Once upon a time

I got some information from the National Personnel Records Center that indicate that Dad crossed the International Date Line on October 28, 1944, just four days before I was born. He was assigned to CUB 12, Unit 431, which was a Communications Unit put together for the purpose of the invasion of Leyte Island of the central Phillipine Islands. His record shows that he participated in the initial landing on Leyte Island on October 20, 1944. I found this webpage that lists some of the Operation Plan for the invastion of Leyte Island.

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USN/rep/Leyte/OpPlan/13-44-K.html

I'm guessing Dad was assigned to one of the Radio Station Operating Bases listed under unit 431. That would mean that he went ashore to set up a radio station. He was listed as being assigned to CUB 12, Unit 431 from August 14, 1944 until December 21, 1944. He was assigned to Naval Station Navy 3149 from January 11, 1945 until November 15, 1945. I haven't yet found any information about this assignment. He was separated from the Navy on December 17, 1945.

A summary of his Service as shown in his offical records is:

Headquarters, Eighth Naval District fromDecember 9, 1942 until July 21, 1943. He enlisted on December 9, 1942 and went on active duty January 12, 1943. I guess he was assigned to the Eighth Naval District pending going on active duty. His ranks during this time period were AS & M-1 (whatever they mean).

RecSta., New Orleans, La. from July 20, 1943 through October 5, 1943. His rank was S2c.

NavTraScol, Pre-Radio, College Station, Texas from October 1943 through February 29, 1944. His rank was RM3c. Since February 1, 1944 is nine months before I was born, I assume I also spent a few days at College Station although I've never seen it.

USNABPD, San Bruno, California from March 5, 1944 through May 11, 1944. His rank was RM3c.

Comm. Scol. PhiTrainPac from May 12, 1944 through June 24, 1944. His rank was RM3c.

Comm Unit 43 from August 1, 1944 through August 11, 1944. His rank was RM3c.

Then CUB 12 and 3149 as mentioned above. His rank was RM3c (Radioman 3rd class). His discharge papers also show he held the temporary rank of Radioman 2nd class at the time of his discharge. Back then they gave temporary promotions to give a pay raise but you would go back to your permanent rank in the event of a reduction in the number of military people needed.

I've been trying to sort through some of the family tree information I have. It's difficult reading, but it appears that Hansel is a very prominent name in the tree. If I understand this right, there was a Hansel Hawkins born July 7, 1822, in Blount County, Alabama. He served in the Civil War while is wife, Susanna Hawkins, ran their farm. Here is the text of a short note he wrote 8 months before he died on March 23, 1889.

Paris Mississippi, July 1, 1888

I am 66 years old to day. I never swore an oath in my life. I never have bet on anything. I never went in a saloon and called for a drink of liquors of any kind. I never saw a still I have never sold or measured a drop of spiriteous liquors of any knd. I never had a bottle of whiskey in my pocket. I never had a pistol in my pocket nor a deck of cards. I never tried to play a game of cards. I never danced a set in my life. I never have had a fight. I never have had a case in circuit court. I never was a witness in any court. I never was at a horse race of a shooting match. I never saw a person hanged. 41 years I have belonged to the Baptist Church. 22 years I have belonged to the fraternity. There never was a charge preferred against me. 44 years I have been a leader in vocal music.

Hansel Hawkins

It was actually written one week before his 66th birthday. Maybe he didn't know the actual date of his birthday.

Anyway, one of his kids was Emmanuel "Man" Bullock Hawkins (born August 1, 1855 in Banner, Calhoun County, Mississippi, and died May 7, 1936, in Poteau, Leflore County, Oklahoma). Here is a note he wrote.

Poteau, Oklahoma

Aug. 1, 1918

I am 63 years old today.

I am the founder of whisky and stills, have made whisky most of my life. And made my start selling it on the sly. Had a case in court every term. I was known as the champeon dancer and card player. I always carry from 2 to 4 pistols in my pockets all the time. was never known to be without whisky of some kind.

I have raised 3 sons and 3 daughters. All are somewhat like their father, kind, gentle and moral, temperate in all things.

I have never belonged to any lodge except to the A. H. T. which I was ring leader.

E. B. Hawkins

He was a little different than his father. One of Man's sons was Virgil Stephens Hawkins (born December 13, 1886, in Banner, Calhoun County, Mississippi, and died February 12, 1961, in Red Oak, Latimer County, Oklahoma). One of his sons was Hansel Eaves Hawkins (born February 11, 1922, in Poteau, Leflore County, Oklahoma, and died December 20, 1983, Tulsa, Tulsa County, Oklahoma). His son was Joe Hansel Hawkins.

Now, if you follow a different line from the first Hansel Hawkins (born in 1822), He had a daughter named Nancy Susanna Hawkins who had a daughter named Minnie Lee Ragland (born June 2, 1895). Minnie Lee Ragland married Norbin Arch Lambert.

Norbin Arch Lambert, Sr. was born in Lee County, Mississippi in 1891, He came with his parents to the Oklahoma Indian Territory at a very early age. He grew up on a farm just north of Red Oak, Latimer Co.,Oklahoma. After graduating from Red Oak Highschool, he attended Oklahoma A&M at Stillwater, Okla. He was a member of the Ok. A.&M. Quartet. He became a school teacher and returned to his home town where he married Minnie Lee Ragland who had also grown up in Red Oak and became a teacher, having obtained her degree from the college in Durant, Okla. Before their second child was born, Arch and Minnie decided to go into the mercantile busness in Red Oak, then opened a store in the oil boom town of Bowlegs, Okla., and later in the oil refinery town of Allen. The family then made Allen their home and all five children attended school there for most of their school years. Arch was a 32 Degree Mason and a member of the Eastern Star. Also, he was secretary on the board of education in Allen. The family suffered a tragedy when Minnie died in 1932 in Allen, the children's ages ranged from 5 to 14 yrs.

I believe that Arch (Norbin Arch Lambert) was my grandmother's (Edna Lambert Stalcup) brother. The daughter of Arch and Minnie Lee Ragland was Melba Lee Lambert know known as Melba Lambert Straigis, our cousin in Florida that does a lot of geneology. We are double cousins to her since we are related to both of her parents, one through Edna Lambert and one through the older Hansel Hawkins.

I didn't start out to write this much, but it is kind of interesting.

I can remember living in a basement apartment in Casper. It was set up with rooms in single file, so you had to walk through every room to get to the room farthest from the door. I seem to recall that we walked down a set of steps at the back of the house and entered into the kitchen. We had an icebox in the kitchen. Yes, not a refrigerator, but an icebox. The iceman came every couple days to put more ice in the icebox. Things stayed cool, but probably not cold.

We were living in this apartment when Ma & Pa gave me my first electric train. The engine was black and was a model of a steam locomotive. I currently have the engine and tender setting on top of one of the file cabinets in my home office. I'm guessing I got it for Christmas 1949. That makes my train 55-1/2 years old. I can remember making one track setup that was long and went through a couple rooms in our apartment. The train would go down the track, I would stop it, and then back it up to where it had started. The track did not make a loop because I wanted to go as far through the house as possible. See, I was doing strange things even at the age of five.

I can remember the excitement of moving into our new house at 1003 W. 21st Street. It was a two-bedroom house without a garage. It had an unfinished basement with a dirt floor. When we first moved in, they still had trenches in front where the utilities were being put in. The yard was all dirt. There were no sidewalks. Shortly after we moved in, the trenches were filled and sidewalks were put in. My Dad had to put in the yard. He put in Kentucky Bluegrass. It required lots of manual labor, including rolling the yard many times with a heavy roller (which I'm guessing was rented). I remember once falling into one of the utility trenches. One of my friends' mother pulled me out. I had several good friends close to us. Johnny and Karen Sayles were next door (our house was on the corner). Lexie Richards was next to the Sayles. Cheryl Delgarno was right across the street (21st Street) from us. Her Dad owned a trucking company. John Albert Monikee (not sure of the spelling) lived a few blocks away. I remember playing with him a lot, but I'm not sure how I met him. Since he didn't live close enough to meet by playing in the yard, I must have met him at school.

One of my most vivid memories was playing in our backyard. There were a lot of leftover things from all the construction, one of which was a board stuck in the ground. It was like a 1" by 6" inch board sticking straight out of the ground. It was about four feet tall. It must have been marking a utility valve or something. Anyway, I decided it was something I needed to play with, so I tried to pull it out of the ground. I wasn't strong enough, so I started rocking it back and forth. The board was not very strong because it broke off near the ground, but it broke off with a very sharp piece sticking up out of the ground. I fell down on the sharp piece and it stuck into my thigh. I was wearing a new pair of jeans and it put a one-inch hole in the jeans and then a one-inch hole in me. I can't remember how I explained this to Mother, but I can remember her doctoring my wound. I still have a large one-inch scar on my thigh. For some reason I have remember this incident as if it happened yesterday instead of almost 55 years ago.

My earliest childhood was spent in Red Oak, Oklahoma, a town where both sets of my grandparents lived within two blocks of each other. Some random memories:

1) Swinging on a swing hung in Ma's & Pa's pear tree. I was probably three years old. I can remember some of my Dad's sisters being there. Ma & Pa are my Mother's parents, Edna May (Lambert) and Simon Henry "Bud" Stalcup.

2) Standing on Ma's & Pa's screened in back porch talking with some of Dad's sisters.

3) Watching the construction of our new house just across the driveway from Ma's & Pa's house.

4) Making ice cream using snow. I don't know for sure what the snow was used for. I suspect it was in place of ice to cause the freezing. Snow of much depth is fairly rare in Red Oak.

5) Waking up one morning in our new house and going to Ma's & Pa's garage, getting my fold-up kid's lawn chair, going into Ma's & Pa's house, and sitting in my chair beside their bed until they woke up. Since they always got up at 6:00, I must have been up real early. Ma's & Pa's garage was an unpainted, unattached wooden structure with no doors. There were stalls for two cars. A "smokehouse" was also attached. The smokehouse had a regular house-type door and was used for storage. It was full of junk. I suspect a lot of it would be very valuable these days. Ma's & Pa's back door was never locked. The front door was always locked and never used except on Sunday mornings to go to church which was just across the street from their front door.

6) I can remember my Dad coming back to the house after going being in a parade in his Navy uniform. Dad served in the Navy in WWII. I'm guessing this parade was Armistice Day (now called Veteran's Day) in 1947. I think it was in McAlester. Apparently they wanted all WWII veterans to march in the parade in their uniforms. Winning WWII was still considered a major event back then, if not a miracle.

7) I can remember catching the train in Red Oak to go to Casper, Wyoming where my Dad was working for AT&T. This was probably around March 1949. I was four years old. My Mother, my sister, and I were going together. I can remember the train pulling into the Red Oak station. I can remember that at another station we went by we looked at the window to see if we could see Uncle Dick who worked for the railroad at that station. We didn't see him.

8) I can remember someone (maybe my Dad) wringing a chicken's neck and then the body walking around for a few seconds afterwards. Back then, a lot of chickens were raised in Red Oak for food.

I remember two different nicknames I was called as a child (3-10). Everyone in Red Oak, Oklahoma called me Joe Hank since my middle name was Hansel, the same as my Dad's first name. He was called Hank, thus I was Joe Hank.

For a short while, my Dad called me Jocephus Orange Blossom. The Jocephus was probably based on Hank Williams calling his son Bocephus. I have no idea where "Orange Blossom" came from.