After the War

I had a severance pay from the Air Force for about a month. Helen, Jo, Sue and I would drive out to my parents’ home and I built them a new kitchen.

I wanted to start an electrical contracting business, but I could not get materials due to the shortages from World War II. J. P. Cullen had an ad in the Janesville Gazette, so I went down to their office and talked to Mark Cullen. He gave me a job in spite of my not having much experience.

I worked hard for them doing cabinet work in the shop. There were about 25 men working in the shop at that time. We were building cabinets, windows, doors, etc. for student housing that was being built on college and university campuses. As the project drew to an end, the crew in the shop was laid off until there were only 3 men left on a Friday afternoon. That morning at breakfast, I told Helen that today was it, I would be laid off, as there was no more work to do. Late in the afternoon, someone came over to the shop with only two checks. There wasn’t one for me. They told me to report to the office Monday morning. This I did, and I was assigned to repair all the buildings at the Cullen yard. I also did repair work on the many apartments that Mr. Cullen owned and also his home. The story behind this is; I always worked hard and gave my employer a good days work for my pay. I continued working for them until I retired.

On August 27, 1947, we had another beautiful baby girl born to us. We named her Georgia Kay after her two grandpas; George Jennings and George Porter.

The two bedroom house on Ringold Street was too small for our growing family. We went looking at new houses. We found a new, three bedroom house at 1511 Blaine Avenue in Janesville for $11,000. We sold our other house for $10,000 and moved. I had to build an attached garage on it. It was a good house for our family. It was at the edge of the city. Cows were in a pasture only 3 or 4 houses away. Now the city has grown miles from there.

We were located close to Adams Elementary School, which the kids attended. It was not on a real busy street, either.

On November 14, 1950, our son, Hal William, was born. This completed our lovely family. Hal was always the inquisitive one. The toys that had gone through 3 girls, were torn apart by Hal. He had more fun with the pieces than the toy.

Helen worked hard at making a nice home for all of us to grow and mature in. We had a lot of fun times together; going to the park for picnics and to the beach for swimming. We were invited to both Grandpa and Grandmas’ places for Sunday dinner many times. We would slide down hill and make snowmen in the wintertime. We did many fun things together with John, Laurel, Jack and Judy VanHise, also.

In 1950, we bought our first new car. It was a 1950, six-cylinder, gray, 4-door, Ford sedan. It cost about $1,000. The kids were always fighting to see who sat next to the window.

In 1953, my brother, Paul, and I bought an Allis Chalmers dealership in Milton Junction. We named it Jennings Brothers. I did not leave my job with J. P. Cullen. Paul and Helen did most of the work to try and make it go. Hal was only three years old and he would go to work with Helen. Hal thought that he was really big when he walked down Main Street of Milton Junction and got a haircut from the barber all by himself. The AC dealership did not make any money, so we had an auction and sold everything.

In the summer of 1954, I took the first vacation since I had started to work for J. P. Cullen. We packed all our clothes in the trunk of the 1950 Ford and headed to Montana to visit Helen’s sister, Kay and her husband, Harold Brown.

While at Kay’s, she insisted that we take their tent and go to Yellowstone National Park to camp in a certain area. She had to borrow sleeping bags from her friends. She and Harold promised to come down to the park on the following weekend to pick up all the gear.

When we got to the campsite where we were supposed to meet Kay and Harold, we had a hard time finding an area to set up the tent; there was bear manure all over the place. We did set up and traveled all over the park. There were lots of bears and other wild animals that were fun to see. Georgia and Hal made several camp fires. We roasted wieners and cooked most of our meals over and around their camp fires. For desert, we roasted marshmallows over the coals and ate s’mores. They were so good! We all had a really nice time.

We went on from Yellowstone and drove the car up to the top of Pikes Peak in Colorado. We visited Helen’s friends, Art and Katie Christopher, who lived on a ranch in Colorado. The kids all rode Huckle Bill, a horse that was at the ranch. They saw the cowboys working, rounding up cattle.

For Christmas, all the kids wanted was sleeping bags, a tent, and camping supplies. We bought six sleeping bags and a 9 x 12 tent from the Montgomery Ward Catalog. We became a camping family. I treasure the good times we had going to state parks on weekends. One of our kids’ favorite places was Devils Lake State Park. They could swim and hike up the bluff trails. We cooked out and made s’mores over a campfire at night.

In the summer of 1956, we all packed into a new, 1956, green, 9-passenger, Ford Country Squire station wagon and headed west again; to the Black Hills and Yellowstone Park. We were a really good camping family. I will never forget the good times we had. I hope all of my children treasured those times as much as Helen and I did.

In the summer of 1958, we moved to 426 Presidential Lane in Madison. I had started a building project on the University of Wisconsin campus and we thought Madison offered more educational opportunities for our children. $17,000 bought a simple, three bedroom house on the edge of town. We remodeled the basement to include two bedrooms and a bathroom for the girls. We poured concrete for the sidewalks and driveway and built a two-car garage. This proved to be a very good move, because the schools were excellent and two of the kids eventually graduated from the U.W.

In addition to the wonderful times I had with all of my family, I will never forget the special times that I had with my son, Hal. I was always so proud to see him play Little League baseball. I enjoyed going camping with Hal and his Boy Scout troop at Hottmann’s Acres near Mazomanie, Wisconsin.

Hal and I went fishing together many times. I remember one year on April 11, which is my birthday, I took Hal and my father to fish for rainbow trout at a gravel pit in Verona, Wisconsin. Hal caught two beautiful trout and Dad caught one. I did not get any, but I was so proud of Hal.

Hal and I had some real good hunting trips. Twice we went to Montana hunting elk. Hal was too young to carry a rifle the first time, but he was with me when I shot an elk. I’m sure that he will never forget how we dragged that elk down the mountain several hundred yards to where it could be loaded in the 4x4 vehicle. What a hard job that was!

I will always remember Hal’s first deer that he shot in Wisconsin. It was the first year he was old enough to hunt. We had taken our travel-trailer to Hottmann’s Acres. We had been hunting since early morning, so I was tired. I laid down for a little afternoon nap.

Soon, Hal came back to the trailer all excited and said, “Dad, come and help me. I shot a deer.”

We went over to where Hal had been sitting when he shot the deer. He said, “The deer is over there.” It was way across a valley and up another hill. It was a long shot for anyone to make. Sure enough, Hal had a real nice buck deer that we dressed out and dragged back to camp.

About 1966, we bought a small, yellow cottage on Lake Waubesa at 6016 Lake Edge Road in McFarland for $10,000. I had always dreamed of owning a house with a view of the Wisconsin State Capitol. And we were always active with boating, water-skiing and fishing, so this gave us a convenient base to do these things.

After living on the lake for two summers, we tore down the old cottage and built a two-story, year-around house that Helen and I designed. It was almost like a duplex, with two bedrooms, kitchen and living-room upstairs and two bedrooms and a combined kitchen and family room downstairs. We moved there in early 1969.

As I got older, and putting the pier and boatlift in the water in the spring and taking it out in the fall got to be a burden, we decided to move to a house that was easier to maintain. In 1986 we moved into a duplex at 5412 North Cook Street in McFarland. We made a nice profit on our lake house.

I have told you a few stories about my children’s early days, but they were such a good part of my lifetime that I wanted my children, and also my grandchildren, to know how much I enjoyed raising my family to adulthood. It has been a pleasure to see all four of our kids grow to be such fine people. They all have become successful in their fields. They all have married and have nice families of their own, now. I hope they will remember the good times they have with their own children as they mature.

I thought that it might be nice to add a list of some of the buildings and projects that I supervised for J. P. Cullen. I did a supermarket in Lake Geneva--Remodeled dorms at School for the Deaf in Delavan--The first supermarket for Woodman’s Grocery in Janesville--Jones Dairy Farm offices and Smoke House at Ft. Atkinson--Mark Cullen’s new home on Jefferson Ave. in Janesville--I did all of the major additions to the Chevrolet Plant in Janesville from 1957 until I retired--Wisconsin Telephone building on Washington Ave. in Madison--U. W. Witte Hall Dorm and Gordon Commons Cafeteria in Madison and dorms just like Witte Hall in Oshkosh and Whitewater--Cancer Research in Madison--A completely new medium security prison at Fox Lake, Wis.--Wisconsin Power and Light Generating Plants near Portage, Wis.--Hormel Plants at Beloit, Wis. and Davenport, Iowa--Parker High School in Janesville--Parker Pen Corporate Office Building in Janesville--Mercy Hospital in Cedar Rapids, Iowa--A Catholic Seminary at Epworth, Iowa--Chrysler Plant at Belvidere, Illinois--There were several other building projects that I played a part in their completion.

My last project was after I retired. I served on the building committee at our church in McFarland; the U.C.C. Church. I donated all my time and got the bids from the contractors and purchased all the materials for the new church. I supervised all of the construction of the church.

I added this list because, maybe in future years, my grandchildren would like to see what I created during my life.

Now that I’m retired, I have more time to do some of the things I enjoy. I have always liked to play cards; hot-hand-hearts when I was young, euchre, pinochle, poker, bridge, etc. Helen and I play cards with friends and neighbors several nights a week. At our winter home in a retirement community in Florida, I play poker with “the boys” one night a week.

After retirement, I took up bird carving. I attended a class at Madison Area Technical College and now I’m teaching others how to carve. I’ve made lots of different birds in my shop in the basement. The challenge is to make them look as realistic as possible. Mostly, I give them as gifts to friends and relatives.

Other than having polio as a child, I’ve been pretty healthy until I was diagnosed with esophageal cancer a few years ago. The tumor was removed using a new surgery technique and I healed quickly. My doctors were wonderful and they tell me that I have a clean bill of health. However, I do have some skin cancers that need to be removed periodically. All those years in the burning sun working on the farm and construction took their toll on my skin.