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mapsedgeAs I said in a previous entry, I never really got to know my extended family - for our purposes here let's assume I'm talking exclusively about my dad's side. Mom's side is a whole other journal.
Uncle Cecil is the sole remaining Morris male. I knew him less than the other two brothers, but this last weekend I learned a lot, and some of it was really interesting.
To understand this story, you have to know a little geography. The town of Weeping Water, where the Morris family farm was, sits in a valley shaped - before the quarries flattened most of it - vaguely like a soup spoon with the handle pointing West and the ridges to the South flattened a bit. The Morris farm was about midway down the "handle" at the bottom of the valley, half a mile from the creek that created the valley. You would drive to the farm about a mile out of town with hills rising on either side of you: steeply to the North and very gently to the South.
To the East of town, there was a POW camp for German and Russian prisoners of war3.
Cecil flew airplanes during World War II. He was stationed stateside as a trainer and flew, among other aircraft, B17s4. He and his crew would "bomb" Omaha on training runs. When they finished the training run, he and his crew would detour thirty miles south to the Weeping Water valley. They would line up their approach with the camp, point the nose of aircraft Westward.
At treetop level - say, 50 or 60 feet - Cecil would fly the valley in that B17, and buzz the Morris house.
In a friggin' B17 Flying Fortress.
That's the kind of family I'd like to think I come from.
1 You might recognize her as the former owner of Osage, where Michelle and I live.
2 Mildred was the eccentric one of the family. She never truly settled, moving from place to place. Her only daughter, Alice Fawn, died a few years ago on a mission in Central America.
3 I thought my mom was pulling my leg when she told me stories of listening to the prisoners sing. I've since looked it up and there were several camps in the midwest. It helps to explain the almost exclusively German and Russian pedigree of the grave markers in the town's cemetery: after the war, many prisoners stayed in Weeping Water.
4 Think Memphis Belle.
As I have said before, my father was a businessman more adept at starting businesses than finishing them. I have come to realize he was a "sys admin" before the term had been coined: he computerized businesses and networked the computers together. The first modem I ever saw was the size of a couple of car batteries, and you laid the phone receiver on it, with the ear and mouth pieces in rubber cups on the top. Dad died of cancer (a malignant brain tumor), April 13, 1984, 9:30am.
My uncle Horace was a pilot who owned a Beech Bonanza and loved to fly up to Cowgill and buzz the homes of my aunts Lois1 and Mildred2. He lived most of his adult life in Colorado and died there of colon cancer, maybe ten years ago. I'm not sure what town. That's all I know about him.
Uncle John lived in Salem, Missouri, was a district court judge. There's talk in the family that he was in the CIA during the Korean War. I have the pistol he carried, and so far as I know it still works. In any event, he was a federal agent in the 1950s. His wife, Marybelle, hated southern Missouri - they lived on acreage in a huge single level house outside of town - and when John died six or seven years ago, she moved to Ohio to be closer to her family. Their only son died in spectacular car crash shortly after Michelle and I were married.
My uncle Horace was a pilot who owned a Beech Bonanza and loved to fly up to Cowgill and buzz the homes of my aunts Lois1 and Mildred2. He lived most of his adult life in Colorado and died there of colon cancer, maybe ten years ago. I'm not sure what town. That's all I know about him.
Uncle John lived in Salem, Missouri, was a district court judge. There's talk in the family that he was in the CIA during the Korean War. I have the pistol he carried, and so far as I know it still works. In any event, he was a federal agent in the 1950s. His wife, Marybelle, hated southern Missouri - they lived on acreage in a huge single level house outside of town - and when John died six or seven years ago, she moved to Ohio to be closer to her family. Their only son died in spectacular car crash shortly after Michelle and I were married.
Uncle Cecil is the sole remaining Morris male. I knew him less than the other two brothers, but this last weekend I learned a lot, and some of it was really interesting.
To understand this story, you have to know a little geography. The town of Weeping Water, where the Morris family farm was, sits in a valley shaped - before the quarries flattened most of it - vaguely like a soup spoon with the handle pointing West and the ridges to the South flattened a bit. The Morris farm was about midway down the "handle" at the bottom of the valley, half a mile from the creek that created the valley. You would drive to the farm about a mile out of town with hills rising on either side of you: steeply to the North and very gently to the South.
To the East of town, there was a POW camp for German and Russian prisoners of war3.
Cecil flew airplanes during World War II. He was stationed stateside as a trainer and flew, among other aircraft, B17s4. He and his crew would "bomb" Omaha on training runs. When they finished the training run, he and his crew would detour thirty miles south to the Weeping Water valley. They would line up their approach with the camp, point the nose of aircraft Westward.
At treetop level - say, 50 or 60 feet - Cecil would fly the valley in that B17, and buzz the Morris house.
In a friggin' B17 Flying Fortress.
That's the kind of family I'd like to think I come from.
1 You might recognize her as the former owner of Osage, where Michelle and I live.
2 Mildred was the eccentric one of the family. She never truly settled, moving from place to place. Her only daughter, Alice Fawn, died a few years ago on a mission in Central America.
3 I thought my mom was pulling my leg when she told me stories of listening to the prisoners sing. I've since looked it up and there were several camps in the midwest. It helps to explain the almost exclusively German and Russian pedigree of the grave markers in the town's cemetery: after the war, many prisoners stayed in Weeping Water.
4 Think Memphis Belle.
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no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 16:28 (UTC)S~
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Date: 2008-06-05 16:31 (UTC)My dad was a bombadier in a B17 called "the Belle of the Bayou" in WWII. It wasn't until I saw Memphis Belle, seated to my Dad's left that I truly understood a bit of what he went through. We sat there and held hands and cried through much of the movie.
Today seems to be a good day for nostalgia. Wish I had a good picture of me and my dad...can't find it from the old wedding pictures.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-05 19:31 (UTC)He used to fly down and pick up my uncle at army boot camp off the local runway and take him to Sunnyvale Ca for the weekends (plane pulls up, drops ramp, uncle gets on, ramp goes up, plane takes off - reverse at the end of the weekend) Dad was just putting obligatory hours on rebuild engines.
He flew the great northern loop many a time. Up toward Alaska, across and down to Japan, then across to Korea to pick up wounded and fly them back to Hawaii and San Diego - 14 days, take 2 days off and do it again.
26 years Navy. 100000 hours airborne (included were his civilian hours towing targets for fighter pilots). That works out to 14 years of 26 he was off the ground. And yea, he used to buzz the house till Mom came out and waved!
brother william