Abundant Life 1927-2013

Abundant Life

1927-2013

Carvel Wolfe

With parenthetical insertions by Margaret Wolfe

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© 2013 Carvel Wolfe. All rights reserved.

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Published by AuthorHouse    12/17/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4918-4028-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4918-4029-0 (e)

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Contents

Chapter 1    The Early Years

Chapter 2    The Sunday Visit to Grandpa Stewart and Uncle Edgar

Chapter 3    Army Life

Chapter 4    Beginning of Civilian Life

Chapter 5    Finishing Education

Chapter 6    Continuing to Teach

Chapter 7    Beginning Professional Life and European Trip

Chapter 8    First Years with the Navy

Chapter 9    Raising Children

Chapter 10  Continuing at the Naval Academy

Chapter 11  Children and Grandchildren

Chapter 12  Early Retirement

Chapter 13  Major Overseas Trips

Chapter 14  Years 2000 to 2004 Never a Dull Moment

Chapter 15  Keeping on Keeping On

Chapter 16  A New Beginning

Chapter 17  History Relived

Chapter 18  NOW

Chapter 1

The Early Years

I, Carvel Stewart Wolfe, was born to Pearl Esther Stewart Wolfe and John Calvin Wolfe on 11 June 1927 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Pearl was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, while Calvin was born and grew up in Groten, South Dakota. They met while both attended the University of Wisconsin. My dad, called Calvin, was the Colonel of the Cadet Corps at Wisconsin, and the leader of their annual military ball dance. Pearl had a major in physical education and danced in the University productions, mostly ballet.

Calvin took Pearl as a date to the military ball. While at Wisconsin, Calvin was offered an appointment to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. However, he turned down the appointment as World War I was ending and he wished to pursue a civilian career. Also Pearl, to whom he was engaged, didn’t want a military life.

Several years after graduation, they were married in 1924 in Minneapolis where Mom taught in high school, and Dad worked as a salesman for Union Carbide. In 1930, our family of three moved to Baltimore to be with Pearl’s parents, the Stewarts.

My memories of Minneapolis are few but vivid. In particular, I remember the heavy winter snow when I was about 2 1/2. Mom bundled me up in all the heavy winter paraphernalia, of course taking considerable time, and sent me out the front door. I trudged through the deep (to me) snow, directly to the back door and banged. The few minutes break for Mom were obviously too few and not appreciated.

Another clear remembrance occurred in the summer. While playing with several neighbor children, one of them picked up a grasshopper. He showed it to me and squeezed. Out came a brown goo. He promptly proclaimed, That’s tobacco juice. Well, that was the extent of my biology education for a number of years.

Our first year in Baltimore I remember the long, partly circular, staircase that led up to my third floor bedroom in grandpa Stewart’s house on Beaumont Ave. It was a big change when we moved to a small bungalow that my parents rented on the outskirts of town. It was there, on Melrose Ave. in July 1930 that my sister, Laurabelle, was born.

We had a happy family there in the small bungalow, even though the time was the very depth of the Great Depression. The times were not easy on Dad. He started a small business of selling large automatic coffee urns to restaurants, hotels, and such that needed many cups of coffee. The problem was that nobody was buying anything in the early 30’s. He went bankrupt and was left with many urns in the basement that collected dust for years. I didn’t know until I was an adult that we lived for several years on loans from Dad’s older brother, Seth. Seth was an actuary in Baltimore at an insurance company and had a nice salary through the depression.

I was carefree and very active during those depression years. Several experiences stand out. I started mowing our corner lot of grass when only 6 or 7 years old. We had a push reel mower. Mowing proved to be my money maker all the way from elementary through high school.

Roller skating came easy with skates that buckled right onto your regular shoes. My favorite activity was riding the bike that I bought used for $7 when I was 7 years old. It was a full size two-wheel bike that, with my extra long legs, I could manage to just reach the pedals, not the ground. I had to make a running start to hop on the bike. That bike took me all over town, even downtown, as car traffic was very light. One negative: another kid was trying to hit me with a rope from the curb as I rode by in the street. I swerved out into the other lane, and was hit by a car. Landing on my face, I broke off a front lower tooth that is still jagged to this day. Otherwise, I got up and was fine.

Every Sunday, after Sunday School, I took the street car (electric) over to Grandpa’s house for dinner with him and my Uncle Edgar and Aunt Della, both unmarried. Edgar was a brother of Grandpa Stewart, and Della was a sister who was widowed. Her son, Leroy Armstrong and his wife lived in Laurel MD where my family frequently visited. For doing some chores, like cleaning the bird baths and squirrel bowls in the yard, Grandpa gave me silver change that I collected in a gallon can. This money later bought my bike and accumulated over the years.

One winter I rode my bike to a local pond that was frozen. The activity was to run and slide on the ice on my shoes—no ice skates. There was this weak spot in the ice where I stepped through, and fell in, grabbing the edge of the ice with my hands. Wet I was, up to the neck; water depth was over my head. But I pulled out with my hands onto the ice. Since I was wet, I didn’t want to rust my bike, so instead of riding it, I pushed the bike home, a mile or so away. Mom was furious that I walked!

The major family tragedy in those years was the death of my sister in January of 1936. She died of osteomylitis, a bone infection. The day of her funeral it was minus 7 degrees Fahrenheit outside. My memory is of our living room full of flowers, and Mom taking me by the hand over to the casket. Crying, she said, Carvel, this is the last time you will see your sister. Laurabelle looked to me so calm and pretty, as ever. The loss didn’t hit me until years later. Grandpa was particularly upset. He used to show off Laurabelle at his fish market by feeding her raw oysters on the half shell. I wouldn’t eat them raw, then or now.

One of the ways we got though those depression years was by eating fish. Dad went to the fish market several times each week, where Grandpa handed him a package of fish. That gift of fish was our food for most of the week. Today, I still claim my good health and longevity are due to a diet of fish.

Our children games were simple in those days. A favorite was Kick the Can, using an empty can from the kitchen. It was similar to hide and seek. The rules of kick the Can were rather simple. For equipment, you needed only an empty tin can, which you could grab from your mother’s garbage can. Someone is picked by the group to be It. The empty can was placed at home base, usually a rock or pebble. Someone ran up and kicked the can as far as he could. The It person had to retrieve the can and bring it back to home base. This time gave everybody else in the game time to hide. It then had to find the others and tag them with a touch of the hand, bringing them back to home base. However, if someone snuck through, like me, and got back to the can, he kicked it hard and the poor It had to start all over again, as everybody else was free to hide another time. Clearly it was hard to find an It. I think we had some devious way to choose It. This game goes on until the participants individually tire and leave, or it gets dark, or mothers are calling the children home.

We also played a lot of soft ball right in the street, no playgrounds, or organized teams. The only equipment needed was a bat and a ball, no gloves. If an occasional car came by, we just walked over to the curb. On the 4th of July, we had real fire crackers and either threw them in the air, or lighted them under a tin can to see how high the can would blow. On Halloween, we were good at moving porch furniture from house to house. I had fun with a pea shooter that blew peas quite a distance. The trick was to ping someone’s window until they came out to chase away the shooter. Everything we did was fun, but nothing was harmful. My father told me of a prank he played as a kid on Halloween. Several of the boys would completely disassemble a horse carriage, and then they would reassemble the carriage on the roof of a barn. Imagine the owner’s surprise!

There were no drugs available in my environment. The only thing I saw was tobacco, and that I turned down because of the smell and cigarette smoke. Even as a small boy, I valued my lungs and running ability. The bullies in elementary school were a threat and often chased me after school. I could outrun everyone in school, and I got into the habit of running all the way home from school each day—over a mile.

Education was taken for granted. I just did whatever I was told. At age 3, in 1930, I was sent to a private kindergarten held at the near by Presbyterian church. My grandfather paid the tuition for my parents. The next year, at age 4, I went back to kindergarten again—the only grade I ever repeated! By that time I was reading all the kindergarten books, so they moved me up to first grade the next year at age 5. Apparently I pleased the first grade teacher, a Mrs. Lee, because she chose a best student to receive a free one year scholarship at the end of each year. I received the scholarship for my 2nd grade at the Presbyterian school. Grandpa must have ended school support, because at grade 3, I started public school for the first time, having just turned 7 in 1934.

My recollection of grandma Laura Stewart, is that she was hard of hearing and used an ear trumpet. The mechanism was a long tube, one end of which fit into her ear and the other end culminated in a large bell like the front of a trumpet. She held the bell end up in front of her whenever someone spoke to her. Apparently it worked. Grandpa whose full name was Ulysses Schuyler Stewart, had an older brother, Edgar, who always lived with him. Edgar never married and was a partner in the wholesale fish business. It was Edgar’s job to do all the bookkeeping and handle financial records. Grandpa, Schuyler [Skyler] was the boss, supervising the workers in the fish stall. Schuyler also bought all the fish and seafood right from the boats at the dock, just a short distance away from his stall. He had a huge walk-in refrigerator, actually a whole room, where the seafood was kept fresh. I loved to walk into that room, look around and feel the cold on a hot day. They sometimes had terrapin turtles along with barrels of shellfish. Grandpa also had his personal chauffeur, who drove them to the market and worked in the fish stall. The chauffeur lived at the two brothers’ home, so he was always available.

Unfortunately, Grandma, Laura Stewart, fell down the stairs at home in 1932 and never recovered. She died in a day or so at home. I was only 5, so I don’t remember her very well. After her death, a sister of the two brothers, Della, came to live with them to keep house. Della was a widow at the time, who had been living with her son, Leroy Armstrong, in Laurel, MD.

One of my favorite summer activities was swimming. While at the Presbyterian school, I went to summer camp each year on the Bush River outside of Baltimore. The school teachers owned a cabin on the river and conducted the camp. I specifically recall the summer that a distance swim was held on the river from camp to the railroad bridge, a mile down river. After swimming, using side stroke, to the bridge with many others, I alone swam back to the camp. The instructor rode beside us in a row boat. I didn’t want to quit swimming!

In the summer of 1937, my age ten, we moved to a new row house in Pimlico (an area of Baltimore) to Chalgrove Ave. just two blocks from the Pimlico race track. This was my parents’ first owned home, and cost about $2900. We lived there until my high school graduation. The first year, I was in 6th grade at an elementary school several blocks away. The school athletics event that spring had a softball throw that I entered. Even though I threw the softball all the way across the school field, I didn’t win that event.

Summer camps after Bush River were on the Chesapeake Bay at the YMCA camp, Camp Canoy. The location of Camp Canoy was at Calvert Cliffs, where today the Baltimore nuclear electric generating plant is in operation. My collecting instinct inspired a large collection of shark teeth that had washed out of the cliffs onto the beach. They were fossilized and were millions of years old. I had teeth from tiny specks to four inches long, carefully named, labeled, and displayed in a large box. That box was saved until I arrived as a student at the University of Arizona, where I gave the collection to the school anthropology department. It is probably still there.

In July of 1938, while I was happily at Camp Canoy, the message came that grandpa Stewart had died. Someone picked me up that day and brought me back to Baltimore for the funeral. I was crushed that he had died and cried a lot, as Grandpa was so good to me. Oddly, he was rather cruel to his daughter, my mother, Pearl, as she was never included in the weekly visits, and she was disinherited. She inherited nothing but some furniture. I didn’t know about all that. His business workers considered him a tyrant, also a side that I was not aware of. Every Sunday, after Grandpa’s death I continued to visit the homestead on Beaumont Ave. to see Uncle Edgar and Aunt Della.

My own private business on Chalgrove Ave. was lawn cutting with a hand pushed reel mower, no power, and a hand rake to gather up the clippings. There were some dozen customers of mine who had their lawns cut, generally once a week, at a cost of 25 cents per cut. The front lawns were quite small, but steep. There were two slopes of about four feet high each, that ran down to the sidewalk. I mowed from the top of each slope, bending over to reach the mower down to the bottom of the slope. Today, I realize that the stoop from hands to feet performed wonders for my back and arms. That exercise served me well in later years when I took up skiing.

Over many years, my bucket of change built up. One thing I bought when I started junior high at Garrison Junior High School was a new balloon tired bike for $25. It had fat tires about 3 or 4 inches in diameter, with an extremely good balance for the bike. I generally rode no handed, which meant my hands were down at my sides, not touching the handlebars. The bike was guided around turns simply by shifting weight from side to side. I prided myself on reaching the school, several miles away, without touching the handle bar all the way. Of course, there were numerous cross streets, some with red lights. If I was caught by the light, I had to stop and grab the handlebar to start up. My trick was anticipation. A block away, if the light was red, I slowed down until the light changed, and then sped up on green to get through.

Another trick I learned was how to compensate for the winter snows. To my memory, we had heavier snows, more frequently, back in the 30’s and 40’s than today. Global warming hadn’t happened then. Anyway, the trick was to tie loops of rope around the rear tire, maybe a foot apart, all the way around the rear wheel. That way, I got enough pull in the snow and of course rode in the car tire tracks. That bike got me to both junior and senior high school all year long except for very heavy rains, when I took the trolley. School buses were unheard of.

One thing on my mind during the lawn cutting years was to do something for the memory of my sister. I remembered dearly what she said in the hospital while dying. Dr. Wilbur Stewart, a cousin of my mother, attended Laurabelle, and one day offered her a silver dime to cheer her up. She responded, Where is one for Carvel? At that time, I wasn’t allowed in the hospital, but I’ll never forget what that sweet angel said the day before she died!

Looking around, I saw a darling little angel carved out of pure white marble in the window of a monument shop on Park Heights Avenue. It was $75, and my bucket had that much change. I went to my parents with the money and asked for the angel to put on Laurabelle’s grave. They looked and agreed, also buying a marble block for a base.

On the base stone they had carved,

Our Darling

Laurabelle Wolfe

1930-1936

The angel and base were placed on her grave in Loudon Park Cemetery one of those years while I was in Garrison Junior High. There is a very sad note to the story. Some years later, before I graduated from high school, the angel was found knocked off its base and smashed. I learned how low life can be lived by the vandals of our sick society. The cemetery management removed the pieces so that we would not view the tragedy. At the present time, the base with its lettering is still on the grave, but the angel has never been replaced. What should be done?

One of the groups which caught my interest as a youth was the Boy Scouts of America. I joined at the required age of 12 and passed through the ranks of tenderfoot, 2nd class, 1st class, Star and Life. By the time I got near the top rank of Eagle Scout, I was busy with high school activities and never quite finished. Age 12, in 1939, was an important year. Not only did I join the Scouts, but also that year I joined the Methodist church as a full member. Age 12 was required for adult membership.

Another big happening around that time, November 1, 1938, was the renown match between horses Seabiscuit and War Admiral. It was most unusual to have a race between only two horses instead of the normal dozen or so. It was the event of the year at Pimlico race track. Well, I didn’t miss, but of course I didn’t spend a quarter to get in. Only two blocks away from home, I climbed a telephone pole across the street from the track, high enough to see over the fence. I watched those 2 horses streak by in front of me, and then disappear around the turn. The finish was out of sight, so I went home to hear on the radio who had won. Seabiscuit, the underdog won in a big upset. I, along with everyone else had expected War Admiral to win. There’s a whole book out on the fabled career of Seabiscuit. At the time, I didn’t imagine that the race was that significant.

Another memorable event of the 30’s was the New York World’s Fair in 1939. It was held in Flushing, New York, just outside of New York City and lasted for two summers, ’39 and ’40. The Fair showed off innumerable modern or futuristic exhibits and many entertainment shows.

The ones that impressed me enough to still remember them today were the water show and the exhibits of the very latest technology. Dad drove Mom and me up to New York in mid summer. It was only a day’s drive from Baltimore and we spent a long, hot day at the fair from early till late. My feet hurt till I could barely walk because I was wearing flat shoes or moccasins. What a mistake! Ever since I’ve worn shoes with arch support.

Well, the best show was in the pool of a huge amphitheater of some 10,000 seats—the Aquacade. I was thrilled to see Johnny Weismuller, the olympic swimming champion, and the portrayer of Tarzan in the movies. He dove off the high dive at one end of the pool and swam to the other