(10/20/09 - 9/2/04)
Myrtelle Buckley, Port Townsend, WA - February, 2001
Myrtelle at about three
Myrtelle and Al Buckley married, December 28, 1935
Myrtelle with Jim, 1941 Passport Photo
Myrtelle about fifty years old in about 1960
Four generations: Connie, Maboo, Sara & Myrtelle about 1969
Myrtelle in Port Townsend, WA - January, 1999
Myrtelle with Jim, 2001
Autobiography
(As told by Myrtelle Buckley to her daughter, Connie Dent, in March of 1999)
They had three children - all girls - Myrtle Ella, Verena, and my mother, Ruth Anna. They lived in a nice home on the outskirts of Atchison, Kansas. Grandpa had a large lot with a windmill and an out-door toilet. He had a big garden where he grew many kinds of vegetables. He also had some decorative cacti in the front lawn which I pushed him into when I was about four years old! He didn't like that much but it took my mother and Grandmother to chastise me!
Grandpa Fleischbein's work was in printing papers and magazines with illustrations in color. He continued in this work when they moved to Springfield, Ohio and he worked for a big publishing company.
My father, Earnest Melville Bendure, was an engineer who built and operated steam heating systems to heat the houses and business places of small towns. He married my mother, Ruth Anna, before her two older sisters were even engaged, which was, of course, scandalous in those days.
[Jim: One of her sisters died at the age of 16 of a bowel restriction]
They were living in Geneva, NY when I was born on October 20, 1909. Mother had two boys before I was born, the first of whom died shortly after birth. Theodore was born about a year and a half before me. He used to watch me and call mother when it seemed I needed a diaper change or something. He called me "the Sis". I'm sorry I can't remember him because he died before I was a year old. He had contracted TB from some milk when on a visit to my father's parents in Buffalo, NY.
My father was the only child of James Bendure and Hattie Free Bendure. Hattie was the daughter of Mr. Free of the Free-White Sewing Machine Co. which later became the White Sewing Machine Co. James was an engineer but I don't know exactly what he did. He lived in Buffalo, NY and did a lot in conjunction with nearby Niagara Falls. He traveled a lot in his work and sometimes, when Mother and I were visiting them in Buffalo, he would come home late at night and wake us all up to eat ice cream he had stopped to get at his club. That is probably why I had some weird dreams there! - like watching strange creatures climbing the stairs that openly curved from the front hall to the second floor hall that opened to all the bedrooms.
[Connie: Was this where you had the dream about ironing on the landing while a Dragon was breathing up the steps on one side and his tail was on the other side? I recall you telling that dream when I was a kid!]
Grandma rented a room to a bachelor - I think so as not to be alone when Grandpa was away. Their home in Buffalo was quite large and had a section in the rear for servants to live. They had their own bath and a stairway for access to the second floor. At the moment, I can't remember where Grandma went to live after Grandpa died. All I remember is that she rented rooms to bachelors to help maintain herself, but I think it was not in Buffalo.
When I was quite young and we visited in Buffalo, Grandma would send to a nearby stable where her mare, Minnie, was kept. They would bring Minnie pulling a buggy with only one seat for the two of us, Mom and me. I remember, particularly, the time when some silly boys roller-skated past Minnie's nose. She reared up and started to run off. Mother had trouble trying to stop her until Minnie wrapped the carraige around a telephone pole trying to pull free of it. The top of the buggy collapsed on us, injuring Mother with a big bang on her forehead, and catching my ear so I nearly lost it. Some people in the neighborhood took us in their home until we could be rescued. It was a scary experience.
When we visited Grandpa & Grandma's, Grandpa would pay me (I think $ .25 a day) to water the lawn and any flowers they had.
My father had been educated after Grade School at Blees' Military Academy which enabled him to join the U.S. Army at beginning of World War I as a 1st Lieutenant. When he left Sedalia, MO where we were living, Mother decided to let me go to a Catholic school (Third Grade) so she could take on a job as Society Editor with the local newspaper. She had had some experience along that line before.
Mother had always taught me with help from the Calvert School, which still sends books, materials, and lessons for Grade School from Kindergarten to 8th Grade. She didn't want me to go to the local public school because it was across a busy and dangerous street some way from our home. So she enrolled me with a Catholic School where all the teachers were nuns. It was within walking distance of our home and often, if I was early, I would go to the church next to the school with some of my classmates, although we were not Catholic and I attended a Presbyterian Sunday School.
My school room was very large with desks and attached seats for two students each. There were three grades in our room. The nun would keep two grades busy with study and writing while hearing the other recite.
I didn't complete a year there as Dad sent for us to join him in Rockford, IL where he was stationed a Camp Grant. He was in charge of the steam heating of all the camp buildings, so he only occasionally came to Rockford where we had an apartment. Mother started teaching me again with Calvert School help. We often visited Dad at Camp Grant and had Sunday dinners there. We made friends with other families of the officers there.
We also had friends in Rockford - Mother went to a costume ball! We have pictures of her in her costume. Our family was very friendly with Col. Pratt and his family. We visited them at their home after the war ended.
I haven't said anything about our lives in Sedalia before the war. We had a very nice house. I think it may have been built before they had indoor bathrooms, because our only bathroom was on the first floor just off the front hall past the stairs leading to three bedrooms. There was also a room and I think a bath, at the rear of the house where our maid, Minnie Klein, lived.
[Connie: Minnie Klein is previously identified as having married Theodore Emil von Fleischbein. And Minnie was also the horse.]
There was a large barn-like garage at the rear of the house where Mother kept an electric car. I remember one trip we took in it with a lady friend, but not my Dad. We drove on a country road but decided to turn around and come back. Unfortunately, the road was narrow with deep ditches. Our electric car was very heavy with not enough power to pull us out when we backed into a ditch. Mother had to get help from a nearby farm where the farmer brought his team of horses to pull us back on the road.
At this time, me best friend was a girl of my age who lived in an apartment across the street. We often played house together with our dolls, etc. In order to increase my education, Mother enrolled me in a dancing school run by a very nice woman. (I have waited too long to write these things because I have forgotten her name - and many other things, no doubt.) Her name was Mrs. Walker! Anyway, I learned to dance on my toes. The class also had practice in the ballroom dancing and one of my partners was Leslie Guinter - my first boyfriend!
When the World War I started, our classes learned many new things. For example, when the community had a public performance to support out soldiers in the war, I had a part - dressed in a simple white sleeveless dress, carrying a stuffed "Dove of Peace", I came on stage to present my Dove to various people representing the government and Army. They all spurned me and I had to retreat - leaving the audience in tears.
Mother saw that I had pets - a rabbit who lived in a cage in the yard and for which I hunted armfuls of clover for him to eat. We got a colorful parrot that was somewhat of a problem because he knew a lot of bad words. When he exploded with them, Mother would put his cage in the bathtub and turn the water on him. I don't think it stopped him!
Then, Mother sent to Baltimore MD for a cat. It was a place that specialized in raising Persian cats. Ours was a beautiful white cat with blue eyes. We took her with us when we went to join Dad in Rockford IL. I can't remember what happened to her.
When the war ended, Dad took us to Washington, D.C. where we had an apartment over some stores across from a big park. He knew a Charlie Yeager while in the Army, and when we left Washington, it was to go to Akron, OH where Mr. Yeager wanted to build a storage warehouse and moving company. He had a lot near the business center of town where a high cliff walled off one side, reaching to a residential section. His idea was to build apartments facing the street at the cliff's top, but the Great Depression killed that idea. I'm not sure if he lost his moving and storage business, or what, but Dad became a real estate agent - finding homes to rent or buy for people.
[Connie: Is this Yeager related to the Department Store Yeagers?] [Jim: I remember hearing her Dad had something to do with a steam boiler explosion that killed a man.]
In his many transactions, he acquired a farm as his payment in one deal. There was a family living on it and they had a group of maple trees from which they got maple syrup which we greatly enjoyed. Dad prospered in his Real State deals and finally got enough money to build us an attractive brick house in a western end of Akron called Fairlawn.
[Connie: Is this the house with the huge fir tree in the turn-around out front that you said your Dad decorated for the poor kids?] [Jim: Is this when he had a Stutz Bearcat?]
I was old enough to go to High School at that time, so Mother had to give up teaching me. As I recall, I didn't have any trouble settling into school. Dad drove me to school because we didn't have bus service to Fairlawn. Later, when I became 16, he bought me a Ford Coupe, and I became chauffeur for some other boys and girls who lived in Fairlawn.
At that time, I was beginning to have dates. My principal boyfriend was Bob Galloway, whom I dated until I was through college at Akron U. I also dated other boys - attending fraternity dances and such. While still in college, I participated in some of the plays we gave - never in a principal role! It was then I met and dated Alan Buckley who was a stage-hand for the college plays.
Al was employed in the Building and Engineering departments of Goodyear. I had a job at Goodyear briefly in the Advertising Department. Al and I would see each other when we went to lunch in the company cafeteria. One of his co-workers noticed me and thought me attractive, so Al had to prove he knew me! Our dating and romance became more serious as time passed and after graduation, we became engaged. At that time the Great Depression was on so, when we decided to become engaged, we did it very modestly by having bracelets made with our names on each one. By that time, I had a better job at Goodrich Tire in the Advertising Department. I designed folders advertising things like rubber hoses for watering lawns.
When Goodyear decided to build a factory for tires in Java, Al was chosen to accompany the engineers who constructed it. When the factory was completed, Al was chosen to stay on as Chief Engineer. Of Course, he immediately sent for me! Goodyear arranged my passage. I bought my clothes for the trip and boarded a big liner in Los Angeles, travelling there by train as we didn't fly everywhere in those days.
Also on that ship was a Goodyear family and their two children going to Singapore. The man, who's name I've fogotton, gave me away in place of my father. We were married in St. Andrews Cathedral in Singapore. A later - much larger - wedding caused the church to be beautifully decorated with flower garlands along the aisle and on the altar. Some of my friends from the ship and families of Goodyear employees in Singapore were present at our wedding - one of the wives served as my bridesmaid.
Then we were carried to the Raffles Hotel where we spent our honeymoon before continuing on by ship to Java. We were greeted by the Goodyear group and escorted to the hotel in Bogor where we stayed until our house being built for us, was finished and furnished.
We started out with five servants - a jongas (butler), cook, wash babu, gardener, and chauffeur. After three years, we went back home on a leave. My father died before we got there and we heard of it while on board ship crossing the Pacific Ocean.
[Jim: I thought he died in 1941 or 1942 after they returned or perhaps while we were coming home just before war broke out. He never saw me but I remember hearing I was born before he died.]
We returned to Java after a few weeks in the States. Mother seemed to be doing well. She had been having quilt shows in various Department Stores in Akron and other Ohio cities. It was a good advertisement - especially for yard goods departments.
[Connie: I thought those shows were in the early 1930's to 1933 - before you went to Java]
Shortly after returning to Java, I became pregnant, and in due course, produced a lovely boy - James Alan. After that, we added another servant - a native woman - to act as nursemaid. Jimmy grew rapidly and tried to imitate our pet gibbon, Cocoa, by climbing on furniture, resulting in a few broken tables!
When Jim was about 1-1/2 years old, the Japanese were threatening to invade all the Indonesian Islands, so he and I, along with several other American women and children, left by ship to go back to the States. We had a stop-over in Sydney, Australia and took a different ship the rest of the way to the States by way of California. Then, a train ride to Akron where we were greeted by Al's brother and wife, Grandpa Buckley, and Mother Bendure, where we were scheduled to live until Al's return.
[Connie: How did you feel about leaving Dad behind under those conditions? How did you cope with it? How long before he joined you and Jim in the States? And what about going to Brazil - you need to tell that part! Keep going - there's lots more to tell!]
