Captain Richard Dannells An Autobiography 95th Infantry Division

By Dick Dannells

This is an autobiography of a truck farmer's son who went from not quite rags to not quite riches. He was told he would never amount to anything after his father died at the age of 15. At that age, he had to take over the family truck farming business since all of his older brothers had long since left the farmhouse. It is apparent that the early responsibility affected him for the rest of his life. He went from a one-room schoolhouse in the early 1900s to college in the 1920s. Through much struggle and hardship, he made it through Purdue University to obtain a bachelors degree in mechanical engineering in 1929 just before the crash. He was able to survive the depression by being extremely economically prudent. Commonwealth Edison Company was his only employer except for the United States Army. He started as a trainee going from job to job until he was assigned to an electrical generating power plant. During the depths of the depression, he was demoted to working as an operator in the power plant for 3 years. In the middle of this period, he got married and they had their first child in 1935. It is this son that became a military brat in World War II and has now edited his autobiography. However, he did not feel secure as an operator so he entered the University of Chicago and obtained a master degree in education with the goal to become a teacher in case the engineering career did not materialize. When the economy began to improve he got his old job back as a mechanical engineer.
The autobiography is almost entirely in his own words, warts and all, which are contained in a 233-page book that he wrote in the 1970s for distribution among his relatives. His son edited out sections that did not seem to have wide appeal. As the title suggests, it contains intimate details of his frustrating experience as a Captain in the 95th Infantry Division during World War II. He kept meticulous records of his time in the Army. The book includes photos that he took in the 20s and 30s during his ROTC and Army Reserves' encampments.
The book spans the time from when he saw Haley's Comet in 1910 and then again in 1985. The book will be of interest to those who have ever struggled to get a college education, served in the military, or are interested in early American history.
He was a man who really loved his family of 2 sons and a daughter. He also loved to travel in the United States and camped in many of the National Parks. The biggest trip of his life was to China in the 1970s after Pres. Nixon established relations with that country. He was an avid stamp collector. He spent most of his retirement in Tucson, Arizona where he volunteered as an archaeological assistant at the University of Tucson digs, a treasurer of the local Indian tribe as well as to take part in many other activities.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dick Dannells
• Release date: Dec 17, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370576135

Dick Dannells

On January 23, 1935, I was born to Alberta and Richard Dannells in Chicago, Illinois. Since this book is my father's autobiography, he is the author and I am only the editor. In his book, my Dad included many aspects of my life and I've added a number of additional "Editor's notes" on aspects that were intertwined with his. From 1977 to 1991, I lived in Emmaus, Pennsylvania and was employed as a Division Patent Council for Air Products and Chemicals Corporation. This position provided me with an opportunity to make frequent trips to Europe and Japan. In 1991, I took an early corporate retirement and moved to my present home in Pismo Beach, California. I I then began my practice as Of Counsel to a San Francisco patent boutique. I continued practicing patent law for patent law firms for about 25 years, basically out of my home with regular trips to the Bay Area. Travel has been one of my favorite activities in my life. Skiing was another one of my most pleasurable activities, which I had to give up after 50 years because my knees gave out. Now I just snowshoe in this high Sierra Nevada's in the winter and golf in the summer. For a period of 10 years, I scuba dived off the coast of California. My last dive was to the Great Barrier Reef. Finally, as a person with a coronary disease, I make it a practice to get the fitness center for about one-hour sessions four days a week for the advice of my physical therapist after open-heart for the heart surgery in 2010. For more than half my life, I have attended the Unitarian Universalist Church and have volunteered for everything from usher to president.

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CHAPTER III-MY HIGH SCHOOL DAYS 1919-1923

CHAPTER IV-PRE-COLLEGE 1923-1924

CHAPTER V-1ST YEAR OF COLLEGE 1924-1925

CHAPTER VI-ROTC 1925-1929

CHAPTER VII-COLLEGE SOPHOMORE FROM 1925-1926

CHAPTER VIII-SABBATICAL LEAVE 6/26-9/27

CHAPTER IX-COLLEGE JUNIOR YEAR 9/27-5/28

CHAPTER X-SENIOR YEAR FROM 9/28-5/29

CHAPTER XI-CHICAGO 1929-1930

CHAPTER XII-COL. BOLIN & CAMP MCCOY 1930-1935

CHAPTER XIII-THE ROSS FAMILY 1930-1931

CHAPTER XIV-RELIGION AND THE THEATER 1930-1931

CHAPTER XV-THE DEPRESSION YEARS 1931-1932

CHAPTER XVI-ALBERTA JUNE HASKINS 1932-1933

CHAPTER XVII-THE NEWLYWEDS 1933-1935

CHAPTER XVIII-BACK TO NORMAL 1936-1941

CHAPTER XIX-OUR MOVE TO THE SUBURBS 1940

CHAPTER XX-WATCH BOILER ROOM ENGINEER

CHAPTER XXI-UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO 1934-1940

CHAPTER XXII-THE HISTORIC YEAR OF 1941

CHAPTER XXIII-THE WAR YEARS 1942-1945

CHAPTER XXIV-THE POSTWAR YEARS 1946-1949

CHAPTER XXV-SUBURBAN LIFE 1950-1959

CHAPTER XXVI-LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL 1960-1966

CHAPTER XXVII-THE RETIREMENT YEARS 1966-1975

EPILOGUE

ABOUT THE EDITOR

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

CONNECT WITH ME

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to all those men and women of the 95th Infantry Division during World War II that gave up their lives so we may have the freedom we enjoy today.

FORWARD

This is a story of a truck farmer’s son who went from not quite rags to not quite riches. He was told after his dad died at the age of 15 that he would never amount to anything.

This autobiography is almost entirely in his own words, warts and all, which were contained in a 233-page book he wrote entitled RICHARD A. DANNELLS: A PERSONAL HISTORY. He had his hand-written manuscript printed, bound into a book and distributed to his children and to other interested relatives. This book contains intimate details of his frustrating experience as a Captain in the 95th Infantry Division. I have changed the title to give emphasis to the military aspects of his life because I would like to get feedback from those who served this great country in any of the armed services and especially from those who served in the 95th, their children and grandchildren.

PROLOGUE

On April 4, 1942, my Dad, Richard A. Dannells, received Special Order No. 81 from the headquarters of the 6th Corps Area, Chicago Illinois to report to FARTC (Field Artillery Research and Training Center) Fort Still, Oklahoma, effective April 17, 1942. I became a military brat at that point on until Dad was honorably discharged after the War on November 13, 1945.

Military brat is defined by Wikipedia: Military brat and various brat derivatives describe the child of a parent or parents serving full-time in the United States Armed Forces, and can also refer to the subculture and lifestyle of such families. The term refers to both current and former children of such families." See hyperlink: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_brat_(U.S._subculture)

After the War was over and 3½ years of service, Dad returned to civilian life in a critical industry.

CHAPTER I - EARLY DANNELLS HISTORY

i. My great great-grandfather was a chicken thief

[Editor’s note: My father’s great great-grandfather Robert Daniels was a chicken thief. He stole the chicken to feed his starving family and was sentenced to indentured servitude in the United States by the Gloucestershire, English Court in the early 1800s. If it wasn’t for that fact, all of his descendants would not exist.

Robert Daniels was born in 1772 in Gloucestershire, England and had 5 sons: David I. John S, William, Robert Jr., and Nathan, who were all born in Gloucestershire England before 1800. He had one daughter, Rachel, who died in infancy in 1804. The ages of the sons when Robert and his wife boarded the ship for the United States were 15, 8, 7, 6 and 5, respectively. David lived to be about 55, which is considered old for someone who was born in the 1790’s. My father had spent years on genealogy and trying to determine if he was English, Welsh or other nationality. After he died, I inserted all of the information that he had discovered over his years of research into the ancestry.com database and came up with this information that he was indeed of English dissent.]

ii. My early genealogical research

My genealogical research to date has not been able to determine the national origin of the Dannells clan. Nor have I been able to determine if the particular spelling originated in this country or if there was an immigrant Dannels, the spelling that many of my relatives used. The only immigrant with a similar name was Edward Dannel, who came in 16? to Virginia on the ship Primrose. In later ship passenger lists, particularly those from Hamburg to Philadelphia, the only names similar are Daniel.

There is evidence that census takers in later years listed a family as Daniels, where the family is known to have been Dannels, so it can be assumed that earlier records were equally indifferent in recording family names. Such reporting was not uniform, since the censuses of many counties in Pennsylvania and Ohio recorded the name with varying combinations of aid, and, e and l, without the ie. So unless one has other evidence to pinpoint locality, it is most difficult to pick up the trail in Pennsylvania.

It is believed David married Barbery and moved his family to Knox County, Ohio shortly after 1800. The most definitive evidence that they were living in Ohio is shown in a marriage list for 1823, which shows that Robert Daniels, Jr. married Susan Asenbaugh. The 1830 census shows that David and Robert Jr. were living on adjacent farms.

iii. Grandfather Archibald Daniels was in the civil war

The first information that can be verified after 1846 is the fact that on July 10, 1943 Archibald married Lucinda Blauvelt Purdy, a widow with one son.

[Editor’s note: Archibald, who was born in 1827, is my father’s great-grandfather. Ancestry.com shows that Archibald is the son of David and Barbara Barbery who had 8 other children: Elizabeth, Rachel, David, Robert, Jr., Temperance, John, William and Willis.]

Archibald and Lucinda lived on a farm that Archibald owned in Blue Creek Township. It is not known when he acquired it, but the records show he was farming the land in 1854. The couple produced William, John, Frank, Willis and on March 15, 1861, the 5th child George Wesley Dannells.

The Civil War was well underway by 1862 and there was an urgent call for volunteers, so Archibald enlisted on August 4 of that year at Waterloo, Indiana. Why a 35-year-old with the wife 5 small children between the ages of 1 and 10 would volunteer is not known.

CHAPTER II - MY EARLY LIFE 1905-1918

i. The farmhouse and truck farming

My father, George Wesley Dannells, and my mother, Clara, produced my 4 other siblings that lived past the age of infancy. [Editor’s note: Early photographs of George Wesley Dannells and Clara Ursula Jennings Dannells:]

George built a 6-room frame house and a barn on the corner of the original 60 acre farm in the late 1880s. This was the house that father was born into on December 5, 1905. The house had a small kitchen with a wood-burning stove, a dining room, living room, three bedrooms and no basement. There was one additional wood/coal burning stove to provide heat for the house. We used coal oil lamps for illumination. The parlor and one bedroom were closed off in the winter to conserve on fuel. We had a deep well to supply our water. The toilet facilities were out back and included a Chic Sale 2-holer. [Editor’s note: This term is based on comedian Chic Sale’s Specialist, a play about an outhouse builder. The outhouse was still there when I used it as a boy in the 1930s and it’s where the hollyhocks grew way over my head. Dad’s father built that structure to last.]

On December 5, 1905, I was their 7th and last child that they named Richard Arthur. [Editor’s note: This is the earliest photograph my Dad:]

My father was the only breadwinner in the house and in poor health although he was only 44 years old. Clara was 34 years old and had many childbearing years ahead of her, but my father decided that I was to be the last child they would ever have. This seemed to cause some marital problems, but did not result in loss of affection between my father and me. However, it did result in a strong tie between my mother and me and, as a result, I remained a ’baby’ for a longer than normal period.

I was thrust into this small house in rural Indiana where most of the surrounding land had been cleared, drained and fertilized with manure. The main roads were gravel and the transportation was largely by horse and buggy. However, I began to see an occasional model T Fords early in my life. They were headed down the Toledo Chicago Pike as the road was known.

[Editor’s note: In it’s heyday in the 1930’s, the Toledo Chicago Pike became U. S. Route 6, the longest transcontinental highway in the U. S. It still is the longest continuous federal highway in the country, running from Long Beach, California to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. This road ran In front of the house and some 60 yards across a field was a railroad embankment upon which was laid a double track. This became the mainline for the New York Central Railroad between Chicago and New York City. An access road ran in front of the house; the Pike ran parallel this access road and on the north side of the tracks. A swing was hung on from a large tree in front of the house, which was still there when I visited the farm as a young boy. I would enjoy watching the trains, the hand cars and what looked like, from my vantage point, a boxcar without an engine. In later years I realized I was seeing an 18 wheeler with only the top portion of the truck visible above the tracks. This 21st century Google Earth photo depicts the area described above. The original farm house has been gone for decades and what is pictured below are the replacement and what looks like an SUV in the driveway.]

Life on a farm at that tender age wasn’t a bed of roses nor was it anywhere near that of ghetto children of the modern day. The farm produced most of the food, wheat for flour; meat from pork; milk and butter from cows; and eggs and meat from chickens. Vegetables were fresh in season or canned. Fruit was in short supply and surplus eggs and butter were traded at the grocery store for items not available on the farm. However, we had a huckster, which was like a grocery store on wheels coming by the house once a week. I looked forward to this weekly event as it meant a stick of candy for the little ones. In the early days, the wagon was pulled by horses, which were later replaced by a truck. [Editor’s note: I remember the huckster when I visited the farm at least 30 years later. What lingers in my mind today were all the various smells from the aromatic spices coming from the paneled truck.]

Fuel for cooking and for heating in the winter was scarce. Most of the trees around the farm had been consumed and there was little or no money for coal. The trains that ran a short distance from the house hauled a lot of coal dislodging large chunks that would fall along the embankment. One of my chores was to gather this coal to supplement our wood supply. I might add there was another reward we received from the railroad embankment; wild strawberries which grew in the under-soil. These berries were a very welcome addition to our summer diet.

The old barn housed mybuddy Old Prince the horse, and a couple of cows. There was a hayloft, a straw stack behind the barn, and the inevitable manure pile. My father went to Auburn, Indiana during the construction of the new courthouse and acquired the outdoor toilet that he used as a chicken coop. A corn crib, of unknown origin, completed the farm buildings as I first knew the place.

I still retain 3 toys of my early childhood: a cast-iron tram of two pieces, a donkey cart, and a set of wooden blocks. The exact time I received them I don’t know, but it was preschool or before 1912. There was a variety and toy store in Waterloo that I clearly remember. It had a swayback floor and was full of many interesting items; however, my purchasing power was very limited so I don’t recall making any purchases.

As for playmates, the Snyder family’s children were contemporaries as were the 3 daughters of my sister Gladys. The Snyder’s lived next door while my sister lived on a farm a few miles from home. I recall many trips by horse and buggy to visit them and they were frequent visitors to our house.

An annual event that left a lasting impression on me was butchering time. This usually took place early in December after it became cold enough to preserve the meat, since there was no such thing as refrigeration. The climax of the day was the making and stuffing a sausage. Some of the parts were fried and preserved in lard, and the hams and side meats s were cured in salt brine and then smoked. The parts of the meat that could not be easily preserved were consumed by the family, which meant that I had plenty to eat at butchering time.

From 1912 to 1915, we depended on the horse and buggy, without any fringe on the top, just a two-seater with a let-down top pulled by old Prince our one and only horse. Not only did old Prince pull the carriage, but the plow as well; and in the fall the horse would pull the carriage loaded with the crop of onions into town to be transferred on railroad cars. My father’s purchase of a new one-horse wagon at an auction made his job of onion transfer that much easier. Our faithful horse Prince, like us humans occasionally needed new shoes, so that meant a trip to the blacksmith’s shop at Moore’s Station, some 2½ miles down the road. These infrequent trips were a pleasant interlude to my everyday routine. Often it meant that I took home a horseshoe nail ring as a souvenir from the blacksmith.

My father had poor health for his entire life and shortly before his death he was diagnosed with an advanced stage of cancer. He died on August 19, 1921 after an unsuccessful operation to remove a second cancerous tumor. Before he died, my job was mainly giving the onion plot constant attention to keep the weeds in check, and eventually pulling, tipping and crating the onions to be hauled away to town. For the rest of the year after he died, the responsibility of the onions fell on my shoulders.

ii. My siblings

My oldest brother Marion was born in 1887 and my eldest sister Gladys was born in 1892. Next came Archie who was born on July 17, 1890, followed by Nellie Mae in 1894 who lived to be only 3½ years old and died on November 14, 1897. The next child Wilma Lucille was born in 1900 and lived a little over a year. Helen Vera wa born on April 1, 1903 at the time that Marion was 16, Archie 13 and Gladys 11, thus 4 children were living under one roof. Archie left high school in 1906 because he claims to have been needed on the farm. Before I was old enough to remember, both Marion and Archie had left home, Archie to go to work in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Gladys lived at home until she was married at 17 on October 5, 1909. Therefore, by the time I was four years old Helen and I were the only children left in the house with Ma.

My father came down with typhoid fever in the spring of 1906. This ruined his health and forced him to quit his railroad job. He spent the rest of his life working on the truck farm. George mortgaged the farmhouse to allow Marion who had just graduated high school to start a grocery store. Marion’s business went bankrupt so father was left to pay off the mortgage from the meager returns from the farm. As far as I know, no attempt was ever made to compensate him for the loss. He originally tried to farm the entire 60 acres with 2 horses. By the time I came into this world, the farm had been reduced from the original 60 acres to 24 because of his poor health. He continued to do one horse truck farming on about 5 acres of mulch and black loam soil. Most of the 5 acres was pasture for the livestock with 2 of those acres devoted to the cash crop of onions.

After Marion’s business failure, he moved to Toledo, worked in the post office, studied accounting at the University of Toledo and received his degree. He wound up having a very successful business career with Tecumseh Products Company as its treasurer. This all occurred before I had any comprehension of what was going on, so I don’t think it had much influence on my later decisions of going to college. However, Marion and I were the only ones in our family that graduated from college.

On January 6, 1914, Archie got married and brought his new bride to the farmhouse for a visit. I was terrified by the terrific commotion that was going on outside the house with shotguns going off. I then learned that this was the custom of belling. [Editor’s note: Belling is also called Charivari which calls for the neighbors two serenade the newlyweds with noisemakers until they are invited in for treats.] After Archie got married, he settled down in Chicago and worked on the railroad between Chicago and Cleveland as a railway postal clerk. We would wave to him as he passed us by. If the trips included a weekend, Archie would toss out a Sunday paper off as the train passed by going to Chicago or Cleveland. The newspapers were greatly appreciated.

iii. My early memories of historic events

There is little documented evidence of my early life except one baby picture when I was a couple years