Author: Ronald Guenther
Written: June 11, 2014

When I told about Uncle Dick, I noted how Grandma Wilda was living at our place, more precisely, in the home that pop had built for her, and how she had reacted when she got the news of Uncle Dick’s being lost over the Mediterranean. I can still remember how horrible that was. I was in the first grade. By this time, the place as we came to know it was taking shape. They still had the big garden, although 1945 was the last year they put in the big garden. But people were coming out constantly for picnics. Pop had built the swinging bridge over the creek. At that point, it did not go anywhere, but was a lot of fun. He also put up a hammock which we loved and built a tree house for us. That was built in the big maple tree and he also hung a tire from one of the limbs and that was our tire swing, which we loved.

In the summer of 1943, I was being primed for school. I was told that I was going to Notre Dame and was ready for that. Imagine my disappointment when I found out that I was going to Saint Monica’s School. What a disaster. I could not believe it. Everybody tried to tell me that you had to work up to going to Notre Dame, that is not where you started, but I was not convinced. Then I had another big revelation. In those years, everyone, Catholic and non Catholic thought that Sister Genevieve of the Mercy Hospital (later it became Mercy Home for the elderly and then moved to become Saint Catherine’s Home) was a saint, they all talked about her and of course she had done tremendous good in the Coos Bay area, so I thought that she would be my teacher. As it turned out that was also not to be. It would be Sister Willasene of the Sisters of the Holy Names. But it turned out that I loved her. She was great and I came to think that she was the smartest person who ever lived. Years later, I met her at the funeral of one of the old Megales (Joseph Megale, the brother of my father in law, Peter) and I had the chance to spend some time with her. She turned out to be just as smart as I had thought at the time. I will tell more about her later.

The first grade was rather complicated for me. There was no way to get me to school. We had only one car and pop needed it to get to work. He got up a three and had to be at work at four. So, what happened was, they got me up at three, dressed me, and took me to a home next to the school, the home of the Harvey family. The father was a Captain in the army and saw some heavy fighting. He had a very hard adjustment when he came home. But the Harveys had several children, a very small house, pop carried me into the house and took off my shoes and put me to bed. I woke up, had breakfast, and then the older boy, Gordon, and I would go to mass and then to school and would be picked up after school. It made a long day out of it.

At home, though, things kept getting bigger and bigger. Mom stopped putting things into that area under the front porch and eventually it decayed and became just cobwebs. In 1945, they bulldozed out the place for the swimming pool and smoothed out an area that became the tennis court. It turned out that the Burnel brothers had owed Grandpa JB a favor and mom called on them to pay off the favor by doing that bulldozing. They had bought the cat. Then pop started getting things ready for the swimming pool, but that was a big job and he really did not know how to deal with concrete on that scale, so he told the fellows working at Pacific Fruit if they would help him put in the pool, they could use it any time they wanted. So, they came out after work and worked like slaves. They got the pool put in, put in the iron rods to reinforce the concrete, pop painted it, there was no public pool at the time, so these guys thought they were getting something really great. As it turned out, they only used the pool a couple of times and did not come out any more.

In the spring of 1944, Grandma Wilda had finished liquidating her property in Coos County and moved back to Portland. She had lived out at our place for about six months but had not really been happy there. Shortly after she moved to Portland, we visited her up there and that is where I met our Aunt Dora. We all went to the Grotto, Aunt Dora was ailing, she later died of breast cancer, she had only had one son, our cousin Edwin Doyle, the men in her life had disappeared, I thought she was a saint. I still remember after they all went to the Grotto, we stopped by an ice cream parlor and had milkshakes and she had a strawberry milk shake. I still associate strawberry milkshakes with old women, although I do like them, but whenever I have one, I think of her.

When we were in Portland, though, mom was pregnant. Bob, Louise and I stayed with Aunt Berchion and Uncle Cliff. Pop would stop by and see us every day. In those years, women stayed in the hospitals for ten days after the birth and this was the last time mom stayed ten days in the hospital. I think the first two or three times, she enjoyed it and enjoyed the attention she got, but by this time, she wanted out. But our sister, Delores Ann was born. I can still remember bringing her home. We called her Laurie and later on as she got older, her favorite song was Annie Laurie which we all knew was her name backwards. But little Laurie had a lisp, she could not say an L, instead, she learned to talk very young and instead of calling herself Laurie, she called herself Dory. Later she called Phyllis, Phiddy, again because she could not get that L said. We all thought that was so cute that we mimicked her and out of Laurie came Dory and it has stayed Dory ever since.

in 1945, the final push was on in Europe. Italy had been eliminated from the war and Mussolini captured and then rescued in a daring escape by the Germans. But DDay had come and the end was in sight. On May 8, 1945, Germany capitulated. That was VE day (Victory in Europe) and widely celebrated in the East, but in the West, the war was still going on and it was a tough slog. I can still remember hearing about some of the big battles there, iwo Jima, Manilla, and so on, the casualties were terrible on both sides. But there was an air of confidence. The generals Eisenhower and MacArthur were thought of almost as gods.

To be continued.