An American Carpenter's Story: One baby boomers life changing spiritual journey

By William Darroch

An American Carpenter's Story is filled with what one baby boomer learned over sixty-five years here in America. It explores the question and meaning of deep love as discussed in the Bible and the mistakes made by false love and the price and pain it caused everyone. It leads us through the tragedy of a false accusation that sends William to prison for fifteen years. It leads us through story after story and the burning question, "Was that God's intervention?" It introduces us to William's soul mate and a love that could only be described as coming from a living saint. Then it reveals to us the deep love of others that worked tirelessly to save William's life while in prison and the love the church showed to him while there, his medical fight for survival after release, and his ten-year fight with cancer, ending with the calm and joy of living with the deep love he had been looking for and the knowledge of knowing that God was in control all the time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 7, 2017
• ISBN: 9781640793934

Book preview

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A Carpenter and His Story

An American

Carpenter’s Story

One Baby Boomers

Life-Changing Spiritual Journey

William Darroch

ISBN 978-1-64079-392-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-64079-393-4 (Digital)

Copyright © 2017 by William Darroch

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods without the prior written permission of the publisher. For permission requests, solicit the publisher via the address below.

Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.

296 Chestnut Street

Meadville, PA 16335

www.christianfaithpublishing.com

Printed in the United States of America

Acknowledgment

I would like to acknowledge the Cleveland Clinic foundation and all the magnificent doctors and nurses, staff and associates for the phenomenal love and dedication to my health care throughout these many years. World class care is being provided at the Cleveland Clinic every day. From day one, their goal is your health at the forefront of every decision. There are no words to express the kind of dedication provided by the different teams of doctors working in this special place. In spite of the vast size and enormous personnel required to deliver this amazing lifesaving health care, everyone works in harmony and is vigilant to give everyone the highest quality of life available. Personal contact and care is paramount. Having this World-class facility in Cleveland, Ohio, is a blessing to all that come in to contact with it, and all that require its world-class health care should be eternally grateful for its existence.

Prelude

Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ear’s for they hear.

For verily I say to you, that many prophets and righteous man have desire to see those things which you see and have not seen them, and to hear those things which ye hear and have not heard them.

—Matthew 13:16

Christ has risen!

It was the day before Christmas as I sat reflecting as to where sixty years had gone. We had all gathered at the gravel pit garage for the Christmas party with friends. We reminisced of days gone by as another Christmas and New Year was about to pass us. It was then that I realized what it was all about—what this life was for, the joy I had known, the love, the sorrow the pain. I had life and had lived in this place throughout these sixty years. I had witnessed it all. I tried to understand what I had lived through. Then I realized it was our creator who had given us a taste. We were being tested. He had been watching us from a distance. In his world, our earth, we could see him all around us.

Day by day if we look beyond the things of this world built by man, through Mother Nature, he has surrounded us with his love and beauty. He is what this life is all about. He has given us a chance to see if we are worthy of a place eternal with him. Most think that this is all that there is. Some believe that there is a life after this life. I believe that our soul will travel to heaven where God will be. Jesus said to the disciples that In my Father’s house there are many mansions, I will go there and prepare a place for you. There have been many things that I have learned in my time here on earth. The most important one of all is that there was a man who walked on this earth 2,013 years ago who some called the messiah. Jesus Christ, son of God, Lord, master, in fact, I believe that he was God in the flesh.

His work was to teach and to bring us hope of the world to come. This world is a world full of good and evil and can be a place of many tears. There is no way that we can understand time or what has come before us on this earth. Dinosaurs, asteroids, floods, ice age, pyramids, who knows? The greatest minds in the world can only guess at who we are, where we came from, why we are here. There has only been one person on earth that has walked on water! Only one person who has made blind men see or turned water into wine! If I were young, I would read the Bible and study the Gospels so I could understand God through the word. The word is the only thing one needs to know. Who else has come in over two thousand years and told us such profound wisdom?

Knowledge that has made the word written in the book the most read book in the world. If you are stupid or smart, poor or rich, none can say that the words in this book do not make sense. In a few days, we will once again, as Christians hold our Christmas mass and bow our heads in silence, pray and reflect on the one and only man who has changed the world and the people in it in ways that can’t be described. The birth of a man from the Mother Mary who 2,013 years later is and always will be to me God Almighty, prince of peace, king of kings, love personified, amen.

December 23, 2013

Chapter 1

Growing Up in the Fifties and Sixties

It was right after World War II when my mother gave birth to my sister. I came four years later on April 2, 1951. It was around 1954 that I remember living in a small ranch home my father had built on a cul-de-sac street in Eastlake, Ohio. It was thirty-five to forty minutes from Cleveland. It was just across from the Lake Erie shore. Our little street was called Green Drive. I was told as I grew older that my father had built the home himself. My father had toiled night after night until he had finished the one thousand square foot home.

It was a wonderful thing and the home was built to exact specifications as my father was a perfectionist. He had read three simple books on carpentry, and with this knowledge, he began to build. My Dad was such a determined man; each day after work, he would build the foundation by himself block by block. My father was not a quitter, and he moved to the wood framing in the same way. When asked by his friends as they gazed at this mass of framed lumber how he had done this alone, my father would say, One nail at a time. He continued with every detail shingling at night with the headlights from his car. He had shared this with me when I was much older.

In our backyard, there was a huge dairy farm and a few bulls. I remember when I was three years old, I would run across the open field and let the bull try to catch me. I was so young then and had no fear. There was very little credit then, and it was hard to get along without money. My mother and father both had jobs, yet it was still hard to get a loan from the bank. There was a large company in Cleveland back then called Forest City. The Ratners were the owners. It was down on Euclid Avenue back then and was the biggest lumber yard around.

My father went there before he built his home and asked Mr. Ratner himself if he would be willing to drop a lumber package without being paid for thirty to sixty days. If so my father would be able to frame the home, windows in and shingles on, and secure a loan at the local bank, Lake County National Bank. My great-uncle Clarence was vice president of the bank then. Until the house was framed, there would be no loan from the bank.

My father worked diligently, and Mr. Ratner was willing to trust my father’s word. That’s how things were back in 1954. Soon the lumber was dropped, and my father was able to frame the structure with shingles and windows. Little by little the house became a home, and Dad was then able to secure the loan and pay off Forest City for the materials that were given. After just a year or so, my father saw several lots for sale in the small village of Timberlake, Ohio, just thirty minutes from Cleveland. It was 1956, and we had sold our home and bought the two half acre lots in Timberlake, Ohio. My father had made a good profit from the sale of the home and still had cash in the bank.

My uncle was now interested in building too, so he traded his labor for one of the lots. Side by side they built their homes. First my uncle built a ranch home. My mother’s sister had married Ted. He was a tank commander during World War II. He had recently graduated from college. He had a driving force behind him, but he was not the skilled carpenter that my father was. He was a rough framer, and my father was a finish carpenter. Together their skills were well matched. Once completed, we all lived in the tiny ranch while they built the other home on the lot next door.

My uncle Ted and aunt Georgia had three children, and there was the two of us, my sister and me. It seemed that the world had exploded with construction back then as the war was over and companies were creating more and more jobs. Everywhere around us people were building homes. The economy was strong, and the threat of the war was over. Timberlake was a quiet place full of beautiful trees and hundreds of vacant half-acre lots. It sat right on the shores of Lake Erie. It was called the Ellworthy Hellwick Allotment. It was developed just before the depression. But when the depression came, the depression caused her to lose the entire property to the bank. The lots sat during much of the war, and eventually, the lots started to sell at a rate of around $500 for a half an acre.

Some beautiful lakefront lots went from less than $1,000. I remember my father telling this story about how cheap these lots were. I was fascinated by real estate at a young age. I was also fascinated by the construction that was all around me. It seemed like we lived in a utopia. My aunt and uncle living next door and all were working hard to enjoy the life they fought so hard to preserve. I didn’t know then that I was a baby boomer. I’ve learned now to understand what that word means. I was just one of thousands of men and women who were born during the postwar of World War II that were to be known as the baby boomers of our time. There are other generations of men and women who’ve come since, like Generation X and so on. But I’m proud to be a baby boomer; it was a glorious time to live, work, and enjoy a simple life.

We all have experienced so much in these past sixty years. The memories that I hold in my heart and mind will never be erased. I wanted to share, what I lived through, during these times that were, let’s say, more simple than our current. I also wanted to share with you, what I have learned about myself, my faith, and the world in which I lived.

The home that my father built this time was known as a story home. He always called it a Cape Cod; although, it really wasn’t. It was more a bungalow. It seemed that the bungalow-style, which was really a one-and-a-half-story-tall home, was the house of choice for that time. They were everywhere. In Euclid, Forrest City Enterprises was building them by the thousands on streets throughout eastern Lake and Cuyahoga Counties. These bungalows were sold, my father said initially, for just $3,000 in 1956. Our home in that time by comparison would have been considered a very nice upscale home. It was around 1,500 square feet with a one-car attached garage and a Florida room to the rear. We used that as our recreational room, year-round. Sitting on a half-acre, the house was on a lot full of trees, and we were just a skip away from the Lake Erie beach. We had our own private park, tennis court, and playground. Our little village of around six hundred lots was only one-third completed with homes back then. It was unique to Cleveland. Those were the happiest days of my life.

Some of the earliest memories that I had were as I looked out the picture window, I watched my older sister coming up the street. I was only five then; my mother was in the kitchen, ironing some clothes. My sister was coming home from her school; it was a beautiful spring day, and things seemed so simple then. But soon I was sent off to my own school (daycare or I guess kitty college). It was near my mother’s work. It was a four-bedroom house that had been converted into a little school for children. Fifteen or twenty of us shared that place day after day as our parents worked. It was a great place for children to be together and learn. I remember one young girl that was going to the school with me one day said, I learned to tie my shoes. Look see. So with just one glance, I’d learn myself how to tie my shoes, and I was only five. That was such a thrill that day, and there was such an awareness about me. I was so pleased with myself, and it was so nice talking to the young girl who taught me how to tie my shoes. This simple milestone in my life seem to be such an accomplishment. Little did I know that there would be so many more to follow. Soon I graduated from kitty college, and off to first grade I went.

I didn’t know it then, but the school that I went to, my elementary school, was relatively new. I was so fortunate not to have to be in some rundown building. Everything seemed perhaps just five years old. The school and the quality of it was excellent, with terrazzo floors, beautiful lockers. All the paint was perfect. There were supplies and tools and equipment of all different types. It was only in the first through sixth grades. I had excellent teachers who were all dedicated to their craft. Most all had hardworking husbands who were well educated as well. The teachers were all serious about their jobs. We had a beautiful library full of books, and all the teachers that I ever came in contact with throughout my entire high school years were all wonderful people. The school system was called Willoughby Eastlake School District.

Thomas Jefferson Elementary School sat on a bluff overlooking the Chagrin River. I did not know then, but years and years ago, this was huge Indian reservation. The mouth of the Chagrin opened up to Lake Erie, where the Cuyahoga River was nothing but a big sandbar then. The Cuyahoga had known harbor at all. But the Chagrin, just thirty minutes east of Cleveland, opened up into Lake Erie. As a result, it was a massive Indian development and a wonderful place for the Indians. I found out later that when a series of condominiums were being built on the same bluff overlooking the river’s edge, some thirty thousand pieces of artifacts were found in the digging area of the foundations of those condos. They had been housed in a small building at Lake Erie College for the longest time, and for some unknown reason, they lost their home there recently around 2005.

Now in Willoughby, it was always my hope that those Indian artifacts would be placed in a building near the Chagrin River where they were found, on a parcel of property known as Bruce Yee Park. He was a friend of mine who died of leukemia at age of thirteen. Bruce was a wonderful boy who was my neighbor and friend. He had a sister and a younger brother. His mother and father were hardworking. His father was an engineer; they were both exposed to the terrible tragedies of World War II when the nuclear weapons were dropped in their county years earlier. My early years of education at Thomas Jefferson elementary were wonderful. Being so young, you don’t understand then what the education is doing for you or why. You just know you’re there and you’re with other children and you’re slowly learning, slowly understanding as humans we have a difficult time growing. For me it seemed to go slow, very slow steps; then one day, I finally reached thirteen or fourteen and the lights came on. There I was in the seventh or eighth grade.

I was of puberty age, and all around me were some of the prettiest girls you ever saw. They were maturing as my friends, as I was. We were very lucky that we had mothers and fathers who were able to send us to such a fine school. Although it was only a public school, looking back, I would say it was one of the finest public schools around. Cleveland was a thriving place, and the suburbs were its bedroom.

Timberlake and Eastlake were all growing suburbs east of Cleveland and a great place to grow up in the fifties and sixties.