Buffalo Free School

It's 1971. We moved to Buffalo from Washington D.C. Joan is not old enough to go to regular school so we enrolled her in a free school (Buffalo Cause School). Don't ask who organized it but it was some church group probably connected with the united church. It was located on Deleware avenue in the upstairs of a parish hall. Deal was that the parents had to spend a certain amount of time as aides in the school in exchange for having their child there. I don't recall going very often and I have no idea who took the picture. I have the feeling that it may have been part of the backgrounding for the FBI movie. I remember being followed around by the crew to a number of places but since this is a still, I'm not sure who took it.

Joan is doing math and working on the abacus. She was also doing some art work on the opposite page. This was around the time when we had many people in the house and I was still going to law school. Notice the pants Joan is wearing. They were made by her mother. Much of Joan's clothes were hand made at that time.

So much of that period I have lost in my memory. It was very hectic: going to law school, having three small children, trying to work here and there to support them. The GI bill education benefits only paid about $350.00 a month. We applied for food stamps - a plan for low income people to get coupons that could be exchanged for food at the supermarket. It was a form of federal welfare but the trick was that the food stamps could not be used for liquor or cigarettes as would hve been possible with a straight cash payment. It was embarassing for my father because he had to certify that he was no longer supporting me in order for me to qualify for the stamps. My father and I went to a bank where he had trained the manager. The manager had to sign the application along with us. I was not embarrased because I figured that I earned it and after law school they would get it back in spades...didn't happen but that's life.

I don't remember anything else about the free school, except what I have said above.
Oh yes, around this time Cammie was having other kids from the neighborhood in for a play school in the mornings. That way Joe could also be involved while Kate was napping.

cousins 1984

It's 1984. We are on a trip to the states. The picture is taken in the basement of the house where Grandma Wall lived in Hamburg. Uncle Jim bought the house I think. He kept a place in the basement that he used for an office and also had a bedroom. The rest was open space and that is where we got together for the photo. This was the trip in the same year as the Tall Ships in sydney.

Back Row: Joan, Joe, Jack & Ann's daughter Nancy (I believe), Betty and Joe's daughter Carolyn, and Katie Ann.

Front row: I think all three are Brother Tom & Karen's but I don't recognize the little boy on the left at all - most likely it's Tommy Jr.??? On the other side of Grandma Wall are Lisa, Kaitlyn & Kristin. But I'm not sure which K is which.

Brother Jim was stationed out in Fredonia on the lake at this time and we stayed with him in his rectory. We also have some pictures taken in a photo booth in the town of Jamestown where we took a day trip. It was not far from Jim's rectory. I believe that this was the trip where both Joan and Joe got to drive a bit on the way down. I think I pretended to sleep in the back between gasps. It was not a long trip as I recall because we were hurrying back for the tall ships and also because Joan did not want to be there because it was interfering with her love life. I recall daily letters being written. I also remember that we only stopped once on the way back and that was somewhere in New Brunswick...most likely near St. John.

This is one of the blank spots in my memory and I can't say why. Maybe I need to mull on it more.

Once again, I get a message after a considerable perion that there were errors during the upload and a button to return to post. I shortened the title to cousins and the title on the upload page was cousins.bmp, but it didn't come through...

Joan, can you do your magic???

Joe Bob Joan DC 1969

Holding Joe and Joan on the front steps of the house in Cheverly, Maryland. It says 1969 but Joe looks more than 2 years old so it may be spring of 1970????

We bought the house in Cheverly, Maryland when it looked like I would be staying in the Washington Field Office. Joan, look at how long your hair is. See it sticking out the back? Joe has no glasses but I also don't see any bruises either.

I see that both of you are wearing mittens so it must have been spring or fall. I remember Joan and that coat and hat in the picture with the plastic Easter Eggs. I don't see the cut on Joan's forehead so it was not later than May 1970.

I tried twice to upload this image, I changed the title to jdbDC69 and it still didn't take. So I give up for now and will try again tomorrow

Joan & Dad - '67

The picture which I am now trying to load is J and Dad 1967. This is again in Oxon Hill Maryland, in the 2 br apartment with a patio outside, set in the woods south of the beltway near Washington D.C. I chose to talk about this picture because as you will notice, I am wearing a red baseball cap and shirt. Now, this is the same shirt that I am wearing in the picture where I was building the log house. I may go back and try to see what it says on the front of the shirt but for now I note that at the time I was playing slow pitch softball for a team in a league in Greenbelt Maryland.

Greenbelt is (was?) a designed community about fifteen minutes from the edge of Washington D.C. The town centered on the center which, as the name implies, was a green area. There was a large park like area which included baseball fields with industry and business surrounding the center homes and park area.

I can't remember how I ended up playing on a team in the league in greenbelt, only that I did. It was once a week and your mother used to bring you to the field and watch the game while chatting with other wives/mothers. Because I was at the language school in Fort Meade Maryland at the time, I may have met someone there who also played and got invited. I'm not sure.

Joan was not very old in this picture, less than one year or perhaps just past one. Seems there is another picture about with Joan on my lap with a birthday cake with one candle in it but I'm not sure.

We were living in the apartment in Oxon Hill because I was told that I was to be assigned to language school at the Annacostia Naval Base which would have been just across the beltway toward the city. It would have been a five - ten minute drive for me to get to work. Alas, after I arrived in D.C. and found the place in Oxon Hill, they changed my language school to Fort Meade, MD., which is just outside of Baltimore. It was a 45 minute drive at 70 MPH - not kilometers, miles per hour. It was harrowing every morning and evening. The traffic was abominable on the Baltimore Washington Turnpike. One day a plane from Andrews air force base (which is along side the turnpike) crashed on takeoff. Andrews is where the president's plane usually comes and goes from. Anyway, I was lucky to be along about ten minutes after the crash and able to get off the exit before and make my way home without the long delay that tied up traffic almost six hours.

Fort Meade, Maryland is where the National Security Agency (NSA) was located at the time. They did most of the satellite monitoring and international phone tapping etc. They were mainly electronic surveillance. They also had a language school and at the time the Middle East was in turmoil because of Suez Canal problem, Israel and the Arab nations and all the things that still are problems there today except that there was no significant Palestinian force as yet. I was assigned to study Hebrew (Modern Israeli Hebrew) because that was the diplomatic language of the state of Israel. Israel did not keep the US informed of its plans with regard to the unrest in the area and so the FBI agents were directed to listen to the diplomatic traffic from the embassy and UN consulate of the Israelis. Interestingly, because Israel was technically a "friendly" nation, the fact that the FBI had people studying their language in order to eavesdrop was considered "Top Secret". I was not allowed to tell anyone where I was going to work every day or what I was doing. Nor could I name the course of study in any communication. It was foreign language studies....

All this from a baseball shirt and hat. That was, despite the secrecy, a happy time. I was doing what I thought was important. We had a comfortable place to live and a sporty red MGB parked out front of the apartment. The McLeans upstairs became friends and we shared our baby with them, especially Clara, the mother because she had only the one child, Harry, and couldn't have any more and loved playing grandma for Joan. I looked forward to coming home and playing with Joan who enjoyed nothing more than pulling all the books out of the bookcase and crawling around in them. Finally we moved all our books up and put Joan's books in the bottom shelf so she could choose which ever she wished for me to read when I got home from work.

My Mother and her siblings

The date that I have on this picture is an estimate. I know that my mother was born in 1913 and I guessed that she is about 10 in the picture. Perhaps she is as old as 13 or 14...I really don't know. At any rate if my guess is correct it would be the reason why Lucille and Milly are not there. Milly was the youngest and Lucille was a bit younger than Ruth.

So assuming the date is somewhere near correct...Then what can I tell you about the people.

I just went back an again got a message that there were errors in the uploading so the picture is not there. I am going to try again.

John is on the left. Of Ma's brother's I knew John least. He was in the U.S. Navy during the Second World War (WWII). He was enlisted. He worked for a while doing something in an engineering capacity for Spencer Lens corporation in Buffalo after he got out of the navy. Then he moved to Rochester. We visited there a few times but I don't remember much about it. He was married and had two daughters, but sometime later moved to North or South Carolina. Seems that he ran his own company of some sort in Rochester but again I can't say for sure. Dick's Schoedel backgrounder may have more. I think I gave you a copy.

Carl is next on the list. I knew him a bit better because he came home to live with Grandma Schoedel after the war. He bought the big (5 in. with a magnifying glass) TV for Grandma Schoedel and I used to take the bus over to Grandma's on sunday afternoons to watch football games on the TV. She had wicker furniture in the living room and I am sure that I did more sleeping than watching football. To get to Grandma Schoedel's I took the Grant Street bus to downtown Buffalo, transfered at Shelton Square which was the downtown crossing point for the busses and got the William Street bus and then the Lovejoy street bus, so it was a double transfer.

Once again I got a message saying that there were errors during upload and asked if I want to return to my post. GRRRRR.

Carl also served in WWII in Europe somewhere I think...Dick (My brother) insists that he was in the pacific theatre. I know that Harvey was in the Pacific for most of the war. He enlisted when he was eighteen and spent at least three years in the infantry in the pacific campaign. So Grandma's three sons served the whole war and all three returned intact and uninjured.

Harvey, the little guy, was my favorite. He and I used to play ball together after he got home. I remember in 1953 he was a Dodgers fan and that was the year that the NY Giants won the pennant with a home run hit in the last of the 11th inning. We had been out playing two man and I remember dropping a fly ball to let in a run and he said that that was the reason the Dodgers lost... He gave me my first real baseball glove which was a first baseman's mitt. I often used to visit him and his wife Delores because they lived nearby after we moved to Grandma Schoedel's house. She moved into an upstairs apartment with Lucille and Eddy Petras after Grandpa Schoedel died and all the children went off on their own. Then my mother and dad bought her house and moved out of the lower flat at Grandpa Wall's house.

The little girl in the front is Ruth who married Hunk Miller. Back in those days Hunk was a nickname (sometimes derogatory) for Hungarian. He also served and returned to marry Ruth after the war. John Braid who married Milly when he got back suffered severe mental disorder after the war and died a street person in downtown Buffalo.

Hey, I'm all over the lot here and this is only the surface of what I can recall as a result of this picture but but I get finger sore typing and frustrated that my pictures won't come up.

Joe, Bob & Joan at the beach

I see that you have a date on this - 1980 - but then where is Kate? she would be 11 years old and in the picture???

I think 1980 may be correct because my father died in 1979 and my mother sent $1000 to each of the kids from Dad's will. She told us to use it for something and we decided that a trip to the states with all of you would be a good idea. You did meet many of the relatives at a gathering at the house in Hamburg where my mother was living at the time. Jim had an office in the basement and Joe and Betty Pracitto (my sister and husband) and family lived down the road.

We are at a beach in Maine where there was an amusement part and rides etc. We had camped out down the road near Kennebunkport which was the summer place of pres Bush the elder. We had two tents, a blue one and an orange one. Notice the straw hat in my hand. That also appears in a picture of all of the Wall family at my grandfather's summer cottage but Joe is wearing it. I have a blown up version of that picture on the shelf here in the office.

I'm having trouble getting any firm recollection. We were on our way to the states I think in the station wagon. We camped at a number of places along the way and eventually went to Virginia to see your mother's parents in their trailer by the swamp. That same trip we stopped at a motel in Maryland and I recall seeing pictures of Joe and Joan in a swimming pool at the motel.

You will notice that Joe has obviously been in the water whereas Joan, true to form, has only wet her feet. Notice that I am also dry. Lifeguarding no doubt...

It has now been over ten minutes and the photo still hasn't finished loading so I don't know if it ever will. On this trip we spent one night with George McVey and his family and then with the (ooops_ name just jumped out of my head) Delano's - Grace and Harry and kids David and Paul and ???.

Coming back from Virginia on this trip we found a going out of business sale in Fredricksburg Va. and bought a huge suitcase to put all the things in that we bought at the sale. I tied the suitcase on top of the car in front of the luggage rack which was already full. Then it rained as we were going north to visit Hugh Duckwall and his family. Luckily they had a dryer for all the things inside the suitcase and we used a hairdryer to dry out the inside of the suitcase. Oh,!!!the important memories.

All told the trip cost about three times what my mother sent but it was a fun trip for all...I think. I just checked and the upload box says that there were errors during the upload. So, Joan, you may have to do your magic and put the picture in here. Sorry for the randomness of the thoughts.