years.

Dad was short by a month of turning seventy-three. I’m writing this when I’m a bit short of turning that age myself, so it seems to me that he died too young. I’d say that he had plans for things he did not get done.

“Buck”, as he was called by almost everyone (even Mom), would have described himself as a practical man, but his nature was positive - he saw the glass as half full. He seemed to always have a project going: planting a garden, planning a trip, or repairing a radio/TV. He was always ready to demonstrate his latest culinary discovery such as a new pizza recipe, or a Ruben sandwich.

A couple days later I stood before his casket during the funeral, reached out and touched his hand. It was stone cold and just as hard. It wasn’t him. He wasn’t there.
GO TO: Part 6, Dad's Resume

William R. Buckingham - Part 4, The Father I Knew

Dad was not a reader. I do not remember him ever picking up a book. As far as I know he never read a novel, a biography or a history book. Books were expensive and paperbacks did not become plentiful until well after he reached adulthood, so I doubt that there were many books in his home while he was growing up. Mom said he claimed that reading weakened a persons eyes. That was just an excuse. He simple was not into reading - other than consulting reference books. His was not an introspective or contemplative nature.

He was more of a hands on guy, a practical man - the original do-it-yourselfer. The first project I remember him working on was the remodeling of the kitchen on Lafountain Street. I was only five or six, but remember him standing between the floor joists while working on that project. He and another guy moved an inside wall of the house, maybe at the same time. I think the wall was in Don and my bedroom, they moved it over a couple feet, but that memory is very vague. He also did electrical rewiring of houses, both our own and others. Mom said he and Uncle Joe did some original wiring of several older houses in Connersville before they moved to Kokomo. When we bought the “Buckingham Palace” (another story), Dad directed and worked with Don and I in redoing the whole place.

I'm not absolutely certain, but I don’t think Dad believed in God - definitely not the Hereafter. The only occasions he attended churches were at marriages and funerals - mainly funerals. I don’t recall him ever speaking harshly about any religion, place of worship, or holy book. He expressed neither negative nor positive opinions on the subject. I remember him saying only one thing about the “Afterlife”. It was something like, “There is none. You die. Your body rots. That’s it.” The statement might have shocked me had he related the thought when I was at a younger, more tender age, but I was in my mid-twenties by then, and somewhat insulated against such radical ideas. He was the only atheist I ever met that did not seem to be angry about it.

In a way he was satisfied with his level of knowledge and understanding of the world and felt no need to seek anything more. That is not to say something new would not grab his interest. I got an Apple II computer in 1978 and showed Dad a little about it when he visited a couple years later. It was the type of thing that was right up his alley. He played around with it for several days, and could have gotten deeply involved, but computers were still very basic and expensive in those days. I have often thought of Dad as being the last Victorian. This is because he seemed so satisfied and certain with the progress that was taking place in his time. The momentum of the Industrial Revolution reached steam engine force during the Victorian Age and the movers and shakers of that era seemed complacent in their certainty. They knew what was important; they knew what they wanted; and they knew how to get it. Dad was born a few years after Queen Victoria died.

I grew up in a period when, after the war, the American economic engine ran full throttle. Progress and positive attitude seemed to be the rule, and Dad exemplified it. He had a background in math, physics, and chemistry, and he felt confident in that knowledge. He knew what he knew, and he knew a lot… and that was enough for him. Lastly, I think Dad was a would-be adventurer. He and I went up into northern Manitoba fishing in 1964 (another story), and I remember him talking on our drive home. He spoke of life experiences forming the memories we hold on to, and that’s what life was all about. There was a part of him that craved adventure. After college he hoboed/hitch-hiked to California and back on his own. Mom told the story of when he brought some papers for her to sign during the war - while we were living in Connecticut. He wanted to volunteer for a dangerous mission to parachute into occupied France, set up a two-way-radio for members of the French Resistance, show them how to work it, and then find his way out - probably with the help of the Resistance. She would not sign the papers.Brother Don told me once that he thought Dad had a pride in me because I was leading an adventurers life that he would have liked to have experienced. Mom and Dad visited me in Seldovia in 1975 when I was commercial fishing halibut with a friend (yet, another story). Dad was so taken by the place that he applied for a teaching job and almost got it. He wistfully said he wished he had come to Alaska years ago. Mom retorted that he could not have been pried out of Indiana back then.

GO TO: Part 5, The Day Dad Died

William (Buck) R. Buckingham - Part 3, The Hobo

On June 1st of 1935 Dad began one of the great adventures of his life. He had just graduated from Ball State teachers college, and for want of a little adventrue, started to hitch-hike and hobo across the country. Mom once said that he kept a journal about the trip but destroyed it after Don and I were born because he didn’t want us to see it.

I don’t know why he told her that. I found it in the attic years later, and there were no skeletons in his closet. The journal was written in an old composition booklet from his recently finished college days. The first four or five pages were a combination of notes from a math class, names and addresses of a dozen fellow students, and doodles. He then began his journal.

Dad’s itinerary shows he made it to California and back in just thirty-three days. It started out with a list of where he stayed each night. Many entries refer to “box car”, so he apparently was in transit on those nights.  He wrote quite a lot on the first two days of his trek, but sadly it ends there. He added nothing more other than the list of places he stayed at each night.

The following is a lightly edited version of what he wrote.

Saturday, June 1, 1935 - Box car in Greencastle, Indiana.
Sunday, June 2 - St. Louis Monday, June 3 - Kansas City, MO
Tuesday, June 4 - Junction City, KS
Wednesday, June 5 - Driving
Thursday, June 7 thru June 9 - Denver (Probably stayed with Aunt Lelah Buckingham)
Monday, June 10 - Box car
Tuesday, June 11 - Salt Lake City, UT
Wednesday, June 12 - Box car
Thursday, June 13 thru June 19 - Maryville, CA (Stayed with brother, George Buckingham.)
Thursday, June 20 - Fresno, CA Friday, June 21 - Long Beach, CA
Saturday, June 22 and 23 - San Diego, CA
Sunday, June 24 - Yuma, AZ
Monday, June 25 thru June 27 - Box car
Friday, June 28 - Tucumcari, NM
Saturday, June 29 - Amarillo, TX
Sunday, June 30 - CCC Camp
Monday, July 1 - East St. Louis, MO
Tuesday, July 2 - Indianapolis, IN
Wednesday, July 3 - Home

“June 1. Started today. 1st ride took me to Milton - Fellow had another hitch-hiker. A guy in a milk truck picked us up next (Fellow hitch-hiker and myself), and took us to Dublin as he was only going to Cambridge. He was just one of those helpful hands.
 
Baking truck stalled. Mechanic too dumb to fix it - I fixed the fuel pump for fellow who was very pleased, and gave me two pies which I put in my pocket as I was not very hungry at the time. Got my clothes greasy! I next got a ride into Greenfield in a stock truck with neighbor Earl Abernathy. He gave me some donuts. They also went into my pockets.
 
I didn’t have to wait very long in Greenfield as I was soon picked up by a drug salesman and I was very glad when he took me clear thru Indianapolis to some small town on the other side. And who do you suppose picked me up there? No one but my teacher, Billy Crone, who took me about 5 miles out in the country where he left me - out in the dark. At last I got another ride, this time with a couple of fellows going to Greencastle, although it was out of my way. They were a cheerful lot - told me about a pal of theirs who had served on the notorious Georgia chain gang because they had caught him hitch-hiking thru that state. They advised me to catch a freight out of Greencastle and were so obliging to even take me down to the yards.
 
Thought I would catch myself a “side-door” Pullman in Terra Haute that night and inquiries told me that one would be thru the yards in about two hours. Well I got into an empty box car and laid down to wait - That’s all.”

“June 2nd - I was awakened by a freight train pulling out but I was too late. I got up and walked the tracks a distance along an upgrade so I could easily catch the next one because it would be going slower uphill. I laid down under a tree with my little suit case as a pillow and went to sleep.

Again I was awakened by a freight train pulling out, but it was day light now so I hopped on this one. I saw a hobo riding just ahead of me so I ran up and started to talk to him. The first thing I learned from him was that I was on the wrong train - this train was headed south.

It was a rough old road but it seemed to be plenty fast. I road upon the top, and after a short time it started to rain. The fellow bo (hobo) was pretty friendly after he found that it was my first experience. He explained where the “dicks” would be found; mostly at the division yards. I met my first “dick” in Bloomington. It was raining like hell and he ordered me out of my dry place and out of the yard. It sure was raining and I stood under a tree just outside the yard. Although there were none there at the time, it was a bo’s jungle. As soon as the train gave the hi-ball (two sharp blasts of the whistle) I made across the yard for it. I had been told of this by my fellow “bo”. I stayed with this freight until I came to the town in southern Indiana where the B&O lines crossed the Marmon lines. (I was on the Marmon). It was not yet noon when I arrived here - My first thought was to clean up, particularly to shave, but I didn’t care to spend the money for a hotel.

I went out to the yards and there a “brakie” showed me where I could get some water. He was real friendly after he found that I wanted to clean. He even let me use his own private wash room. Well, I went down town and got something to eat. I sure was hungry. That afternoon I met several bos down around the railroad track. They all seemed to be gambling - using the old army game. One fellow seemed crazy. They all told me how hard the “dicks” were out west.

That afternoon I saw passenger trains “blinded” - that is, to ride right in back of the engine. It looked real good and fast riding to me, so I “blinded” the next passenger train going west. Three CCC boys had already “blinded” it , but they were just going a short distance. They were just kids but good fellows. They were dressed up and were they black. The four of us stood in a space about the size of a doorway.

After about 50 miles they left me and the next 250 miles sure was hell. I did everything but stand on my head After riding about six hours we got into St Louis. I didn’t know enough then to get off - went across the Mississippi. It looked a mile wide, and then into a damned tunnel. I came out of there sweating and black, and right into the railroad yards. I got off and made for the streets. I was in negro town - I stopped some negro (that’s all there were) and asked him where the transient camp was. He, thinking I was a negro also, directed me to the negro transient camp. I soon found out my mistake or rather the negro’s mistake, but I had to show the fellows in the transient camp that I wasn’t a negro by pulling up my sleeve. They told me where the white camp was a couple of miles up town.

I walked the longest distance without seeing anyone as it was after midnight. I finally saw a white fellow and ask him where the transient camp was and he said he was going up by it. We walked along and he asked me a million questions. I finally asked him if he knew where there was a cheap hotel as I said I didn’t care to go through the red tape of getting into one of the transient camps. He took me to a good clean hotel were I got a room for 25 cents. He was leaving me he showed me that I had been in good company - he was a plain clothes man (a policeman??). I went into the hotel and asked for a room and was given it. I then asked for the bath room. After I had cleaned up I went to the lobby and the clerk called me to the desk and changed my room. It seemed that because of my dirty appearance he thought that I was one of those kind of bums who never take a bath and he had put me in the section with them. He apologized and gave me another bed, and although it looked the same I noticed that the fellows around me were much cleaner.

They kidded me about looking like a negro before I cleaned up. They agreed that the “blind” was not a very good place to ride, and I was thoroughly fed up with trains. I resolved to go back to hitch-hiking the next day. I went out and got something to eat - a greasy stew.”

Monday, June 3, I awoke about 7 o’clock.”

His journal ended there telling only about those first two days. His trip lasted another 31 days. Mom told about how he hitched a ride for several days with a guy who drove a vehicle with a frame only, no body, and they sat on wooden boxes. The guy stopped at night and syphoned gas from filling station tanks.  There were probably other adventures - lost now, never to be told. I wish he had completed his journal. It would have made a great story.
GO TO: Part 4, The Father I Knew

William (Buck) R. Buckingham - Part 2, His Parents



Dorma Leora Manlove

My grandfather, John Harrison Buckingham, a cabinetmaker, was employed for many years as a woodworker in an Auto body factory in Connersville. The second born in 1881 in Franklin County, Indiana, he was the only male child in a family of five siblings. I know he was tall, slender, had red hair and gray eyes because that info was listed on his WWI draft card in 1918. He was also deaf in his last years, but I don’t know for how long. I know little more about him. He died of cancer in 1939, six months before I was born.

I’ve never seen a photo of him. I spoke to my Aunt Martha a few months before she died in 1998. She was the youngest, probably her father's pet, spoke warmly of him, and said she had many family photos and was going to send them to me. She had suffered a stroke a few years earlier, and wanted to get someone to write names and dates on the backs of the photos. Sadly, she passed shortly thereafter, and I don’t know what happened to her collection.
My Grandmother, nee Dorma Leora Manlove, was a big woman, tall, broad, and stiff of body. She carried herself as if her spine was fused throughout its length. Grandma had "lockjaw" (tetanus) when she was a child, so her jaw emited a clicking sound when she chewed food.

Brother Don and I visited Grandma Buckingham several times in the mid-1940s. I have little memory of her other than those visits. Her house was a big two storied building with covered porches, on the front and one side. It sat back a ways off the road. Two old trees near the gravel road shaded the front yard.

Grandma rented one side to a family who had a boy named Larry. He was our age and the three of us played in the creek (below) just down the road. I doubt that things had changed a whole lot in the thirty years since Dad was a boy. Grandma lost the farm in 1950 and moved to California to live with her daughter, Annis. She died there in 1962.

By the time I became aware of life it seemed that nearly everybody referred to Dad as “Buck”. I don’t know when that nick-name became common, but it was probably after he left home because there were too many in the family for all of them to be called “Buck”.

Dad graduated 3rd out of a class of 110 in 1930 from Connersville High School. Four years later he managed to graduate from Ball State Teacher’s College. His sister Annis attended college in Muncie Indiana also and graduated the year before him. It was in the middle of the Great Depression and I never heard how the two financed their higher education, but they probably worked their way through college. Aunt Annis’s daughter, Sarah said that, “My mother often talked about her college days. She worked as an au pair to the college administrators and their families. She never mentioned to me that Uncle Bill was there at the same time she was, odd.” Aunt Annis moved to California in 1937.
 GO TO: Part 3, The Hobo

William (Buck) R. Buckingham - Part 1, Childhood in Harrisburg, Indiana

Dad was born in Connersville, Indiana, but grew up on a small farm between there and Harrisburg, a nearby village. The farm was probably no more than three or four acres. They had a couple of cows and some chickens, but their place was mainly a residence, not a working farm. Dad grew to be tall and lanky. At six-foot three he bested his two older brothers by several inches. Tom, the oldest, was born in 1907. George followed in 1909, and then Annis in 1911. Dad came a year later in 1912, and the family was complete with the birth of Martha in 1918.

The Trees and our 1936 Ford in front of Dad's Childhood home

I don’t remember Dad relating a single thing about his childhood. I’ve spoken to several cousins and they tell the same tale. There was a curious silence from dad and his siblings about their formative years. The four older were in their teens during the 1920’s, but little has filtered down to us about the farm, how they did in school, life around Connersville and Harrisburg, who they hung around with, or what they did. Mom told of Dad’s interest in radio at a time when broadcasting was in its infancy. He built “crystal” radios and strung antenna wires crisscrossing the attic. Cousin Sarah, Aunt Annis’s daughter, wrote, “My mother always told me how smart he (Dad) was and what a great memory he had…their father let the kids each have one animal pet (chicken, pig, etc.) on the farm… and a charity bought them Christmas gifts one year and dad sawed the head off the doll my mother was given”. That is the extent of what I know about my father’s childhood.

The 1930 US census in Indiana listed all the family in residence except George. He was, apparently, the first to leave the hearth. George would have been twenty-one that year, and had enlisted in the Army, The 1930 Census listed him in the Vancouver Barracks, and indicated he was in the “guard house”. His daughter, Mary Ann, thought of him as being the “black sheep” of the family. He settled in northern California, living around Oroville and Marysville until his death in 1980. Tom, the oldest, moved to Norfolk, Virginia. Annis got a degree at Ball State and migrated ot California by 1935, and Dad moved to Kokomo in 1937. Martha, the youngest, was the only one to remain close to home.
GO TO: Part 2, His Parents

The Moose Lodge - Part 6, The Epilog

I went to Google Images while writing this article, hoping to find a photo of the lodge as it existed in its original condition. To my surprise, there was not a Moose Lodge listed in Kokomo. I did a Web search and found the building up for sale. I called the realtor and he told me the Lodge’s charter had been given up a couple years ago, the building was rented for a while, and a local restaurant had recently purchased it. I know comedians have mined a wealth of material from the quaint rituals, frocks and caps donned by members of the fraternal lodges. I know the Moose, Eagles, and Masons, etc., are vestiges of a bygone era, and the part played in society will not rise to the prominence once enjoyed. I know all things come to pass, but I can’t help feeling a twinge of sadness, and wonder that maybe, we have lost something of value, something that will not be easily replaced. THE END

The Moose Lodge - Part 5, The Tornado Aftermath

An eerie silence followed after the funnel passed. The surviving light fixtures swung listlessly, providing the sole animation to the shadowy scene. Don complained of pain in his side. I found a place for him to sit, and then went to survey the destruction.

The building resembled structures I’d seen in photos of bombed out cities. The glass doors behind me were the only survivors in the front area. Cool air circulated through the wreckage as I went out to the front, noticing the flag pole (above) was bent 30 degrees from the vertical. I didn’t stay long as a hail storm trailing the tornado began pelting me with golf ball sized projectiles.

I scurried around and found a flashlight behind the bar. Vehicles were beginning to move up and down Washington Street. I flashed the light toward them but got no response, and guessed they had more important things to do, or more likely, didn’t even see my faint signal.

Two of the outside walls of the office had blown outward causing the roof to collapse (above). The office doors were closed, there were no windows, and the vacuum of the funnel cloud had caused it to explode. Dad later said that it was lucky for him that he wasn’t there as he would probably have taken refuge in the office.

It was an eerie surprise to go into the kitchen at the back of the building; its was entirely intact, nothing out of place. The back windows had been left open (above) so air had vacated through them - no explosion.

Window frames at the windward front of the building were bend, curving inward (above). The frames on the leeward backside were blown out and lay on the ground (below). That included the window frame behind the stage area. It too had been ripped loose and the grand piano that sat on the stage was gone. The tables and chairs had been removed and replaced by new furniture - a mattress in one case. Mom‘s car was nowhere in sight.

A man and wife I’d seen at many moose activities drove into the parking lot while I was outside looking for Mom’s car. They were on their way home when the tornado crossed their path, forcing them to ride it out in the car. They were pretty shaken as the auto had been bounced around, even lifted off the ground at one point and carried to the other side of the road.

Mom and Dad were let into the area about a hour after the storm. They decided Don should go to the hospital, which was a good thing, as he had several broken ribs. They dropped me off at a temporary medical station on the way. I think it was on Markland Avenue near Washington Street. They had lots of things that needed attention so I told them I’d get home on my own once my cut finger got some stitches.

The waiting area of the station had several rows of folding chairs filled with people - all appeared to be in shock. Several canvas cubicles were aligned against a wall, a doctor worked behind each curtain. Most everybody seemed to be in worse shape than me so I sat over two hours as the room emptied. I spoke to the guy next to me. He sat, huddled with a blanket wrapped around his body. He said he and his wife had gotten under the bed, and the last thing he remembered was spinning around and around. He woke up in a field next to his house. He didn’t know what had happened to his wife.

I was the last to be called behind one of the curtains and there stood John Hutto, a former high school class mate who I had not seen since our graduation. We exchanged mutual histories of our intervening years while he sutured the “V” cut at the side of my middle finger. He was about to complete med-school, and that night was possibly his first real experience at doctoring. I think that I was one of his first stitching jobs, and noticed his hands were shaking more than mine. He did well. We parted and I never saw him again.

I walked the three miles home, getting there after two in the morning. I don’t remember that I slept that night as adrenalin continued to surge. I took several showers over the next few days because I’d find grit and sand under my finer nails when ever I scratched my head.

I worked for the Moose all of the following week. Dad hired me and my truck to be available for odd jobs during cleanup. Mom’s car sat in an adjacent field a hundred yards north of the lot - a total loss. It had been picked up, carried, and dashed to the ground several times. I found a perfect imprint of the front grill and headlights stamped into the soft soil. Further on there was a big gash in the newly plowed field where the car had landed on its side. It sat upright facing the direction from which it had blown. It was rumpled but intact. The piano was fragmented, and scattered over the field and beyond.

The night’s event became known as the Palm Sunday Tornado. It was actually a series of 47 tornados, the second biggest outbreak in history. The funnels passed through six Midwestern states: Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio. The one that struck Kokomo, one of the most violent, had wind that reached a velocity up to 260MPH, while cutting a swath of destruction 900 feet wide. The tornado followed a 48 mile path through Russiaville, Alto and the southern part of Kokomo before heading toward Greentown and Marion. It was responsible for 25 of the 271 lives lost that night.

GO TO: Part 6, The Epilog

The Moose Lodge - Part 4, The Palm Sunday Tornado

Easter weekend of 1965 was one of those mile-stones in my life, one I’ll vividly remember. I was home from college on holiday, and dad hired me to help the janitor, Don Fewell, clean the building that Sunday. It was April 11, Palm Sunday. I left the house after dinner and drove Mom’s 1962 Chrysler Winsor, as it sat behind and blocked my 1950 Dodge truck. I got to the Moose about 6PM, parked in back, near the kitchen door. Don’s car was the only other on the lot.

We worked for several hours, Don in the bar area, while I swept and mopped the other end near the stage and dance floor. The folding doors that partitioned off the dining and poker area were open, so the building was one big long room from stage through to the poker area. It was partitioned off for Lodge meetings, Bingo, and special events, but usually, like that night, left open.

Don had tuned the radio to local WIOU. We worked to the sound of music, but kept getting an increasing number of weather updates - repeated warning of tornados moving in from the southwest. Don and I went to the front door to check toward the indicated direction. The wind was picking up; we could see fast moving clouds in a turbulent sky, but nothing to get alarmed about. We went back to work. I remember returning to check the weather several more times. The sun had set by 9pm, and the sky on the western horizon was bitch black. We could see the wind was getting even more active.

The radio reported a tornado sighting in Alto, a small farming community just two miles from us. Shortly thereafter we began hearing the wind from inside the building. Vent shudders in the ceiling began to flap open and shut in noisy rhythmic beats. The sound of the wind rose to an alarming pitch. Don and I, without agreement, walked toward each other, meeting in the dining area near the front. We stood between the two walls that jutted a short distance into the room. (“J” and “D” in the drawing). Both of us were transfixed as the noise became even louder. We stood looking into the room toward the bar area. There were large windows all around the building, big double pane ones nearly eight feet high. Glass doors stood right behind us. Through those doors could be seen the glass doors of the lobby, and then the glass front doors opening to the portico. We were looking through the windows along the wall behind the bar. We could see a big steel incendiary the lodge use for burning trash. It probably weighed a half ton. It suddenly lifted off the pad like a rocket heading for the moon, and then one of the big windows behind the bar exploded. Don and I both had the same thought, “Damn, that’s going to be a mess to clean up”. We were soon absolved of that chore as every window in the place began to crash as the storm moved inside.

Things suddenly got serious. The lights failed; the decibel level rose to that generated by freight trains; light fixtures swung violently; and the air seemed to have been sucked out of the room. I grouched and then laid prone against the wall with my hands covering my head. I looked into the room to see ghostly silhouettes flying by. Don, to my right, was grouched in a semi-squat at the end of the other wall, holding on, but dangerously exposed - not doing well. The violence lasted only a few minutes - minutes of fear, exaltation, and wonder. I couldn’t help from looking into that wind tunnel of cascading debris. I didn’t even notice I’d been hurt.

GO TO: Part 5, The Tornado Aftermath

The Moose Lodge - Part 3, The Old Lodge Burns; A New One Rises from the Ashes

The original moose building burned in the spring of 1960. I believe it was caused by an electrical short in the kitchen. The multi-alarm fire sent flames dramatically skyward, as fire trucks arched streams of water into the air, and hoses crisscrossed the streets. The glow, visible all over town, attracted people like moths to a flame, and a good portion of the citizenry showed up to view the pyrrhic spectacle.


The building was declared a total loss. We walked through it a few days later. Most of the main floor, the office and the ball room did not seem to have received much flame, but the hardwood floors, having had thousands of gallons of water poured on them, were warped and buckled, standing like sea waves frozen in a storm. The upstairs got the heat. That is where Don and I found our portable stereo record player that Dad had borrowed. It was barely recognizable, and the records resembled the warped floors.


Don and I received a hundred dollars for our melted records and charred player. We preceded to order a stereo amplifier kit and speakers. I assembled the amplifier over the summer while Don built the speaker boxes. By fall we had a state-of-the-art stereo system to take on campus at Indiana University in Bloomington.


The insurance money enabled the Lodge to plan a modern, state-of-the-art building. It was finished in 1961 - a beautifully designed edifice that surely became the talk and envy of the town’s other lodges. The floor plan below is not to scale but provides an accurate depiction of the layout.
The new building sat on six acres. There was nearly an acre of lawn in front imbuing the place with the façade of wealth and high society. A driveway passed under the front portico. The obvious intent of the architect was that cars would empty their passengers in front, simulating high class clientele attending gala events. Unfortunately the parking lot, big enough for a couple hundred cars, was placed in the back. Drivers seldom disgorged there people in front. Nearly all chose to go directly to the rear, and none elected to walk back around to the main entrance, opting instead to enter through the service door. The lodge possessed a facility the Country Club set salivated over and the members chose to come in through the kitchen. So much for refined life and sophistication. The members were working class, proud of it, and thought nothing of using the back door.
Mom said that for a while she signed up new members nearly everyday, and their rolls skyrocketed. By the mid-sixties the Moose counted three thousand members. That period marked its hay-day. The place was jammed every weekend as members danced to the music of local bands. Big name bands such as those of Guy Lombardo, Artie Shaw, and Bob Crosby were scheduled and sold out. The restaurant dished out a daily lunch special to a large clientele, and offered a variety of steaks at dinner. The club room was active six nights a week, and the poker tables filled to capacity on Thursdays with six-card stud players.


My twenty-first birthday present was a membership to the Moose. The induction was probably at the temporary location on north Washington Street in early 1961. About a dozen of us were inducted that night. We sat in three rows of folding chairs awaiting the ceremony. I was in the second or third row. The guy next to me asked why I was joining, and I told him it was because Dad was the head of the lodge and it was his wish - that I didn’t really care much one way or the other. When dad handed me the membership slip he apologized rather than offering me congratulation. I never thought he could have heard what I said, which he must have, or I would have answered the man differently.


I became a part-time employee that following summer. The new lodge was in need of additional bartenders on weekends so I earned $2 an hour mixing a number of fancy drinks popular at the time. Weekend work was fast and furious with three and four waitresses calling out orders at the same a time. There was constant action, and lots of fun for a 21 year old. That fall I got jobs bartending in Bloomington when I went back to campus. I worked five or six years at the trade.
GO TO: Part 4, The Palm Sunday Tornado