Deuces Wild

Suzi Dewsnap Terrell

Copyright © 2018 Suzi Dewsnap Terrell

All rights reserved.

Cover Photo courtesy of Jamie Lucas in Needles Ca.

DEDICATED

To “us” … all of Dad’s children

CONTENTS

Dedication i

Chapter 1 Pg 1

Chapter 2 Pg 2

Chapter 3 Pg 3

Chapter 4 Pg 4

Chapter 5 Pg 7

Chapter 6 Pg 9

Chapter 7 Pg 13

Chapter 8 Pg 16

Chapter 9 Pg 18

Chapter 10 Pg 20

ROBERT ARNOLD DEWSNAP

Born: June 12th, 1923 Binghamton, Broome County, New York

Died: November. 26th, 1999, Provo, Provo County, Utah

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CHAPTER 1

He sat there cigarette at the ready anticipating our first stop, flicking pretend ashes as he squirmed. “Awe come on, you girls really don’t want to hear about all that.” My father went suddenly rigid. He was trapped in the back seat with no place to run, no place to hide, and ‘I’ had control of his smoke breaks! I could see he was trying hard to find a way out of this. He would have much rather been riding with the guys in the truck, but they took off ahead of us. So here he was, stuck with his daughters wanting to know all about his life BT (before them). He had no choice but to cooperate.

We had just come from a centennial celebration for his Uncle

Stanley in of all places, Drain Oregon. He truly surprised us all by showing up, especially since he hadn’t seen Stanley in probably 50 of those 100 years. But we also realized that he was in between women at the time. His 3rd wife had just died leaving him lonely and in desperate need of companionship.

Bob and Rick drove one vehicle while Cathy and I were in the

other, having 3 full hours to pepper Dad with question after question. As I drove she captured it all on paper. We had him cornered and were taking full advantage of it!

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CHAPTER 2

We only knew bits and pieces about his childhood, mainly from stories he wrote for school assignments, lovingly kept by his Mother Nellie and given to us when she passed. At 10yrs old Robert wrote -

We have lived in Owego 11 years. We kept about 500 hens. We had some

ducks and rabbits. We raised fruit and vegetables. We went on picnics and walks. We went to bed early. Robert began school when he was 5 years old. Edward had inflammatory rheumatism when he was 9 and did not go to school until he was 12, then he went to Syracuse state school. We enjoy the birds and make bird houses for them. We had a big cat Buster and he disappeared when he was 7 years old. We found a stray cat Rosa which now has 5 kittens.

Once when Edward was about 3 years old he went down cellar and there was a jar of butter on the floor and near there was some kerosene, and he poured it in the butter!

The first time Robert went up a ladder father was building a chicken coop and he had the ladder up on the coop and Robert went up it. We had a dog Mikky. Father pulled Robert to town on the sled in the winter to get his hair cut. Edward had a doll Peter who has been like one of the family. He has had many adventures!

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CHAPTER 3

We were taking him the long way over to Bend thinking he’d enjoy the lakes and dams along the McKenzie River. But we should have realized that Dad being a highly curious engineer, that this would take a lot longer since he’d use those areas to stretch his legs and explore, just to take longer smoke brakes.

It was a bright sunny day as we drove up and over through

Santiam Pass to the Hoodoo Ski area and eventually on to The Inn of the Seventh Mountain. Because I worked at a travel agency I’d been comped 3 rooms for 2 nights, but when I checked in, they upgraded us to a really nice 2-bedroom condo unit so we’d all be together.

The condo was an end unit, quietly sitting high on a bluff. The

Deschutes River ran through the cliffs and canyons of the lava beds below us, sporting numerous falls and frothy rapids, along dusty trails to explore.

Dad opted to sleep on the L shaped sofa saying he’d be up several

times in the night and didn’t want to disturb anyone. However, that first night he didn’t realize that during one of his potty trips, Cathy had come from her room to escape Bobby’s snoring and nestled down on the other end of the sectional. When Dad came back from the bathroom in the dark, he sat down right on top of her! All their screaming brought us running out to see what in heck had happened. We ended up laughing so hard that we were wide awake and didn’t go back to sleep until the wee hours of the morning.

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CHAPTER 4

Dad’s father William Roberts Jr., had died when he was only 9 years old on April 4th, 1932. I don’t know how much if anything he remembered of him, for he never spoke of what kind of a father he was. But judging by the early photographs, he and brother Edward looked to have a happy childhood up to that point. However, that would soon change.

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Dad with King

with his dog Mikky with Tinker the cow

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A few years after his Father’s death, his Mother would marry Robert A. Heller on September 21st, 1934 and that’s when Dad’s life would fall apart. Edward became sick. He developed a high fever and took to bed. Mr. Heller didn’t believe he was really sick and thought that he was just being lazy. So, he beat him. Whether it was this, the fever or Edward’s own tendencies … he was left somewhat retarded and sent away to an institution.

His mother divorced Mr. Heller but in order to pay for Edward’s

special school, she had to take a job in another city and sent Robert to work on a chicken farm. So life as he knew it, had simply dissolved. My Dad wasn’t complaining about the blow dealt him, he just stated it as a matter of fact, saying it was hard work but nothing more. He didn’t have a choice in the matter and tried to make the best of it.

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CHAPTER 5

I didn’t know until I was 17 that Dad had been married before my Mom. I felt shocked and surprised and a little like he’d cheated on us! My Mom didn’t know much about her to enlighten us, or at least nothing she was willing to talk about, but she did say the marriage had supposedly been annulled while he was overseas.

Fast forward 45 years later while searching on Facebooks

genealogy sites, I found her! I had been hunting for news articles in Owego County where Dad grew up, for any mention of an engagement or wedding. I posted a query on their page asking for help and wahla! Someone found a post on Ancestry and sent it to me. But it was from Michigan, not New York! What surprise!

I found that he had enlisted in the Army

on 3-29-43 and was in boot camp at Ft. Custer, Michigan. That’s where he married his high school sweetheart, Evelyn Sturdevant, on Oct 2nd. They were both from New York and had attended Owego Free Academy. He had turned 20 in June, and she had just turned 18 when she follow him to Michigan.

An even bigger surprise was finding that

my cousin Karen Mead who lived in Owego, had a ‘friend’ on Facebook named Liana Sturdevant, who turned out to be Evelyn’s niece!! So Karen put me in touch with her.

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I had all my Dad’s old high school years books, so I was able to

actually find a picture of her, although very tiny. I traded emails with

Liana and asked several times if she would give my contact info to her Aunt in hopes that Evelyn would reach out, but she never has. She was over 90, had since remarried and I’m sure didn’t want to open any “can of worms” at her age.

Now back to 1943 - my Dad shipped out the next month after the wedding and I’m not sure if Evelyn went home to Owego or stayed in Michigan. I’ve looked for validation of the annulment along with searching to see if there was possibly a child born to them, but as yet have not found any information on this.

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CHAPTER 6

While trapped in the backseat, Dad started rattling off all the places his military tour took him, as if he was looking at a map, yet lost in memory. Most were just names and dates but some he gave tiny details of where he’d been.

Nov 26, 1943 shipped out of Boston, rendezvoused with convoy at Newfoundland Sailed 10 days to Firth of Clyde Scotland Stayed overnight and went to Hollywood, North Ireland where they stayed for

1 1/2 months. Drove truck hauling supplies from Belfast to the base and did town patrol in Belfast

(beautiful green countryside but B.F. wasn't pretty). Landed at Utah Beach in France 15 days after D-Day (June 6) by LCI (landing

craft infantry). Firth of Clyde - shallow port sent gliders out to fetch, stayed in guan set huts and

took flat bottom boat over to: Belfast, Leeds England, Immingham Docks, South Hampton, Utah Beach Saint-Malo - not a building standing. Saint Thigonic - guarded POW camp 30,000

Germans with a 45 pistol Maastricht Holland - replacement depot, Kerkrade H. coal mine - slept at 3 deck (2

wks) Dec. 44 Roer River at Flood

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Heerlen, German - 19th COR headquarters, Rheydt, MonChengladbach, Krefeld Geilenkirchen - cross Rhine at Wesel on pontoon bridge, Haltern, Munster Ireland Warendorf Germany - got Nazi flag from Nazi Party headquarters with acre long

underground file room with row after row of complete ID file on every German citizen. A beautiful rose garden at ground level completely camouflaged it.

Sladthagen - captured S.S. (tattoo under right arm) Gardelegen - we found where slave laborer where rounded up, herded into a big barn

and set a fire - trenches around were filled with bodies and covered with quick lime (all civilians)

Klotze - commandeered a hotel waited 5 days for Russians advance to Elbe River. Loaded up on transport trucks and road 5-6 days all the way across Europe

stopping at transient camp only for chow and overnight on cots. Stayed at Camp Lucky Strike on the bluff above Harve France Britney

Pennensulafor 10 days waiting for transport ship - back to New Port News, Va. 30 days leave then troop train to Camp Cook on West coast for 1 1/2 months (now

Vandenberg by Santa Maria) sitting in troop train Chicago when heard news of V.J. (great feeling!).

Finally Fort Ord for week - 10 days before discharge. Drove new trainees to beach for amphibious training and then back at night. Tonsils

removed by wire loop while sitting in straight back chair. Russian pistols for souvenirs confiscated - Belgian 7.65 mm Walther pistol, German P.38 and ammo War buddies - Don Gramps and Striker - Oakdale, CA Discharged - Fort Ord 11-9-45

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He didn’t say much else about his tour and the only incident he

briefly talked about regarding the war, was of what he went through in Gardelegen … saying it was like something he’d never seen before. He said they thought they were going in to “liberate” prisoners but found a smoldering barn instead, where the Nazi’s had burned them alive. The stench was over powering. He retched 2 or 3 times from the horror of it. He legs wouldn’t hold him, so he couldn’t function for a time, sickened by what he’d found. His demeanor suddenly changed and he went ‘dark’, saying how angry it made him and we knew that was the last he’d say about it … he was done answering questions. So I had to later Google it to find what horrors were still locked in the deep places of my Dads mind, and this is what I found:

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The Gardelegen massacre was the cold-blooded murder of inmates that had been evacuated from the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp and some of its sub-camps on April 3rd, 4th and 5th. Around 4,000 prisoners had been bound for the Bergen-Belsen, Sachsenhausen or Neuengamme concentration camps, but when the railroad tracks were bombed by American planes, they had been re-routed to Gardelegen, which was the site of a Cavalry Training School and a Parachutist Training School. The trains were forced to stop before reaching the town of Gardelegen and some of the escaped prisoners had terrorized the nearby villages, raping, looting and killing civilians.

On Friday, April 13th, approximately 1050 to 1100 of the concentration

camp prisoners were herded inside a grain barn, piled knee-high with straw, which had been previously doused with gasoline. The barn was then deliberately set on fire by German SS and Luftwaffe soldiers and boys from the Hitler Jugend, according to the survivors. Prisoners who tried to escape from the fire were machine-gunned to death by the Germans guarding the barn, including teen-aged boys in the Hitler Jugend. A total of 1016 prisoners were burned to death or shot as they tried to escape from the unlocked barn. Around 100 of the prisoners survived, including several Russian Prisoners of War who greeted the American soldiers and led them to the scene of one of the most ignominious war crimes of World War II.

Courtesy of Scrap Book Pages

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CHAPTER 7

When Dad came home from the war there was no way he’d go back to the cold and snow of New York after seeing the sunny warmth of southern California. He found work and was hired by Santa Fe as an engineer. Riding the rails is how he met my Grandpa Gene Phelan – a Special Agent for the railroad, who was forever bringing ‘strays’ home for my Grandma to feed. It was at their house in Goffs at one of those dinners where he met my Mom. I believe they had a very short courtship and were married on June 14th, 1946 in Las Vegas, Nv.

They set up housekeeping in the small town of Needles which was

nestled along the Colorado River in the Mojave Desert, near Kingman Arizona and not far from Las Vegas.

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At that time Needles was in her ‘glory’ days. The Colorado ran on her boarder, Route 66 went right through her middle, and the Santa Fe made a daily 3-hour layover stop where the Mojave Indians set up and sold their wares to all the tourist.

The town was small but vibrant and alive. There was a big public pool at the high school, great PTA carnivals with cake walks and dunk tanks and the whole town turned out for football!

Each fall the students had a long snake dance through a main

street of town led by the football players, that wound up to the field where they’d have a huge bonfire. Seniors also got to dress the freshmen up in any way they wanted to make them their “slave” for the day. It was all done in fun and the Freshmen knew they’d get their revenge and retaliate when they were Seniors. It was a great place to grow up!

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They bought a 4-bedroom 2 bath

house in a new section of small homes up on “the hill” near the projects, that was surrounded by desert gullies and cactus. 2010 Flora Vista was where the four of us grew up. We were all born there. Well except for my older sister who couldn’t wait when Mom was visiting Dad in LA while he was going to school. She was born in route to the hospital somewhere along Figueroa Blvd.

Dad was there to learn all about the refrigeration business and

installing air conditioning units. He was still working on the railroad, but his dream was having his own business. He finally left the Santa Fe and opened Desert Refrigeration Service on Front Street in 1958.

I remember his small office and a 2-story house that set next door

to his shop, where a Chinese family lived. The kids who lived there were never allowed to come out or talk to me but would just peak and shyly wave from the windows upstairs.

How my father worked in that awful heat I’ll never know. Needles was famous for temperatures of well over 110 which sometimes soared to over 120! He serviced all the business’s too so if a unit went down, there was no delaying – he “had” to get it fixed quickly.

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CHAPTER 8

He was gone a lot or would come home late so I rarely had any real contact with him. I remember often refolding the newspaper for him and putting it beside his easy chair along with his slippers and falling asleep waiting there for him …

My parents didn’t have

a happy marriage and Dad left when I was 10. They divorced on March 28th, 1964. A few years later he married Jeanne Hestand, which was very likely to be the best years of his life.

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The Colorado was their playground! They loved to explore the

desert and float on the river. They named their boat the DEUCES WILD. Being afraid of both snakes and water, these activities would have scared my mother to death, while Jeanne loved the adventure. So they were much better suited to each other and seemed extremely happy.

One great memory of boating with them is from 1970. We went

from Needles to Lake Havasu by boat and spent the day walking the newly assembled bridge. We got a late start back and it was getting dark while cruising thru the canyon. We didn’t have enough power to run the engine and the light at the same time, so we were using a flashlight. We ran aground on a sandbar. When we hit, my stepmom Jeanne was jarred forward and when trying to steady herself, stood up putting “one” foot in the bucket sitting next to her that my baby sister had put the fish in that she caught earlier. She then started yelling “OMG we’re sinking”!! Now mind you it was just one foot that was going down – not the other! She and Dad had had way too many beers that day! We made it home safe and sound providing us with many fun memories.

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CHAPTER 9

Dad’s business burned down in the mid 1970’s and sometime after that they moved to Brookside Utah, where they had built a retirement home.

Photo courtesy of Cathy McConnell from Needles, Ca. When Jeanne died in 1991 Dad was lost … however he couldn’t

function alone and soon was on the hunt for another woman. I couldn’t believe he actually went online to search for some! He started dating and became involved with some pretty sketchy ladies, leaving one with bus fare at a remote motel because he was actually scared of her!

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He found a widow with 10 (grown) kids and married her. Iris seemed like a nice gal and my Dad was once again happy, which meant we’d rarely see him again. He was wonderful and generous if you were right in front of him, but the adage of Out of Sight Out of Mind, held true with him.

Dad did bring Iris to meet each one of us

including my step-sister Janis, so she had been welcomed into all of our homes. She even told

me in confidence that she had nicknamed Dad “Rapid Robert” (hum … TMI!!) and said that Dad told her if she took care of him (!?!) … he would take care of her (financially). That’s why we were so surprised when she did what she did, when he died.

It was in 1999, the day before Thanksgiving when flights were at a

premium, so Iris told us she'd hold the funeral the following week when we’d be able to come … She lied!

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CHAPTER 10

She was a nice Mormon lady looking after herself and her family, and wasn’t about to share anything including his funeral, with us. For some reason when talking with Iris, my sister Cathy had smelled a rat. She called the funeral parlor herself to find that the service was slated for that very Saturday. We didn’t let on to Iris that we knew and then scrambled for flights. All we could find we seats only for that one day, but that’s all we needed.

My sisters and I met up with Janis at a little café near the church.

When we walked into the ceremony, Iris about had a heart attack! She recovered quickly and then tried to kill us with phony kindness. We barely spoke to her and did only to be polite to the others gathered there.

The service was mainly just a viewing and I opted to not go in,

staying in the car. Iris came out to try to talk me in to coming and seeing how well my Dad looked. I told her I had no desire to do that and to please “leave me alone”. When she wouldn’t, I glared at her and said “You need to go away! You don’t want to be around me right now!”

At the grave side reading, all of Iris’s family stood on one side, my

sisters and I on the other. When it was over one of her sons came to invite us to a luncheon. We all declined looking at him like he was crazy. Emy and I each grabbed an arm and said “John, let’s take a walk.” Well I’m sure he just wanted to cut and run but we didn’t give him

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the chance. We explained to him that we had all been very pleasant to his Mom and asked why she would exclude us like she had. He tried to make excuses but Emy cut him off saying there really was NO excuses for doing this.

After the funeral Emily wanted to show us Dad’s place. She knew

where his house was, and for some reason we were thinking his widow wouldn't be staying at home. So here it is 8pm the night he was buried, and we’re sneaking around their house looking in windows, when suddenly, the lights go on and she pokes her head out the door! Well you never saw us scrabble so fast, running back to the car and speeding away in our very "inconspicuous" lime green rental! We were just lucky she didn’t call the cops on us!

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR I am the middle daughter –