What a pity to have had a father who was pretty much a nice guy and to have known him so very little. John, or "Jiggs", as he was commonly called, tried to work with my mother's dad for the Pet Milk Company located in Sparta. He was the son of another good Sparta family, of which I will write more later and it happens that my maternal and paternal grandmothers were both teachers in the areas surrounding Sparta.
I am sorry that I do not have childhood memories of my father, and so I will have to rely upon hearsay which I will give much credence to primarily because none of the things that have been told me about him are particularly bad.
The U.S. Navy destroyer, USS Smith (DD378) was attached to a squadron of ships serving as screens for the aircraft carrier Hornet. On 24 October 1942 they joined with another group protecting the carrier Enterprise in the South Pacific after a large Japanese carrier force was spotted converging on the island of Guadalcanal. My uncle John tells me that my father was aboard the Smith, although I have no other confirmation that the story is true. The timing seems appropriate, as my mother would have been in high school at the time, probably beginning her junior year, but possibly her senior year.
Two days later the Hornet was hit by bombs and the Smith was attacked by 20 Japanese torpedo planes. One plane crashed into the forecastle of the destroyer but the torpedo did not detonate upon impact, but a short time later, causing even more fire and casualties. The forward part of the ship was enveloped in a sheet of smoke and flame. The bridge had to be abandoned.
The gunners downed six of the torpedo planes and the crew extinguished all the fires by afternoon, thanks to a decision by the captain to steer the ship into the wake of the USS South Dakota, helping to douse the fires. Smith maintained her position in the screen with all serviceable guns firing although many of the powder magazines were flooded. When fighting broke off she limped to Noumen for temporary repairs and then to Pearl Harbor.
Since my parents were married for such a short time, I have no idea of whether my father was a seaman or a fireman (whether he worked above or below decks) nor did I have opportunity to talk to him about whether he was aboard during this skirmish. If he was aboard the Smith, I can only imagine the horror, because in the South Pacific naval encounters, I don't believe anyone survived if they went into the water.
The timing works out, because when Smith went to Pearl Harbor for more extensive repairs, sailors would have been transferred to pare down to a skeleton crew, and John Frank Lathrop might have been discharged from the Navy and returned home to marry Elsie Patricia Hanson and father me.
My mother tells me that he was basically a good man with a great sense of humor and adventure and that he wouldn't take "guff" from anyone. The times being what they were, I am of the opinion that partying and a goodly amount of drinking were the norm. Everyone who had survived the Great Depression and World War II had a lot to be thankful for and lived it up.
She related a story to me of a trip to San Francisco to see my dad while he was in the Navy during which they had drinks in a park and someone stole her purse and shoes. My dad apparently asked around and they wound up in an upstairs apartment having a couple of beers with one fellow's girlfriend while he plied his acquaintances for information. Amazingly, the purse was returned, minus a little money but with the important things (like travel tickets) intact. The shoes were not found and the girlfriend loaned my mother a pair which were three sizes too big.
Others arrived and the little beer party was interrupted by an argument where knives were produced and my dad quickly ushered her out onto the street. She had to continue her visit clomping around in the oversize shoes.
My grandfather purchased a small cottage on the La Crosse River which cuts through Sparta. I remember my first birthday taking place there. It might be that "Jiggs" and my grandfather were away working, probably in Madison, but I remember some gifts. One was a rubber airplane with Mickey Mouse in the cockpit. I promptly chewed Mickey's head off and had to play with the plane from then on with only his severed neck protruding from the toy.
I was also given a candle which was about a foot tall and had gradations embossed on its surface about a quarter of an inch apart. They were numbered and the idea was to burn the candle to the next mark each birthday, which my mother and the others present promptly did, with great seriousness. I never saw the candle again. It may even have been a baptismal candle--I am not sure.
The other toy was a large plastic egg, two-toned, the halves welded together. There were holes in it. One was tiny and a small crank protruded through it. When the crank was turned a tune was plunked out and could be heard through the somewhat larger hole. When the crank was turned backward, the tune played backward. If you looked into the larger hole you could see that a wide rubber belt moved around when the crank was turned. The belt had bumps on it which plucked the various tines of a little sound board.
I truly believe that my interest in how mechanical things work dates back to this little toy and its inner workings which could be observed by the fascinated eye of the one-year-old peering in through the hole. What was truly amazing about this toy was that the little belt inside was made of a material that had a peculiar smell.
After my grandmother's death, this little egg surfaced in a trunk of her belongings and I was astounded to discover the memory of it in my mind as well as a memory of the little tune, a memory of how the tune sounded backwards, and a memory of how the little belt with the bumps on it smelled, which it still did.
My grandparents and my uncle and aunts seem to have an affection for "Jiggs" and my mother tells me that his main fault was that he just couldn't settle down and be responsible. Around the time I was a year old, the number one song for a number of weeks was "Manana" by Peggy Lee. Jiggs may have been a "manana man", a procrastinator. I sure am. I have tried to live my life by the lyrics of this song so it might have been the case that I underwent some subliminal personality molding from exposure to it at age one.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ou5vsdpsoAE
Some of the guys at work even used to call me "Johnny Manana".
Because the Lathrops were Catholic, my mother had to turn Catholic, in those days, to be married in the church and I was baptized Catholic at some point in my infancy, before the marriage went bad. My mother and father divorced when I was around the age of two. She did not remain a practicing Catholic. I am told there was an effort at reconciliation and indeed I have a snatch of a memory of moving away to Council Bluffs, an extension of Omaha. This was a very short move and I can remember only exploring the yard a little bit. I can't even remember my dad in the event.
There is also a story about "Jiggs" apparently learning to fly a small airplane. The crux of the matter is that he was forbidden to take me up in the airplane but that on occasion I would return from an outing crowing "cows!" "cows!". Then they knew that I had been up in the airplane.
Ultimately the divorce took place and my mother and I lived with her parents in Sparta in a little house on Cottage Street adjacent to a city park. In those days a divorce was a real black mark and the families involved often did not continue to associate with one another out of the shame of it all. The mother almost universally kept custody of the children and I am not sure alimony or child support was a sure thing at all. In many cases the father moved away from town which is what I believe happened in our case. "Jiggs" went out to seek his fortune and my mother and her parents undertook to raise me.
It is a sad consequence of the way things were that I did not meet my father again until I was in high school. Because there had been a dearth of involvement and because of my own immaturity, I was not overly excited when I did meet him. I developed a fondness for John Frank Lathrop and we exchanged visits, but it was not until a bit later in my life. We will return to him, but after the divorce he apparently had moved to Council Bluffs, and ultimately lived in Nevada, Iowa and worked for a large company there that managed the mailing out of samples of consumer products. He met and lived with a very nice woman named Dorothy who also worked there. I don't know if they officially ever married, but they conducted the rest of their lives as though they were.
My grandparents on both sides liked one another, however, and I am thankful that I often had contact with his side of the family. As I write on, my experiences are largely skewed to my mother's side of the family, but we visited the Lathrops freely and I am lucky to have some fond memories there as well.
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