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.