Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
In a world where storytelling has been our link to the past since the days of cave drawings, there exists a timeless tradition. It's the art of passing down knowledge, and for Military Veterans, it's a crucial piece of their legacy. Join us on the Veterans Archives Podcast, where we dive deep into the heartwarming and awe-inspiring stories of those who served, no matter when or where.
Here, Veterans get the chance to be the authors of their own narratives. Through guided interviews in a relaxed and safe environment, they paint their experiences with their own words and unique voices. The result? A memory card in a presentation box, a precious gift they can share however they please.
But that's not all. These stories find a secure home in our archive, a treasure chest of experiences for future generations to explore. The best part? It's all a gift to the Veteran – our way of saying thank you for their service.
Tune in to the Veterans Archives Podcast, where history, heroism, and heartwarming tales come to life.
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Veterans Archives: Preserving the Stories of our Nations Heroes
Exploring the Remarkable Life of Ray Brown: From Great Depression Challenges to Family Legacy and Global Adventures
What if the story of a man could encapsulate the resilience, adaptability, and warmth of an era now past? Ray Brown's journey does just that, painting a vivid picture of life through the Great Depression, military service, and the evolution of family life. Raised in Royal Oak, Michigan, Ray shares poignant memories of his mother's unwavering strength as she raised five children alone during one of the toughest economic times in history. His tales of childhood, marked by rationing coupons and a home filled with both siblings and stray dogs, offer a unique lens into the fabric of American life in the 1930s and 40s.
From the humble beginnings of working in accounting to an unexpected draft into the Army, Ray's life took him across the Atlantic to Germany in 1958. This peaceful period between wars allowed him to explore Europe, creating cherished memories like a family Christmas in Paris. In recounting his time as a clerk typist stationed abroad, Ray highlights the unexpected opportunities that shaped his life's narrative, blending service with personal adventures that enriched his understanding of the world.
As the episode unfolds, listeners will find themselves immersed in Ray's later years as a devoted family man and professional in banking and auditing. Navigating the challenges of raising four daughters while managing a successful career, Ray reveals the lessons learned in balance and shared responsibilities. Retirement brought new roles and reflections, amplifying the joys of simple card games and the love of family. Throughout, Ray's reflections on values, family, and faith leave a powerful message about the elements that truly matter, inviting listeners to cherish the small moments that define a life well-lived.
Today is Thursday, October 10th, 2024, and I'm talking with Ray Brown, who served in the United States Army. So good morning, Ray. Good morning, it's great to see you, Good to see you. Well, we're going to start out very simple this morning. I'm just going to ask you when and where were you born?
Speaker 2:I was born in Royal Oak, Michigan, in 1934.
Speaker 1:Okay, and what was it like growing up in Royal Oak in 1934?
Speaker 2:Well, of course, that was during the Depression, so the part that I remember was coupons. You had to have coupons. You had to have coupons to get food. You had to have coupons to get gas. You had to have coupons to get gas, you had to have coupons to buy shoes. That was well, it was normal to me at the time, but later I always described it as we were less fortunate people because my dad had passed away. Okay.
Speaker 2:So my mother was trying to raise a family of five children without a husband, which was, of course, very stressful Even now it would be yes, but she persevered and she ended up with five children and I don't know how many grandchildren now, but great-grandchildren, I don't know if we can count that far.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lots of numbers there, I imagine.
Speaker 2:Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1:So how old were you when your father passed away?
Speaker 2:He passed away before I was born.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, so your mom was pregnant then, when your father passed away, he died.
Speaker 2:August 1st 1934. I was born December 9th 1934. It's about I think, four and a half or four and some days difference between the two. Oh my gosh, the strange thing about it is that my dad, as I said, the strange thing, about it is that my dad, as I said, died August 1st and my mother passed away July 31st. Oh Okay.
Speaker 1:That's pretty close together. It's almost eerie. Yeah, it is, it is. If you don't mind my asking what happened to your dad.
Speaker 2:Peridonitisitis, which was a disease um of the kidneys, uh-huh. Now it is curable with penicillin, right, but at that time it was not okay, all right.
Speaker 1:And what did? What did your dad do for a living prior to his passing?
Speaker 2:He worked for Detroit Edison and he got that job through my uncle and he worked there for some time I have no idea how long and he became ill and just before his death he worked at the uh, he's a janitor at the baltimore theater in downtown rurlo, okay, which later became a movie house. Now it has reverted back to live entertainment and plays and so on and so forth. So it all comes back around, right? Yes, and plays, and so on and so forth. So it all comes back around, right? Yes, it does.
Speaker 1:Yes it does. So tell me a little bit about your mom. So there were five kids. You were the youngest then obviously I was Okay. And what did she do to keep that family together? Anything she could, Uh-huh.
Speaker 2:Her last years before she retired she worked at a bakery in Royal Oak. It was Herman's Bakery, who was in Royal Oak for years and years and years and she knew the owner. She was able to get a job there, but before that she rent an elevator in the tallest building in Royal Oak. All six stories of it, and I don't remember how many years she did that.
Speaker 1:I have no idea. So what kind of businesses were in this building?
Speaker 2:A lot of doctors, lawyers. There was a hospital the fourth floor was a hospital. Lawyers there was a hospital. The fourth floor was a hospital. It was actually a precursor to William Beaumont Hospital Dentists, things of that nature.
Speaker 1:There was even a barber, so it was mostly like a medical building. Then, yes, okay, all right, so you shared a story with me before we started recording and I really like to to capture that story. We were, we were talking about pets and you said you never had any cats, but you did have dogs. Yes, so can you tell me? Could you kind of tell me that story again? That was really interesting.
Speaker 2:Hold on just a minute. Okay, as I said, my mother ran the elevator in this tall building it's all six stories and we lived on a very busy street in Marlowe. If we had a dog and lost it because it was killed in the street or it ran away, the fourth floor of the hospital was a hospital which has patients, and patients stay over. Sometimes they have to be fed. The back of the hospital, the back of the building of course, had a lot of garbage and trash and so on and so forth which attracted dogs and cats. So if we lost a dog, my mother would go to the back of the hospital after work, pick up a dog, bring it home. We would feed it, give it a bath and then a couple of days later, we would take it to the vet and get it checked out to make sure it was healthy and get it some shots, whatever it needed. So then it was our dog.
Speaker 1:She had an endless supply of pets. Yes, she did.
Speaker 2:Some of them we held for quite a while we did. One of them, I remember is we got it around Christmas time and we gave it a Christmas name. His name was Jingle Bells. Now it sounds kind of corny. That's what kids do, right? Jingle Bells. Now it sounds kind of corny, but that's what kids do right.
Speaker 1:Jingle Bells the dog, Jingle Bells the dog. So you had, did you have all brothers, brothers and sisters?
Speaker 2:How did that there was five of us. There was three boys and two girls.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right. And were you fairly close in age or did were you far apart in age out of that?
Speaker 2:Well, it was kind of staggered because my mother actually had seven children, okay, but she lost two in infancy, uh-huh. So there was quite a gap sometimes between the siblings, between my siblings, but I'd have to look up the records to find out when my elder sister was born and actually the youngest boy I'm sorry, the middle boy was the first one to pass away. Oh, okay, and my eldest brother was in service in Korea.
Speaker 1:Okay, he was in the Korean War, and so you all pretty much had to work hard too, as kids, right?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, okay, we didn't own a car until the kids started working. Then they could contribute to purchasing a car Right, and we didn't have a telephone in the house until my elder sister worked for Michigan Bell. Okay. Then there was some kind of a deal. She could get a deal or a price cut or something, and she had that phone number for something like 55 years. That's amazing, that's something yeah.
Speaker 1:That's something I find myself sometimes remembering, like my grandmother's phone number, because I used to dial it all the time. Yeah, sure, and she had it for years.
Speaker 2:When we had first phones, you didn't dial. You picked it up and somebody said can I help you? Could you get me da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da? Right? And it was tradition in those days, when you wanted to call somebody, you would pick up the phone and you would say Merry Christmas or Happy new year or whatever applied to the operator. Oh, okay, and she.
Speaker 1:Oh, thank you, you know. No, this was. Was this in a day of party lines too like oh yeah, you shared a line with neighbors. You had a party line, a party line so, and if it rang a certain way, you knew it was your phone or quite.
Speaker 2:It wasn't quite that? I don't think so, Not that I remember.
Speaker 1:anyway, you just picked it up, and if it was for you, it was for you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, if somebody was talking, you know.
Speaker 1:Well, let me ask you this. So, when you think about your mom today, what's one of your favorite memories of her?
Speaker 2:She was a hardworkingworking woman. I tell you, um, she worked very hard to keep us together, yeah and uh this is not easy.
Speaker 1:No, I know, I know, I know she sounds like an amazing person. She was.
Speaker 2:She told the story. After I was born, or actually before I was born, the county gave her a nurse to help her out with the kids. Okay, well, because there was five of us, the nurse decided to heck with this and she just walked off the job. Now this was in the wintertime, because I was born in December. So in order to keep us warm, my mother went downstairs, one step at a time, on her butt, to stoke the furnace so that we would be warm. That's a tough woman.
Speaker 1:That's love, that is love for her children right there. Yeah, yeah, probably kind of shaped who you are today, didn't it? I hope so, yeah, yeah, it's always nice to be able to take those good things that people did for us and build on them, and I can tell from your voice and from your face right now that you really loved your mom. Yeah, yeah, and I know that's difficult for you, excuse me. Oh, certainly, certainly. Take your time.
Speaker 2:I didn't really mean to do that.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's. You know what that happens? I find myself crying sometimes when I'm listening to people tell me these stories. So it's perfectly okay. Well, let me ask you this too when you think about the time you spent with your brothers and sisters and I know that everyone had to work hard, do you? Have some favorite memories about your childhood with your brothers and sisters.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, yeah, my mother with five kids didn't have a lot of money and we lived down 11-mile roads, so at Christmastime we walked about two miles Not all of the kids, but those who wanted to go to get a Christmas tree, because my mother knew somebody who was selling Christmas trees up there and she could get a little bit off of the price. Yeah, okay, then we would tote it all back, we would put it up. Now, we didn't have a good base for the tree. Okay, like they now have Christmas tree stands that will hold anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we had an old crock and we would put the tree in there. Then we would stuff it full of paper just regular newspaper, okay, and we would wet the newspaper. Okay, and we would wet the newspaper. Okay, then we would tie string from the tree sash in the window to hold the tree up. Okay, the goofy part about it is that when we decorated the tree, we were trying to hide the string, of course, so we would hang tinsel on the tree, which is dumb if you think about it, but that's just the way we did things back in those days.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, Made the best of what you had right, Absolutely. Do you think that, looking back on that, even as difficult as it was, those were some of the best times? Do you think about it that way?
Speaker 2:or are you kind of glad that's passed? Well see, I didn't know any different, yeah, so I had nothing to compare it to and I didn't really realize that we were poor until several years later, right when I got out into the world and say, oh well, things are different now than they were then?
Speaker 1:Do you think that gave you a greater appreciation for the? Way things are now oh yes, oh, yes, yeah, oh yes. I have to imagine that stays in the back of your head for a long time.
Speaker 2:It was a hard period of time for not only us but for the country Right, With World War II almost on us.
Speaker 1:And it was starting to heat up. Right, yes, at this time. Yes, yeah, and so were you able to go to school then?
Speaker 2:Oh, yes, Okay, but I had to. I went to Catholic school and I had to work in order to pay for books and the tuition. Okay, so when I was old enough, I peddled papers in the Royal Oak area. By that time my mother had sold the house on the busy street and bought a home in a more residential area. Okay, and that's where I delivered the newspapers. Part of the money that I earned went to her to help support everybody else, right, and I was allowed a little bit to do whatever I wanted to do. Uh-huh.
Speaker 1:So what kinds of things would you do with that little bit of money that you had? What was fun for you?
Speaker 2:Well, I liked to listen to the ball games baseball games. So I went up to a sporting goods store in our local Lawson's Lumber Company, I think it was, but they also sold sports equipment and they got a baseball scoring pad. It was a flip. And then I would sit and listen to the baseball game. A baseball scoring pad okay, it was a flip, you know. And then I would sit and listen to the baseball game and record what they were doing, you know. And I liked to get ice cream sundaes. I would collect money from one man up in the second story of a building, office building. I would go downstairs and there happened to be a kind of a restaurant down below, so I would order chocolate marshmallow sundaes and I'd have one of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is that still your favorite?
Speaker 2:Yes, okay, I've never. I haven't had one in many, many years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, ice cream kind of tastes best when you had to work hard for it, doesn't it? Oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So what was school like for you? How did you do in school? Oh, I was a straight C C student. C student I didn't like science, science, and I don't get along at all. Okay, of course we had religion classes, but I did all right in English and math and so on and so forth. Actually, when I started working at the end, I was in the accounting department of various companies. In one case I was manager of their auditing department.
Speaker 1:So, but uh, school was school, right now didn't, didn't really do well at science, but it sounds like math worked for you. Yes, okay I still do yeah math today yeah and um, so were you at the Catholic school throughout for all of school, right like throughout all 12 years? Okay, did they have sports? Did you play sports there at all? They had sports.
Speaker 2:I did not participate. Okay, as I remember, they had basketball and football and I think there was a baseball team, but I did not participate. My sports ability is zero. I went to Waukegan, illinois, after I got out of service to visit a friend and he talked me into going golf. Okay, so we went to golf and I used his club, since I didn't have any. Uh-huh, so we went to golf and I used his club, since I didn't have any, and it took me 39 strokes to get to second hole. Oh my gosh, and I decided then that sports is not my forte.
Speaker 1:You'll never be a pro golfer, right? No, I can understand. So you go through school and you graduated high school. Yes, what?
Speaker 2:did you do next? Well, I worked for a company that manufactured aluminum cookware. They were based in California this was just a branch of it and they did demonstrations at home. So the salespeople would go into a home and they would cook a meal and you, as the resident, would invite several people eight, don't know eight, nine, ten, whatever, and this salesperson would cook a meal for you and these people, of course, saying that, well, we don't use as much, we use a lot less water and stuff like this to sell the aluminum cookware. Right, I was a clerk in there and I there for I don't know three years or something like that. Okay, and um, then I I resigned. I went to visit a friend who lived only a couple blocks from me and he says why don't you go working with me? I said well, where do you work? He says well, I work at a bank. I says, well, I don't know how to get into a bank. He said, well, they're running a big ad in the paper. Oh, well, so.
Speaker 2:I went down and applied and was hired as a teller and I worked there for I think it was three years, then went into service, got out of service, went back to the bank and I finally left the bank and went into other organizations, always in the accounting department One car manufacturing, windshield manufacturing I was able to work my way up to the manager of the Audity Department. Then they went belly up and I did various things after that until I finally retired in 2000.
Speaker 1:So let's, let's back up a little bit, though. You, when did you go into the service?
Speaker 2:Not January 1958. Okay, and what prompted that I was drafted? Oh, okay, they had to come after me.
Speaker 1:All right. So you got drafted into the Army? Yes, and how long?
Speaker 2:did you serve Not quite two years. I got out in December of 59.
Speaker 1:Okay, and so this was kind of a surprise that you were going into the military. What was it like for you to leave that civilian job and then go into basic training? Was that a big shock for you or a big change?
Speaker 2:for you no. Okay, was that a? Big shock for you or a big change for you?
Speaker 2:No, okay, actually just before I was drafted, I had applied for a position in the Royal Oak Police Department and they gave you a test and, as I remember, one was they give you a criminal scene, okay, and then you had to view this scene and then they would question you about what was going on. Okay, Right, and I apparently passed quite well. So they called and offered me a job and I said, well, can't do that because I just received notice. I'm going in the Army, Uh-huh. So.
Speaker 1:And where did you go to basic training? Fort Leonard Wood, missouri. Okay, all right, and how was that? What are your memories of basic training?
Speaker 2:It was probably typical first eight weeks of training. Yeah, but I don't know it was Army, right Right.
Speaker 1:So't know, it was Army Right right. Did you make any friends while you were there, Any people that you stayed in touch with?
Speaker 2:I did, but the friendships didn't last after I went into what they call second eight weeks of training. Okay, I never associated with them and never saw them again, yeah, and after that then I went overseas. What was your job? What was your job in the army? I was a clerk typist. Okay, when I was in high school I took typing as a class and apparently I was pretty good at it. So when I went into service I ended up in an artillery outfit as a clerk typist. Okay.
Speaker 1:And where did you go overseas to? I was in Baumholder.
Speaker 2:Germany. Okay. A small town. I understand it wasn't very far from the French border, but I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:Did you do much traveling while you were there, then at all in Germany?
Speaker 2:Well, I got lucky. I tell people I got lucky, actually very lucky, because I was in service between wars between Korea and Vietnam. Nobody was shooting at me, I wasn't shooting at anybody. That's luck number one. Number two I got to travel. I got to see things that I wouldn't be able to see on my own. I went to Brussels for the Belgian World's Fair. I went to Paris for Christmas with my brother, because he was also stationed over there, with his family and him. I went to Paris for Christmas. A friend in service with me at that time took some leave. I went through Austria and Switzerland into Italy. I went to Milan, france, rome, saw the Colosseum, vatican, pompeii, capri, naples, the Leaning Tower of Pisa. You know several things that I would never be able to see on my own, yeah, so that's luck number two that I was able to do that own, yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's luck number two that I was able to do that Now. Do you have a like when you think about those places? Do you have a favorite place?
Speaker 2:that you visited there.
Speaker 1:No, probably the Christmas with my brother and his family. Yeah, yeah, family. It's always nice to be with family, yes, especially if you're overseas. That's actually great luck. Well, my sister-in-law was French, uh-huh.
Speaker 2:So we stayed with her mother. Now I stayed with a neighbor which was three blocks away, I think, or something like that, and then I would just walk over to her house in the morning and go back at night, and so on and so forth. But while we were there, my brother took me on a short touring. You know, we went to Sacré-Cœur and the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. I actually walked up to the Eiffel Tower. I was scared to death. I don't like heights, scared to death, but I did it. I'd never do it again. That's a very tall structure, it is. I was just on the first step, where the legs go, and then there's a platform. Well, I was on that platform. I didn't go any higher than that.
Speaker 2:Oh, you didn't go all the way up to the top, oh no, go all the way up to the top.
Speaker 1:Oh no, oh no, hell, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yeah, I don't blame you, I feel the same way about heights.
Speaker 2:So I'm with you. But I love to fly. Yeah, flying on an airplane does not bother me at all, so yeah, isn't that strange?
Speaker 1:yes, yes, it is. It is. Maybe it's just because you're inside. I think that has a lot to do with it. Yeah, at least you feel safe. So you spent what about a year and a half?
Speaker 2:in Germany About 18, 19 months, something like that.
Speaker 1:And then you came back to the States. Did you process out then? Yes, okay.
Speaker 2:I was in reserves. Okay, it was at that time. It was two years active duty, two years active reserves, then it was two years inactive reserves. So Okay. I did all that and finally got my discharge. So you were, were you a?
Speaker 1:drilling reservist then. So you had to go to drill weekends and things like that? Yes, first two years. Yes, all right, and you continue doing your clerk typist work there. Yes, okay, and what did that work entail? Like? What kinds of things did you do as a clerk typist?
Speaker 2:Oh, they had a daily bulletin and the sergeant who was in charge assigned guard duty to the officers officer of the day and it was my responsibility to type up the mimeograph form and get it run off and get it distributed. And they had Army regulations and it was my responsibility to change the regulations. I would get notices from Army headquarters such and such a regulation has to be changed. So you have to change part of the regulation that you have, even if it's just changing nothing but a comma, okay, and I had a bookcase full of these things, right, and I'd have to sit there and change all these things.
Speaker 1:These were like pen and ink changes. Then, yes, okay, yes, wow. I think people have forgotten that those regulations were published on paper and they had to be updated, right oh yes.
Speaker 2:Oh yes.
Speaker 1:That'll keep you busy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and once in a while I had to pull guard duty. That was, I think, three times in 19 months. It's not that bad? No, not at all, not at all. Part of that I didn't like is once it was in the, I ended up at the ammo dump which is off away from the main post. That was kind of eerie at 2 o'clock in the morning 2.30 in the morning.
Speaker 1:Mine play tricks on you out there, won't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, but we had a rifle and we had a clip of ammunition, but we couldn't put it in the rifle that we had. We had to carry it and then, if necessary, we would then load the rifle, which seems kind of slow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, probably not the best way to do it, is it? No? So you did your time in service. You came back. Did you go back to work at the bank then while you were still in the reserves? Yes, okay. And you worked at the bank for a few years then. Yes, I did Okay. And then at some point you met your wife in all of this right.
Speaker 2:Well, my wife worked for the bank so I met her on a blind date. Okay, Well, we were married in 64, so I guess that would be 63 that I met her Mm-hmm. We married in February of 1964.
Speaker 1:Well, tell me about your blind date.
Speaker 2:Well, at that time it was very common, if you were going out with someone, to take them out for dinner and then go to a main show, and they had some big movie houses in downtown Detroit. So that's what we did, okay, went down to dinner and then went to the movie, and the movie was Moulin Rouge, as I remember, which is a life story of a French artist, and one time, when I was on in paris with my brother, we went to the moulin rouge. He took us to the moulin rouge and then we go see the movie.
Speaker 1:That's kind of yeah, it's kind of odd, was the? Was the movie as good as the real thing?
Speaker 2:oh yes, oh yes oh, that's great all the dancing and so on and so forth. Yeah. And the ladies lifting their skirts up and dancing.
Speaker 1:Right, they had the big ruffles and all that, right, yes, yeah, what was it? The can-can? Isn't that what they did? Yes, yes, that was kind of cool. Yeah, and your wife date then, before you decided to get married.
Speaker 2:Oh golly gee. I would say maybe nine months, I don't really remember, I don't really remember?
Speaker 1:Did you kind of know on that first date that this was the person? For you, yes, okay.
Speaker 2:There was no doubt in my mind at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't think she felt the same way, but but you knew, I knew, you just had to convince her right. Yes, okay.
Speaker 2:All right so where did you get married? St Mary Magdalene in Melvindale, michigan. Uh-huh, it was a cold day. It was a oh, the weather was terrible.
Speaker 1:Terrible. They say it's good luck if the weather is bad when you get married Is that what they say?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've heard that Somebody said that once. Turned out all right for me, though, yeah, so.
Speaker 1:Yeah, 60 years or 1964. Okay, 1964. And so you were married for quite a while. 54 years, yeah, 54. Yeah, and so did you stay in. Did you live in Royal Oak or Detroit after you got married?
Speaker 2:Or where were you? Well, we had a flat in Ferndale, uh-huh, and we were there for, oh, I think, less than six months. We bought a house in Royal Oak just a story and a half bungalow and we were there for almost 10 years and that's where we lived when all our kids were born. Okay.
Speaker 2:Then we moved to a larger home in Berkeley and we were there for 20 years. And where do we go from there? By that time all of the kids were leaving. They had left the house Right and we moved to a smaller home in Madison Heights. House Right, and we moved to a smaller home in Madison Heights. And then my wife had decided she wanted a condo. And I was against it at first. Then I guess I just got tired of cutting grass and so on and so forth. So we moved to a condo in Sterling Heights and we were there for a short period of time. We had problems there. Okay.
Speaker 2:It's not necessary to go into why. Yeah, that's fine, then we had a chance to buy a condo in Howell, so we did Okay. And we lived there until she passed away, so that was 20-some years, 23, 24.
Speaker 1:So I want to back up a little bit how many children did you have? Four, four, okay, four girls, four girls, yes, wow, and very close in age.
Speaker 2:Well we were married in the 64. The youngest was born in 71. Okay.
Speaker 1:So, that's seven years and four kids.
Speaker 2:Yeah, spread out kind of nicely. Yeah, some of them were close, but some of them weren't Yep.
Speaker 1:And so tell me about your children. You know, start with your oldest daughter.
Speaker 2:She's a nurse now. Okay, she, of course, is married their second marriage. She has two children, a boy and a girl. She has two grandchildren. The second one is she's a chef at a specialty store in Arlo. She has two girls and one, two, three, five grandchildren. The other two are married but don't have any grandchildren. Okay. And they respectfully have the number three daughter has a boy and a girl and the youngest has two girls and a boy and her oldest is getting married coming June.
Speaker 1:So lots of grandchildren then, Well nine grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren Wow. And are they all local, then Are they all here in Michigan, all in Michigan? Oh, that's nice.
Speaker 2:Although one granddaughter is going to school in Chicago, uh-huh, she wants to get into some kind of child behavioral something. I'm not really sure. Yeah, something I'm not really sure. Yeah, but my eldest daughter is a nurse and I have two granddaughters who are nurses, which is kind of nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, they can give you the straight scoop right when you have questions. Absolutely. My sister's a nurse and I'm always calling her asking her questions, so I understand that. So what was it like? You were pretty outnumbered in that house.
Speaker 2:Even the dog was a female.
Speaker 1:Oh, my goodness, and you didn't play golf, so you weren't going to go play golf with your buddies. No, do you have some favorite memories of when your children were growing up, when you were raising your family?
Speaker 2:No, not really.
Speaker 1:Did you guys travel a lot? No, oh, okay.
Speaker 2:No, we couldn't afford to travel. Yeah, no, just working and raising the kids.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so where were you working? Now that you have your family At the bank, you're still at the bank, okay, alright.
Speaker 2:Working my way up as assistant manager, I was in the auditing department with them, uh-huh, and they had a program.
Speaker 1:Sorry about that. So they had a program.
Speaker 2:They had a program it's called Cadet where they would take promising people. Uh-huh, cadet, where they would take promising people and they would put you in different departments for a short period of time in order for you to learn what's going on in that department it could be mortgage or installment loans, or whatever after which, then, you were appointed as an assistant manager, assistant branch manager. Okay, so that's what I did.
Speaker 1:And you were there for how long? Quite a while, it was quite a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't remember exactly. Okay. That was a long time ago.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and now is that the job that you retired from? No, okay, no, no retired from.
Speaker 2:No, okay, no, I was not smart and I lost that job. Okay, I don't remember where I went there, but it was at. There was a period, bad time in the United States, it was a recession and everybody was being laid off, yeah, and I finally landed a job at a company that manufactured windshields and I was in their audit department. But their audit department, their audit department, but their audit department. They had retail outlets, glass outlets throughout the country, and they had warehouses throughout the country and they had a consignment program. So if you were a distributor in I don't know, say, des Moines, iowa, you could get windshields from this Shadowproof Glass that's the name of it, put it in your warehouse but not pay for it until you sold it. Oh, okay, Then you would report to Shatterproof that we sold it and they would say, okay, you owe us X number of dollars.
Speaker 2:My job then would be to go around to the various warehouses and we would take what they sold and subtract it from what we charged them with and then see if it balanced. And if it didn't, then we would bill them for the difference. And we had Shatterproof had 25 of these warehouses around the country and 25 retail outlets around the country, not always connected to each other. Okay, so that's what we did. We traveled around all over the country, not always connected to each other. Okay, so that's what we did. We traveled around all over the place and the boss of the auditors was afflicted with cancer and couldn't do that job anymore. So then the boss said okay, you're it, ray. So I would assign you go here, you go here, you go here, right.
Speaker 1:And how long did you do that? For a while too, right.
Speaker 2:I was with Shatterproof around 11 years I think something like that and then they went bankrupt.
Speaker 1:And then, what did you do after that?
Speaker 2:Well, I was unemployed for a while and then my wife was working at the bank and one of her customers worked for a company, a fundraising company, and she told him about me and he told his I think it was maybe his father-in-law, who seemed to be interested in my background. So we did an interview and they hired me and I was with them, I would guess, six years or so, until I retired. Okay.
Speaker 1:And you retired in 2000. 2000. Yeah, so we're in 2024. So what did you do after retirement? What kinds of things did you do?
Speaker 2:Oh, that's a good question. Well, my wife was still working, so actually I kept house. Yeah. Years, way back, when I was laid off, I didn't think it was for my wife to go work and have to come home and do the wash and do the cooking and clean the house. So that's what I did, yeah, when I retired. You know, until she retired she was younger, she- was seven years younger than I was.
Speaker 2:So she worked for several years after I retired, until she could retire, you know, after that. But by that time we had a cottage up north. We bought a cottage up north and we would go up there on the weekends. I would say on Tuesday I'd say honey, do you want to go up to the cottage? Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, thursday I'd start packing, so that Friday, after she got off work, everything was ready. All she had to do was go change, jump in the car and I always had something for her to eat, because she wouldn't have a chance to get dinner in the car. And then we're gone, gone up to the cottage. Now, where was your cottage at East Tawas? Okay, all right, and we had that for 30 years, uh-huh.
Speaker 1:Now did the kids come up and go to the cottage with you?
Speaker 2:Initially, no, they didn't, uh-huh, but then some of them one of them came up and said hey, this is kind of nice up here and we don't have to pay for anything.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a good deal yeah.
Speaker 2:A couple of years ago I sold it to my daughter and her husband.
Speaker 1:So they really liked it then, after they went up and visited Well, that's nice, yeah. Cottage can be a lot of work though, can't it?
Speaker 2:Yes, and as I aged it became more difficult. Plus, we couldn't be up there every weekend because we had other things to do and my wife was still working and maintenance was becoming a problem, particularly financially. Some of those things were expensive to repair. Yeah. But we did the best we could and we managed. I guess we managed, so I sold it to my daughter and her husband.
Speaker 1:That's nice A couple years ago. And then you were. So were you living in Royal Oak? Then, after retirement, you were living in Howell. Yes, after retirement, okay, yeah, all right. And then you, so your wife, passed away a few years ago. Six years, few years ago, six years, Six years ago, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yep, and she worked at the senior center right next door. Uh-huh, she wanted to hone her office skills, so she volunteered to work in the office at the Senior Center. Okay. And I went over there to play cards, play euchre and it's double-deck or triple-deck euchre on Tuesday or Friday.
Speaker 1:Now you know what's funny, being a Michigan guy myself, is that when I left Michigan in the service, people didn't know what euchre was. No, and I didn't realize how hard it was to teach people.
Speaker 2:If you don't know Euchre, it's hard. Well, because you're switching jacks. You know, Jack of clubs is not always a jack of clubs.
Speaker 1:Right, right, but cribbage. I used to play cribbage with my dad all the time. Yes, it's a great game. Yes.
Speaker 2:One of my favorites. Anyway, I learned how to play that. My sister worked at the cleaners in Royal Oak and she had a girlfriend who used to come over to my mother's home after whatever she was doing and she was trying to teach me how to play cribbage and she would keep score on paper and pen, which seems to be an awful difficult chore. Yeah, so she gave me the basics and then, when I was working for the bank, the guy who was in charge of the traveling auditors would go from branch to branch. He got interested in cribbage so we would play cribbage on our lunch hour Until one of the branch managers objected to that, because he thought we were gambling, I guess, and reported us to our big boss, who said no, no, no, we don't do that. But we loved the game. It's a good game for two people.
Speaker 1:It is, it is, and you can get to know somebody playing that game.
Speaker 2:Oh yes, well, we play two, three, four, five or six. Next door we kind of invented a cribbage game for five, and after we were doing that for six months we found out there was actually a game that was standard I guess you'd call it Right which was not the game that we were playing.
Speaker 1:Learned how to kind of do it the right way after that. Yes, so well, it's been great talking with you and getting to know you and learning about your life. Before we go, I always ask people kind of the same question. You know, years from now, when someone's listening to this story, what would you like them to take away from our conversation and from your life? What would you like them to take away from that?
Speaker 2:Be an American, love your family.
Speaker 1:Love your country Absolutely.
Speaker 2:Love your maker.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, thank you again. We really appreciate it.
