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.