FINDING TREASURES
I’ve been spending time in the home where we grew up and where my brother, Gale, lived for sixty-five years until his recent illness and move to a nursing home. Opening cupboards and closets covered in cobwebs has rewarded me with treasures—family photo albums, Mom’s tattered and stained cookbooks, and Holly’s Barbie dolls—just to name a few. There were also unpaid bills dropped on the floor, food well past its expiration date shelved in the kitchen, and piles of sweatshirts and underwear strewn across the living room sofas, all a confirmation of the current state of his dementia. Climbing the stairs to the bedrooms, I felt the wide-eyed wonder of a little girl sneaking into Mommy’s room to take a peek at her jewelry, her perfume bottles, and her lipstick cases. The plastic heart-shaped candy box with its big red bow is still in its place holding an assortment of earrings and pendants, but then, for the first time, I reached way back into the far corner of that drawer where I found three folded notes written on graph paper and addressed to “Miss Evelyn Jones.” I had never seen those before. They were dated in early 1942, just as World War II was revving up and American boys were joining the military to fight in Europe and the Pacific. Dad already had one year of college under his belt A LITTLE BACKGROUND OF JOHN CRAWFORD EASTON (1911-1975) Dad was born in Dayton, Ohio and moved to Cleveland with his mother when he was in his teens during the 1930s. His parents had divorced, but remarried in 1941. Mom told me stories of Dad stopping at the Jones’ house early in the morning before he went to work to slip a note in the family mailbox with a request for a date. Their dates usually consisted of a movie or a dinner show with a live band performing at one of the theaters in downtown Cleveland. She was just 20 or so and still living at home with her parents, her Grandma Jennie, and her younger siblings on East 40th Street. The youngest, whom Mom always referred to as DolandDon as though they were one person, were only 3 and 4 years old. My father signed the notes I found in the drawer as Johnny, not a name I ever heard him use. He was always called either by his childhood nickname, Bud, by his family or his middle name, Crawford, for professional purposes. As a young man in the 1930s, Dad was musician and toured with various bands as a guitar player and continued playing throughout his life as a hobby. When he was 25, he married Helene Sennish, 23, the daughter of his parents’ friends, on November 9, 1936, but the marriage was short-lived. Gale, Holly, and I had never heard about that first marriage until Grandpa Easton died in 1967 and a basket of flowers from her was delivered to the funeral home. THE NOTES In the notes, Dad spoke about his work schedule in a factory during the early days of World War II and not being able to get away for a date because of war work there. It must have been a fairly new job since the 1940 census lists him as working as a package inspector at Halle’s Department Store. In one of the letters, he wrote, “We’re simply swamped at the plant and although I’ve been coming in early, they still want me to come in Sunday. The government is rumored to be taking over the plant April 1st to get more production so I guess they really mean business and I’ll have to make an appearance.” Then he adds, “How’ve you been? Did you hear from your brother? I wrote him a letter, but I’m in for a bawling out because I was half asleep when I addressed it and used the wrong title.” He must have been referring to Ed Jones, who had joined the Navy on January 30, 1942, when he was just 19 and served on the USS Cleveland, a vessel that was classified as a light cruiser. Dad finished the note with, “Could you write and let me know how things are coming along? A letter would take away some of the pain of not seeing you.” In another note, he wrote, “I received your marvelous letter and if you can excuse the expedient for writing paper and the shaky streetcar writing, I’ll try to write one back, and slip it in the mailbox without waking you. “The shop has a rush job they want done today (Saturday) and would rather I work today than Sunday. In fact, they told me, ‘Be here,’ so that’s that. “Are you going anywhere on Sunday? If you are, can I go along? Please say yes. Another week without seeing you would be torture beyond endurance. I won’t give you a chance to say no. I’ll be at your house Sunday at 7:30. If you really have objections, please call me at Randolph 1005. “I’m sorry I couldn’t have told you sooner, but they just told me as I was leaving this morning. I hope you can forgive this and not be too mad about it.” How sad that the art of letter writing has gone out of style in our digital age of texting and emails! THE END OF THE STORY They were married on June 19, 1942. Dad joined the Navy on April 4, 1943 and served on the USS Adair, an attack transport ship, as a RADAR operator. He returned home from the war in 1946 as a stranger to their three-year-old son, Gale. Within a few years after the war, Dad graduated from Fenn College with a degree in mechanical engineering and worked at ALCOA designing parts for airplanes during the Viet Nam War and working many hours of overtime once again. I wish I could report a happily-ever-after ending to their thirty-three year marriage, but it disintegrated into a union of infidelity, arguments, and abuse. Still, it is reassuring to know that they felt love and passion in their lives once upon a time.
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Bonnie EastonHi! I am a Jones cousin, daughter of Evelyn Jones Easton. Since retiring as a reference librarian after 20 years, I have become a genealogy addict. Our ancestors want to tell us their stories.
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