Eugene Gutierrez was born September 14, 1921 in Harlingen, Texas. He grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, and remembers well the tough times that the family went through. His parents had a grocery store that went out of business since customers rarely had the money to pay for groceries. Eugene graduated high […]
Frank Riesinger was born August 20, 1926 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He recalls moving around the American Midwest during the Depression years, as the family went where work was available. Still, Frank doesn’t remember being poor; he said everyone was, and that’s what they were all used to. Frank describes his childhood in positive terms, remembering […]
Josef Brody was born April 26, 1936 in Slovakia. During the Second World War, Slovakia came under the rule of the fascist Josef Tiso, and was a part of the Axis powers, alongside Nazi Germany. The country’s Jews suffered tremendous hardship because of this arrangement, becoming victims of the Shoah, first through restrictions imposed by […]
Alex Hacker was born in Budapest, Hungary on May 7, 1926. His father was a successful businessman in the vegetable oil business, and because of that – as well as Hungary’s alliance with Nazi Germany – Alex and his family and the Jews of Hungary in general were shielded from the immediate brutality of the […]
Betty Webb was born May 13, 1923, near the town of Ludlow in Shropshire, England. She grew up in the countryside, where she remembers long walks picking wildflowers, and she was home-schooled – so she also remembers cataloguing those same flowers! Betty’s mother had had German housekeepers in the 1930s, so Betty learned to speak […]
February is Black History Month, and the Crestwood Oral History Project wanted to commemorate the occasion by drawing your attention to the Black Canadian veterans whose contributions we have noted over the years. George Carter was born in Toronto, Canada; he excelled in sports as a cricket player, and he was a strong student as […]
Read More… from CPC Black History Month and Oral History Project
Paul Fairbrook was born into a Jewish family on August 21, 1923 in Berlin, Germany. His first ten years were spent in that country, but his father saw the writing on the wall and made arrangements for his young family to get out in 1932. First they made their way to France, and then to […]
Jack Colhoun was born in Philadelphia on February 9, 1945, but moved to upstate New York when he was quite young, growing up mainly in the small town of Sacket’s Harbor and experiencing 1950s small town America. He saw the beginning of the tumultuous changes of the 60s, events which would challenge America – and […]
Marc Spiridigliozzi was born May 11, 1948 in Altoona, Pennsylvania. He grew up in a large family, in a largely rural area, and he remembers well the idyllic days of his boyhood, which he experienced against the backdrop of the 1950s-60s postwar boom. His father was a member of the WW2 US Army National Guard; […]
Tommy Clack was born March 9, 1947, and was raised in Decatur, Georgia. His parents were members of the “Greatest Generation”, and both served their country in World War Two. Tommy was a 1965 Honor Graduate and Most Outstanding in Track and Field, from Decatur High School. He attended the University of Houston on a […]
Rick Weber was born July 8, 1946, and he grew up in 1950s Pittsburgh, the son of a WW2 veteran. His childhood was typical of the time, enjoying the abundance of the “Fabulous 50s”. He played football in high school, where he injured himself, something he aggravated in university. He consequently failed the army medical […]
Ann Kelsey was born June 20, 1946 in Indiana, though she grew up in southern California. Her father was a World War Two navy veteran, who continued to work with the navy as a civilian contractor in the postwar period. Because of that Ann grew up in Riverside, California, not too far from Branch AFB, […]
“Papa” Jake Larsen was born December 20, 1922 in Hope, Minnesota. He joined the National Guard when he was 15; times were tough, and he needed the money. By the time Jake graduated high school, the war was underway in Europe and Asia, and the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbour brought the United […]
Jim Roberts grew up an air force brat in the 1950s and 60s, when his father was a Master Sergeant in the USAF. The family was always on the move, as Jim’s father served on many bases in the U.S., and was stationed in Panama as well. Jim grew up in the Cold War era, […]
Joseph Peterburs was born November, 25, 1924 in St. Paul, Minnesota, though he grew up mainly in Wisconsin, against the backdrop of the Great Depression. He comes from a family with a military tradition; his father emigrated to the United States from Germany in 1906, and joined the army that same year, completing overseas service […]
Harry Eisenhauer was born on July 9, 1920, at Lower La Have, Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, one of the nine children of John and Lillian Eisenhauer. His family ties to Lunenburg County go back to 1753, when the German immigrants to Halifax in 1751 were moved to the site of Lunenburg to establish a new […]
Leslie Vertes was born February 18, 1924 in the village of Ajak (Hungary). His father was a shoemaker who worked alongside his wife. Leslie was 14 years old when the family moved to Budapest, where he was unable to finish the last year of high school and go to university due to the prevailing anti-Jewish […]
Harry Stewart was born July 4, 1924 in Newport News, Virginia. When he was 2 years old his parents relocated to Queens, N.Y.C., not too far from North Beach airport. Harry grew up in that neighborhood, attending school and having a good time, all against the backdrop of the Great Depression. Harry understood that the […]
Narce Caliva was born on September 7, 1929 in Salinas, California. His father originally came from the Philippines and had emigrated to California via Hawaii. In California he met his soon-to-be wife, daughter in a family who had come to the United States from Yugoslavia. Narce grew up in California against the backdrop of World […]
Allen Morgan was born May 10, 1927, and he grew up on a farm near Hudson, New Hampshire. Allen remembers working hard on that farm, all of it against the backdrop of the Great Depression. He had a good childhood though, attending school and playing baseball and hockey and occasionally catching a movie. The war […]
Andy Negra was born May 28, 1924. He grew up in West Virginia and Pennsylvania, as the family dealt with the realities of the Great Depression. They ended up in Brownsville, Pennsylvania, where Andy’s father was a coal miner. Andy graduated from high school there, the first in his family to do so. As he […]
Ted Bolgar was born September 12, 1924 in Sarospatak, a small town in Hungary. The Germans occupied Hungary in March 1944, and in April, the Jews of Sarospatak were forced into the ghetto of a nearby town. When the ghetto was liquidated in June, all the inhabitants were deported to Auschwitz. Upon arrival, Ted and […]
Elie Dawang was born to Lithuanian-Jewish parents, Faiwish and Shaina, in 1934 in Paris. Elie was six years old when the Germans occupied France in 1940. The Dawangs fled to a small village near the Spanish border but returned to Paris in 1941 to liquidate the family business. The family had false papers but the […]
Hilbert Margol was born February 22, 1924, just ten minutes before his twin brother Howard, in Jacksonville, Florida. Their father had immigrated from Lithuania not too long before, as had their mother. The boys grew up against the backdrop of the Great Depression, learning about the war that seemed to be happening a world away. […]
Nursing Week is the annual celebration of this critical profession. It is held every May to coincide with the birthday of Florence Nightingale, the founder of modern nursing. This year more than ever we have to be aware of the critical role these health care providers play in Canadian society, as has been true through […]
Ryerson Picot was born June 27, 1925 in Terra Cotta, Ontario. He grew up in northern Ontario against the backdrop of the Great Depression, and the family followed the father as he moved from job-to-job on the Canadian National Railroad. Ryerson longed to join the army when the war came along, and he managed to […]
Raymond Goulet was born January 14, 1923 in Lawrence, Massachusetts. His parents were French-Canadian, so Ray and his brothers grew up speaking French and English, and attending Catholic schools, all against the backdrop of the Great Depression. When the war came, Ray chose to volunteer, while his two brothers were drafted. He went through basic […]
Harry Miller was born July 2, 1928 in Columbus, Ohio. He would serve in the American Army in the Second World War, when he was not yet 18 years old. Harry’s mother died when he was only 3, so it would be his father and sister who guided the family through the difficult days of […]
Rod White was born February 16, 1925 in Trenton, Ontario. Rod’s father died when he was only four, and some of his early memories are of his mother struggling to raise her seven children in difficult economic times. Rod left school after Grade 8, going to work and helping to support the family. Work took […]
Gail Halvorsen was born October 10, 1920 in northern Utah, where he grew up on a sugar beet farm, enjoying the great outdoor life the state had to offer. Gail worked hard during those years, and he decided to look into a civilian pilot training program that he had heard about. When the Pearl Harbour […]