today is the 86th anniversary of my fathers birth... “Just a guy doing his job” He was born April 12, 1928 in Cleveland. His parents came from opposite sides of Oslo, before the revolution. His mother was an indentured servant to one of FDR’s secretaries, of Treasury, I believe. His father came to New York by way of Havana. How they met is unknown, since the father abandoned the family when he was 2. At that point, his mother went back to working as an indentured servant so he could be sent to Norway to be taken care of by family. He was 2 and spoke no Norwegian. The times there are lost to history, except for the fact that the day before he left to return to the US, he watched as his “favorite cousin, Radar, as I recall, was killed by a shoe cleat puncturing his skull during a soccer game. Upon returning to the US, he was met by a mother and step father and two siblings that he had never met. He spoke no English. The period until he was twelve is also lost to history, except for one picture of him astride a pony. He told of the back story of him “conning” a willing and loving mother out of a quarter to get his picture take. Until his death, that was a treasured memory. At twelve, he had a argument with his step father and struck him.. He claims that he hit him with a broom, the family legend has it as a shovel… either way it would not have hurt the step father, Karl Hanson, he was a Swede. That was the last time that they would see each other until 1956. The man to be was placed on a juvenile farm where he would learn the animal husbandry that he would adore throughout his life. At 14, he was released from the farm, It was 1942 and America was at war. He forged his mother’s signature and lied about his age. He was now a Merchant Marine. In 1942 he was traveling America’s coast, he told of watching ships ahead and behind him taken out by the German submarines. In 1943, he began doing convoys across the Atlantic. He told of being in the crows nest with the spray still hitting him and freezing. At one point he had to be brought down as a block of ice. And that not being enough, he volunteered for the Murmansk “run.” He did that, twice, I believe. He made a lot of money, and spent it like a man who did not believe that he would see tomorrow, and maybe, he did not want to. In 1944, he went back to New York and had his mother sign legal permission to join the Army. It was the first time she had seen him since 1940, and the last time that she would see him until 1956. He went to war, it was March 1945. The war was over before he saw land combat. He became a motor pool manager. One of his few stories about that time was that a jeep was lost. All the jeeps had numbers. He told his crew to find “that” jeep. The next day, during inspection, 6 jeeps had that same number.. At this point, he met a lady from logistics. They were married July 11, 1947, in two services, one for the Army and one for God. They returned to the US and set up in Cleveland, Ohio. He had several jobs but ended up at Victor Frank Packard, a struggling auto dealer. He got the idea to try to make some money on the trade ins… he had them cleaned up and tried to sell them for a profit. The used car industry in America was born.
Posted on: Sat, 12 Apr 2014 20:01:44 +0000
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