My Battle from Within

By Ha Poff

This is a true account of how the Author,who was targeted at a very young age to have a severe learning disability, even retardation, discovered methods different from the universally accepted to educate himself to become a productive citizen. Using the methodology in military, civilian, and college settings encouraging veterans to utilize the G.I. Bill to further their education and enjoy a higher standard of living for their families.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 20, 2013
• ISBN: 9781481714723

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© 2013 by H A Poff. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 04/01/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1469-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1468-6 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1472-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013902703

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

My journey on this earth started Saturday morning at 10:45 am, on July 13, 1930 in Warren, Ohio. I instantly became the sixth child of Harry Andrew and Sarah Isabel Becker Poff. My siblings were Evelyn Louise 9, Rutheda Irene 7, David Jacob 5, Dale Andrew 3, and Gerald Arthur 1. It was obvious from the beginning that family planning wasn’t a priority. If it had been, this memoir would be like It’s a Wonderful Life, nonexistent.

I haven’t met the above named people formally yet, so what we find out about them, we will do together. All I know about this being born business is I was naked, wet, and cold. I was hoping someone would throw a coat over me, or at least a tiny blanket would have helped.

I was not a healthy child at birth. Mother was not able to breast feed me because of a medical condition. To make matters worse, I was allergic to almost everything put into my mouth, including cow’s milk. Mom experimented with everything available to find something that would stay in my stomach, even goat’s milk for a short period. When I couldn’t tolerate that, she put me on a diet of beef broth and evaporated milk. By the time I was eighteen months old I weighed about fifteen pounds, not quite three times the six pounds I weighed at birth. After a complex trial and error period my stomach could tolerate some foods like mashed potatoes and gravy, which I dearly love until this day.

I would like to think that I was a normal kid and that everything in my life was because of the circumstances of the times. We all know that outside influences play a big part and have a direct bearing on how life develops. I believe that if someone plans their future and it turns out the way it was planned, it was more of a coincidence than good planning.

The great depression entered upon the scene after the stock market crash in 1929. Everyone has their own family history to show how they were affected during that period in history.

Work was scarce and life was hard. The depression wasn’t quite as bad for people who were well positioned. Well positioned was a term used to identify people of means, or those favored by the affluent.

Grandpa Becker, Mother’s father, owned and operated a successful dairy just outside the city of Warren, Ohio. He processed milk products and delivered them to homes, stores, and restaurants. At four am each morning Mother delivered a home route with a horse and wagon before she went to school. The home delivery was the first to go immediately after the depression started. The stores and restaurants used enough milk to keep the dairy operating for a short while. Within a few months it was impossible to continue operations any longer.

Grandpa Poff, Dad’s father, owned a ditch digging business. The city of Warren, Ohio was installing a sewer system to eliminate septic tank use. His company was the largest in the area and had the contract to dig most of the sewer lines. My father worked for Empire Steel, Republic Steel, when work was available and for his father on his off days. Our family appeared to be well positioned because both Dad and Mom were technically in line to inherit a successful business.

Disastrous events in 1933 changed our family’s position in the depression. The dairy could no longer support itself and was forced to close. The Cattle and equipment were sold but didn’t bring enough revenue to satisfy the debt, and the dairy had to be sacrificed.

A few years earlier my father had built a house on an acre of the farm’s land, but because of procrastination or whatever, a separate deed was never recorded. Unfortunately when the farm was seized the house was still part of the dairy property and couldn’t be separated after the foreclosure papers were filed.

During that same time period my father’s mother had unexpectedly passed away. After her death Grandpa Poff learned she had been the last of the big spenders. Unbeknown to him she had large charge accounts in just about every business in town. Apparently his reputation as a successful businessman was such that all his wife had to do was say, charge it and it was done without question. He was forced to sell his business to the city to pay her debts. The result was the water and sewer department of Warren, Ohio was born.

That same year my mother’s parents passed away within three months of each other. With six children and his house and extra income gone, my father had to start paying rent and find a second job.

The steel company worked only two or three days a week. On the other days, groups of men went into the woods and cut trees to divide the wood amongst them to heat their homes against the bitter Ohio winters.

Two nights every week a coal train ran to keep the steel mills supplied with coal. The train was long and moved very slow. Several men would go up the tracks a mile or more and climb onto the freight and stack large lumps of coal on the flat surface on the sides of the coal cars. When the train reached a predetermined location the men pushed the coal from the cars onto the ground. A large group of people waited in hiding until the train passed, gathered the coal in wagons, carts, wheel barrows, and on their backs, and took it to their homes to break up into smaller pieces with sledge hammers.

The coal had to be broken up into small lumps because the railroad detectives seemed to have more power than the police. They could come into homes without warning or search warrants looking for large lump coal. If large lump coal was found or evidence that coal had been broken up there, the man of the house was arrested without question. When proof of purchase was supplied in court they could be released. The problem was that their trial may not be held for weeks or even months. More often than not they went straight to a work gang without receiving a trial.

Later that year dad was involved in a serious accident at the mill.

Large gas fueled blast furnaces were used to create temperatures hot enough to melt raw materials to make steel. While still in liquid form the steel was poured into molds and cooled, then stored waiting further processing.

The furnaces had to be inspected after a specific number of operating hours to assure all components were working properly. When the furnace was cooled down a new fire brick lining was put in to replace the old one. While dad was inside a furnace performing the required inspection the entrance door was accidently closed and the gas was turned on. Because the ignition system failed to function, the furnace failed to ignite. When the furnace door was reopened to locate the problem, Dad was discovered inside unconscious. Miraculously, he survived the initial accident, but the after effects were far reaching.

Among his several severe injuries he was diagnosed with Epilepsy. In nineteen thirty-three Epilepsy was believed to be a form of mental illness. Unfortunately for him, my father was committed to a state sanitarium for the insane at age thirty-four.

When my father was committed my mother was left the sole support of six children under the age of twelve. She was only thirty-one years old. Our family, like many others, was entered on the county relief rolls. The county allotted ten dollars for each child and twenty dollars for each adult, giving the family a grand total of eighty dollars a month to feed, clothe, and house seven members of the family.

I vividly remember when the relief baskets would come. I was just five and not in school yet and mom and I were home alone. The relief workers brought several baskets of food like powdered milk, dried prunes, powdered eggs, lard, sugar, dried beans, coffee, flower, peanut butter, jelly, and other staples. They would just pile them on the floor and go away.

That was the only time I remember seeing my mother cry. She would sit on the floor with the baskets all around her and cry. I didn’t know why she was crying so I just crawled onto her lap. She put her arms around me and we cried together. By the time the other children got home from school everything was put away and dinner was ready like nothing happened. That remains our secret until this day.

It was impossible to live in the city where the cost of living was high. We were forced to move out into the country where rent was cheaper and we could have a garden and trees to cut for firewood.

The first house we rented was small and very cold. Every extra penny was spent on food and fuel. During the winter storms the wind blew snow into the house through the cracks around the windows. The cracks were stuffed with rags or whatever could be found to help protect from the bitter cold. Mom asked the county for help to buy more coal, but they said they had a formula to go by and there were no exceptions.

That spring was when I met Norman Rood for the first time. He owned the farm next to the house our family was renting. Norm, as he was