The Wink of an Eye - Volume I

By H. Peter Hoffman

When the author H. Peter Hoffmans wife, Doris, developed Alzheimers, a hospice volunteer was assigned to visit her once per week. Carole Fischer was not only a great help for the couple, but also paved the way to the creation of this memoir when she asked Hoffman how he met Doris.

Spanning from 1925 through 2002, The Wink of an Eye Volume I chronicles the love shared between the author and his wife. Through vivid narration, Hoffman relives the many unforgettable moments he shared with his loving, wise, and beautiful wife. Amid time and distance, amid the terror of World War II and the pain of Alzheimers, the couple managed to keep their vow of sticking up and being faithful to each other until death parted them.

Lush with nostalgic letters and photographs, The Wink of an Eye Volume I is a fascinating and inspiring true tale of a love that stood resilient through the test of time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781477167229

Book preview

The Wink of an Eye

VOLUME 1

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A True Love Story

Lasting Over Six Decades

H. Peter Hoffman

Copyright © 2011 by H. Peter Hoffman. 92356-HOFF

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011902035

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-795-4274

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

Preface   

About the Author   

Chapter 1   Childhood

Chapter 2   Teenager

Chapter 3   In the Navy

Chapter 4   Heading Overseas in the Pacific

Chapter 5   Heading Home at Last

Chapter 6   Starting a Life Together

Chapter 7   Children Enter the Family

Chapter 8   A New Job with IBM

Chapter 9   Disaster Strikes

Chapter 10   Life Must Go On, I Guess

Chapter 11   Transfer to a New Position in San Jose, California

Chapter 12   Our New Home in Morgan Hill

Chapter 13   Customer Comments on My Work

Chapter 14   European Assignment

Chapter 15   Searching for Hoffman Relatives

Chapter 16   Business Trip to Montpellier

Chapter 17   Doris Goes to Sweden with Me

Chapter 18   Contact with Hoffman Relatives

Chapter 19   Contact with More Relatives

Chapter 20   Business Trips to Paris and London

Chapter 21   Vacation Trip to Austria and Italy

Chapter 22   Robbed in Rome

Chapter 23   Preparing to Finish the Assignment

Chapter 24   Heading for Russia

Chapter 25   Back Home from my Assignment

Chapter 26   Retirement at Last

Chapter 27   A Couple of Surgeries and Another Hole in One

Chapter 28   Our Fiftieth Anniversary and Another Surgery

Chapter 29   Another Move, a Death, and a Marriage

Chapter 30   A Series of Surgeries for Doris, and I Join a Band

Preface

When my beloved wife, Doris, developed Alzheimer’s, a hospice volunteer was assigned to visit her once per week. Carole Fischer provided some respite for me so that I could go to the fitness room and get some exercise. She also stayed over the lunch hour, preparing lunch for Doris so that I could also have lunch outside. One day she asked me how I met Doris. I proceeded to tell her how we met, and I also told her about a couple of incidents early on in our relationship. She thought that it would make an interesting story and suggested that I write my memoir. That is how I got started on this document, The Wink of an Eye. I hadn’t thought of doing that before but decided that I would give it a try. I thank Carole Fischer so much for suggesting that I write this story, because it helped me through Doris’s long illness. I have thoroughly enjoyed putting this story together and found it quite interesting and therapeutic. I started on this endeavor in early 2008.

Carole proofread it for me in sections, as it progressed. Another friend, Iona Woody, proofread it also. Pam Matthews, a member of our jazz band and a former college professor, read the story and made comments also. Sally Chapman, the wife of one of our vocalists in the Trilogy Jazz Band, read it and commented on it. Julie Olson, another caregiver, also read some of it. I want to thank those ladies for helping me with the project.

As the story progressed to the present, my wife passed away, and I decided to bring an end to the story at that time. After my wife passed away, I was hunting for something in the storage loft above my garage, and in the process, I discovered a box full of letters. They were letters that were written to me from 1943 to 1946. I had apparently saved them. I couldn’t resist reading them. Most of the letters were written by Doris when I was in the navy during WWII. There were also some letters from my parents and my sisters, Betty Holcomb and Gertrude Luby, during that same timeframe. I became addicted to the letters. I couldn’t leave them alone. They brought me back to relive that earlier time. It seemed to be a way of bringing Doris back to me. I then decided to include some of these handwritten letters into my story. Rather than integrate them into the text already created, I decided to add them to the end of the story. It seemed OK because the letters were giving me new life after my wife passed on. The letters, written between 1943 and 1946, are contained in volume 2 of the story. I decided to create two volumes because the story is very long with the letters included. Volume 1 spans from 1925 through 2002. Volume 2 includes the letters and spans from 2002 to 2009, when my wife passed away. I had totally forgotten the content of the letters, and now they were adding emotion and enjoyment to my life. Each evening, I look forward to retiring to my den and reading some of her letters. What a wonderful legacy she left me with! When she wrote those letters, she couldn’t possibly have known how much enjoyment I would get from them over sixty-five years after they were written. I have read them more times than you can count on your fingers.

The letters gave me a new feeling about my memoir. It is really more of a true love story than a memoir. The letters reminded me of what a wonderful person Doris was and how strong our love was.

This story was written during the period 2008 to 2010 by:

H. Peter Hoffman,

582 Summerset Drive,

Rio Vista, CA 94571.

About the Author

I, H. Peter Hoffman, was born in 1925 in the countryside of northern New York State. I served in the navy during WWII as an aerial gunner and aviation radioman aboard a seaplane. After the war was over, most of my employment years were with IBM, which included a European assignment. I was the primary caretaker for my wife during her bout with Alzheimer’s. Our marriage lasted sixty-two years. I currently play the drums in an 18-piece swing band.

The front cover picture was taken in 1988 of the author and his wife, when he was 62 and she was 61.

Chapter 1

Childhood

I was born on December 30, 1925, to Eva Katherine Hoffman (formerly Effland) and Peter Rowe Hoffman of Selkirk, New York. Selkirk contained a general store, a gas station, a post office, and zero traffic lights. I was named Harold Peter Hoffman. I’m quite sure that the name Harold came from my mother’s sister’s son, Harold Dobert, who lived in California. I never met the man, but I heard my mother brag about him often. I never did like the name, and people began to call me RePete. Now our family had a Pete and RePete.

All of my grandparents were born in Germany and immigrated to the United States. With the exception of my father’s father, all were deceased before I was born. My father and mother were both forty years old when I was born. Both had been married previously, and each had a daughter from their marriages. My father’s daughter was Elizabeth (Betty), who was fourteen years old when I was born. My mother’s daughter was Gertrude, who was sixteen years old when I was born. My father had divorced his first wife; my mother’s first husband died, leaving her a widow. So as a baby, I had two half sisters much older than me. My father owned a ten-acre spread, which I think he inherited as a result of my grandfather naming him after his boss, Peter VanDerZee, who owned a large farm.

As a baby, we lived in what was referred to as the shack. The room partitions were established by hanging blankets to separate the areas. We had an outhouse for a bathroom. We lived in this shack until I was slightly over two years old. When I grew older, my sisters told me of the story when I put the baby chicks down the outhouse. Then, because the chicks were all excited and peeping, I threw the hen down the toilet with them to keep them company. Obviously, someone had to fish them out. I don’t know who, but it was probably Dad.

The photo below shows my father milking the cow and squirting milk into the cat’s mouth. That’s me standing by. The second photo shows my two half sisters and my mother.

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My father took me for a ride in his model T Ford, and as we proceeded around a blind corner, a car from the other direction hogged the narrow road, and we collided with the bank. I smashed my nose on the windshield and got a bloody nose. Perhaps that was the origin of my deviated septum, which wasn’t discovered until I joined the navy. Cars didn’t have seat belts in those days.

My father was a carpenter, and he built a large two-story home with an attic, totally making it three stories high. When we finally moved into the new home, he converted the shack into a garage. I can recall when I was a youngster that I bothered Mom in the kitchen sometimes, and it would result in her chasing me through the dining room, living room, and part way up the stairs. I would stop on the landing, out of her reach, and she would go back to the kitchen. She never caught me, and perhaps it was because she really didn’t want to. I think she was having fun with me. It happened quite often. My sisters told me that they were given the task to babysit me while Mom and Dad would go out for the evening. They put me in the backseat of the car and then would go to some booze joint to dance all night. They left the dance to check on me occasionally. They would hurry back home when they expected our parents to return.

When I was about three, I can recall coming out of the front door and finding my crayons melted together on the porch. I had left them out in the sun. I was somewhat unhappy about that, but I learned something. At about that same time, a construction crew was working on a new highway (9W). To accommodate this new road, some land was taken in front of our home. That put our front porch about fifteen feet from the highway. A few years later, after a big rig ran into our house, Dad moved the house back about one hundred feet.

At about the age of five, I was given a male turkey to raise. He became my pet and was very large. I could take him by the legs and swing him around in the air and he accepted that treatment from me. However, he was not so kind with my sisters. When he saw them, he would chase them and fly at them. Consequently, my pet turkey became the centerpiece for a fine thanksgiving dinner, which I refused to attend. I stayed outside and played with the dog while the rest of the family ate the turkey and all of the fixings. I was angry about that for a while but eventually got over it. The photo shows the turkey with me and my parents:

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My sister Betty was married on January 25, 1930, to Carlton Holcomb. They decided to have a mock wedding at her shower in which I would pretend to be the groom and Constance Holcomb, the daughter of Carlton’s brother, would be the bride. They had me dressed up in a top hat and tails, while Constance had a wedding gown on. The costumes were all handmade, probably by Betty herself. The photo illustrates our getup:

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My mother knew the importance of fresh-air. She tucked me in bed at night under heavy comforters with the windows wide open, winter or summer. My nose barely stuck out, and it was difficult to move under the covers.

When I was five years old, Dr. Waller treated me often for colds, sore throats, and earaches. He had vials of colorful powders in his kit, which he mixed with water for me to drink. Pills weren’t invented yet. Ultimately, my tonsils and adenoids were surgically removed. Ether was used as anesthetic. I recall being half-awake, thinking a mule was pulling on something in my throat.

My folks and I were visiting my uncle Henry on his farm. My mother and I were walking around outside when I complained about a tummy ache. She determined that I had to release some gas to fix the problem. She said, It’s better out in this wide, wide world than in your little tummy. From that day on I didn’t hold it in. I farted when I had to.

When I turned about ten years old, I wanted a pony real bad. I never got one, so I decided to join the 4H club and raise some chickens. My father built a small chicken coop for me, and we purchased a flock of chicks to raise. It was my duty to keep them fed and watered properly. I discovered that it required work every day. I also had to clean out the floor of the hen house periodically, as the manure built up on the straw that we had laid on the floor. I found that the little chicks would gather balls of manure on their feet as they walked on the manure. Eventually, the manure balls would get so large that they could hardly walk. I had to clean the manure from their feet. This can be tricky because the balls of manure would envelop their toes and harden. I had to soak it and carefully break it away, without damaging their feet.

When the chicks grew into mature hens, they produced eggs for us to eat. My mother made delicious ice-creams using the eggs, along with whole milk. It was my duty to turn the crank on the ice-cream maker. I was eager to do it, because I knew what the result would be. Eventually, we did have chicken for dinner. We also sold some of the eggs. Mom packed eggs in a shipping container and would often send them off to my sister, Gert, who lived in Ossining. Gert was married to Daniel Luby, who was a prison guard at Sing Sing. Mom also cleaned and picked chicken to sell. I remember one instance when Mom chopped a chicken’s head off and threw the chicken to the ground to let it flutter away. The chicken happened to flutter in her direction, and as she backed away, she tripped on a hose and fell to the ground. The chicken fluttered across her body and got her all bloody. Obviously, she was unhappy about that.

We lived not very far from the New York Central railroad tracks. During the depression years, many hobos came by our place looking for something to eat. They were traveling on freight trains to various parts of the country, looking for a way to make a living. Mom always fed them and they were grateful. She sat them down on the concrete cover of our cistern and gave them the food there. We never locked the doors in those days, and we never had a problem as a result.

Mom operated a guest house in our home during the summer season. I was obliged to sleep in the very warm, un-insulated attic during the summer, to make as many beds available as possible for the guests. She would also make meals for the guests if they so desired. During the school year, she took in school teachers as boarders. Jarvis Wade, the principal of the school I attended, was one of her boarders. John Clements, the teacher in the one-room schoolhouse in Cedar Hill, also boarded at our house. Once when I was asleep, the teachers had some fun placing spit balls in my nostrils and watching them fly out as I breathed. Mom caught them in the act and chewed them out properly. Mr. Wade gave me a Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary that I still have at the age of eighty-three, which I use regularly to do crossword puzzles. The covers are well worn. John Clements eventually lost his life in WWII.

As a young boy, I used to walk or run to the Borst farm about one-and-a-half miles away. I drove the team of horses, so that the bigger folks could concentrate on loading the wagon with hay, using pitchforks. The Borst’s had a girl named Lila about my age, and she invited me to go to a dance with her folks. I went, but I was scared to death. I had never danced before and didn’t have a clue what to do. Consequently, while everyone else danced, I sat on a chair all evening. I just couldn’t bring myself to do something I knew nothing about. I guess I was afraid to embarrass myself. Needless to say, I was never invited again.

As a young lad, I was very fast. I outran everyone else during our pickup football games. I was known as Raggedy-Ass Pete from across the tracks, because the opponents could rarely tackle me. They grabbed at anything available, resulting in torn clothes. I went home in rags after a game.

We owned a piano and Mom wanted me to take piano lessons. I took them for a while, but I hated them, and eventually quit. I guess I would have rather played football and sported ragged clothes.

I had two very good friends who lived about half a mile away. Al and Joe Neri were part of an Italian family that treated me like a son. Their father worked on the railroad as a track repair foreman. The brothers and I explored the countryside often. If we found a small island in a stream, we would name it after ourselves. It became Aljopete Island. We named streams, peninsulas, etc. in the same manner. I always wondered why my name was last in these games. I guess I was outvoted by the two brothers, but it was also alphabetically correct.

My buddies and I often rode our bicycles to the Hannacroix Creek to skinny dip. The creek was about two miles from my home and we had to ride on a dirt lane between a farmer’s fields. On one occasion the farmer showed up to chew us out. We put the creek between him and us, but our bicycles and clothes were on his side of the creek. He was mad because someone had trampled his crops along the dirt road. We worried that he would take our gear and were relieved when he left. We didn’t have to walk home naked.

Jimmy Carroll was another buddy who was a daredevil. We climbed on the girders of the railroad bridge that crossed the Hudson River. Jimmy would walk on one-foot-wide girders over one hundred feet above the water. I stuck to the three-foot-wide girders.

Jimmy and I once used an old junk car to make believe we were driving. We soon had to abandon the car. We were loaded with fleas. Our English Setter named Ranger, had been using it for a bed. We hosed ourselves down and never played in that car again.

My buddies and I fashioned guns out of wood blocks, with clothes pins as triggers. We cut rubber bands out of old inner tubes. We fought battles firing the rubber bands at each other, in the barns and the woods. We also tipped over an outhouse occasionally on Halloween.

Dutch Reformed Churches were prevalent in the Hudson River Valley due to the Dutch immigration in the 1600s. My parents and I attended the Bethlehem Dutch Reformed Church each Sunday. Dad lit up a cigar every Sunday, and with the windows closed, drove us to church. I was glad to get out of the car when we arrived. He would wedge his half-smoked cigar under the spark lever located on the steering wheel, and we would enter church. The cigar would smolder there and eventually die, while we attended the service. When we returned to the car, Dad would light it up again. The car was even less inhabitable as we drove home. When I was old enough, I attended confirmation class so that I could join the church. When they told me that Jesus rose from the dead, I had a difficult time believing that. Nevertheless, I joined the church as was expected of me. I also sang in the Junior Choir. They told me that I was an alto.

Mom was a very vigorous woman. She cleaned people’s houses for pay. She was also a great cook and on special occasions would prepare meals for parties at some of the wealthy estates along the Hudson River. Mom started early, learning how to serve others. She was born in the mountainous area of Taborton, New York. At