This Man Called Bunk

By Jeanne Ward

"This Man Called Bunk" follows a man who went to work in Baltimore City in 1926 and never returned, leaving his wife and four young children with no explanation. His wife raised the children with the help of her brother and sister and never remarried. Years later, his granddaughter Jenny Lynn became curious about what caused her grandfather to leave. There were many theories in the family about his reason for leaving. Some dismissed his disappearance as being inconsiderate and thoughtless, others said he left for another woman, but the one person who stood up for him over the years was his wife, Florence. Jenny Lynn knew there was more to the story and was determined to search for an answer. The key to her family mystery may be closer than she thinks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 1, 2024
• ISBN: 9798350936926

Book preview

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© 2023 Jeanne Ward

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, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Print ISBN: 979-8-35093-691-9

eBook ISBN: 979-8-35093-692-6

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Prologue

PART 1

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

PART 2

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

PART 3

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

PART 4

31

32

33

34

Epilogue

Appendix

This book is dedicated to Charles H. Baum, Jr. A man who never knew his father and never worried about it

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to my cousin, Sherry Trempe, who took a walk down memory lane with me. We enjoyed looking up the history of our ancestors and rummaging through old photos, letters, and documents. We shared many tears, laughs, disagreements, and arguments. Our grandparents, Mus and Bunk, deserve all the credit for giving us each other.

A big THANK YOU to Wayne Shipley for his belief in me. His encouragement was the reason I continued on with this project. He instilled in me perseverance to carry on and find my way on the dusty road to an unsolved mystery.

Prologue

This book is about a man who went to work in Baltimore City in 1926 and never returned. He left his wife and family of four with no explanation and was never heard of again. Many years later, his grandchildren became curious as to what happened to him. After much research some things started to make sense as to why his wife continued to love and protect the honor of This Man Called Bunk. This is a story of what may have been the reason for his disappearance as told by his granddaughter, Jenny Lynn.

PART 1

1

I don’t remember much about 2539 West Lanvale Street, but I do remember a little. I was only five years old when my grandmother, her brother Charlie, sister Lanie, and daughter Narnie with her son Ronnie, moved to Groveland Avenue. But I do remember bits and pieces.

Daddy, Mother, and I would drive through Baltimore City on a Sunday afternoon to visit Mus. That is what everyone called her after Ronnie was born. She didn’t want to be called grandma.

I remember listening to the radio in the car. The Hawaiians would be on, and I loved to listen to that music. I usually stood in the back seat, hung onto the rope behind the seat, and jumped up and down to the music. It would shake the car. Back in the ’50s, there were no seat belts or child seats. Daddy would make up words to the music and I would laugh as Mother said, Charles! Stop that! Daddy was a real joker. It makes me smile just thinking about the silly things he would do to make me laugh.

I really don’t recall much about the Lanvale Street house except the front steps. In the warm weather, we all used to sit on the steps and drink a soda from the corner store and maybe eat an ice cream on a stick. The inside of the house was always dark. There was a black mahogany lamp in the living room, with a fringe lampshade and a red bulb. I thought it was the ugliest lamp I had ever seen. One summer, a man brought a pony up the street and my cousin, Sherry, and I each got our picture taken on him. I remember that the pony had an extra hole in his nose. It’s funny some of the things you remember.

In the winter, Sherry would hold my hand and we’d run down the sidewalk. She was always looking out for me as she was two years older. She acted like a little mother and sometimes that would aggravate me.

Mus was a very pretty lady. She always smelled so good and dressed so pretty. I loved her high heels, her dark, black hair, her jewelry and make-up. My other grandmother, who was my mother’s mother, was what I called a real grandma. She wore long dresses with an apron and had gray hair, no makeup, and Dr. Scholl lace-up shoes. I thought I had the best of both worlds, an old-fashioned grandma and a modern one. They looked so different even though they were the same age.

My mother, father, and I lived with Grandma and Daddy George. Their last name was Milke. They were my mother’s parents. I called that grandfather Daddy George because my mother called him Daddy and my grandma called him George. I just put the two names together and came up with Daddy George.

I was always an avid reader, from little up. I particularly loved to read Nancy Drew mysteries. My aunt Grace would give me a Nancy Drew book every Christmas. I would find a quiet place to read and disappear into the story, as if I were Nancy. I could visualize, in my mind’s eye, the setting in the stories. I was always looking for mysteries to solve.

When I was in first grade, Santa Claus came to visit our classroom a few days before our Christmas vacation. Something about him looked familiar. Especially his wristwatch. He smelled familiar too. After I got home from school that day, I went exploring in my father’s closet. There was a trap door in the ceiling that led to the attic. I put my letters to Santa up there. I got a chair, stood on it, and pushed open that trap door. And there it was! The white beard and the red velvet hat with fur around it. I just knew Daddy was Santa that day. I felt like a real detective. Daddy admitted it when he got home from work. I was okay with that though. I knew Santa had a lot of helpers and I was happy that he chose Daddy to help him out.

One year, I solved another mystery of who was stealing candy from a desk I had in the attic of the garage. My cousin, Sherry, spent several nights with us and I showed her my secret office up in the attic. That was a mistake. There was a wooden ladder in the corner of the garage, by the side door, to get up there. It was so neat. There was some old furniture and knickknacks that my grandmother had stored in the attic, which I used to make my office; an old desk, a chair, a bookcase, and a globe. I loved to write stories and the attic was a perfect place where I could think and travel to far off corners of the world in my mind, with no interruptions. There was one window facing the back of the house and I could watch for visitors when they came in the driveway. For several days, I noticed some of my candy was missing. Each day, I would put a piece of hard candy in the drawer and every day, it would be gone. I decided to catch the thief. That night, after I fed the dog, I sprinkled some of my mother’s Avon body powder on the ladder rungs. The next morning, when I went out to check, I saw footprints in the powder. When Sherry came downstairs to have breakfast, her shoes had powder on the bottom. I found the culprit! Sherry insisted it wasn’t her, but I knew better. I measured her shoe against the footprint. She finally admitted that it was her. When we walked down to the corner candy store later, I gave her my ten cents’ worth of candy. I felt bad for her because she must have really wanted some candy. Anyhow, that’s how my detective career started. I got to be pretty good at figuring things out. I believe that is why my interest in my other grandfather grew over the years.

Oh, by the way, my name is Jenny Lynn Baum. I was born in 1947. I am the granddaughter of Charles H. Baum, the man known as Bunk. The man I never knew.

2

I was always curious about my grandfather on my father’s side though. Mus used to tell me what a wonderful man he was. She called him Bunk. When I would ask where he was, she would just say that he had gone on a train trip long ago and never came back. I noticed that she got very sad when she heard a train whistle. Not much else was said about him. I kind of put him out of my mind for a long time. Daddy never wanted to speak of him. He seemed bitter when I brought up the topic, so I didn’t talk much about him for a long time, but I vowed that one day I would find out the real reason for his departure.

Not too long ago, my father wanted to visit his old neighborhood. He was in his late 80s at the time and almost blind, but he wanted to go one more time to Lanvale Street and reminisce about the good old days. We now lived in