17 year old Howard (Howie) Stephenson in 1947
By Donna Sundblad
My father, Howard (Howie) Stephenson idolized his older brother Harry whom everyone called Clark. The nickname stuck as a child while living on Clark Street in Chicago. As adults, the brothers fondly recanted such antics as shooting Christmas ornaments off the tree with new BB guns, while surviving their mothers wrath.
On December 7, 1941, the Stephenson family returned home from church in a festive mood celebrating my fathers confirmation into the Episcopal Church at the age of almost 12. They switched on the radio and the cheerful mood quickly changed. Pearl Harbor had been bombed. The family huddled around the radio and listened as President Franklin D. Roosevelt declared war. Over 4,000 servicemen died in that attack.
Clark enlisted in the army where he fought as a sniper in Germany. The army patched him up more than once but finally sent him home when German sniper bullets peppered his body. Grim predictions regarding the future use of his legs preceded his homecoming. Once stateside, family members converged to visit him in the hospital. Sterile odors filled the hospital corridors while echoes of their footsteps announced their arrival. To their dismay his hospital bed was empty.
He wasn’t here. The nurse changing the bed wore a somber expression. Fear gripped the family. Before they could absorb the unthinkable, Clark limped through the door dragging one leg a bit while drying the last bits of shave cream from his face.
As soon as he was old enough, Dad followed his brother’s example and joined the army. Four days after his 17th birthday in February 1947, he enlisted. Three months later, on June 13, he set sail for Germany where he served for almost two years with the Big Red One. He returned to the states in March of 1949, and was discharged in April.
He returned to Chicago and found a job with Deluxe Check Printers as a printer. In July of that year he met my mother, Grace Smith and fell in love. In June of 1950, they married at St. Vincent DePaul, in Chicago.
In the fall of that year, my parents learned Mom was expecting. They couldn’t wait to let friends and family know that I was on the way. Instead, they arrived home to a different kind of news. Greetings and Salutations, Dad had been recalled by the army.
Dad was not deployed to Korea, but stayed in the states. They said I’d be among the last to go, he assured my mother. The newlyweds missed each other terribly. Dad hitchhiked home most weekends, until he hooked up with a friend named Galen that dropped him at the Choo-Choo restaurant in DesPlaines, Illinois. Mom scraped up money to pick him up and get him dropped off. Once I was born she quit her job and it became difficult to afford.
I entered the world on April 6, 1951, at St. Luke Presbyterian Hospital in Chicago. A year after their wedding Dad made it home on a weekend pass to celebrate their first wedding anniversary. With time together at a premium, they rolled in an early celebration of Father’s Day and planned my Christening for Sunday, June 3, 1951. By the time the army handed Dad his discharge papers I was ten months old.
Dad returned to his a job with Deluxe Check Printers in Chicago where he gradually climbed the ladder with hard work and a desire to improve himself. The company put an emphasis on family and each year held an annual picnic filled with activities like horseshoes, eating, baseball, and planned activities for the children. At five years old, I propelled across the field at the head of the pack in the one-legged race. I stampeded on one foot and came in first place, to find a slew of Little Golden Books scattered across the ground. I hesitated trying to decide which one I wanted. Other children poured across the finish line and I scrambled for my pick, Davy Crockett.
With the aid of a GI loan, Dad realized his dream of living in the country in 1955. For $12,000 we moved into a two bedroom, one-bath house in the village of Lake in the Hills located west of Chicago, between Algonquin and Crystal Lake. Two of Dads sisters, Eleanor (Hall) and Rinnie (Johns), already lived there with their families. Our house at 1520 Monroe Street was one of two homes on the long city-like block. As an almost five-year-old at the time, I wore a path through the empty lot across the street, which spilled into Aunt Eleanor’s back yard.
Dad moved out of the city, but remnants of city-ways clung to him like a fly to glue paper. Instead of walking to his sister Eleanor’s house, he’d hop into his Plymouth, wheel it around the block and pull into her driveway. We joked that it took longer to do that than it did to walk. It turned into a traditional race to see who would get there first.
Aunt Eleanor and dad were close. She’d been like a second mother to him. In fact, she was more like a first mother. Dad’s parents, Harry and Florence (LePlant) Stephenson were older when he was born. In fact, growing up I’d heard him called a change of life baby. Meme`re gave birth to my father at age 49 and didn’t want to give up her career working at the laundry.
After the move, Dad continued to work in Chicago for Deluxe Check Printers. He carpooled with his two brothers-in-law, George Johns and Clifford (Buck) Hall; all three worked at Deluxe. Each took a turn driving for a week while the wives helped one another out if someone needed a ride. Dad’s 1955 Plymouth was a metallic brown and cream two tone, really pretty, but the thing was a lemon. He carried a tool chest like an emergency med-kit. Parts fell off or came loose all the time. Quite the experience for their first new car.
Once we moved to Lake in the Hills, our family grew in leaps and bounds. Dad and mom experienced the loss of their second child, Denise, born with hydrocephalus. Just after her death, my sister Michelle came along when I was five, Gail when I was six. Little did we realize four more kids would gradually join the clan.
I hung out with dad like the son he didn’t have (until 1959 when my brother Mark was born). I loved to fish and hand him tools while he tinkered on the car or puttered around in the garage. Many times he didn’t really know what he was doing, but I didn’t know that. Ill never forget the time he caught a Northern Pike and tried to mount its head, jaws wide open to show the razor-like teeth. The disgusting stench landed the mounted memento in the trash within days.
I’ll never forget that patch of unmowed grass in the back yard. Dad worked second-shift and travel time made cutting the grass a real chore. The septic system in the back yard fed the lawn and caused it to grow at record speed. One year Dad kept up with the front yard, but had to wait for the back yard to dry up a bit. By the time he cut it, the grass reached my waist. I’d found a Meadowlarks nest in the tall grass and helped the mother feed her babies. When Dad finally cut the lawn, I pleaded for the safety of the birds. He mowed around the feathered family until the fledglings grew and flew off.
Another quirky thing about our back yard is that we had a sidewalk. Surrounded by empty lots and farmers fields it was an oddity. The concrete went from the side door of our house, made a sharp left behind the garage and shot out toward the back of the lot line. The edge of the sidewalk ended with a three-inch drop-off abutting our neighbors back yard. Dad used this sidewalk to teach me to ride a bike.
He had picked up a used two-wheeler, a boy’s bike, but I didn’t care. He tried to teach me on the driveway in front of the house, but the concrete area was too short. Streets in Lake in the Hills were (you guessed it) hilly, so he resorted to the sidewalk out back.I’ll never forget the day I coasted along that walkway and realized that dad was still standing back at the garage. That memorable journey taught me the importance of thinking ahead the hard way. I panicked and forgot to use the breaks. My tire hit the lip at the end of the sidewalk and the bike flipped, tossing me into the grass.
Country life took some getting use to for my mom too. She hated snakes. When I was about six, Dad found a garden snake while cutting the grass. He stopped the lawnmower, called me to him and draped the snake around my neck. Go show Mom your pretty necklace, he said. I proudly pranced through the door. Dad’s practical jokes were not funny to everyone, but as I walked in the back door my mother shot out the front door screaming. Dad caught it on film with his new 8mm movie camera. He thought it was funny until the day he died. I still wonder where he had the camera stashed.
Dad continued to work the night shift to bring in more money for his growing family. When I started school, I began leaving notes on Dad’s pillow. Before I left the house I’d stop by my parents room to see his face even though he was sleeping. My attention drifted to the dresser and the folded piece of paper waiting for me; Dads note. After school I’d walk into the house, put my lunchbox away and write my reply. I folded it carefully and placed it on dads pillow to the left of Mom’s Shirley Temple bride doll propped against the rolled pillows, her lacy white dress meticulously positioned around her.
I cherished his responses, and wish today that I had kept our slice-of-life correspondence. From the first Father’s Day when he hitchhiked home to the last when we were separated by thousands of miles, family was important to my Dad. I thank him for the legacy he left behind.
Published U.S. Legacies June 2005
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