A History of Me: My Father's Line

After I wrote my first two posts, I asked Pop to check my facts.

He shot me back a quick email that piqued my curiosity.

"Both of my dad's (Vernon's) parents were school teachers.  His dad was also a school administrator.  So he usually was both a principal and a teacher at the same time.  Vernon's dad got his college degree in teaching on the same day that Vernon got his degree in mechanical engineering (I have a copy of a newspaper picture with the two of them in cap and gown holding their diplomas).  Vernon's dad was about 48 or so when he got his teaching degree.  In the WW2 time frame, they let you teach school in small town Nebraska without a college degree.  Both Vernon's parents were working to get their degrees, primarily in summer school over quite a few years.  Vernon's dad had some college from a small school in Nebraska but quit going to school to work.  He later started going to summer school at the Univ of Nebraska in Lincoln to finish his degree.  Vernon's mother was still working to get her college degree when she died at age 54.  Vernon's grandmother was also a teacher which was unusual for a woman to have a college degree in the early 1900s.  Vernon's sister Mary was a teacher.  Vernon's sister Ellen was a substance abuse counselor (kind of like a teacher).  So you have a lot of teaching DNA in the lineup.  

Just some trivia for you.  

Love,  

Dad"

I wrote back immediately.

Here it is.

How's that for a piece of history?

Pop also gave me something else I found really interesting: Grandpa Vern's resumé.

It was a two-pager. It really struck me close to home, too. Grandpa Vern wrote the resumé when he was 30. My dad was 3 and 1/2 years old.

Here I am 31 with a 3 year old.

Shane may not find this interesting, but I found it fascinating. I'm really glad I wrote those posts, because they opened up some good conversations and I learned a lot.

I knew about Grandpa Vern's service in Japan after WW2 (he had a sword he won in a card game!). I didn't know that he was on MacArthur's staff. He got promoted to be in charge of a Cryptographic Distribution center because he aced an Army intelligence test. The army offered to send him to OCS, but Grandpa Vern decided he never wanted to leave Nebraska again. He got a job at a watch factory (yet he made fuses for guided missiles?!?) and then switched to work at Cushman when he would have had to transfer out of NE (the factory was relocating).

Very cool stuff. I'm glad Pop showed me.

On a side note, I found some of the newspaper adds to be funny. There was nothing jaw-dropping, but I scanned them in if you're curious.