Growing up a Maniac

By James Durrell

This is the autobiography of the author’s early years growing up and becoming a man before his wife and children could know him. It is a story of economic and family struggles, lessons learned, first brushes with faith, and people who made a difference along the way.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Apr 30, 2020
• ISBN: 9781489729026

James Durrell

The author went on to become a teacher, a banker, a counselor, a Catholic and a community leader. Born of a poor family during the depression, he has shown the advantages this offers for success.

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Copyright © 2020 James Durrell.

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ISBN: 978-1-4897-2901-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4897-2902-6 (e)

LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 04/30/2020

Contents

Prologue

Introduction

The Ancestors

The Early Years

Preschool

The War Years

School Days

Weight

Ages 14 to 16

Summers as a Teenager

The High School Years

Last summer at home

California Here We Come!

The Service: Stateside

Service in France

Epilogue

Prologue

Jim Durrell is a husband, a father, a teacher, a banker, a counselor, a Catholic, a community leader, a grandfather and a great grandfather. This is the autobiography of his early years growing up and becoming a man, before his wife and children could know him. It is a story of economic and family struggles, lessons learned, first brushes with faith, and people who made a difference along the way.

Introduction

A warm wind blew in from the South. This was not totally uncommon for the coast of Maine at this time of year, but this year was warmer than normal. In fact, most of the local folks around Warren were talking a great deal about the weathah. The weathah got a lot of discussion around these parts because most of the locals depended on it for their livelihood.

Some of the local people were also talking about other things. There was the discussion about the depression and how lots of people were really struggling to find work. In the valley at the bottom of the hill was the Georges River and beside it stood the woolen mill, the only industry in town. People were talking about the bicentennial. After all, two hundred years was a long time. This little town had been incorporated in 1736, well before we became a country. There was even going to be a parade and the new pumper was going to be in it. People were sure proud of that new fire engine. There weren’t many fires in town except when they burned over the blueberry fields in the Spring.

The automotive age had certainly come to town but there were still several horse and buggies around. My dad had a Chevy, a 1920 something, I think, because I don’t remember much about it. I was told later that my mother was looking forward to the bicentennial. There wasn’t any air conditioning in those days and my mother, being very pregnant, was very uncomfortable. We only had one doctor in town and no hospital or clinic. Many women had their children in the home, but we wanted to do this right and go to the hospital in Rockland. It wasn’t very big, but it at least had beds to recover in. It was late on the twenty- sixth of July in 1936 when my mom and dad rumbled along old Route 1 from Warren to Rockland about ten miles up the coast.

I was introduced a little after eight o’clock on the morning of the twenty-seventh. Mrs. Robinson was in the bed next to my mom. She lived in Warren also and had a little girl. That little girl and I would become good friends later in life.

My dad saw this event as a cause to celebrate. I think the method of celebration included a great deal of Old Crow. The Old Crow would become, or perhaps, had become a family enemy. My older sister, who was almost eight at the time, was staying with friends. I think prohibition was over by then, but it didn’t matter much. Everyone I ever got to meet always had plenty to drink. My mother wasn’t very pleased when she heard about my dad. Everyone knew what was going on in Warren and there weren’t any secrets. It seems that she was always trying to keep him sober so that he would show up at the mill for work. No one earned much in those days, and we needed all the money we could get our hands on to live from day to day.

And so it was! I came into the world that hot July morning. What follows is my story.

38109.png The Ancestors

A lot about your life, you inherit from your ancestors. My ancestors were mostly farmers and fishermen.

My mother came over to the United States from Nova Scotia. Her ancestors settled in West Dublin, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia. She was the oldest of four children. I was told it was five, but my Aunt Jessie would turn out to be my half-sister. The family had come from Palentine, Germany around 1700, and other relatives settled in Pennsylvania and established the Amish sect. My grandfather was a cook on a schooner out of Halifax, Nova Scotia and carried fish to the East Indies and rum back to Canada. I remember he had red hair and a red beard and loved to laugh. My grandmother was very strict. The thing I remember most about my grandmother was that she was very short: much less than five feet and very hunched over. The first time that I met her I was five and I thought Jesus, I’m almost as tall as she is!

They lived in a home built by my grandfather on the ocean back in a little inlet about a mile from Crescent Beach, a two-mile long beach open to the Atlantic. The home in Nova Scotia had no telephone, no electricity and no running water. I was told that the name Publicover was English, but it had really been changed from the German Bubickhoffer. We had just gone to war with Germany and no one wanted to be German. I’ll have more to say about this trip later.

My aunt Lillas was a huge woman. I had never met anyone so big and was a little afraid of her. My Uncle Bob, though, was short and small except for his protruding belly that I learned later came from all the liquor. My Uncle Clyde was a fisherman in Nova Scotia, and I swear he never bathed. He always stunk, and I hated to get close to him to give him a kiss. He wasn’t very affectionate, thank God, so that helped. His wife, Aunt Viola, was kind of strange. I guess she was a nice enough person, but her face was twisted, and she scared me. I only met my Aunt Cora once, so I don’t recall much about her except that she lived in Massachusetts. Her husband, uncle Everett was never around so I don’t remember him except I know that he drank a lot also.

I had lots of cousins on my mother’s side, none of which were near us, so I didn’t get to know them very well.

My father came from Maine. Originally, they came to the Kingfield, Maine area from Jersey Island in the English Channel during the late 1600’s. They were all farmers until my great-grandfather Frank took up driving a stagecoach around Somerset and Franklin County. They called him Slam Bang Durrell, though I never found out why. My grandfather Leslie never talked much about Frank, probably because my great grandmother left him with my grandfather. The last they heard about him he was on his third wife.

I never met my grandmother Durrell. I was told that she died of cancer at a young age, and my father always told of how he had to quit high school to support his younger brothers and sisters. I never made the connection that she died at forty-one and she was only thirty-two when dad quit school. She was pregnant when she got married in January of 1905, and dad was born in May of 1905.

My grandfather Durrell was a freight conductor on the Maine Central railroad. I was told he was gone most of the time, and my grandmother left him after finally having had enough bringing up six young kids alone in the early 1900s. But the 1930 census lists her still living with my grandfather as well as five of the children plus my uncle Freddie LaLiberty and my cousin Maureen LaLiberty. Only my dad had left since he was married. He also lived there with my mom and my sister Lillian for a while, but they had left by 1930.

My aunt Marion or Mimi was married to John Sullivan. Maybe because of the name, he fashioned himself a boxer. My dad tried to train him and managed to get him into the ring a few times, but he never won a fight and had to get a new career. I never knew exactly what he did. My dad thought his sister was stuck-up so we didn’t see them very much. I think it was because she didn’t like his drinking and because she joined the Catholic Church. My dad didn’t care much for Catholics. He thought that all that they did was count beads and kiss statues.

My aunt Marguerite or Peggy also married a Catholic by the name of Fred LaLiberty. Dad thought he was ok because he drank a lot.

Aunt Dotty was the youngest sister and I think my dad favored her because we used to visit her the most. Uncle Henry had a history of his own, and I will say more about him later.

Uncle Harold or Cap as he was known was the next oldest brother, and he and dad used to drink a lot when they got together. My Uncle Harland was the baby of the family and my dad didn’t care much for him either, so we didn’t see much of him. Ironically, he became a sportswriter for several newspapers in Maine and was quite successful.

All these aunts and uncles lived in and around Waterville, Maine and it was only a fifty-mile drive, so I saw more of them.

Most of my relatives had literally spent centuries within a very small geographical area. The relatives on my dad’s side in Somerset and Franklin County, Maine, and the relatives on my mother’s side in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia.

My mother and father were they only ones to travel very far and thus became the mavericks of the clan. By traveling very far, I mean a hundred miles or more. Eventually, my aunt Lillas and aunt Cora moved to Massachusetts.

The major takeaway from my ancestors was that on my mother’s side of the family was that they were hard workers and, despite migrating to Canada from Germany, they didn’t travel much. On my dad’s side, they had a good work ethic as well, but a love for the bottle.

38109.png The Early Years

T he late thirties were a good time to grow up. The village of Warren was nestled between two hills. US Route 1 was a major route from Maine to Florida. There weren’t any interstates in those days and