THIS autobiography is dedicated to the memory of our dear sister, Dr. Mary Margaret Hursey-Rahme, who devoted her life to teaching the King’s English and creative writing to dummies like me.
Mary Margaret kept after me to write it until, in 1982, I finally began. When I completed Chapter 1, “The Lake Park Gang,” and mailed it to her for suggestions, she called immediately and raved about it and said “Don’t change a word! Just keep on going.” She said she would like to type it for me on her new computer, a very early model Macintosh. “Send me each chapter as soon as it’s done,” she urged, “but try to limit each chapter to five pages or less.” It seems her little “Mac” could only process five pages at a time! She said the chapter reminded her of times in our childhood that she had completely forgotten. Some were happy escapades of the gang and others were tragic events in our family. When she typed and returned to me the description of the bedside scene when Mamma begged her to “Take care of my babies”, (we four little brothers) it was stained with her tears. I’ll admit I shed a few also when I wrote it, but I also laughed out loud when I recalled some of the antics of our Lake Park gang. She seemed to enjoy typing it and called me frequently to urge me to continue. I will be forever grateful that she typed most of it before her tragic death at the age of 63 in 1985. Her last words to me as she lay dying were, “I’m sorry I can’t type any more chapters. I hope you’ll finish it.” After that gut-wrenching scene, how could I not finish it?
The hardest part of the project was trying to recall accurately the events going back as far as 77 years. Our only records were our family photo albums and a few old cards and letters. Oh, how I wish I had kept a journal!
Fortunately, my memory of the events of long ago are sometimes easier to recall than those of recent years. Most of my friends seem to share this quirk of memory. Thus my memories of when Mamma lay dying in 1935, of the year 1936 when we buried the little cheese jar in the wall of our Lake Park cottage, of the time when I entered Coshocton’s first Soapbox Derby, and the “puppy love” affair with Rebecca Leach can still be recalled. Also my memories of summer scouting at Camp Frederickson, and of working on Granddad’s farm, the four high schools I attended, my fraternity escapades at college that were sandwiched between Marine Corps tours in two wars, and the wooing and marrying Mary Janice -- all are happenings of more than half a century ago.
Another quirk of memory that we share is the seemingly increasing tempo of the passing time. We’re always saying, “Where has time gone?” A week of childhood adventure seems longer than an entire season in recent years.
Another interesting thing about my generation is our increasing willingness to tell our life stories -- especially our war experiences. Dad’s “Lost Generation” of World War I doughboys would not talk about their war, except for a few funny anecdotes. For many years, this was also true of World War II, Korean War and Vietnam War veterans. The horror of having to kill or be killed was suppressed in their memories as though there was a “Wall of denial” that it ever happened.
But in recent years our rapidly diminishing ranks of veterans have stepped up to tell their stories. We have war forums and discussions at our American Legion Post 82 and at our Gillie Senior center that I faithfully record on videotape. I have provided hundreds of tapes to the speakers, to the Motts Military Museum at Groveport, Ohio, and to the Ohio Department of Veterans Affairs where they will be edited and made available to the Ohio Public Access television for use by school teachers. Students will learn history directly from the people who made it. Many of us are doing this because we believe that a better knowledge of history might help our nation avoid political pitfalls in our increasingly dangerous world.
|
|
One of my annual projects is to plan and execute a Veterans Day Program for the 1200 students at the Woodward Park Middle School in Columbus. We want the younger generations to appreciate the sacrifices that have been made to keep our country free.
I hope all of you, especially you members of the Murphy and Hursey families, enjoy reading this personal memoir, feeble though it may be, half as much as I did writing it: the true story of “My Journey from Goschachquenk.”
|
|
