Chapter 1, Mark Henderson, A short history

On his father’s side, Mark Andrew Henderson’s Ancestry can be traced to Charles Henderson and his wife Mary (Nelson) Henderson, both from Sweden. After arriving in this country in 1854, we find, in the 1860 U.S. census, 36 year old Charles Henderson living with his 32 year old wife Mary (Nelson) Henderson and their 4 children, Charles F. (8), William (4), John (2), and Frank ( 5 mos.) in Moline, Illinois. Charles Sr., Mary, and Charles F. are all listed as being born in Sweden, and William, John, and Frank are listed as being born in Illinois.

In the next census of 1870, we find that Mary is now without a husband. She is with her sons Charles who is now 18, John who is 12, and Victor, 7, who was born shortly after the last census. It is fair to think that Charles Sr. was probably killed in the Civil War, but we have not confirmed that as yet. Sons William and Frank did not survive and are both deceased. We know that these sons did not survive and were not just off visiting somewhere because on the 1900 census, two of the questions asked were “Mother of how many children,” and “Number of these children living.” Mary stated that she had given birth to seven children with only two surviving.

By the 1880 U.S. census, Mary is now 52 years old and is “keeping house and managing the farm.” She has lost another son, John who died sometime during the previous 10 years. Listed in the same census with her are her two surviving sons, Charles (28) and Victor (17). Also, on the same census page, we find the remnants of the Storm family in the person of Susan Storm who is living with another family on a farm adjacent to the Hendersons. This confirms that the Hendersons and the Storms were neighbors, and knew each other. During this census, Charles F. was temporarily helping the Storm family on their newly acquired farm in Bluegrass, Iowa, just across the river and only ten miles from the farm in Moline. It is normal for census takers to list family members who are only temporarily away, and this is how Charles got counted in the Moline, Illinois census.

On June 23rd of that same year, Charles is being counted again in the U.S. census while he is living in Blue Grass, Scott Co. Iowa. Charles F. was helping his old neighbors from Moline, and worked and lived on the farm of Charles Storm and his wife Lotte (Gustafson) Storm and their three young children, Albert (6), Henry (4), and Julius (1). The family had just relocated from Moline, Illinois, where all the children had been born. Charles and Lotte Storm were also hosting Lotte’s sister, 17 year old Clara who had just arrived from Sweden.

Love blossomed quickly between Charles F. Henderson and Clara Gustafson. They were married sometime in 1880 and relocated to Keokuk Iowa where they started a family of their own. Raymond Oliver Fredrick (Mark’s father) was born on May 27th, 1881 followed by Oscar Carl on May 25th, 1881, John Victor on May 27th, 1885 and Edward on March 11th, 1888. A daughter, Eleanor, was born in 1889 but died during infancy. Also, Edward had a twin who did not survive. The father, Charles F. Henderson went to work for the Keokuk Ale, Porter, Beer, & Cider Bottling Company and the Keokuk Soda Factory, delivering the products in their hometown. Having easy access to the products himself, it was not long before Charles was addicted and became a full blown alcoholic. He entered a vicious cycle of drinking binges that landed him in jail on multiple occasions.

All the children did what they could to help their mom make ends meet. They worked for a local peanut vendor while Clara took in laundry and ironing in an effort to keep her children and herself going. It was not long before the strain on her health took its toll and before her 30th birthday, on January 10th, 1893, Clara passed away from “Consumption.” With no father to help them, the children all became orphans. On May 22nd 1893, at the age of 11 years, Oscar Carl (nicknamed Scuffs) came under the Guardianship of O.P. McDonald, a local medical doctor. Oscar’s brother Edward, who was 7 years old at the time, was taken in by a local family whose name is lost to history. Raymond and John Victor were sent to the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Orphanage in Stanton Iowa (near Council Bluffs), at the ages of 12 and 6, respectively. The boys attended the Mamrelund Lutheran Church there, and Raymond was confirmed in 1897.

 Raymond is above the date "1897" that is handwritten on the bottom of the photo.

An orphan's struggle

Recently, I have been posting a history of my father’s life as I heard it from him. Two days ago I received 7 handwritten pages produced by my father’s brother, Mark Andrew, describing those same episodes from a different point of view. I think it adds credence and insight to the history of that orphaned generation.

This is a biography written by Mark Andrew Henderson (1920-2009). I have transcribed it exactly as it is hand written on the original, spelling and punctuation in tact.

To express an opinion, I think I should outline who I am and what roads I traveled. The Indians would say “you walk a mile in the other man’s moccasins then pass judgement.”

I’ll be 74 Aug 24, 1994. Had my own mortgage business, in Sacramento, 28 yrs, 1956 to 1985 when I sold out at age 65. Got bored with retirement so went back in business three years ago. Had good income from age 30 on. Owned a few nice homes in lovely areas, belonged to Sacramento’s finest country club, two civic clubs and business affiliations, 25 new automobiles and 5 airplanes. In general, I tried to live the good life and maybe catch up for the times when I had nothing, nothing at all, not even a comb, home, toothbrush, food nor friend.

Plagued by memories; you bet. I’ve tried for 67 years to push a few early ones out of my mind. To those who had done me wrong I caught up with in 1940 when I was 20 yrs old. I stalked them till they died in their eighties and nineties during the 1980’s. I kind of miss them, never felt that I had fully gotten even with them. I put the heat on them through their relatives and churches in addition to arriving unannounced at their homes when they had guests. Most people would be flattered having someone come to call on them in their 40’s – 50’s – 60’s – 70’s & 80’s that knew them in their 20’s, and this kid was only 7 & 8 yrs old at the time of their cruel treatment. No doubt they wished I had gotten blown away in World War II.

We’ll start at age 7; see how you would react to this situation. Omaha officials came and told mother they were going to take us to a nice home. She trusted them and put all six of us kids in the back seat with 1 yr old brother Bill in her arms. He was killed Febr 1945 in WWII. Well, this big 4 door open touring car arrives in front of the county hospital. Mother knew it was bad news, two men tried to pull her out of the car. Nine year old brother King rises to her defense, one of the men beat up on him, mother tries to defend him with baby Bill in her arms, they pull him out of her arms and yank her out of the car. At the tender age of 7 I felt so ashamed that I was a coward and too frightened to say a word in defense of my mother and brother. Mother was crying and asking if she could take her children with her. She was looking back and I kept my eyes fixed on her till she was out of sight, it was eight years before I saw her again.

The do gooders scattered us six children to the four winds. I was sent to some religious kooks in South Dakota. No child ever worked harder or absorbed more brutality than I did and survived. I was 8 or 9 during that period and was down to skin and bones, so after harvest was over they had some religious friends on their way to a camp meeting in Missouri, squeeze me in their Model A Ford. When they got to Omaha they asked me if I knew where I was. I said yes, at that they dropped me off and headed for Missouri. I landed in the county home, no schooling for a year and half. Then to the Masonic home, it was like a pack of roving dogs, 58 of us, it was designed for 35 and one woman trying to manage all of us. She wound up where my mother did. The Masons ran out of money, we’re down to soda crackers, milk and Welch’s grape juice. Father Flannagan (now Boy’s Town) came and took some of the boys and some of us went back to the county home.

1934 – White Hall, Nebraska State Home for Dependent Children. It’s Sept and I’m 14, I arrive at school and the principal asks what grade am I in, I said the 5th, he said “the 5th, what happened,” I said nothing. He said, if I put you in the 5th you’ll be down stairs with the little kids, If I put you in the 6th you’ll be down stairs, you’re 5’-9” tall. He says that might hurt your feelings, I’m going to put you in the 7th so you’ll be up here with the 7th through 12th. I thought I must be standing in the presence of Jesus Christ. The first person I ever met that thought I just mighty have feelings and he is going to jump two grades. I said it could be difficult for me, he said, we will help you. Swamped with studies, I had a headache every day but I love that school. Now comes the 8th grade, I’m not back in that school. Mrs. Mouden, the Superintendent of the home, with total authority over all matters including monies, decided to hire a man and wife to teach grades 1 thru 8th. That way she saved $120.00 per student that had to be payed to public school because state property was not on tax rolls. One boy, sitting next to me, Jim Manlove, smiled a lot, unusual for a kid in an orphanage he also spoke cheerfully and a little often. One day the man teacher decides to beat up on him, Jim was thin and not very strong, he was crying and asking the man to quit hitting him. Soon I saw the blood on his desk, then I saw his tooth fall out and at that I started to rise to show my disapproval. The teacher quit beating on him. Later, my turn came, his wife tried to beat my face to a pulp, I kept my eye on him in case he decided to take over. She eventually ran out of wind and I just rolled with the punches.

The home school was under county charter, which meant you had to go into the County Seat and take an exam before you can get into hi school. Mrs Mouden, the Home Supt said I didn’t pass. I said I’d take the 8th grade over, She said no, you’re not a very good student and you should learn to work with your hands so you can make a living one day.

Work with my hand, I did. Fixing screens storm windows, puttying, painting, shoveling manure, milking cows, laundry and washing dishes as other kids went off to school. After two weeks of that I wondered if the Governor had any say so over that lady. Decided to take a chance and walked seven miles from the Farm to the State Capitol in Lincoln, Nebraska. When I got there I saw on the bulletin Board “State Superintendent of Schools.” I decided to ask him to go to the governor with me. He looked it up and said, you passed and immediately went down to the Legislature and brought back a legislator to whom I repeated the story. He got on the phone and told Mrs Mouden to be in his office, with me, tomorrow morning. We were there, she lied and said I had expressed an interest not to go to school. They should have fired her on the spot. Needless to say, I was not the favorite child around that home for the next three years. I will skip reciting the types of pressure they put on me. At the beginning of my Senior year some wonderful people mysteriously showed up at the home and asked for Mark Henderson. I said, that’s me, they said, how would you like to live with us. He was Supt. Of City water and Light. Our friendship still lasts, she passed away last year.
That was 55 yrs ago when I left that orphanage. I went to University of Nebraska for a while, went into Service in WWII, graduated in the top 10% of my class of 500 at officers School. Rose to the rank of Captain and was assigned 120 men and three officers while I was still trying to figure out who I am and how to run my own affairs. Was in the 9th Air Force. Entered University of Calif in 1946 and in some manner or other, was going to school till I was 44 yrs old. Went in business for myself at age 36, sold out when 65. Took my mother out of the Nebraska mental health institution when I was 30. My wife resented her presence, mother felt she might be an economic burden to me, so having been a nurse before she encountered my worthless father, and after 23 yrs in the State hospital, she applied for employment at a local hospital. They called me, I picked her up, she said she wanted to go back to Lincoln. I took her back and they were not going to accept her because, they said, there is nothing wrong with her. I said, I know but you people have institutionalized her and the State of Nebraska has destroyed her life, my life and my brothers and sister’s. We hardly know each other, at that, they took her back.

Nice things and helping people, I’ve done but needn’t recite them here.

It’s difficult for me to feel sorry for people who say, I’ve had a bad life, I’ve been kicked around, therefore I’m going to commit crimes, steal, cheat, rob, injure and generally be mean. Yes sir, that’s my excuse for doing nothing good. B.S., we are what we think and as a man thinketh so is he.

My wisdom agrees 100% with Henry David Thoreau’s statement, quote “If I thought some one was coming to me with the express purpose to do me good, I would run for my life this very moment” Mother gave it a try, but our poverty thwarted her.

Ch. 9, Epilogue

This is an article written for the "Hell's Angels Newsletter" by King Henderson, in July, 1989:

I would like to comment on a couple of letters in our April edition, in “Your Chance to Sound Off” section. The first of which was a letter from Charles A. Palmer, of Pittsburgh, PA, wherein he states that he could not remove from his mind the jubilant scene at a German airfield when those German pilots landed after shooting down one of our B-17’s; one of which his brother was killed in, during WWII. I wonder if he had the occasion to view the jubilant scene our pilots and gunners displayed upon our return from those missions wherein we had shot down German fighter and bomber planes on our missions over their country. I too lost my youngest brother – who was a paratrooper - on his first jump into enemy territory (only 17 then) just a few months before the end of that war.

  

William Raymond (Billy) Henderson

Dec 5, 1927 - Feb 2, 1945

After flying 37 missions from the summer of 1942 to the spring of 1945 I knew, as those German airmen knew, that we were each trying to win a war we were caught up in. We flying airmen routinely were awarded Air Medals and distinguished Flying Crosses and were paid an additional 50 percent of our base pay to fly these missions; and, if I am correct, most of us volunteered for flight in combat for these added incentives. I have yet to hear that aircrews in the German Air Forces were awarded these amenities.

King Elisha Henderson

Dec 22, 1918 - Jun 15, 2006

Within weeks after the war ended in Europe I was sent first to Chartres and then Beauvais, France for a couple of months and then to Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany. In France, being able to speak German, I was able to serve as interpreter for our Prisoners-of-War and through them, learned that they (like myself) were just as anxious for the war to end so that they could get back to what was left of their country and to their wives, parent, and loved ones as most of us Americans and other allied Military people were.

After arriving at Frankfurt Airfield, and living in Koenigstein, about 15 miles north, I had many enjoyable times with many German folks – also some German Prisoners-of-War who had returned from Russia – and only in a very rare occasion did I encounter any Germans that carried any noticeable malice towards us Americans for the destruction we had done to their country. Even after all of these years I still communicate with a German family that I had the pleasure of becoming acquainted with back then (in the fall of 1945).

So, to live with malice all of these years, towards Germans that were just doing their jobs as we were doing, would seem to me to be carrying on the same war without end; a war and hatred towards a person (or persons) who never knew of a Joe Palmer, or of a William Henderson (my younger brother).

The second interest in “your Chance to Sound Off” article is an article from Hal Susskind “My Forty-second Mission to Germany” wherein he states that the last time he saw Frankfurt it was leveled and not even one building was left standing. I can disagree with him on this since I had been there right after the war and the most outstanding building that was left standing was the entire Krupp Chemical Works. This facility had a below ground floor with rather fabulous sloping lawns with lots of shrubbery down to this first level and then with several stories more above ground along with a large auditorium building about a block away. Also, it seems like the entire barracks facilities for their workers were untouched by any bombs. These facilities served as General Ike’s headquarters and several of his other Generals had their planes parked at Frankfurt Airfield to be serviced by our troops.

I remember the railroad station (which was a large station) was leveled to the ground – as were all the bridges around the town, and many of the town’s buildings; but I also remember that there were many other buildings in the town that hadn’t been damaged by the war.

The most startling thing to me was the fact that the Krupp Chemical Buildings seemed to have not even been hit by a single bullet (much less showing any type of bomb damage). This is even more amazing since these buildings were on some of Frankfurts highest grounds and were a bright white in color. Also, since Krupp people used a lot of displaced prisoners for free labor (slaves, in other words) and were one of Germany’s prime war industries, I have often wondered if we didn’t deliberately avoid bombing these facilities.

I was all the more disturbed by the fact that just about every building around this Krupp Facility was leveled to the ground, and wondered how we, and the British, managed to accomplish such a feat without doing some damage to the Krupp Facility.

To add to this, I was troubled some years back reading an article in the news that our government was paying General Motors reparation payments for the damage we did during WWII bombing their factories in Germany where they were making even better tanks and trucks for the Nazis than they were making for America – an act the would have been treasonous for other less influential companies.

So, those of you who still have trouble trying to make friends with the German people, especially after 44 years, think about some of these things. Also, remember, we are guilty of making a lot of deals with German War Criminals to whatever advantages we sought for our benefit in those days right after (and many times during) the war.

Ch. 8, I Love You, Dad

A family story has it that one time in the early fifties King was up at Lake Tahoe working a job. Harrah's Club and Harvey's were the only two clubs back then and he was in Harrah’s club one night when Nat King Cole was appearing there. Mr. Cole asked if anyone in the audience knew how to tap dance and, of course, King (he was an accomplished tap dancer) was right there. He did an opening tap dance act for Nat King Cole. He liked to sing also, but couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket. His favorite song was “Old Rugged Cross.” He could also whistle very well and played the harmonica often and dabbled with musical keyboards.

King never bought a home in Northern California, and the family moved no less than fifteen times over the next twenty years. The kids never attended the same school for two consecutive years. During that time he had many run-ins with the Unions and some government officials, and this turned into a long running feud that is well documented in the editorial pages of the Sacramento Bee and Sacramento Union newspapers. At a time (circa 1956) when tape recorders of any type were unusual items, King had a miniature unit that strapped on like a shoulder holster, with a wire leading to the microphone concealed in a wristwatch. He used if effectively in his pursuit of justice, providing evidence of council members and judges engaging in illegal activities. It is probably because of this feud that King finally accepted a position with a company located in Riverside California, and he packed up his family in 1963 and moved to the adjacent community of Sunnymead, later to be incorporated as Moreno Valley California.

For the next 35 years, King conducted business as a General Building Contractor, confining himself to federal government contracts. His wife of 56 years passed away in 1998 and he retired to his home on Starcrest Drive in Moreno Valley CA. Eight years later, on June 15th, 2006 King passed away peacefully with his daughter, Sandra, and his granddaughter LaDena at his bedside. King was interred beside his wife, Elsie, at the National Cemetery in Riverside, California.

My father was not a good money manager, but he never seemed to worry about how we would get by. We never owned a home and I know we moved at least fifteen times because that’s how many different schools I attended. The few nice things we did purchase were usually repossessed by the time the third payment came due and I can still picture my mother throwing things at the repo-man and him picking things up off the front lawn. A “knock” on the front door was always answered by a peek out the window before opening.

As poor as we were, my father would give away his last nickel to someone if he perceived them to be more needy than us. When we asked him about this, he would tell us about the sadness of being without as if reflecting on his own childhood and the poverty he grew up in. He always told us not to worry, that “things always work out for the best,” and they always did. We never had a lot, but we always seem to have what we needed.

                                           I Love You, Dad

Next: Epilogue

Ch. 7, The War Is Over

A few weeks after the war ended in Europe King was sent with his unit, to Chartres and then Beauvais, France for a couple of months and then to Frankfurt-on-Main, Germany, and set up residence in the town of Koenigstein. In France, being able to speak German, King was able to serve as interpreter for Prisoners-of-War, and he was soon drafted by the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Association to help with the thousands of Jews who had just been released from the concentration camps. King did not dwell on this subject at length because, as he put it, it was too sad and involved many women and children. An interesting coincidence occurred while King was in Germany. King had occasion to visit a photo shop to gather some equipment for his unit, and happened to meet the German proprietor, whose name was Adolph Straub. Adolph was the cousin of Adam Straub, the man who taught King how to speak German, and the man on whose farm King was sent to in South Dakota after the breakup of the Henderson family.


After making several thousand dollars selling cigarettes to the Russians and delving into several other “Black market” activities, King was returned to England where he was processed for shipment back to the States. Upon arriving in New York, King ended up in a discharge camp and was processed for return to civilian life. He spent several days as a tourist in New York City, and spent some of his black market money on some furs and jewelry for his wife Elsie, who was still in England with the two children, Kenneth and Robert (me).

King was soon on an airplane headed for California, and made a short stop in Reno Nevada on the way. It was not long before he was back at McClelland AFB in Sacramento, where he started. It was here that King’s sister Eleanor picked him up and took him to the home where she and her husband Lew Parrish resided.

                                             L to R: Ralph, Paul, and King, right after the War.

King rented a room in downtown Sacramento, and found a job right away with the Shell Oil Company managing a service station that was located across the street from the old Governor’s Mansion. King soon found his way into the carpenter’s union, and began his long career in the construction industry. He worked at many trades during this time and eventually found himself acting as an inspector on the new addition to the State Capitol Building. It is now the summer of 1946, and King’s wife Elsie is arriving from England with the two children. King started his own construction company at this time, and built 6 new homes using his ill-gotten black market cash as a grubstake. For one reason or another, that venture did not work out too well and King lost most of his holdings. He then teamed up with his brother-in-law, Lew Parrish and they started building homes together and doing other plumbing and electrical work. The partnership only lasted a couple of years before Lew went on to build many apartments in the Sacramento area and King found himself working as a plumber, a career that he stayed with for the next twenty years.

King was always in trouble with city officials because he refused to pay for a city business license, maintaining the argument that he was licensed by the State of California and, therefore, was not required to be licensed by the city. After dealing with Union Member building inspectors who passed other jobs while refusing to pass King’s, he went to see the Chief Building Official who called his inspectors to task for their transgressions. Eventually, King was summoned by the City Manager, who offered King special treatment if he would purchase a City business license, but King refused and sued the City for bribery. The city, in turn, sued the City Manager, and the suit was eventually settled for $3,500.00 and a City Business License. Shortly after this, one of Kings customers refused to pay him and King took him to court and won a judgment. The judge sat on the final determination for months until King forced him to make a ruling, citing a law that required the judge to either rule or forfeit his pay. The judge then made a ruling, but retaliated against King by adjusting the settlement so that King received only about $5 of what should have been a several hundred dollar settlement. King then filed a suit against the judge with the California Supreme Court and won, with the final outcome being the removal of the judge from the bench. The judge eventually committed suicide because of this and other mis-dealings he was involved in. This all took place about 1954.

Next: I Love You, Dad

Ch. 6, D-Day and Me

On the D-Day Invasion of June, 6th 1945 King flew in the lead plane and remembers spotting new bodies of water on the countryside, which turned out to be the flooded farm fields that the Germans were hoping would stop the paratroopers of the invasion force. King and the rest of the flight bombed the dikes in an attempt to drain the fields before the paratroopers arrived in their gliders. King also relates the story on that same day (D-Day) about one of the pilots that returned to base with his full complement of bombs. There was an accident, and the bombs exploded on the flight line during the unloading process. Upon arriving at the scene, King recognized Sergeant Bradshaw, who was in charge of armaments, beckoning for help. The sergeant’s legs had been blown off in the accident. Sergeant Bradshaw died before King could even get to him. The group lost three aircraft and three flight crews that day.

It was now late December, and King & Elsie’s second son (me) was born on December 24th, 1944.

                                 L to R: Kenneth and Robert

King flew steadily as a replacement. Being part of the Combat Crew Replacement Center, King flew with many different crews and groups. Of these crews he remembers Captain Hardesty (first name forgotten) who grounded him after he passed out when his oxygen mask came loose over Austria. King was flying the tail gunner/Observer that day and says he must have been focused on a plane that had one engine shot out over Holland, and then another over the target. The plane was trying to keep up, but was steadily losing altitude. The pilot's name was Captain Lipka, and he eventually made it all the way to the target and back to home base.

Captain Lipka's crew shared the same barracks with King and his brother Ralph. On one mission to Bordeaux, France, Lipka’s plane's tail was shot off with his tail gunner in it, but he managed to turn it around and fly over Spain's Pyrenees Mountains so all the rest of the crew could bail out. Later, he and his crew came back and finished their required missions so they could qualify to return to the states. King’s brother Ralph was flying that day in another plane alongside Lipka's and had witnessed the tail being blown off of Lipka's plane, and upon returning from the mission he requested and was granted an assignment to ground crew. He never flew again. King says “Lipka's last mission was the plane that had two engines shot off and was also the plane I was watching out for when I passed out, so I can say that I started my first mission with the 401st Bomb Group the same time as Lipka, and ended the same time, but in different planes.”

The right waist gunner that revived King after being out for 27 and ½ minutes was named Luenberger. King said he never wanted to forget him, so he wrote him several times after he got out of the Air Corps, but never got any answers to those letters. King remembers a scruffy chap named Paul F. (Puff) Kaiser who tried to teach him how to use the G-box loaned to them by the British, and who often gave him the “dead reckoning” maps from their missions. Major William T. Garland was King’s squadron commander, and in later years achieved the rank of a four star general. Another pilot King and Ralph had flown with was Captain Rozell, whose ship was named "Rosie's Sweat Box." Colonel Bowman was that Group Commander.

On one mission, a bombing raid to Spain over the Pyrenees Mountains King remembers being escorted by a fighter squadron composed entirely of African American pilots. Obviously, this is the group that became known as the Tuskegee Airmen. As chance would have it, 50 years later, King became good friends with a gentleman by the name of Fred Samuels, who happened to be one of those pilots. Fred died in an automobile accident in 2002, in Moreno Valley, California.

Just before King left the base at Deenthorpe, he remembers an enlisted man who had shot and killed 2 officers who had been giving him a bad time. King says “The last I remember seeing him, a young Pollock nicknamed ‘Whitey,’ the guard was exercising him around the perimeter track prior to his court martial. I never did learn the results of that incident.”

Next: The War Is Over

Ch. 5, The Brothers In England

It was soon after Copely’s death that King’s brother Mark arrived from Lincoln Nebraska, where he had been living with the Havens family. It was the summer of 1941, and the storm clouds of WWII were looming on the horizon. Mark soon found himself in the military with his brothers, and not long thereafter, met and married Mabel Bateman. Before long, King and Mark were transferred to Stockton Field, in California. It was at Stockton, that Mark was able to connive acceptance to Officers Training School (OTS), through the efforts of his uncle Nelson, and Nelson’s son-in-law, Al Pilson. By November of 1941, King was transferred back to McClelland AFB in Sacramento and the bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred shortly thereafter.

Things happened quickly now, and King found himself in England by May 5, 1942, having sailed there on the U.S.S Cathay. It was here that he flew a total of 37 bombing missions over Germany as a bombardier on B-17’s.

King’s first assignments on arriving in England was to establish storage depots for the “soon to arrive” American troops. He began in Kettering by converting the existing Kettering Co-op shoe factory to a food storage depot. After this, the outfit moved on to Burton-On-Trent where they converted a part of the old Bass Brewery into a clothing depot. After a couple of days in Burton-On-Trent, King had the occasion to go to the Burton Baths (the local swimming pool) where he met his future wife, Elsie Merina Shorthose.

                                         Elsie and King, 1942

Elsie’s father, Arthur Edward Shorthose was in charge of operating the boilers that heated the bath’s waters. King and Elsie dated for a couple of weeks until King left to the City of Manchester where his outfit was constructing a repair hangar for aircraft.

From Manchester, Kings next assignment took him Poynton to establish a clothing depot. During this time, King was making occasional trips back to Burton-On-Trent, by bicycle, to visit his girlfriend Elsie. King had met his commanding officer, Major Wogan, at McClelland Field in Sacramento and had always considered him to be a nice chap, but when they got to Europe, Major Wogan became a little mentally unstable, and refused King permission to Marry his girlfriend Elsie. Being in charge of the food depot, King managed to abscond with enough provisions to supply a rather large wedding party, and married Elsie on December 5th, 1942 in spite of the Major’s orders.

 Upon returning to his station, Major Wogan had King incarcerated for his transgressions. King, through some friends, made contact with a couple of Colonels that he had befriended and asked for an investigation into Major Wogan’s activities. Upon the arrival of the investigating team, they discovered that Major Wogan had promoted himself to Lt. Colonel, and was in the habit of shooting any of the farmer’s cows that inadvertently escaped and blocked the roads. King was immediately released, and Major Wogan was incarcerated in an asylum wherein he was found hanged a few days later.

Soon after the events in Poynton, King and Elsie’ first child, Kenneth, was born October 16th, 1943. At about this same time it was discovered that King had gone through Bombardier training, and he was reassigned to the newly formed U.S. Army/Air Force, and fell in with the 92nd Bombardment Group and the 1st-11th CCRC (Combat Crew Replacement Center) at the newly established Poddington Air Station.

King’s brother Mark also arrived in England at about this time, and he visited King on several occasions at Poddington. Again, at about this same time King’s other brother Ralph arrived at his station at nearby Deenthorpe, and King finagled a transfer to be with his younger brother.

                                  L to R: William, Ralph, King and Mark

It was here that King and Ralph flew their combat missions over Germany and France. On their first flight, Ralph and King flew on the same airplane on the same mission. King’s brother Ralph only flew a few missions before a bad experience ended his flight career and he never flew again. King went on to fly a total of 37 missions.

Next: D-Day and Me

Ch. 4, Losing a Friend

Upon arriving in the Los Angeles area, the two brothers, King and Paul, enlisted in the Cavalry at Fort Mac Arthur, Upper Reservation. It was Dec. 7th, 1937. King enlisted along with his brother Paul and was sent to Fort McDowell on Angel Island in San Francisco Bay where they arrived on Dec.10th, 1937 (the same day the Japanese sank the ship "Panay" on the Yangtze River, China).

                                The Panay, Sinking.

Once the brothers found out they would not be riding horses, but that they would be caring for them, they both transferred into field artillery units. This gave them the opportunity for station assignments to Hawaii, and Paul soon found his way there. King followed a few months later as he was detained by the Folks at Fort McDowell because of his woodworking talents, and the Fort’s need for the goods that were produced by the base’s wood shop.

By March of 1938, both of the brothers were in Hawaii assigned to battery "F" 8th Field Artillery. It wasn’t long before King tired of the antiquated environment of his artillery unit, and finagled a transfer to the newly established and prestigious Army Air Corps where he was assigned to the 31st Bomb Squadron, 5th Bomb Group in August 1938. He transferred that same year to the 4th reconnaissance squadron with the 5th Bomb Group. King stayed just over two years in Hawaii, and during that time he became a lifeguard inspector, responsible for training a class of 22 cadets. King recalls that all 22 of his students graduated on his birthday, December 22, and that they celebrated the event with a fancy dinner at the base facilities. As part of this experience, King recalls attending, with all his students, a banquet put on in their honor at the cliff-side estate owned by Mr. Dole, of Dole Pineapple fame.

Another fortunate event of this tour of duty was King’s acceptance into bombardier training school. This stroke of good luck was facilitated by a clerical error wherein another military man by the name of R. E. Henderson inadvertently left the top of the “R” open making it look like a “K.” The result was that King (King Elisha Henderson) went to bombardier school, and Mr. “R” missed out. King made many friends during his two year stay in Hawaii, including a couple of aircraft mechanics named Oren Hutchens and John Copely, and was even able to negotiate a five day submarine excursion to Mid-Way through one of his contacts.

In May of 1940, through an early discharge program, King and Oren Hutchens soon found themselves at Angel Island in San Francisco. King was discharged in 1940 at Fort McDowell and found himself out of the military. Paul remained in Hawaii. King bummed around California with his friend Hutch, who had been discharged with him, until they got tired of picking cherries and decided that military life was not so bad. They both re-enlisted at Van Couver barracks in Van Couver Washington, and King soon found himself with the 402nd Quartermaster Corps, stationed at McClelland Air Force Base in Sacramento California.

In the meantime, King’s other friend, John Copely had completed his enlistment and also arrived back home near Grant’s Pass in Oregon. On their way back to McClelland AFB in Sacramento where they had been ordered to report, King and Hutch stopped to visit Copely and his family, including his wife Rhea who was the city clerk in the town of Grant’s Pass. King and Hutch busied themselves at their new duty station, and it was not long thereafter that Copely also reenlisted. Copely was assigned to ferry aircraft between Sacramento and San Diego, and lost his life when a plane he was riding in crashed into the Tehachapi mountains only months after his reenlistment. King and Hutch formed a close bond with Copely’s family at this time, and remained in touch with each other over the years. Hutch even married Copely’s widow, Rhea, and in later years, King made several visits to their home in Fresno, California.

Next: The Brothers In England

Ch. 3, Two More Times

King only stayed in Portland for about 4 months before he boarded (hopped) the Union Pacific Railroad back to Omaha. Once there, he stayed a short while with his uncle Victor, but eventually ended up in the Riverview Home for Dependent Children. While there, King remembers meeting Imogene, a young girl who also lived there and worked in the home’s laundry facility. He also remembers attending school and being enrolled in “auto shop” where he was discouraged to find out that he would have to spend four years making canteens before he would have the opportunity to work with automobiles.

Faced with the prospect of making canteens for four years, King requisitioned a bicycle and rode out of town. He soon sold the bike, and hitchhiked to Basset Nebraska for a short visit with his younger siblings, Eleanor, Ralph, and Billy. From there, he traveled back to Eureka to see his brother Paul, and eventually talked Paul into accompanying him on his second excursion to the West Coast. This time, they went to Spokane. They did not stay long, and were soon on their way back to Bismarck where Paul got a job on a dairy farm, a job that he stayed with for the next few years.

By this time, King was 15 years old, and his restlessness caused him to embark on a third sojourn west, albeit by a circuitous southern route this time. At one point he ended up in McAlester, Oklahoma where he was confronted by a desolate landscape of abandoned farms (a result of the dust bowl) and unfriendly locals who did not welcome the intrusion of an outsider.

Making a hasty exit, he literally walked from McAllister to Oklahoma City, and from there he was able to make it to Salt Lake City, Utah, and then on to Sacramento and San Francisco in California. To support himself, King worked at the National Youth Authority (NYA) camps in the area, and even worked on a ferryboat in San Francisco Bay for a while. One day, the barge sank as it was being loaded, and King was barely able to escape the disaster. By now it was 1934, and King was approaching his 16th birthday.

Soon after the ferry sinking, King headed North to Oregon where he landed a job driving a milk route, though he had to pull some shenanigans to get a drivers license. During this time, he purchased a 1928 Buick and soon traded it in for a Moreland truck, which he used to haul logs for the Weyerhaeuser Company. This was May 24th, 1935, at the time of the sensational Weyerhaeuser kidnapping. It wasn’t long after this that the Weyerhaeuser workers went on strike and everyone found themselves unemployed. Unable to make the payments on his truck, King lost everything. These events caused King to head east again, and he soon found himself visiting his brother Paul at the dairy farm in Bismarck. He eventually found his way back to Eureka and spent a few months working for Emanuel Straub, the family who had taken in and abused King’ brother Mark.

The wanderlust was in him, and it wasn’t long before King’s eye was “on the road again.” He was approaching his 17th birthday when he embarked on his fourth and final trip to the West Coast. He hitched a ride with the Dais family, friends of the Straubs, who were on their way to “Dusty,” Washington for jobs helping with the harvest. He stayed with the migrant workers for the duration of the harvest, but when they returned home to Eureka South Dakota, King continued on, for the second time, to Portland Oregon, where the operator of the local YMCA was beginning to know him as a regular. During this short span of time, he met an accomplished piano player named Billy Brunton, and a worldly character by the name of Bob Coulier. Bob was a seaman, but was currently a “landlubber” working in restaurants. King struck up a friendship with Bob, and the two of them headed south to San Francisco where they spent some time working the restaurant circuit as “singing waiters,” potato peelers, or anything else they could do to earn a meal and rent money. Bob soon had them both signed up for a world cruise aboard a freighter heading toward Guam, but King decided to stay on solid ground, and Bob went off alone.

It wasn’t long after Bob’s departure that King’s brother Paul arrived in San Francisco, and with King having been in trouble with the local union officials regarding his work status, the two of them beat a hasty retreat, via the “midnight stage,” to Los Angeles. The “midnight stage” was an unusual phenomenon of the time that found many individuals establishing their own small bus-lines. It seems that the Great Depression had rendered large sedan automobiles almost worthless because of their gas guzzling nature and they could be purchased very cheaply. Many entrepreneurs seized this opportunity to start their own transportation companies, which were really just long-range taxi services.

Next: Losing a Friend

Ch. 2, Leaving The Farm

King’s Uncle Victor took Paul, King and Mark to the train depot where they were shipped to Eureka South Dakota. It was August 1927. Once in Eureka, three separate families of the church, who were referred to as “saints,” took the children in to care for them. Paul went home with the “Schrenk” family, King went with Adam and Rose Straub, and Mark had the misfortune of being selected by Emanuel Straub and his wife Albina. King worked on the Straub farm for five years.

Excluding the boy who is in front of everybody else, King is in the front row, second from the left.

He learned to speak German during this time, and rarely saw his brothers Mark and Paul. King lived with Adam and Rose for five years, but in August 1933, when the Great Depression was in full swing and the infamous Dust Bowl was ravaging much of the Midwest, King left the Straub farm for one of his many hitchhiking/boxcar hopping trips to the West Coast. King was not quite 15 years old at the time and he hopped a ride to Renton Washington on the back of the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, and Pacific Railroad. He continued on to Portland Oregon, where he stayed at the YMCA and worked in a saddle shop owned by Mr. Oscar Keller. The following is an account of that first trip as told to me by King when he was 83 years old:

"I Left Adam Straub’s farm to take a sick horse to a veterinarian/farmer, who lived about halfway between the Straub farm and the small town of Eureka. I made up my mind that day not to go back to Adam Straub’s home, and decided that I could be in Eureka in the same amount of time it would take to get back to Adam’s Straub’s place. I also knew that, if I hurried, the regularly scheduled passenger/freight train would still be there when I arrived.
I tied my pony in the barn of a family that owned the local creamery business in Eureka. The farmer’s wife thought it was strange for me to do that until I lied and told her I was going to visit Adam’s mother (from Russia), who did not have a barn.
Just as I closed her gate the train whistle blew at the railroad station. I hurried to the opposite side of the railroad tracks and walked towards the Depot. I caught the boxcar ladder as the train was still trying to gain speed and when it got about a mile out of town I climbed to the top of the boxcar and rode it to the town of Roscoe, where it intersected with the Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific main rail line. There, I stayed in a small building that lodged the railway employees. It was heated by a coal-burning stove.
Early the next morning the Milwaukee freight train going west, stopped to pick up more boxcars. It then headed west for the town of Mobridge on the west side of the Missouri River, where it spent most of that day changing box cars and passenger cars.
Having not eaten for 2 days I went to a small café and asked the owner if I could do some work for him for something to eat. I washed all his dirty dishes, swept the floor, and helped him to get ready for railroad employees who came there to eat. He then gave me a good-sized breakfast. While the railroad employees were eating I went to the rail yards and found a nice empty boxcar and settled in. I was soon on my way to the southwest corner of North Dakota and into Montana to the town of Miles City, near where Custer made his last stand. “He became the first American General to wear an Arrow Shirt. He didn’t want to, but the Indians ‘stuck’ him with it anyway” (my favorite joke about Custer).
People riding freight trains, in those days, could go to any jail, where the sheriff or policeman would take you to a restaurant and get you something to eat, at the U.S. Governments expense. They could also let you stay in their jails (as far as I know) as long as you wanted to. Most of those jails had no prisoners in those days, and they were warm and dry.
Crossing Montana from Miles City, I remember short times in the towns of Billings, Livingston, Bozeman, and Butte, where they had (near the railroad) a Horse Meat Packing House named Hansen’s Meat Packing Company. From Butte, I went to Anaconda, where a smelting factory had the tallest smoke chimney west of the Mississippi River. From there I continued north to Deer Lodge, where Montana’s State Prison is located, and then on to Missoula, and then into Idaho, following what is today, interstate 90 through Kellogg, passing through Wallace, Mullen, Silverton, Osburn and Pinehurst, all gold mining towns and most with whore houses and hotels.
Continuing through Idaho the train went to the town of Coeur d’ Alene, north of a large famous lake of the same name, and from there to the large town of Spokane, Washington, where I stayed for a few days. I continued my western trip through Moses Lake, Ellensburg and Renton, just east of Seattle, where the Boeing Aircraft Company is headquartered.
I stayed in Renton for a day and a night, finding out there wasn’t a “ through train” from there to Vancouver, so I took the same route back to Spokane, sleeping in empty box cars both ways. Spokane had horse stables for race horses and I slept in mangers a couple of nights, then took a freight train south through the small town of Plymouth (on the Washington side of the Columbia River) and all the way to Vancouver, and then north from there to the towns of Aberdeen, and Hoquiam for a few days. I then went back to Vancouver and across the bridge over the Columbia River to Portland, Oregon.
The YMCA, on the corner of 6th and Taylor Streets, had arrangements with the government to house and feed teenagers, and that’s where I went. Finally, for the first time since leaving our home in Omaha, I was able to take a hot shower; wash my clothes in a large sink with hot and cold water; and sleep in a real bed, without straw filled mattresses and with real sheets and covers not made of grain sacks or throw-away rags.
I had free use of a large indoor swimming pool; free use of a basketball court and indoor gymnasium; free meals, 3 times a day; and could sleep in a warm room instead of an attic bedroom where you could wake up and find 2 or 3 inches of snow on your blanket. I thought I was in heaven, I did not have to go to a cold barn to milk 6 or 8 cows, then feed them and the horses by going into the hayloft where the hay was packed to throw it into the feeding rack. I did not have to hurry and get ready to walk 2 miles, through snow-covered pastures, to get to school. I was free.
Shortly before Christmas, I was put on a passenger train to Omaha with a small package of food, supposedly to last me the 2 to 3 days it took the train to get there. Starting in Portland, the train followed the south side of the Columbia River to Hermiston and then southeast to Payette, Idaho and through Boise, Idaho, and other towns east to Colorado’s northeast border, then to the Nebraska border to Scottsbluff, and from there following the North Platte River to Omaha’s new passenger building. End of that journey. Omaha my birthplace, and hometown."

Next: Two More Times

Ch. 1, The Family Breakup

I put this story to paper in honor of my father, King Henderson. King was a member of, according to Tom Brokaw, “The Greatest Generation” and he could also be included in that very small fraternity of “Notch Babies.” Notch Babies were those born between 1917 and 1922 and were designated as such for the purpose of disenfranchising them within the United States social security program. Their benefits would be very much less than all the other recipients born either before or after that small window of time. Sadly, this was the same group who gave so much, during World War II, to preserve those very programs for the rest of us.

My father had an unusual life in that he was the orphan of an orphan. He often mentioned that he was proud that he had been the one to break that cycle of orphanages and was able to keep his family together.

I begin this story with a short history of my father’s father. Raymond Oliver Fredrick Henderson (King Henderson’s father and Robert Henderson’s Grandfather) was the oldest of four children, and was eleven when his mother died. Raymond and his brother John Victor were sent to the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran orphanage in Stanton Town, Montgomery, Iowa, at the ages of 12 and 6, respectively. The boys attended the Mamrelund Lutheran Church there, and Raymond was confirmed in 1897. Raymond moved to Omaha, NE when he was released from the orphanage and went to work at the Adams & Kelly sash & door factory as a Boiler Fireman earning $15 a week.

On May 15th, 1915 Raymond married Leila Irene Mason. Raymond was the pastor of the “Seventh Day Church of God,” and Leila Irene (Mason) Henderson, his wife, and sister to Nelson Mason, was a trained nurse who cared for the local Chief of Police, Chaunce Wilson.  Nelson Mason, Leila's brother, was the secretary to the Governor of North Dakota.

 Lynn J. Frazier, Governor of North Dakota (1917-1921), U.S. Senator (1923-1941)

When the Governor was elected to the United States Senate, Nelson went to Washington with him and stayed for the next ten years. 

Raymond and Leila lived in Omaha Nebraska, and it appears that Leila gave birth to all of her children there, without the benefit of hospitals and nurses. Paul was born in 1916, Mark in 1920, Eleanor in 1921, Ralph in 1925, William in 1927, and King in 1918. King was born in the Seventh Day Church of God presided over by his father Raymond Henderson, on the corner of 17th and Cuming Street in Omaha Nebraska. The family lived in the back of the church until it was razed for a new Ford sales facility in 1924. At that time the family moved to an old house across from a Jewish synagogue, and Leila and the kids started attending a nearby Methodist church.

The Jewish Synagogue, L to R: Raymond, Eleanor, Paul, Leila, Mark, and King

Since Raymond was a minister of the Seventh Day Church of God, it did not sit well with him for his children to be attending the Methodist church and it became a point of contention between Raymond and Leila.

The family did not stay in the old house very long. They soon moved to a flat across from the Bekins moving and storage warehouse a few blocks away. One day in 1924, Leila put King and Paul on a train and shipped them to a town in Iowa. King remembers that when they arrived, the station manager called a local grocery store owner who came to pick them up. The storeowner was surprised to see them, but let them stay in the back of the store for the day. In the evening he took them back to Omaha and dropped them off at their home without even stopping in to announce himself. The boys were 5 and 7 at the time and do not recall who the storeowner was, or why they were sent there.

Trouble continued between Raymond and Leila, so she packed up the kids, put all their belongings in a baby buggy, and the entire troupe walked across the river, from Omaha Nebraska to Council Bluffs Iowa. King remembers that they stayed there long enough to be enrolled in a large school, but before long the authorities (police) from Omaha picked them up and returned them to Omaha. On the way, they stopped at an institution and forcibly separated Leila from the kids and left her there. King remembers kicking the officers and trying to help his mom, but it was all to no avail. In 1926, Raymond had his wife committed to an asylum when her oldest child was only ten and my father was only eight. It was a husband’s prerogative in those days, on his word alone, to have a wife committed and all the efforts of her brother, Nelson, could not get her released. Leila spent the remainder of her life in an institution. The kids did not see their mother again for over 25 years.

Sadly, and for unknown reasons, Raymond followed in the footsteps of his father. The children were returned to him but he was unable or unwilling to care for them and after about a year Mr. Andrew Duggar, the leader of the Seventh Day Church of God, made arrangements for all the children to be “farmed out” to various church members. The 3 oldest children (Paul (10), King (8), and Mark (6) were sent to live with farmers in South Dakota (King lived with the Adam Straub family, whose cousins he amazingly and coincidentally met in Germany right after the end of World War II) and the other three Eleanor (5), Ralph (2), and William (1) were sent to Bassett Nebraska to live with a family named Carpenter, Seeley and Clara. I never met my grandfather and don't know much more about Raymond except that he passed away on the 31st of January 1965 due to a heart attack caused by cancer.

Next: Leaving The Farm

The Volkswagon

I was reminded about a comical event that took place when Gail and I arrived at our duty station at Sembach AFB in Germany. Since we lived off-base, it was necessary to procure some mode of transportation, but we did not have much money. I eventually found and purchased an older Volkswagon that should have been scrapped right after WWII. It was in dismal shape, but the engine ran good so I decided to put some effort into it and clean it up. The first thing I did was requisition 40 or 50 cans of spray paint (gloss black) from the base supply. I spent a couple of days applying several coats to cover up all the blemishes and rust and the final product was not as bad as you might think.

To get a permit that would allow me to drive the vehicle on the military base, I had to have it inspected by the commanding officer. On the day of my appointment, nothing worked right but I thought I would give it a shot anyway. When it came time to check the turn signals, which were inoperable, I worked the lever manually while the inspector dutifully went from right to left and front to rear confirming that they were, indeed, blinking. Check! When he wanted to see the brake lights work, I just turned the lights on and off, but to the inspector it looked like I was intermittently pressing on the brakes. Check! So far so good. Next came the emergency brake, which was a useless floppy lever located between the seats. With a forceful looking yank I pulled the lever into position and thankfully, it staid there. Unbeknown to the inspector, I had put the vehicle in 4th gear, so when I released the clutch, the engine bogged down like it was struggling against the emergency brake, voila’, another passing grade. Check! The final test was for the horn, and I still have trouble to this day believing that I got away with this one. When the inspector asked to hear the horn, I pressed the button on the steering wheel and, vocally voiced a “beep” sound. To my surprise, the inspector checked off that task and I had passed the test without a single one of the items working properly. We drove that rattletrap for the next two years.

Remember Father Crespi

In the 16th and 17th centuries, exploring the California coastline by ship was a difficult task. It was made difficult by the prevailing southerly currents, and the huge masses of floating seaweed that were prevalent near the coastline. These masses of seaweed are described in the logs of Rodrigues Cabrillo (1542), Sir Francis Drake (1579), and many other ships that tried to approach the coast of California during that time.

In response to Russian encroachment from the north, it became imperative for the Spanish to strengthen their claim to “Alta California,” and On July 14th, 1769, an overland expedition led by Gaspar de Portola set out from what is now “Old Town,” in San Diego, to explore the northerly coastline of California. A little known Franciscan Monk by the name of Juan Crespi accompanied the party. Juan Crespi kept a diary of the entire journey, and even took daily compass readings to include in his notes. From those compass readings, it is possible, with the use of Google Earth, to follow the trek up the coastline of California along what would later become El Camino Real (The Royal Road). El Camino Real is the trail that connected all 21 Missions. A couple of years ago, I had the opportunity to read Juan Crespi’s journal and retrace that journey.

I mention all this because there are a couple of very interesting accounts mentioned by Father Crespi. The first thing that surprised me was the mention of a vast Grizzly Bear population around the San Francisco Bay area. After the party reached what is now Monterey, the local Indians warned them not to proceed, as they were going to enter an area of extreme danger. Even the local tribes would not venture into the area. As we all know, the party did continue on, all the way to the San Francisco Bay, but they hugged the shoreline as much as possible and only had a few encounters with the bears.

The second thing that intrigued me was the mention of what appeared to be a tribe of gay Indians! They were obviously a part of the local tribe, but maintained a village separate from the main group. In his journal, Father Crespi indicated that most of the men wore female attire and conducted themselves in a very feminine manner. I find this interesting because it is the first time that I have ever heard of gay Indians, and that they existed so near to what would later become a Mecca for the gay population, San Francisco! Is this pre-destiny in action?

Although Crespi’s superior, Father Junipero Serra got all the credit for establishing the California Missions, it was Father Crespi who made the first trek and, in his journal, suggested most of the suitable locations for them.

The Worst Day of My Life

I was recently invited to go on a fishing trip with some of my buddies and, since it had been several years since I was last on the ocean, I eagerly accepted. How easily I had forgotten the seasickness and trauma I had suffered on a previous trip, several years before, to catch marlin off the southern tip of Baja California. Oh well, I thought, that was many years ago in rough seas on a small boat; this time would be different. I was told we had chartered a large seagoing vessel suitable for ocean travel.

My wife, Gail, thought I was soft and no longer possessed the fortitude to “live off the land” (or sea). In an effort to save me from myself, she offered to buy some fresh fish from the supermarket, and thought I was an idiot for subjecting myself to something I swore I would never do again. Gail had the notion that talents for hunting and fishing were relics of a bygone era and no longer necessary for human survival until I reminded her that there may arise occasions when it might become necessary to revert to those ancient talents and it was important to keep them tuned. In either case, I was anxious to bring in some fresh fish and prove to her that I could still provide for my family in the event of a nuclear winter or other cataclysm of biblical proportions. She tried in vain to talk some sense into me but my mind was set; I could do this. I was not going to let some long forgotten isolated event deter me from the enjoyment of an exhilarating ocean cruise.

We all met in San Diego on the night before our departure for a celebration dinner and drinks. It was a great night out with the boys and we partied hardy as we slowly adopted the roles and demeanors of our swashbuckling ancestors. We had Mexican food washed down with beer and followed by tequila shooters as an aperitif. Aaar’, I was loaded to the gunnels and was feeling pretty good by the time I found my way to the dock. I only lacked an eye patch and a parrot to complete a fine portrait of a swashbuckling adventurer of old.

As I approached the dock where we had been directed to meet, I was impressed by an array of sixty, seventy, and eighty foot fishing trawlers lined up like milk cows at a feeding trough. They were all waiting for their crews and the hearty souls who, like us, had chartered them for day-trips. I staggered up and down the pier looking for the “Misty Dawn,” and had made several forays before I found it nestled between two, very much larger vessels. At first I thought it was a dinghy for the larger boats, but then I saw the name clearly stenciled above the cabin. My god! Are we actually going to sea on that, I thought? It wasn’t an inch over forty feet, and there were nine of us, plus a crew of four! Surely they didn’t expect us all to fit on this tiny thing!

Where would we put the catch? Would we have to drag it behind the boat all the way back to port?
I instantly envisioned Spencer Tracey in the movie “The Old Man and the Sea.” After an epic struggle, Spence managed to land a very large Marlin but had to tie it to the side of his small boat and drag it back to port. Sadly, in spite of his constant battle with sharks, his fish had been almost entirely devoured by the time he arrived home. I could just picture our catch, half eaten by hungry predators; heads and entrails hanging from the weigh-in hooks; flash bulbs going off as we posed for the ceremonial photographs.

Had I been in full control of my faculties I think I would have backed out at that very moment, but the prospect of facing the derisive comments of my eight comrades for the next six months and the alcohol I had consumed during dinner, caused me to reconsider. Begrudgingly, I boarded and noticed how easily my weight shifted the tilt of the entire boat! I wondered if we would have to determine everyone’s body weight, take an average, and manage our dispersion to keep the scow from keeling over. And what about the fish, if we caught any would we have to redistribute ourselves to account for the added weight?


The aft deck was no more than twelve feet by twelve feet, and most of that was taken up by a bait bin located smack dab in the middle. There was a very small fore deck, suitable for one or two persons, a cabin with a table that seated four with effort, and bunks for ten. The crew had a separate compartment but we were not privileged to see it. I’m sure it included separate bedrooms, a game room with sauna, and a large theater for viewing the recorded antics of previous landlubbers as they jockeyed for position and crawled over each other trying to land their fish.

I picked out a bunk for myself and then took a seat at the table. “Aaar’, ano’er point o’ grog matey” I said, as I popped the cap on another bottle of beer. I engaged my shipmates in some small talk until the heavy food and alcohol began to take its toll. It was about midnight when we all retired to our bunks and the captain and crew steered us out of the harbor for the nine-hour trip to the pre-determined fishing spot. I was looking forward to a few hours rest while the boat plowed through wind and waves to the fabled fishing grounds. Why do they call it fishing grounds anyway, when it is so far from land? Shouldn’t it be called fishing waters or something equivalent?

At about two o’clock in the morning I heard a loud rumbling noise that sounded like large diesel engines, and thought a cruise ship had pulled up along side. It was my stomach! I felt the enchiladas trying to make their way back to the surface, and thought it would be better if I went out on deck to get some fresh air. The boat was bobbing like a cork running the rapids, and it took superhuman concentration and effort to make the twenty-five foot trip from my bunk to the rail on the aft deck. Seemingly, I was the only one awake and I am thankful for that. At least I could suffer what came next, privately.

I no sooner made the rail than the entire contents of my stomach were ejected in a fashion reminiscent of a scene from “The Exorcist,” an old movie about demon possession. The alcohol I had consumed must have known what was coming, because it moved up to the relative safety of my head to avoid being ejected with the enchiladas. I thought my system had flushed itself in that single spasmodic contraction, but the spasms continued for several minutes until I thought I was on the verge of turning inside out. I must have been a sight; eyes laying on my cheeks; face red and engorged from violent upheavals; soaked to the bone from sea spray, and hanging over the rail while drooling into the murky depths; aaar. If a “Great White” had broken the surface at that moment and lunged at my head, I would not have been able to move out of harms way. I couldn’t focus, everything was spinning, and my head was pounding like there was no tomorrow. Death would have been a welcome relief.

I must have hung there, like a wet sheet over a clothesline, for an hour or more before I could finally summon the energy and focus to attempt a return trip to my bunk. I made it about half way before I had to turn back for another round of bone jarring, muscle cramping, mind-numbing contractions. Surely, by this time, there was not an ounce of anything left inside me that wasn’t absolutely necessary for human survival. My body was rejecting everything, including water. Hopefully it would allow me to ingest enough oxygen to keep my cells alive, although I don’t think a small touch of gangrene would have bothered me much at the time. My face felt like it had detached itself and was hanging loosely from my skull and at one point my life started to pass before my eyes. I could have sworn I heard angels, but I didn’t have the strength to lift my head to look. Even if I could have lifted my head, my eyelids weighed about thirty pounds each and I would have needed help to raise them enough for a peek.

I somehow managed to make it back to my bunk before my crewmates awoke. How I accomplished this I do not know; I was soaked, cold, and blind. I tried to curl up in a fetal position and rest but I had to brace myself with both arms and both legs, against the constant rolling and heaving of the boat, to keep from being thrown from my bunk. I would have allowed myself to be ejected and gladly spent the remainder of the trip rolling around on the floor, but I wasn’t sure of the content of the gruel that was already swishing around and thought it might have been something I had done earlier.

When I next became aware of my existence, it was to the sounds of my shipmates preparing to face the day. They were acting like they were having a good time, laughing, joking, and ordering things from the galley. Things like chicken ova, slices of pig meat, and other disgusting things. I wouldn’t be a part of it. If they wanted to act like a bunch of howling aborigines, they would do it without me. What the hell was I doing out here with these Cro-Magnons anyway? People don’t hunt and fish anymore.

As I lay there, I became aware that my clothing was soaked with saltwater. I managed to gurgle “canagemembag” to some unseen entity who managed to find, and hand me, the overnight bag that contained my dry clothing. Getting into that dry clothing was another matter. Every action had to be reduced and broken down into minute and simple segments. A complicated maneuver such as removing a belt might involve fifteen or more steps, each step taking several minutes. As accurately as I can remember, it went like this:

1. Move left hand toward buckle until touching.  6.5 mins.
2. Pull belt up toward chin, making it easier to reach with right hand.  1.0 mins.
3. Begin moving right hand toward buckle until touching.  5.5 mins.
4. Rest.  5.0 mins.
5. With right hand, pull loose end of belt up, to form a loop above the buckle.  7.5 mins.
6. Pull loop until end of belt comes free.  3.5 mins.
7. Rest.  5.0 mins.
8. While resting left hand, pull loose end of belt until hook disengages from hole.  12.0 mins.
(This step may take several tries.)
9. Rest.  5.0 mins
10. Pull belt from first two accessible belt loops, on right side.  8.5 mins.
11. Slowly, roll onto left side, exposing rear belt loops.  4.5 mins.
12. Rest.  5.0 mins
13. Pull belt from rear belt loops.  14.0 mins.
14. Rest.  5.0 mins.
15. Lay belt alongside body.  2.5 mins.
16. Roll onto right side.  4.0 mins.
17. Remove belt from remaining loops.  7.5 mins.

Total    102.0 mins.

In this way, I was able to change most of my clothing and it only took about four and a half hours of concentrated effort. By this time it was about 1:25 pm and I only needed to hold it together for another twenty three trillion, three hundred & ninety nine million, nine hundred and eighty two thousand microseconds until I could plant my feet on something stable again. I started the countdown.

About this same time, the first mate offered to put a wristwatch-like device on me that, he said, would help relieve my seasickness, but it was expensive. I told him I didn’t care how much it cost; it was either that or radio for a helicopter to come out here and airlift me back to dry land. I thought he said it would cost ninety dollars so I said “give me four of them, one for each wrist and one for each ankle.” I figured I could take a second mortgage on my home to pay him off but as it turned out, it was only nine dollars! The device injected an electric shock of two seconds duration, every three seconds, and for the next six hours I twitched with epileptic vigor to the rhythm of that device. It did help, and after only a few minutes my vision started to return and I could actually see well enough to recognize a large tuna that one of my shipmates had just landed. That was the first, last, and only fish I saw on the entire trip. I was thankful for that also.

The return trip was excruciatingly long, but as soon as I set one foot on the dock I was as good as new. Dehydrated? Yes, Starving? Yes, but I was able to walk tall through the parking lot and back to my car, just like any one of the hundreds of other returning “men of the sea.” I had just survived the worst 24 hours of my life.

Don't Be Silent

I know many of us are tired of hearing it, but please don’t give up on America. Last night, Fox News produced a survey that showed a vast majority of younger Americans “Don’t think Socialism is such a bad thing.” This frightens me and I hope the survey is wrong.

Socialism is a bad thing, and has been proven so over and over again. The worst thing about socialism is that it is like a drug. Citizens are relieved of responsibility and removing responsibility from one’s shoulders can produce euphoria, much like drugs do. It will start out slowly with the first mandates telling the populace when and were to work (unions). What a relief eh? No more worrying about job security, medical benefits, etc. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it?

The second bad thing about socialism is that during this process, the regime controlling it gets stronger and stronger until a “point of no return” is reached. Usually, this is when elections are discontinued and the people no longer have a voice. The take-over becomes complete. The government and the military run everything. The Soviet Union, after subjecting their people to fifty years of miserable hardships and lost hope just recently collapsed from this sort of government!

If you don’t believe history, then just look at what’s going on in other countries today. Iran is a perfect example, but not the only one. In Iran they did not quite reach the “point of no return” before the government started manipulating the election process. The present turmoil, resulting in the execution of several demonstrators in Tehran, is the result of the government’s attempt to remove the people’s right to free elections. If the protesters are unsuccessful, you will soon see the end of elections in Iran. Why hasn’t President Obama stood in support of these demonstrators against a totalitarian regime?

How many of us remember the Black Muslim’s standing outside the voting places in Chicago, trying to intimidate people during the election of Barrack Obama? I do. Obama’s health care plan has nothing to do with health care and everything to do with strengthening his grip on the populace through the unions. So far he has the support of the United Auto Workers, the National Educator’s Assoc., and all the Government Employees unions (including police and firefighters) across this nation! The health care union would have almost clinched his hold on all of us, and this is what the "Tea Party" movement was determined to stop. It's not about Medicare!

If Obama had been successful, it would not be long before we would be out on the streets like those brave folks in Iran, clamoring for a return of our freedoms, and some folks are already predicting that chain of events anyway. It’s not too late, but the stakes are high and an effort must be made to make things right. The first thing that needs to be done is to change that survey result. Socialism is not a good thing and we have to speak up against it. For God’s sake, for your children’s sake, and for the sake of our country, SPEAK UP! Talk to someone, anyone, DON’T BE SILENT!

Will the real Charles F. please stand up

On January 25th, 26th, 27th, and 28th, I wrote a little about my hobby, genealogy, and my great grandparents on my father’s side, Charles F. Henderson and his wife Clara (Gustafson) Henderson. While I was writing that stuff, I went back and took a second look at the clues and records that I had found and have come to some further conclusions. Ever since I was a young man there had been a question about whether Clara’s maiden name was Gustafson or Johnson, and I was never able to convince myself that Charles had been counted twice during the 1880 census until I found other ancestors that I was able to confirm had been counted twice. After that, and after much ciphering and cogitating, here’s my reassessment of the chronological story of Charles F. Henderson and Clara Gustafson.

1860-Moline, Illinois
After arriving in this country in 1854, we find 36 year old Charles Henderson (Charles F. Henderson’s father) living with his 32 year old wife Mary (Nelson) Henderson and their 4 children, Charles F. (8), William (4), John (2), and Frank ( 5 mos.). Charles Sr., Mary, and Charles F. are all listed as being born in Sweden, and William, John, and Frank were born in Illinois.

1870-Moline, Illinois
We find that Mary is now a widow. She is with her sons Charles who is now 18, John who is 12, and Victor, 7, who was born shortly after the last census. It is fair to think that Charles Sr. was probably killed in the Civil War, but we have not confirmed that as yet. Sons William and Frank did not survive and are both deceased. We know that these sons did not survive and were not just off visiting somewhere because on the 1900 census, two of the questions asked were “Mother of how many children,” and “Number of these children living.” Clara stated that she had seven with only two surviving.

1880-Moline, Illinois
Mary is now 52 years old and is “keeping house and managing the farm.” She has lost another son, John who died sometime during the previous 10 years. Listed in the same census with her is her two surviving sons, Charles (28) and Victor (17). Also, on the same census page, we find the remnants of the Storm family in the person of Susan Storm who is living with another family. This confirms that the Hendersons and the Storms were neighbors, and knew each other. During this census, Charles F. was temporarily helping the Storm family on their newly acquired farm in Bluegrass, Iowa, just across the river and only ten miles from Moline. It is normal for census takers to list family members who are only temporarily away, and this is what happened.

This is the part that kept me so confused for the past two years! Charles F. Henderson was counted twice in the 1880 census! Once, as noted above, and again as noted below.

1880-Bluegrass, Iowa
We find 30 year old Charles Storm and his 26 year old wife Lotte (Gustafson) Storm living with their 3 sons Albert (6), Henry (4) and Julius (1). Living with them, is Lotte’s sister Clara Gustafson, and Charles F. Henderson, who is now being counted for the second time. Clara and Charles F. “hooked up” and moved 80 miles south to Keokuk, Iowa where Charles got a job with the Keokuk brewing company.

A sad blow was stuck to genealogy in 1921, when almost the entire 1890 census was lost to fire. The information that is pieced together here was gleaned from the City Directory of Keokuk, Iowa for the years 1887, and 1890.

Between 1880 and 1886, Charles and Clara manage to produce 4 children, Raymond Oliver, Oscar Carl, John Victor, and Edward. By the time Edward was born, Charles had sunk into the cycle of drinking and being in and out of jail as told by his son John in the narrative he produced years later. By 1887, Charles and Clara are already having trouble, and they are living apart. Charles is with a friend, Thomas Corcoran, living at 1513 Morgan Street in Keokuk, Iowa, and Clara is working as a domestic for the Jewell family and is using the surname Johnson! This is the name Clara used on the birth certificate of her youngest son Edward, who is also the only son who was not given a middle name. It makes one wonder if Edward was not the product of the Johnson/Gustafson relationship and not a Henderson at all!

In 1890, Clara is seen in the Keokuk city directory, living with a John Marks. Whether Mr. Marks was a lover or a boarder is unknown but, apparently, Mr. Johnson had abandoned her also and she is with another man. According to her obituary, Clara’s husband, Charles F. ran off with another woman in 1889. It is possible, in his mentally weakened condition from years of drinking, that he was not able to deal with the loss of his two youngest children, Harry and Eleanor, both of whom died that same year. It is also possible that Clara, after putting up with Charles’ drinking for so long, took up with Mr. Johnson and that is what motivated Charles to leave her. In either case, life for the Hendersons got complicated and before either Charles or Clara could come to their senses, Clara died and all the kids were sent to live with others.

1900-Moline, Illinois
By now, Mary has had a total of seven children but only two of them survived past childhood, Charles F., and Victor. Victor appears to have never left his mother’s side, and stayed with her on the farm, and we now know about the escapades of Charles F. between 1880 and 1887. After 1887 and before 1900, it appears as though Charles came to his senses and returned home to be with his mother and brother. In the 1900 census, we find all three of them living together again in Moline, Illinois.

1910-Moline, Illinois
In 1910, the family is still together and Mary is celebrating her 82 year! Her brother, Alexander Nelson (69) is also living with the family on the farm in Moline (this is how we discovered Mary’s maiden name!), and Alexander’s son, Charles R. Nelson is living on the adjacent farm with his wife Maria C. and their five daughters, Lillian M. (12), Linda C. (10), Ruth E. (8), Clara U. (6), and Anna L. (3).

1920-Moline, Illinois
Only Charles and Victor remain on the farm. Their mother, Mary, and Uncle Alexander are both gone. Charles is 68 years old, and Victor is 57. Victor, the younger brother, never married and is listed as head of household.

1930-Moline, Illinois
Charles is 78 years old and is listed as the head of household, and Victor is 67. This is the last time we see them in the records. There is no indication that Charles ever looked for his wife and children or that he even knew what happened to them. It seems that he just turned his back on what was obviously a difficult and sad chapter in his life and never looked back.

If you read my postings of late January, you know what happened to them all, so I won’t go into that again here.

There is plenty of conjecture in this scenario, but there is also a lot of circumstantial evidence to support it. The fact that Edward, Clara’s youngest son, was the only one of the four brothers who was lost track of after Clara’s death, and was the only one without a middle name makes me believe he was only a half-brother to the others. He stayed in Keokuk long after the others had left, and may have found sanctuary with Johnson relatives? There is a military draft registration card filled out by Edward Henderson of Keokuk Iowa in 1917. He states that his birthday is November 10, 1887, which is the same birth year I have in my records. The registration card also states that Edward was tall, slender, with blue eyes and light hair, and was a Starch Worker. The physical description certainly fits that of a lot of the Hendersons. The registration card also mentions that Edward had lost one leg.

1 dimension, 2 dimension, 3 dimension, 4

There is a book out there titled “Flatland, by A Square” written by E. A. Abbott in 1884. It is an amazing little book that tries to explain the fourth dimension by taking you on a trip through the second dimension. Now, if you are confused by the talk of different dimensions of existence, let me simplify things. In our physical world, the dimensions are nothing more than Length, Width, and Height. Those are the three dimensions of our world, and we, therefore, live in the third dimension!

In a two dimensional world there are only two dimensions, Length and Width, kind of like a sheet of paper. A two dimensional being’s world has no height and they, therefore, cannot jump over obstacles but have to go around them. Following this same line of thinking, a one-dimensional creature would live on a line and would only be able to move forward and backward. They would not be able to turn around and would never see what was behind them, nor could they pass whatever was in front of them. Are you still with me?

Imagine, for a moment, that you entered Flatland. The very instant you entered the surface of Flatland, you would appear to the creatures in Flatland as a small dot in front of them. Obviously, only a very small portion of your three-dimensional body could be in the two-dimensional (plane) world at any given time. Compare it to pushing your finger through a sheet of paper. The tip of your finger and fingernail would be below the paper (not in the two dimensional world) and your hand and the rest of your body would be above the paper and also outside the two-dimensional plane. Only a thin whisp of your finger would be in the same plane as the paper and visible to a two-dimensional being. Sometimes I think this is what happens when people see the apparitions we call ghosts. Fourth dimensional beings who can only manifest a “whisp” of their actual selves to a three-dimensional world!

From a world of no dimensions, to our world of three dimensions, you only need to move the original dimension perpendicular to itself to create each new dimension. Move a “no dimensional dot” perpendicular to itself and you create a line (one dimension). Move the line perpendicular to itself and you create a plane (sheet of paper, two dimensions). Move the plane perpendicular to itself and you create a cube (our world, three dimensions). Now comes the part that will stretch your imagination. How do you move our three-dimensional world perpendicular to itself?

Some say you do it by moving in or out like the layers of an onion, but this is only a three-dimensional explanation of a much deeper concept. Einstein said that the fourth dimension is a thing called Space/Time, and amazingly, space and time are interchangeable in many of his formulas. What this means is, we should be able to move around in time just as easily as we do in space, and there are an infinite number of these “times” that we could exist in! Also, we would not, and could not, leave one to enter the other. Like the three dimensional creature that exists in an infinite number of two-dimensional worlds all at the same time (like a stack of paper), a three dimensional creature (us) would exist in an infinite number of three dimensional worlds all at the same time.

Flatland by A Square is a fascinating book and easy to read. Ladies, beware, it is very chauvinistic in its views. The creatures in Flatland are categorized by how many facets they have. Triangles, with only three facets, are relegated to the females of the society with isosceles triangles being the lowliest of women, and equilaterals being the most advanced. The men are all polygons and begin as squares and can graduate to pentagons (business people), hexagons (college professors), octagons (government or church officials), etc. until they have so many facets they appear as complete circles, the priestly class. If you can get past this chauvinistic view, Abbott gives many examples of what we, as three-dimensional beings, would look like to a two-dimensional world. From that, you can cogitate on what a forth-dimensional being would look like in our three-dimensional world. This could be as much fun as contemplating your bellybutton.