Amazing Days, 1941-1968: A Memoir

By Darrel Chenoweth

Amazing Days, 19411968 tells the story of a son of the Greatest Generation, a child of everyday heroes. He grew up in the rural heartland of America when life was uncomplicated and was raised by parents hoping for the American Dream for their children. He went to school when country schools were small and personal, married a hometown sweetheart, and went to a university that still seems like family. This is a story experienced by countless young boys coming of age in Middle America in the 1950s. Amazing Days, 19411968 is written as a memoir of the first twenty-seven years in the life of Darrel Chenoweth, and it reminds us of how times and events can shape ones life in amazing and unexpected ways. The title of this volume, Amazing Days, 19411968 comes from an innocent observation of his four-year-old grandson Ian about the little things in everyday lifespecial things that make one appreciate life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 11, 2012
• ISBN: 9781475955866

Darrel Chenoweth

DARREL L. CHENOWETH is a retired professor of electrical engineering and associate vice president of research of the University of Louisville. He graduated from Auburn University and Kettering University (formerly GMI). He lives in Bloomington, Indiana.

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Copyright © 2012 by Darrel Chenoweth

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ISBN: 978-1-4759-5585-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-6153-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4759-5586-6 (ebk)

iUniverse rev. date: 12/06/2012

Contents

Preface

Chapter 1:Origins—History of My Family in England and America

Chapter 2:Born a Hoosier and Growing Up on Cart Road

Chapter 3:Loveliest Village on the Plains

Chapter 4:Run for the Roses

Postscript

To Susie, thank you for being the love of my life.

And to my mom and dad,

Josephine Marie Simons Chenoweth (1922–2010)

and

Norman Dale Chenoweth (1917–2001),

thank you for the love and especially the patience it took to raise me.

Preface

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Grandpa Darrel, this sure was an amazing day!

Ian Beracha (b. 2003)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Susie and I were on our way to a conference that the Air Force sponsored on the topic of space surveillance—and we planned to make it a combined business and vacation trip. Not wanting to pass up a chance to see our grandchildren Ian and Sophie, we decided to drive from our home in Paoli, Indiana, to their home in Saint Louis, spend a couple of days, and then fly on to the conference.

For entertainment, our daughter Crista suggested we take Ian and Sophie to the Saint Louis Mills shopping mall, on the northwestern edge of Saint Louis near I-70. In the old days of the 1980s, I had made many cross-country trips through Saint Louis each summer on I-70 on my travels to the China Lake Naval Weapons Center in California. So it was interesting to see how things had changed.

Saint Louis Mills is a huge mall with over 175 stores, even including a practice rink for the Saint Louis Blues ice hockey team and a NASCAR store, and we decided to split up as we shopped. Susie, Crista, and Sophie went their way, and Ian and I took off in another direction. We headed straight for the Häagen-Dazs ice-cream store. I asked four-year-old Ian if he had ever had a chocolate milk shake, and he said no, so that’s what we had. He loved it. Next was the Circuit City store for me and then the merry-go-round, the NASCAR SpeedPark, the playground, and KB Toys for Ian—it was great.

In the late afternoon, we set out to meet up with the girls. As we made our way down the long mall corridor toward them, Ian stopped me and said, Grandpa Darrel, this sure was an amazing day! It was an unexpected observation by my young grandson and one that made me think about the amazing days we all experience in our own ways.

This memoir, I hope, will give you a small glimpse of what it was like growing up in rural America as a son of the Greatest Generation, and being educated. Like Ian, I too experienced a few amazing days.

Chapter 1

Origins—History of My Family

in England and America

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

History is the witness that testifies to the passing of time; it illumines reality, vitalizes memory, provides guidance in daily life and brings us tidings of antiquity.

Cicero (106 BC–43 BC)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why did so many Chenoweths lead lives involving farming and building? Why did they take such risks, sometimes risking everything? I don’t pretend to know much about anthropology or genetics, but it seems reasonable to me that you can usually find a combination of both hereditary and cultural forces at work in shaping our lives, as well as some simple random-chance events that add spice to our histories. If your father had a certain characteristic and you do too, then you could argue the effect is a cultural influence. On the other hand, if for centuries that characteristic appears in your ancestors, then maybe it’s genetic. So to understand why you are the way you are and how you arrived where you are in life, whether from cultural or hereditary influences, it helps to understand and appreciate your ancestors. And through some extraordinary and fortunate genealogical research efforts of several descendants of the original Chenoweth family, it is possible to do just that, looking at influences generated before my birth in 1941, at least on my father’s side of the family.

In the early 1970s, when I first took an interest in the family genealogy, it was so interesting to me to learn about my ancestors in America and before that in England. In England, they were Cornish farmers, landowners, and builders. In America, some were soldiers in the major armed conflicts dating all the way back to the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812; they were carpenters, builders, farmers, business owners, teachers, physicians, preachers, and even some politicians—and yes, there were some black sheep as well. Basically, my ancestors were a cross section of America. I’m guessing that in many ways they were huge risk takers. Let’s face it, most of the early American settlers were risk takers; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been Americans. And as I look at my children, I’m encouraged to see that some of those early Chenoweth characteristics are still alive and well.

This well-documented family history reaches all the way back to the original John Chenoweth, who arrived in America in 1720 from Cornwall County, England. One of the first books about the Chenoweth family, by Cora Chenoweth Hiatt in 1925, mentioned that there were approximately two thousand heads of households in America with the surname Chenoweth or a variation of the name like Chenowith or Chenoworth. So obviously this made the job of the Chenoweth genealogist much easier. Conversely, on my mother’s side of the family, with the name Simons, we were not as fortunate to have deep historical and genealogical information. I have only bits of information about my mother’s family. For instance, it is thought that the Simonses immigrated to America originally from Ireland or Germany, but no hard documentation has been found.

We can look at the Chenoweth family genealogical history in two distinct parts: first, the English period, and then the American period. The English period is obviously a little hazy, as you will see, but the American period is very well documented.

English Period

If you look at a map of England, in the far southwest corner lies a narrow, triangular-shaped peninsula where the county of Cornwall is located. South of Cornwall and approximately 150 miles directly across the English Channel, you will find the coast of Bretagne in France. On the north coast of Cornwall and across the Bristol Channel and the Celtic Sea to the northeast is Wales. At the far western tip of the Cornwall peninsula is Land’s End. On the eastern border of Cornwall is the large neighboring county of Devon, where Plymouth is located. The pilgrims sailed from this historic seaport in the seventeenth century to America.

Cornwall is where the journey began for the Chenoweth family, at least where the records begin. Amazingly, records can be traced back to the Doomsday Roll, the first official survey that William the Conqueror commissioned after the Norman conquest of England in 1066. The Doomsday Roll was completed in 1088. William did it basically to see what it was that he ruled and to be able to raise money through taxes. Sound familiar? In the Doomsday Roll you will find references to the land holdings and personal property of the Trevilisek (the Cornish name of the Chenoweth branch of the family before the Chenoweth branch was formed) family.

Cornwall has a special significance to me. So much so, I’ve visited there eight times since 1976. I was fortunate enough to be invited to several technical meetings at Oxford and in London, relative to a Department of Defense project I worked on, and each time I managed a side trip to Cornwall. I thought it was important to take my children there as well, just to see where the Chenoweth family came from. So I took Lee, Crista, and Nicole on some really special vacation trips to Cornwall.

On my first visit to Cornwall in 1976, I stayed at the Pollawyn Farm Bed and Breakfast about five miles outside Newquay. It was owned by the Bob and Pam Roseveare family, whom I came to know over the years on visits there with Nicole in 1983, Crista in 1988, and Lee in 1993. Bob reminded me a lot of Phillip Bosley, my farmer neighbor in Paoli, Indiana. Both were fiercely independent, self-sufficient, and obviously quite conservative. As Phillip says, As a farmer you have to be able to take fifty cents and turn it into a dollar—off the land. I would often have conversations with Bob Roseveare in the evenings about farming in Cornwall and in America, and he would tell me the new farming operations he was looking at, just like Phillip Bosley would do.

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Cubert, Cornwall—1976.

(Source: Cubert, Cornwall Information Center)

During our visits I was interested in Bob’s farming operations, but my kids were more interested in the Roseveare family, in particular Bob’s little grandson and granddaughter, as well as their pet dog who seemed to enjoy stealing things out of Crista’s luggage when she wasn’t looking. Although each of them saw the family at separate times over the years, I was able to see the changes—like snapshots in time—that Pollawyn Farm experienced over nearly a generation, as Bob and Pam adapted to changing times. Looking back on it was like a video to me. At first, the farm was a dairy operation, with potatoes also cultivated as a cash crop. Bob built a guest cottage to take advantage of the increasing tourist economy in Cornwall. Later, when dairy profits dropped, he sold his herd of Holstein Friesians. Then as Newquay built more tourist accommodations, his bed and breakfast income dwindled and he got out of that business. Still later, in the 1990s, he converted part of his nontillable land to a tip (landfill) specialized to handle construction materials. Then in the 1990s, Bob and Pam retired, moved into Newquay, and their daughter and son-in-law took over the farming operation.

Recently, while I was looking at Cornwall using the high-resolution Google Earth on the Internet, I noticed the Pollawyn Farm tip apparently has been closed and reclaimed back to grassland, and it appears that the Roseveare family is now involved only in dairy and crop activity, as it originally was. And so it goes, as it has for generations on the Pollawyn Farm in Cornwall County, England.

There are still a few Chenoweths living in Cornwall—they have not all immigrated to America! I remember taking Lee there in 1993, and he was interested in what I had told him about Stephen Chenoweth, who lived in the little town of Cubert, near St. Martin’s-in-Meneage, where the original John Chenoweth in America is thought to have lived. I first met Stephen Chenoweth back in 1976. I told Lee we would visit Cubert so Lee could meet Stephen. Stephen was a carpenter—not too surprising—and had helped so many of the townspeople in Cubert. He was a man highly regarded in the community, and Lee was impressed when I told him about Stephen. When we arrived in Cubert, however, we noticed there was a new wooden bench in front of the Methodist church with a bronze dedication plate on it, reading as follows:

IN AFFECTIONATE MEMORY OF STEVE CHENOWETH 1916–1990

EVERYBODY’S FRIEND & HELPER

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Stephen Chenoweth—1976.

(Source: Chenoweth family photos)

Later on, we happened to walk through the Methodist cemetery down the road from the church and there we encountered a fairly new monument—Stephen’s. I noticed out of the corner of my eye as Lee looked at the monument a couple of tears on his cheek. It would have been so nice if he