Charles Willard Mathews memoir, part 1 - Boy's Life

The following is the first part of a memoir written by my father, Charles W. Mathews. He was born Sept. 11, 1915 and passed away May 9th, 1996. He is, and shall remain, the finest man I have ever known. 

This Has Been My Life

Charles Mathews - Age 2

by Charles Willard Mathews, Jr.

Some time ago a friend remarked that everyone should take the trouble to write out something about their lives for the interest of their children. So here is my effort. I hope it is worth the effort.

It may be that I have told it so often that I believe it, or maybe it is really true. Whichever is the case, I believe that my earliest remembered experience was having my grand­father Clarke take me to the corner in St. Louis to see street cars clanging down Grand Avenue with washtubs and such tied onto the back. The noise and excitement was so intense that it was indelibly impressed on my impressionable young mind. I was just three, and I didn't understand that World War I had just ended. I didn't even understand that that war might have taken my father away from home - from me. Later dad said that I had been his weather stripping, for I kept him out of the draft,

The ending of that war had further meaning to my family. It changed the course of dad's life in a very unpredictable manner. Remember, or do you know that there was a false armistice on November 7, 1918. Grandpa Mathews had two sons, Ross and Rolland, in the army. Ross was in Europe and Rolland was about to go overseas. Elated with the news, false that it was, Granddad joined in the celebration on Main Street of Marissa. It was too much for his body. He had a heart attack and died immediately. Granddad, a grocer, also was involved in buying and selling eggs and supplying other grocers in the neighboring communities with fruits. In this role, he was a distributor for A. J. Fioretta Company of St. Louis. Dad decided he'd leave his job as a civil engineer for the city of St. Louis. He moved back to his hometown of Marissa, Illinois, and began to handle the egg and wholesale fruit business. The eggs were phased out and the wholesale fruit business was supplemented with grocery supplies --paper bags, butcher paper, string, floor sweep et al. He expanded to take orders from stores throughout a 25 or so mile radius of Marissa. Business seemed to have been pretty good for in 1922 he built a new home on Border’s Hill at 421 North Grace Street and a small two-story warehouse with garage, where he stored his non-perishable stock.

Back to my life. I don't recall the 'flat' we lived in at 4116 Flad Avenue, near Tower Grove Park in south central St. Louis, nor do I remember the move across the Mississippi River to Marissa. But soon I was roller skating in and out of the house since there was only a single step from the side­walk to the big concrete porch. It was the old home where dad's family had been reared. On the porch was the usual porch swing which got the usual use that only small boys can put one to. Not only forward and backward, but side to side. The house was just across the 'oiled' Hamilton Street from the United Presby­terian Church. It had been built for my grandfather and there is still a steel ring embedded in the concrete, next to the imprinted MATHEWS, to which visitors could hitch their horses.

Although I do not recall having ever seen a horse so tied, I do remember that we soon had an automobile which we put in the barn. Yes, there was a barn, barnyard, chicken coop, chicken yard and privy. And we had a cow in those days which we sometimes pastured on the churchyard grass. HOLY COW!

It was fun to go down to the barn when dad was milking. He would often give me a cup of fresh, warm milk - and I liked it. My memory of a warm cow stall stems from those days. My brother, Joe, and I found that barn an exciting place to play. We would go up and down the ladders and tumble in the hay, exploring in every nook and cranny of the old building. We were envied by our friends and neighbors, Junior Ray and Billy Henderson who lived in the house just to the north which later became my Grandmother Mathews' last home. Prior to the Henderson's, it was noted as the residence of “Home Brew Mamma" Winters and a fiery cross had been burned in front of it by the KKK. On with the friends: Ivan and Holland Dickey who lived a block south with Harold and Robert Bickett on one side and George Nevin on the other.

I was just a few days short of being six the first day I headed off to school in the same building my father had attended. Soon I learned that I could disregard the 'first bell' which rang at 8:30. If I sprinted I could wait until the 'second bell began to chime and be in line to go into the room with the rest of the class. Invariably I'd be the last one to enter the class room.

School was always easy and fun for me. Perhaps studies were too easy for I seemed, to have more fun than was considered acceptable to my teachers. We were given numerical grades and any that were below 75 were in red. In general my grades were excellent. Penmanship was marginal, but deportment was in the red much of the time. I recall getting caught reading from a smutty joke book in the third grade. Another time I was sent to the principal's office and was spanked soundly. Neither my parents nor I felt there was anything to criticize about that discipline. The new school building construction was the big excitement of the summer between my seventh and eighth year. Since the contractor was Christy Elder, a great uncle of mine, I had the nerve to ask for the job of water boy. I got it. It was a fun job (like most jobs I have had). I put oatmeal into the water when it was hot. For reasons I still do not comprehend, it was supposed to be healthful when working in the heat. When I knocked ‘Bumps’ Echkert’s level off the scaffolding, I found out how small my wages really were. It took a lot of water carrying to pay for a new level, but it was a job and I was proud I had it.

It was a very special night -- the night of February 28, 1923. I didn't really know what was going on, but Joe and I were sent to bed early. Later I found out that Dr. George Hayes had joined Mrs. Hildebrand as sort of special company for a good part of the night. Then dad came into our room to tell us that we had a baby sister. He said we could see her after she had a bath. Being well versed in the Bible for our tender years, we understood all creatures were made of dirt, and that a bath was essential. Mother always laughed until she cried, a favorite sport of hers, when this yarn was recalled.

Each fall the family would drive about four miles east of town to the county line (Washington/St. Clair) and north a couple of miles to Mud Creek to gather nuts - black walnuts, hickory nuts and river nuts. We'd take a picnic dinner and enjoy the fall atmosphere and colors, as well as the nutting. It was a big thrill when we went, but shelling or husking those black walnuts took all the joy out of it. To wear any kind of gloves was clumsy. Not to wear them assured us that we'd have well stained hands which only time would cleanse. But those nuts were good! We'd crack a pan full of them, spread news­papers on a table and gather round to pick out the meats. Fudge, salads and many good foods were made better with the nut meats we gathered each fall.

In the late twenties, our automobile was a Dodge coupe of unremembered vintage. It had a large squarish body between a ponderous engine and miniature trunk. The driver's seat was about 18 inches forward of the passenger's seat. But there was enough room on the floor to put a collapsible chair for an extra passenger. In those days there was ample opportunity for air to enter the car through the floor boards, and no heater to balance the cooling effects of winter. But even this had its advantages. When we boys went with dad on his business trips and he was too long returning to the car, we could urinate through the space around the gear shift, usually with sufficient precision that there was no tell-tale evidence on the floor. Behind the driver's seat was an enclosure with a lid on top where all sorts of things could be stored. But we found that it could be a hazard. Once Joe dropped a dime into it on the way home from Belleville. The next day he was trying to find the dime and fell into the box head first. Fortunately, Dad walked by the car and noticed Joe's feet feebly banging back and forth. He was rescued that time to get into more mischief another day.

Thinking of Joe and that Dodge, Dale McClintock teased him unmercifully because Willard Mathews was so tight that he bought a car which was higher in the back than in the front so it would always be running downhill and save gas. To this day the southeast corner of the house at 421 N. Grace has a hunk of concrete missing where mom hit it when she was learning to drive. She never drove again. I repaired the broken tire that time. Instead of taking the wheel off of the hub, one jacked the car up and took the tire and tube off of the rim. I recall how much effort it took to remove a tire and how many times it was nec­essary. We hadn't yet learned that garages and service stations could do such things for us.

My twelfth birthday was a big event because I had been anxious to join the Marissa Boy Scout troop. I did it that very day. Since then I have been involved in Scouting almost continuously. Troop 27 was started when my uncle Rolland Mathews, Fred Meek and Prank Finger wrote to the White House in 1912 to find out how they could become Boy Scouts. They got an answer some way, recruited Everett Paul to the position of Scoutmaster and the troop has been active to this day. When I became a Scout, Harry Hamilton, Otto Engleman, Rockwell McCreight and Carl Glenn were the men who kept the troop alive. The Marissa Rotary Club sponsored it and Rock McCreight was Scoutmaster. Otto Engleman and my mother encouraged me to progress through the ranks to Eagle. In 1931 I became the first Eagle Scout of Troop 27, now 327. Our meetings were exciting. We drilled (two veterans were our leaders) and played games at the meeting hall above the drugstore owned by Fred Keim. We would picnic and camp at Kess's Hill south of town and swim and camp at White Oak mine pond two to three miles southeast on the railroad. Two years I went to camp with the Belleville scouts and the second year I was selected honor camper, one of two so named for the week. In 1931, I received the Eagle award at a court of honor for the district, held in the Belleville High School auditorium. Two others I recall, both from Belleville - Johnnie Sprague and Preston King Johnson.

Next chapter: CHARLES WILLARD MATHEWS MEMOIR, PART 2 - SCHOOL DAYS

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