Fatherless: Bob's Story, A Tough Beginning

By Bob Shoultz

Never getting to meet or personally know his father, Bob's tough beginning brought many difficult challenges in the early years of his life, which helped him develop a strong will to succeed. Since his mother was so young when he was born, he was raised by his grandparents. His grandfather became disabled at an early age (midforties), and his grandmother couldn't read or write as she was taken out of school at very young age to help work on her parents' family farm. He started early in life taking any job he could get to attempt to help his family. He learned from other family members that his father had married and move to Arizona, so Bob never got the opportunity to meet or talk with him or even learn about any siblings he had. However, many years later, he got to finally meet a brother whose mother also named him after his dad. Bob believes the challenges and difficult times in his preteen years helped him develop a very strong work ethic and a will to achieve. He believes this was the primary key to successes he achieved in life. The greatest experience that brought him encouragement and strength was the day he gave his heart to Christ and chose to serve the Lord and raise his family in church. One of the motives he learned early was, "IF IT IS TO BE, IT IS UP TO ME," as he found there is never a free ride nor does success come knocking at your door.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Sep 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640288447

Book preview

Introduction

I chose to write this to share my story hoping it will be a blessing and encouragement to others who may go through a difficult time in life with many hardships to help realize no matter what life throws your way, you can be a survivor and be successful in life. This is in no way a desire to elevate myself or to look for sympathy for the struggles life brought my way. I give praise and honor to God for His blessings and guidance, which gave me the courage to achieve in spite of life’s difficulties.

In addition to my personal biography, I’ve also included many interesting stories, quotes, jokes, etc., which I’ve collected over the past twenty-five years, as well as added many of my favorite recipes. I trust you will find it to be interesting reading as you laugh, are in awe, and sometimes cry over the incidents these stories share.

Part I Bob Shoultz Biography

Bob Shoultz Autobiography

I was born on August 24, 1943, in Ross County, Ohio, at my grandparents’ home in a very small village called Knockemstiff. The story I was told, it was given this name by a circuit-riding preacher many years ago who witnessed a fight between two women. His comment was, She’s going to knock her stiff. While the name Knockemstiff appears on the map, it is also known as Shady Glen.

My mother’s name was Marjorie, and I was conceived when my teenage (age fifteen) single mother had a relationship with my father, Robert Shoults. When my father found that my mother was pregnant for me, he wanted to marry her but my grandfather said no, She’s too young. Yet my mother and her family chose to name me after my father. When I was born, my Aunt Evelyn told the doctor how to spell Shoultz adding the z rather than the s it should have been. My middle name Lee was given by my grandfather. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I learned my father had married and eventually moved to Arizona, so I never got to meet him or get to know him at all. It wasn’t until after I was married and discharged from the Navy that I learned the z should have been an s as that’s how my father and his family spelled the name. At that point, there were too many records that needed to be corrected to change it, so we left it at z.

I wasn’t very old when my mother married. She took me to live with her, but I constantly kept saying I want to go home because I felt the man she married didn’t like me. As I look back over the events that occurred in our family, I realized it had to be part of God’s plan for me to be raised by my grandparents.

Mom and Pop is what I called my grandparents, and I lived with them until after high school. Pop was the youngest of three children of Frank and Nora Alice (Miller) Dennewitz. His sister was Nellie Dennewitz Johnson, and his brother was Joe Dennewitz. Joe was the father of three sons who were killed in WWII. Frank Dennewitz and his family lived in Nelson, Georgia, where he worked as a stone mason installing limestone covering on buildings.

He was killed when a huge piece of limestone fell seriously injuring his back and later died from the injury. After that incident, my grandfather’s mother moved back to Ross County, Ohio, where she later married a man named Yoe, who, according to my grandfather, was very cruel and mean with him. Mr. Yoe forced my grandfather to move out of the home at a very young age because of the issues (understanding that my grandfather was headstrong and mischievous). While he never went into details about the issues, he chose to move out of the family home and go live with his sister Nellie and her husband Dave Johnson until he was old enough to go live on his own.

My grandmother’s maiden name was Roxie Chaney, the daughter of Ralph and Mary McNeal Chaney also from the Knockemstiff area. She had several brothers and sisters as it was a large farm family.

My mother had three other children—two half sisters and one half brother. Judy King Maddox, just a few years younger than me, was the daughter of Dane King and my mother. Judy’s mother and her father were never married, and he committed suicide when Judy was just a baby. My mother married Charles Kuhn who was the father of Marilyn Kuhn Brown and Wesley Kuhn. Wesley (whom everyone called Duke) left high school early and joined the Army. After his basic training, he was stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia, with his company anticipating a tour in Vietnam. The weekend of June 10, 1967, my sister Marilyn was getting married, so Duke drove nonstop by himself from Georgia to be home for the wedding. When he got home that Saturday, he went to spend the day with his fiancé and her family. It was much later that night as he drove to my mother’s when less than a mile from home, he fell asleep and ran into a cement bridge abutment and was instantly killed. While it was a difficult time for the family, my sister and her fiancé’s family chose to go ahead with the wedding that Sunday. Sadly, Duke’s fiancé only lived about four or five blocks from us, and I always told him if it’s late at night and he’s tired to spend the night with us. Yet he chose to go on home that night. As I write this, sadly I’ve also lost my mother who had a stroke and my sister Marilyn who had an unexpected heart attack.

When I was about three years old, my grandfather sold the house in Knockemstiff and purchased a home in Chillicothe on Olive Street. We later learned the person who purchased the home in Knockemstiff remodeled the garage making it a bar and called it the Bull Pen. So I jokingly tell everyone when asked where I was born that I was born in the bull pen in Knockemstiff, Ohio. Then I explain why I answered that way.

I recall fond memories of the times when, as a very young boy, Pop would sit me on his lap and tell me stories. He also liked to pull pranks from now and then; so one time when I was sitting on his lap, the Omar Man (door to door salesman who delivered bread and pastries) came knocking on the door. I always enjoyed the goodies my grandmother would purchase if money was available. In any event, my grandfather knew it was about time for the Omar Man to come, and while sitting on his lap, he unfastened the suspenders on my little bib overalls. I jumped down to get to the door to see what kind of goodies my grandmother would possibly get, and there my bibs fell to the floor. My grandfather got a good laugh out of that little prank. Yet he was always loving and kind constantly giving me instructions on many things.

As I recall other events, I started kindergarten at the old Eastern school building, which was located at the corner of Bridge and Second Streets (McDonald’s is now located there). That building had extra large rooms, and one could see the black sooty smoke coming out of the chimney as it was heated by a large coal furnace. Many of us in kindergarten and first grade there were excited about not being able to wait to get in the third grade as our class would be on the second floor. When fire drills were held, all the classes on the second and third floor got to slide down the fire escape, which was a large circular chute they got to slide down. By the time I entered first grade, the old Eastern building was demolished and Tiffin Elementary building was constructed further south on Bridge Street near Ewing Street. I was very disappointed because there went my chance to slide down that chute.

I guess I didn’t fully realize just how poor we were until I was in the first grade at Tiffin. My first grade teacher announced there would be a special Christmas party at the school one evening for the needy children in her class. I always felt backward and didn’t talk much because all the other children would talk about their families and moms and dads. Living with my grandparents, I usually just kept silent. Because of my shyness and lack of self-confidence, I was always concerned when the teacher would send notes home with me, thinking I was in some kind of trouble. I always felt sad because I couldn’t say I had a mother and father like all the other children in class.

A few weeks before Christmas, our teacher handed me a sealed note to take home to my grandmother, and I got nervous thinking I was having a problem. Tiffin school from my home on Olive Street required that we walk to school, which was nearly a mile, having to cross main thoroughfares and busy streets. Anyhow, as I was walking home that day with the note, I was afraid what my grandparents would do when they saw the note that could say I was in trouble at school. When I was about a block away from home, I threw the note down the storm sewer. The next day at school, the teacher asked if I had given the note to my grandmother, and I lied telling her I had lost it. She went to her desk and rewrote the note and gave me strict orders not to lose this one and to make sure my grandmother saw it because she needed a response right away. In fear that evening, I reluctantly handed the note to my grandmother who opened and had my grandfather read it because she couldn’t read or write.

To my surprise, they told me I was invited to a special Christmas party at the school one evening, and the teacher would arrange for transportation so I wouldn’t have to walk. It was a wonderful party as it seemed I had never seen so many goodies (cookies, candy, milk), and Santa Claus showed up with a gift for everyone. I was really excited because Christmas at our house usually wasn’t much because of lack of money. If we got any gifts at all, it was mostly clothes, and sometimes I would get maybe one toy. We had a large family. In addition to my mother, I had five aunts (Bea, Evelyn, Laverne, Jean, and Vivian) and one uncle (Ed whom we called Buddy). There were still five of us living at home (Evelyn, Jean, Ed, Vivian, and me) as the older aunts had married. I also remember the fun times playing games with neighbors, mostly girls who always wanted to play school. I always called Evelyn my girl friend as she worked at Kresge’s (which is now K-Mart) and would buy me candy and take me rides on her bike, even taking me on her bike to get haircuts.

Our neighbors on the other side were Harold and Gladys Wiley who had a daughter named Judy who was four years younger than me. Later in life, I had learned that Judy had a crush on me, but we never established a relationship because I knew her dad who was very strict would never let her date an older boy at that time. I did eventually date her one time her dad agreed because it was going to a movie theatre downtown with my sister Judy.

My grandfather worked on the railroad as a boiler tender cleaning and repairing the boilers on the steam engines. As he explained to me, as he was working at the railroad roundhouse, his supervisor told him to go to one of the engines there as the boiler was shut down and the fire box had cooled so he could do cleaning and any maintenance that was needed. As he entered that fire box, he found the boiler had not cooled, and his lungs were burned by the excessive heat still remaining. As a result, this affected his ability to breathe normally and was unable to work. As I got older, I often thought his union didn’t support him much because he got no support from the railroad and wasn’t able to do that work any longer. I guess that’s the reason I never had much respect for labor unions because they didn’t do anything to fight for any disability benefit from the railroad.

Pop was a very versatile man who could repair about anything, so he quickly became the neighborhood Mr. Fixit. He would even collect discarded items around our neighborhood, repair them, and sell them. Sometimes the families that discarded the item bought it back after the repair was done. As a gifted carpenter, he would also do work when he could with other family members who were in the construction business making a little money.

There were many other times during my younger years that I enjoyed. We always enjoyed watching the milk man deliver milk in a horse drawn wagon. Obviously, the horse recognized his voice as when he wanted to stop at a house to make a delivery he would just say, Whoa, and the horse would stop. After the delivery, he would say, Giddy up, and the horse would move on. As we played in the area, we would watch him stop and go, so one day, we decided when he left the wagon to make a delivery, we would say, Giddy up, to see if the horse would go. The horse was too smart for us because he didn’t recognize our voice; he would just turn his head and look at us and not move. He obviously knew his master’s voice and only responded to him.

In school, I was always hesitant to answer questions because of the fear of being wrong, which made it difficult for me to adapt to school life. As a shy person lacking self-confidence, I wasn’t very good at establishing relationships or fitting in with the group and rarely played games at recess with others.

Behind our house was a large field across the alley. At the end of the field were trees and a hill that led to the Scioto River less than 100 yards away. All the neighborhood boys played games, baseball, and football in that field. Being the youngest and small for my age, they often invited me to participate in some of the games with them. I didn’t play sports very well, but they seemed to always include me and invite me to participate.

Some of the fun times were in the winter when it snowed. We didn’t have a sled, but we would take old cardboard using it as a makeshift sled to slide down the bank behind the field toward the river. One day, we were all down at the river bank playing hide and seek or cowboys and Indians when the older boys asked me if I knew how to swim. I told them I didn’t because I’d never been swimming. So they said, we’re going to teach you real quick. They picked me up and threw me in the river, clothes and all. I splashed around enough to get myself back to the bank pulling myself out and heading home all wet. I really don’t think they would have let me drown because they always seemed to look out for me since I was much younger. When I got home, I had a tough time explaining to my grandmother why I was all wet. When I finally told her the truth, she wasn’t angry and had me change to dry clothes.

I always enjoyed the times around Pop. As an uneducated man (he only went to the third grade), he was very wise, and despite of difficult circumstances, he was always a survivor figuring out a way through any situation. As a result, I did my best to listen to him and try to learn from him. It seemed, even at my young age, I saw a hurt in him over his one and only son, Ed, not wanting to listen to him or follow his guidance. That’s why I tried my best to please him and make him happy and proud of me.

Jean, Vivian, and I would sometimes go to the Cahills’ on Sycamore Street to play. Many times, we often stayed later than we were supposed to, and Mom always teased us telling us we shouldn’t be out that late because someone might get us on our way home. Sure enough one night, we were late again, and suddenly jumping out from the shrubs it looked like a ghost in a white sheet. We ran back to the Cahills’ saying we saw a ghost, and the mother walked us back home saying we surely didn’t see a ghost. My Aunt Evelyn was laughing as we talked about seeing a ghost as she confessed it was her wrapped in a white sheet to scare us. Mom had also told us we shouldn’t be gone so long because we might come, and they would be gone. Sure enough, we went to the Cahills’ again to play. Upon coming home, we noticed all the lights were off, and my Aunt Jean kept pounding hard on the door and broke the glass. Thankfully, she didn’t get cut too bad. They quickly opened the door as they were in the house hiding from us to scare us again.

When television came out, only a very few people in our neighborhood had one. I remember one neighbor on Riverside Street who had a TV, which was located in the living room where we could stand at the sidewalk and look at TV through their large picture window. We thought they were a very rich family to be able to purchase a TV. I even think they knew we looked at their TV because they always left their curtains open late into the evenings.

In the middle of the year of my fourth grade, I received the shock of my life. Because my Uncle Ed wanted to live in the country, my grandfather took us to an old farmhouse on Rt. 772 in Huntington Township to consider selling our house and purchasing that farm. The long narrow lane from the road to that house wasn’t in good shape, and the house needed many repairs. I was very thrilled when Pop decided not to make that purchase. I often thought he was willing to do what Ed wanted hoping it would change his attitude and make him listen more. At that time, I didn’t understand why Pop was so patient with Ed until I had children of my own. Then I realized the power of the love a dad had for his son and his desire to get him to be more attentive and heed the instruction given him. After all, Ed was his only son.

I thought the issue of moving to the country was a dead issue. However, a month later, Pop announced we were moving to the country in a farm tenant house so the family could rent the home in town for extra income. The deal was we would work for the farmer to help pay the rent. Therefore, the whole family helped on that farm. I remember many days after helping shuck corn off the stocks in the field tossing it in wagons to be taken to the barn and going home with sore hands. The house located on Route 50 near Blain Highway was very small with only four rooms for a family of six with no bathroom (other than an outhouse) and only one small hand pump in the kitchen sink for water. Living there meant I had to attend a small school in Bournville named Twin Elementary. Here I was facing another new school with students I didn’t know. My shyness even made it difficult for me to establish too many friends. Yet we never complained or refused to do the work for the farmer because the farm provided us a place to live.

We only lived in that house for a little over half a year when we moved to another farmhouse on Reub Hill Road, which went off Blain Highway about a mile from the Route 50 home. That house sat at the bottom of the hill on a dirt road, and we again were working for a farmer to pay rent. It had three rooms on the first floor (living room, kitchen, and one bedroom) and one large open room on the second floor. There was no bathroom; all we had was an old outhouse about fifty yards behind the house. Our only water source was a spring-fed well about 100 yards from the house, and it was always my job to get the water. There was a big barn, and about a 300-acre open field across the road from the house where the owners steer grazed. We were able to get a milk cow for our own milk, and naturally, it was my job to get the cow in every morning and evening to milk her. It seemed that old cow would always be at the farthest end of the field away from the barn that she could get when it was milking time. I would go roaming through the field to get her, and no matter how much I yelled at her, she wouldn’t budge until I got right to her. Then she would take off running to the barn ahead of me. When I would get there to open the barn door for her, she seemed to give me that look, I’m here ready to be milked where have you been? We name her Star, and she had a bad habit of waiting for me to get the milk bucket about half full then she would kick the bucket over. I remember one morning Pop told me he would fix her kicking once and for all. The next time I brought her in for milking, Pop tied a rope around one back leg and threw it over the barn rafter above her. He told me to start milking, and sure enough, when the bucket was about half full, she reared that leg to kick the bucket, and Pop, holding the end of the rope, gave it a big yank. Down she went, but that fixed the problem as she never kicked over a milk bucket again. The best part about having fresh cow’s milk was the cream that would settle on top. When it was berry season, we would go berry picking, and Mom would prepare the berries putting some of that fresh cream on top, and they were delicious.

Our meals during the week mostly consisted of bread and gravy, rice and gravy, or beans and potatoes. I looked forward to Sundays when we would have meat. Mom would kill a chicken and have baked or fried chicken with homemade bread, mashed potatoes, and all the trimmings. To top it off, the Sunday dinner usually included a special desert Mom would make for the family. All our food was cooked over a wood-burning cook stove, which provided a warm spot for us to fill the washtub with water, set it behind the stove, and take our Saturday baths. The rest of the times, we used a little wash basin to wash with. One day a week, Mom would have me build a fire in a fire ring outside then fill the tub with water and put it on the fire to boil so she could use that water to wash clothes and hang them outside on a line to dry. I remember one time building the fire and taking a stick and play with a piece of plastic in the fire