Memoirs of Norbert E. Gnadinger, Sr. Volume 1

1940

It is amazing that I still have sixty years or more of this Memoir to write before we pass on into the twenty-first century. I know it is perhaps getting boring to read but think of it as a lesson in history and try to learn. If you enjoyed your history assignments during your school years, you will understand and enjoy this missive.

I had to get Helen to give up her job with the Courier-Journal Job Printing Co. She agreed because, even though there was no heavy lifting, the work was very demanding and there were hardly any work-breaks in those days. She always came home from work pretty well exhausted. She had the beginning of a very large belly as she did with all her pregnancies. You knew, when you looked at her, there was no doubt that she was going to have a baby. She would get plenty of exercise for we were constantly walking to Mom’s and to her mother’s house to visit and also get a free meal. Speaking of food, I always liked to tell this one on Helen. Since she was no longer working, she had to take over the cooking of our meals. I would tell everyone that I had to first teach her to cook. This disturbed her more than a little. Actually, she was a very good cook for she had Aunt Terese(and me) as her instructors.

I believe, during this period, that Helen and I went to at least one dance with the family. Helen sat out most of the dances but it was good for her to get away from our little apartment. While she sat, I had the pleasure of dancing with my brothers cute girl friends. All of the family treated Helen with a lot of respect during this difficult time but Carl and Bill Wantland were especially attentive. It made me feel good that she was being accepted so well into my family the same way that I had been accepted into Helen’s family, except for Unkie. He didn’t speak to me at all until at Aunt Terese’s funeral when I made the first overture to him. I’m sure he was upset that I had taken his little girl away from him.

It was now time to choose a “baby” doctor. I know, you choose a doctor immediately after you have missed your first period for safety and the health of the mother. That is now, but we are talking about the customs of “then”. Some potential mothers would even wait until a week or two before the birth before selecting a doctor. We had no particular choice so Mary Catherine suggested a Dr. Frieda Berresheim with offices on Barret Ave to be Helen’s doctor. Her husband was also a doctor. We made an appointment with Dr. Frieda and went to her office for an examination. The doctor found Helen in good health and based on what the medical profession knew at that time, the baby was developing satisfactorily. We could only guess whether it would be a girl or a boy. Dr. Frieda did talk to Helen for quite a while giving her instructions about preparing for the birth and what to expect and do when the pains(contractions)actually began. She insisted that Helen have the baby in the hospital and we chose St. Joseph’s’ Infirmary at Preston and Eastern Parkway. St. Joseph’s’ has since been demolished and replaced with dormitory apartments for the University of Louisville students. The doctor then sent us on our way with a reminder to call her at the critical moment and she would meet us at the hospital. Helen and I, with our inexperience in these matters, felt relieved that we had now taken care of everything and we could relax. Little did we know.(6-08-2001)

All of our efforts and thoughts were now directed toward the birth of the baby. I finished up my extra school work, received my diploma and I cut off the weekly poker parties. Money was getting tight anyway since Helen had to quit work. I continued working with my Towel Concession, our only source of income. It was the middle of winter but we continued to walk everywhere. The exercise was good for Helen and the baby. I learned more about the birth of a child during this time then I thought possible because that was the only subject of any interest that the ladies would talk about when we were together, socially.

Finally, the big day has arrived-March 29, 1940. Helen awakened me about five AM to tell me that she was having some sharp pains about twenty minutes apart. She didn’t want to bother me earlier. She didn’t think there was need to rush just yet. I fixed breakfast but she wasn’t hungry. She had her mind on other things. Since there was no telephone in the house we decided to walk up to Shelby and Oak Sts. where there was a Taxi Stand. She said she felt up to the walk even though the pains were regular. There was no Taxi at the corner so Helen said she felt up to walking the additional three blocks to Mom’s house on Ellison. I’ll never forget that part of the walk for Helen’s pains began coming more frequently, I guess, from the exercise. We made it there O.K. and we put in a call to Dr. Beresheim. Of course, she told us to go to the hospital immediately. Carl happened to be home so he took over this task. We went to the emergency entrance and they were expecting Helen. They took her away and that was the last I saw of her until after the baby was born and the doctor came to the waiting room to inform me that I had a bouncing baby boy. Right now I can’t recall just who stayed with me to hold my hand through this whole experience. Helen was in good shape but after I finally got in to see her she was still groggy from the medicine. She said she didn’t remember my visit with her. The room she was in was darkened so much that when I entered, I thought something was wrong but it was just normal hospital procedure for child-births. Helen insisted later that the little boy should be named Norbert after me so, Norbert E. Gnadinger, Jr. was born at ten AM, March 29, 1940, Dr. Frieda Beresheim, presiding. The doctors’ total bill for the delivery was $45.00. I don’t know what the hospital bill amounted to for Grampa Buchter paid it and wouldn’t tell me what he paid.

The word went out that Helen was a new mother. After the usual resting period of perhaps a day, she was overwhelmed with visitors. After all, this was the first grandchild in the Buchter family and the Gnadingers’ accepted a new birth as a very special occasion. Someone had brought Helen a large bouquet of yellow roses. The nurses always took over the flowers and put them in vases. Helen remembers that after the roses were put in the vase, the several nurses who regularly took care of her came into the room, snipped off some roses, put them in their hair and pinned them to their uniforms. Helen asked them what was happening. They told her that they had heard the handsome brother Frank say he would be visiting Helen at a certain time and they wanted to look their best. I don’t know if anything ever came of this.

Childbirth was considered a very debilitating “illness” in those days. The new mother was not allowed on her feet for days and the nurses waited on her “hand and foot.” It wasn’t until during World War II that specialists even considered the need for early movement and exercise for rehabilitation. I believe that Carl’s wife, Nellie, must have helped break this code of “bed-rest.” I can remember that after each of her babies were born, she would go home the next day. She said that no one was going to keep her in bed for ten(?)days. Today, her approach is the norm. Even after the hospital released Helen so she could go home, it was a couple of weeks before Grandma would allow her to go up and down steps.

While Helen was in the hospital, Grampa put his foot down. He was not going to allow his new grandson to stay in that cold, upstairs, two room apartment. We must move to his house so that he could keep an eye on the proper raising of the baby. What he meant was that Grandma Buchter would take on the additional work involved in taking care of Helen and the baby and he would be the boss. Helen agreed to this new move and I was not unhappy about it because we were stretching things pretty thin with the little amount of money I had coming in and the baby would add to our short-fall. So, while Helen was still in the hospital, we closed down our apartment and moved everything we owned to Phillips Ave. Grandma was not unhappy about this change because she could begin loving and spoiling Nibby. We didn’t begin calling Norb, Jr., Nibby, just yet, but it wasn’t long before having two people in the house with the same name became unwieldy. As you remember, everyone was aware of the nickname, Nibby, which was given me years ago by Clifford White, so we just transferred the name to junior and I reverted back to Norb.(6-09-2001)

The Buchters had one large room on the second floor reached by a narrow stairway. Helen’s three brothers had their beds up there. When Helen, the baby and I moved in, we were also assigned to the upstairs. In order to move our bed up there, we had to remove a window and pull the mattress and springs up with a rope. The three boys still slept up there with us so we had to string a line across the room and hang sheets from it for privacy. For the first couple of weeks, Helen slept downstairs on a cot until grandma would allow her to climb the steep steps. Grandma, Grampa and Great-grandma Buchter shared the first floor. The house had a full basement with a coal bin for servicing the coal fired furnace. The fireman was Grandma. The furnace was set up exactly like our first furnace on Ellison Ave. only it was newer. There was also an old fashioned round tank type gas fired water heater. It was not automatic. You had to light the burners when you wanted hot water and you had to be sure you turned the gas off when the tank was hot. There was no safety valve and it could blow up if it built up steam pressure. It was not insulated. All Grandma had to do was run up and down the basement steps about a dozen times a day in order to keep things operating. Attached to the side of the house and next to Grandma and Grampa’s bedroom was a small room where Grampa’s mother, Annie(Wiedeman)Buchter had her bedroom. The room had an outside entrance. So, there were nine of us living as snug as a bug in a rug in an area meant for six at most.

In this year, Jiggs was about to turn 16, Whitey was already 13 and Monk, the bartender, was already 11 years old. I thought I hit it off pretty well with the boys. I wasn’t too much older than them and we liked to do some things together. I have to pause here to tell a story about Monk which he thought was very serious at the time but became unimportant as the years passed. You have to understand that Monk became the best friend that I have ever had. We understood and liked each other. Helen, Nibby and I hadn’t been living there very long but I suppose we were encroaching on Monk’s territory. One day he came up to me and demanded that we move out of the house. He said no one wanted us there. He looked quite serious. I told Helen about it and she said to ignore the outburst. I never brought it up to Monk and the thought disappeared as we began to do things together. It wasn’t long before the boys were taking me around the neighborhood and showing me all of their secret fun areas. They were especially impressed that I, also, had been using the swimming holes in Beargrass Creek and drunk water from Eleven Jones’s Cave.

Grampa could talk about his experiences while in the Army in Panama for hours, especially if he had a beer or two. I wish now that I had had a tape recorder to capture all of his thoughts. His descriptions of Army life and the Panamanian People were very interesting. Enough so that Helen and I later in life visited Panama on a Cruise Ship. We recognized a lot of the names of towns and of the canal locks. When he was shipped down there at the beginning of his enlistment, he didn’t travel by Troop Ship. Instead, he traveled on a Luxury Liner. I have in my possession a Dinner Menu for just one meal. A separate menu was issued for each meal. It included appetizers such as Shrimp, Soups and Spinach Salads with various dressings. I don’t remember all of it but the main course included Filet Mignon, Baked potato and Asparagus tips. Desserts were served from a cart. Coffee was served later. I don’t know how a small town boy reacted to all of this. He probably would have settled for a balogna sandwich. Grampa brought home many souvenirs, some of which I still have. He was especially proud of a very large Tarantula Spider which he brought home in a jar filled with alcohol. It was very impressive but ugly. That object is no longer in the family. I do have many post cards from that era. They show lots of scenes from the army base and Panama in general. Also several of Grampa and his friends on the cards. The photographer must have had access to preprinted photo paper with the message area on one side and photo sensitive area on the other side. I have several of this type with other personal photos on them. They must have been very popular at that time.

Nibby was progressing very well all through the spring and into the summer. We were always happy that he was born in the spring because we had a very hot summer that year and without a fan or air-conditioning, Helen and Nibby would have suffered quite a bit. Every weekend was filled with visitors to see the new baby. Nibby’s baptism took place at St. Vincent de Paul and he didn’t appreciate the Holy Water on his head at all and cried through most of the ceremony. Naturally, there was a small party after-wards. We finally located a second-hand baby bed pretty cheap so that Nibby could sleep better. I must say that Helen and Grandma were constantly washing out the cloth diapers we had to use. You had to be so careful that you didn’t stick the baby with a safety pin while changing diapers. I also remember at least one time when we had to use a hand towel as a diaper because none of the real things were available. Nibby had the “runs” at that time. The “runs” was actually diarrhea and it was common baby talk. You have heard of “running off of the mouth”, haven’t you? The phrase must have come from that saying.

As the weather began to warm up I became very impatient. I didn’t have enough to do each day. I had always been a very busy person. The three boys and I decided to improve things in the field next door. Except for the line of trees planted along the projected Phillips Ave. heading toward Burnett St. several blocks away, there was nothing but a large field stretching that distance. We decided to make use of that field by laying out a baseball diamond. First, we had to get rid of the high weeds covering the whole area. All the tools the Buchter’s had to accomplish this task was a sickle. After taking turns chopping weeds for some time it became evident the sickle was not the answer. Then, someone had the brilliant idea to burn-off just that amount of the field we would need to play Peggy or Baseball. We gathered enough brooms and rakes for each of us and then set fire to the field. We had checked for wind direction which was away from the house and everyone was given instructions on how to control the fire and when to put it out. It so happened that three little boys and one big boy was not enough manpower to control the fire once the wind took it over. After fighting the blaze for some time, I called everyone away from the path of the fire and watched it spread across the field toward the Clark Family Cemetery about three blocks away. We could hardly see the flames anymore when we heard the sirens of the fire department truck someone in that area had evidently called. I was very relieved when I heard the sirens and worried that they would investigate further but no one ever came over to our side of the field. After this event, we did set up the ball diamond but we didn’t use it very much. Somehow or other, the weeds grew again and we still had no way to keep them cut. What I would have given to have a riding mower at that time. The conclusion you can correctly come to after reading this story is that this is one of the many dumb things I did in my lifetime. Amen!!!!!

One thing about the Buchter house which I eventually noticed was a very slight crook in one of the brick porch columns. It was hardly noticeable and the boys and Grampa finally told me the story. It seems that Busty Walbaum, Grandma’s brother-in-law, and two of Busty’s brothers did odd-job construction projects. They were hired when Grampa had a basement dug and the house which had faced Popular Level Road was drug over the hole of the basement and now faced Phillips Ave. The Wallbaums added the second floor and the side room. When it came time to add the front porch, everything went well until the brick columns were begun. Somehow, some boot-leg illegal booze(whisky) was produced and everything went downhill from there. The columns were finished and the boys were paid off before the column twist was noticed. Nothing was done to straighten out this bad job and you can still see their work at 1054 Ardmore Drive(Phillips Ave.). This story became part of the Buchter history eventually and later, most everyone who visited the house was told about it.(6-10-2001)

George Roger Clark Park was not developed when I joined the Buchter family. The Clark Cemetery was just a jumble of limestone and headstones. It was even hard to find because it was so overgrown with weeds and trees. Besides the weeds, the whole area was filled with blackberry briers. There was good blackberry picking but it was sure hard to walk through. Back off Poplar Level Road and along the drainage area at the bottom of the hill is located what everyone in the neighborhood called the “Treaty Tree”. Sometime in the early 1800s, there was a treaty arrived at between the Clark family and a local Indian Tribe. It supposedly took place under this tree. It is surrounded by a protective fence. I also have a picture of Helen at about three years old with Aunt Terese under this tree. On the opposite hill was the site of one of the better sleigh riding hills in this end of town. If there was a sufficient snow fall, we would head for the hill. There was always enough brush and fallen tree limbs to have a hot “Bon” fire.

It was becoming more and more evident that my family was surviving only on the charity of Grandma and Grampa. The little money I was bringing in from the proceeds of my Towel Concession was not enough. I had just replaced six dozen towels that I bought through Carter Dry Goods and the price of Lava soap had just gone up. I had to do something and Bernie was my savior this time. He was now working for the American Radiator and Standard Sanitary Co., a manufacturer of bath room fixtures. This is the same company, then named Ahrens and Ott, where my Pop had worked as a machinist. The company is presently named American-Standard and no longer has a branch factory in Louisville. Anyway, Bernie put in a good word for me and I was hired there in the fall. I now had to get rid of my Towel Concession for I didn’t have enough time for both jobs. I put it up for sale at the Courier-Journal but had not one offer. I eventually just had to abandon it after letting all the customers know that is what I had to do. The Buchters and Mom had a very good supply of towels and soap for a very long time.

Being a young and strong fellow, I was assigned to the blacksmith shop as a blacksmith helper. You can imagine what a helper does. You’re right, he swings a sledge hammer all day and does all the dirty work the blacksmith doesn’t like to do. I was hired in at thirty-five cents an hour and was paid a half hour overtime each morning to come in early to start up the coke fire in the forge so that the blacksmith could begin work the minute the whistle blew to start the day shift. I was now making almost fifteen dollars a week and I didn’t have any expenses and overhead like I did with the Towel Concession. I wasn’t saving any money but I must have felt more comfortable about my income because, for Christmas, I bought Helen a Singer Portable Sewing Machine just like the one Mary Catherine owned. The sewing machine, naturally, was “bought on time”, and my payments were fifty cents a week.

I worked in what they called the “lower” machine shop. A very large one built at ground level and where all the heavy work was done. On the third floor in another building was the “main” machine shop where all the specialty work was done and all the workers were machinists. Pop’s first cousin, Fred Gnadinger, who had migrated to Louisville from Paris, Ky., worked there as a machinist as did Mike Rapp, a neighbor at 1010 Ellison Ave. I knew several of the workers in my area. One was a neighbor from Reutlinger St., Joe Gerlach, who I also found working in the Tube Turns Tool and Die Shop when I started working there. Joe was a machinist and also an excellent checker player. We played during lunch hour most days and he consistently wiped out me and all the other players. He always wanted to bet money on each game but everyone knew better than to take him up on that.

As a helper, I remember my job duties as being a striker. The blacksmith would heat his work piece in the forge, place his forming tool over the piece placed on the anvil and I would strike it, over and over again with my heavy hammer or sledge hammer. This became quite a muscle builder and I liked the work. I always did like to do physical things even when I became a “white collar” worker in later years. I never thought about it at the time, but the blacksmith did not give me instructions in his work skills. Perhaps he was protecting his job.

In the fall of this most eventful year, Mary Catherine Gnadinger and William C. Wantland were married. They set up housekeeping at 631 E. Barbee St.

As the year came to an end, Helen found that she was pregnant again. Her wish, this time, was that she would have a little girl. Christmas, this year, was a very pleasant one for us with Nibby joining in. He liked the Christmas Tree lights.(6-12-2001)

In this year of 1940, World War II began when Adolph Hitler turned his Panzer Units loose and invaded Poland. Pretty soon, most of Europe was involved including England. The United States was not immediately involved but very soon began to mobilize against the wishes of the isolationist in Congress(their slogan-Let Europe fight its’ own battles).(Mom’s Uncle George Droppelman died, Nov. 22, 1940)