from Grandpa Woods
My first remembrance is when I was 5 years old entering first grade at St. Columbus School. Even though we lived behind the convent in a little house I didn't want to stay in class and I tried to run out the front door. I remember the nun holding her wide dress across the front of the door so I couldn't leave.
I was five years old when my brother went to Rome to become a priest. He was Father Francis. He received two doctorates in Rome. When he returned to Albany diocese he became the judge of the diocesan tribunal and chaplan at the college of St. Rose. He later became a parish priest, first pastor of St. Madeline Sophie Church. He helped Father Patrick Peyton, founder of the Family Rosary, and received permission from the Albany diocese to become co-director of the Family Rosary Crusade.
I heard subsequently that he was an excellent candidate for bishop but I knew he wanted to work with Father Peyton, a Holy Cross priest, for ten years. While working with Father Peyton the Holy Cross Order loaned the diocese a priest to cover St. Madeline Sophie Church. Father Francis traveled a lot working with the Family Rosary Campaign.
Before that, Father Francis was away for seven years when he was becoming a priest and came back when I was 12. While in Italy he would write me letters with little children stories in each letter. We missed each other very much. I along with the family met Francis at the dock in NYC; he was on the Andrea Doria. At the dock I went up to him and said do you have the correct time, Father. He did not know me at first and looked at his watch and then we both recognized each other with love and happiness. My Dad died about this time; he was 52 years of age. I lived with my mother and sister, Helen and Aunt Elizabeth Hesler who came to live with us after Grandma Hesler died.
I went to Nott Terrace High School. At that time the school was on Nott Terrace where Friendly Ice Cream is located now. Francis was 15 years older than me; Helen was 11 years older than me. They were both excellent students. I had a difficult time living up to their reputation in high school.
After graduation from Nott Terrace in 1939 I went to Siena College in Loudonville. It was the third year of Siena's existence. I was historian of the class.
At that time my mother sold the house on Stanley Street and bought a home at 1377 Union Street in Schenectady. We lived upstairs and she rented the downstairs flat. I want to mention here that prior to my parents buying 711 Stanley Street that my father was an iron moulder at the American Locamotive Company and also at the GE Company. He had been laid off because of strikes at that time. He took a job as janitor or custodian at St. John the Baptist Church in Schenectady. And, one of the perks, was living in a church owned home next to St. John's Convent. One day before I was born, and, I was born in the church house, a Sister of Mercy nun who had been reading about St. Norbert and St Norbert's Day, June 6 told my mother that she liked the name of Norbert very much and that she thought that would be a good name for me. That's how I got the name, Norbert.
Let me return now briefly to my college years at Siena. I hitchhiked to and back from college everyday or occasionally got a ride with a fellow student. Our family never had a car until many years later when Father Francis bought the first car in the family. At college I did pretty well. Mostly a C student I think, and played football and took up boxing at the college.
These sports were on a more or less informal basis as these teams were being thought about as Siena College sports. I entered Siena in September 1939 and received a private pilot's license with friends of mine under the college and the US Civil Aeronotics program. As the first half of my senior year was ending round January 1943, I became very bored with college and anxious to join the regular marine corps. I wrote into the marine corps headquarters and asked them to give me a date that I would be taken in, so that I could relax and concentrate on my studies knowing that soon I would be in the corps. In their return mail I received orders to report to Paris Island, So. Carolina marine corps boot camp. My mother and I took a train to NYC and mom put me on a train for Paris Island. I remember the sad feeling we had when the train pulled out. The train was actually like a troop train. It took several stops on the way and each stop brought more young men going to boot camp. The first day at boot camp they shaved our heads, shipped all of our civilian clothes back home, and we were issued a sea bag full of marine gear along with a M1 rifle and bayonet. This was scary and exciting because I had never held a weapon of any kind before and had no experience and regimentation. That's all for now--next time more about my Dad.
- marywoods's blog
- Login to post comments
More about Frank Woods, my Dad and my Mom and my sister Florence
I am reminiscing today, May 1, 2006 about my sister Florence who died a short while before I was born from diptheria which killed many many people at that time in the early 1900s. I have a locket in my possession which my parents had made containing a picture of Florence. The outside of the gold locket has a small diamond in the center and on the other side the name of Florence. My mother wore the locket which shows Florence as a lovely young child and my handsome father. Thinking back now I remember my Dad carrying me on his back from Uncle John Hesler's house on Guilderland Avenue, Schenectady all the way home to all the way home to 711 Stanley Street, a distance I would estimate at about three miles. He and my mother would play cards at Uncle John and Aunt Bertha's house with Uncle Fred I think about once a week. I think they played pinnocle and 500. The kids who were present would play games on the floor while the card game was going on. They played until late at night and then my Mom and Dad, who had walked with me earlier in the evening to Uncle John's from Stanley Street, and on the way home I would be too tired and sleepy to walk and my Dad would carry me the whole way. My Dad had met my mother after coming from Oswego NY to work in the General Electric Company where he met Uncle John and Uncle Fred Hesler who were working there. He met my mother who was a very young sister of Uncle John and Uncle Fred. In the photos of her and my Dad and uncles she looks to be about 16. Dad and Mom were very loving parents and had a fairly rough life during those times because of strikes, different diseases going around like diptheria and scarlet fever. My mother, Anna, and my sister Florence caught diptheria and Florence died in my mother's arms. My mother prayed to God and said she would not mourn Florence if he saved herself for her family but that was not easy for her to do when she did survive.
My sister, Helen, had scarlet fever from which she almost lost her eyesight and also had conjunctivitis and rheumatic fever most of her life and dying of heart problems as did my brother Francis. Dad died of lung cancer at about 52 years of age from working in the foundry many years and also smoking and chewing tobacco. Uncle Francis died when he was 56 on a priest retreat at the Shrine at Auriesville, NY.
I'll reminisce now for a few minutes concerning the marine corps boot camp and officer's training later and also time in the corps after that. All the drill instructors at Paris Island were exceptionally well trained sargeants, very tough, very strict so to turn boys into marine corps warriors. If you made a mistake it upset the drill instructor very much and you would get extra duty such as running around the great ground 50 times with your 9 pound rifle held above your head. Another "punishment" might be to pick up cigarette butts and any trash on the base. One time I had to pick up 50 cigarette butts and put them on a needle and thread line and the hard part about that there were very few cigarette butts on a marine base because if anyone smoked on the base they had to "field the strip" the butt, let the tobacco fall on the ground and roll up the outside paper to drop in a waste can later. When I had to do this chore it was late at night and I had a very bad cold and I finally did string the butts onto the line. I think I smoked a few cigarettes to add to the butt collection because I actually couldn't find 50 butts on the ground. I then had to report to Rufus Ardoin. I knocked on the door of Sargeant Ardoin's hut and told to enter. I entered and had to stand at attention and he asked me to count out the butts on the desk. I counted out 52 butts. And, he said "Didn't I tell you to get me 50 butts?" I had to go out and get another 50 butts.
Another time Sargeant Ardoin was about 5'9" tall, very slim, and so straight he almost bent backwards. I used to have difficulty carrying my rifle on my right shoulder correctly and he would correct me several times until I got it right. He told me once "Woods you look human, don't you have a hollow in your shoulder?" (where the rifle should be placed). Another time the first time I marched with the platoon I marched right into another platoon who also had a student in command of that platoon. My platoon marched right straight his platoon and his platoon march straight through my platoon. Pretty soon there were several marines laying on the ground with the other marines stepping over them until I managed to yell "halt". What saved me from serious trouble at that time was the fact that my drill instructor and the drill instructor of the other platoon were laughing so hard that we student leaders were not punished. All the time I was at Paris Island I never saw a commissioned officer. It seems the training was left to the noncommissioned staff. While there I felt that the instructors could do almost anything they pleased to do with the recruits. A few years subsequently, a drill instructor did march a platoon through a swamp where several of the recruits died, drowned. I'll continue this more later.
2 Stories of Dad at Parris Island in 1942
The first story Dad told is when his “drill instructor, named Sgt. Rufus Ardoin (He was proud and happy to still remember his name.), was marching us on the drill field. Several other drill instructors were marching their platoons. Our drill instructor was giving us the opportunity of drilling our platoon. It was my turn and I gave the necessary orders for the platoon to march and then I noticed that we were headed directly into another platoon. I mentally froze and couldn’t think of the words “platoon HALT”. My platoon marched directly into another platoon going perpendicular to our platoon. They kept marching, and we kept marching and bodies were flying all over the place. I thought that I was DOOMED! The only thing that saved me was that the drill instructors were consumed with laughter at the mess I made. So I got by that time.”
The second story Dad told was when his drill instructor was trying to punish him for something. “He told me to pick up 50 cigarette butts off Parris Island. It wasn’t an easy task as there wasn’t much smoking then and what smoking there was, recruits had to field dress their cigarette butts. Field dressing cigarette butts entailed slitting them open with your finger nail and then sprinkle out the remaining tobacco. I remember feeling quite sick at the time. I had a very bad cold. I must have smoked a whole bunch of cigarettes and eventually I came up with the cigarette butts. I took them to the drill instructor’s Quonset hut, knocked on the door and he yelled enter. I said I have these cigarette butts. He said count them. I put them right on his desk. So I counted and came to 50 and then to 51. I must have thrown one in for good measure. He said Woods, how many did I tell you to bring me. I said 50. He said you brought me the wrong number, so go back OUT AND GET 50. So I went back out and smoked a whole lot more and eventually came up with the 50 cigarette butts.”
Paris Island, NH, shipping out
At Paris Island we went through the usual tough training the marine corps is noted for, i.e. over high obstacles, crawling over ground under live wire while live ammunition is fired over your body, going into a gas chamber and then having to take off the gas mask so that we would understand what it was like to be gassed, climbing up rope ladders, jumping off the high board into a deep pool, how to fight with a bayonet, learn judo, many days at the rifle range, and many hours of class work. At the conclusion the successful recruits ere promoted to private first class, PFC, and sent to officer's training class at Quantico, VA. There we had more training in firing various weapons, many hours of class work in tactics, and many hours at nigh on long marches, carrying and using fairly heavy weapons such as machine guns and mortars. We were also issued and trained in the use of carbines, a smaller rifle using a small magazine of bullets. Later in combat we learned that we preferrred using the M1 rifle and disposing of our lighter rifle, the carbine, because the magazaine of bullets would get clogged up with sand too easily.
On May 19th, 1943, at the age of 21, I became a second lieutenant. In my graduation class there was also Tyrone Power, a very famous and handsome actor in Hollywood at that time. Also in my class was Will Green, husband of Maureen O'Hara who was also a very famous actress at the time. Also, at Quantico was Sterling Hayden who was a famous actor of the time. Ty Power happened to be the first person ever to salute me as a second lieutenant.
My mother, my brother, and my sister attended my graduation at Quantico. After graduation I was assigned to the Portsmouth Navel Prison in Portsmouth. NH and there I met my wife, your mother, who was a navel supply officer at the submarine base in Portsmouth. I was seriously looking for a wife, the girl of my dreams. We had several dates immediately and became engaged about a week later. My future wife Mary Margaret Bracewell was from Iowa, graduated from the University of Iowa, and entered the navy at about the same time I entered the marine corps. I thank God we got together in NH.
Mary Margaret met the Woods family and we talked with her family in Iowa and we were married three months after meeting. We got married at St. Helen's Church in Schenectady. At that time St. Helen's was a little wooden church on upper Union Street where there is now a Trustco Bank. In 1944 there was a theatre across from the church.
We had a few days leave and spent some time in northern NY, Glens Falls and Lake George area. I chose as my best man another young lieutenant in the navy yard, John Lawler. When Mary and I returned to Portsmouth after a very short honeymoon my orders to the Fleet Marine Force and Lieutenant Lawler's orders also the the Fleet Marine Force were handed to us. Apparently the service did not approve of our marriage and shipped me away from Mary immediately.
Some of the nice things about our engagement and marriage was that we were of the same religion, each of us wanted a large familly, actually mentioning thirteen children probably because I admired Uncle Fred Hesler's family of thirteen children.
thingsabout our engagement
thanks GPa and GMa
I really appreciate the stories. It's truly a blessing to be able to hear all about your lives and our relatives before you. Thank you and lots of love!