In answer to hundreds of requests to post some pictures of my early years I am doing so now. Well, in actuality, it wasn’t hundreds of people asking but my daughter keeps asking me over and over – it seemed like hundreds of times.

         Click any image to enlarge slightly.

As I look at these some of them are pretty funny. For instance, this is the way I combed my hair when I used to have hair. My dad combed his straight back with no part so I did too. These days I don’t need to make that decision.I think this early picture of my dad and me is probably after my First Communion.

When I was maybe 10 or 11 years old we were lucky enough to spend the summer at a cottage on a nearby lake. There were only three children in our family then and the cabin was shared with a family having two daughters. In the picture I am at the end of the diving board and my brother is at the opposite end. My sister is third from the left and I don’t know who that is between them. The girl next to me was actually a year older than I was.

In fact, she still is a year older than I am. It’s funny how that works.

Though there are many who will dispute this, eventually I grew up. World War II happened to be going on and I enlisted as a Naval Aviation Cadet. This picture shows me with my entire family. I am at home for my first leave and it appears the dog isn’t exactly sure who I am. I think this would have been in the spring of 1944.

Eventually the war ended and I was fortunate enough to have been a survivor. I came home to attend college. Eventually that ended too and again I was a survivor. I graduated with my Masters Degree in Education. This was in 1948 and I would have been 25 years old and married.