1950′s
<h2>TWO</h2>
<strong> Strictly From Memories
</strong>
<em><strong>Korea and Eisenhower – The ’50′s </strong></em>
The Korean “Police Action” dominated headlines in the early 50s. Here, the United States played a major, but <img style=”margin: 5px;” title=”1953_Juniors” src=”http://pasadenatab.org/wordpress_main/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/1953_Juniors-300×250.jpg” alt=”1953_Juniors” width=”300″ height=”250″ />technically, a supportive role with the United Nations. The draft still existed and a new generation of young men answered the call to service. Some who had served previously re-enlisted. Harry Truman taught General Douglas MacArthur a civics lesson about who really was the “Commander in Chief.” “Old soldier” MacArthur “faded away” but gave a memorable address to the Corps of Cadets at West Point. It ended with lines something like this:
<blockquote><span>…and as I take my last walk across the plain, my final thought will be of the corps … the corps … and the corps.</span></blockquote>
Salvationists might consider embracing that same train of thought while defining “the corps” somewhat differently.
<strong>One Way to Grow a Corps</strong>
The 1950s brought very good years for the Los Angeles Tabernacle. The Newboulds brought excellent programming, dynamic messages, strong commitments and democratic leadership. The Corps Council got started, local officers felt very much part of the action. Most of all, however, the 50s were years of marriages and babies.
In 1947, Jack Wood, Jr. married LeMoine Gooding. They had three children – Linda, Jim and Kathleen (Kathy). In 1952 Harry Sparks married Kathy Davis, and they had three children – Peggy, Rick and Jill.
During the month of June of 1953 there were three weddings on three successive Saturdays. Richard Wiseman married Marge Ackerman on the 5th. Bob Docter married Diane Beecher on the 12th, and Gordon Gooding married Alice XXX a week or so later, the Newboulds farewelled. I don’t think his going into the marriage business had anything to do with it. Captains Jim and Judy Watt arrived to carry on and expand the corps. It wasn’t long before they were confronted by a delightful problem.
Within a couple of years children began to appear. In fact, there’s a well known photograph taken some time in the mid fifties of six couples all holding infants all about the same age – three months to nine months.
In the picture one sees Jim and Judy Watt with Kathy; Evan and Cathy Ramsdale with Ron; Loren and Millie Corlis with Debbie; Bob and Diane Docter with Richard; Bill and Jackie Hussey with John; and Dick and Marge Wiseman with Ruth.
The contributions of those three June weddings in 1953 were significant. The Wisemans dedicated Ruth – the Docters brought Richard and Janet in the fifties – in the sixties it was Mary, Sharon and John – and in 1970, they dedicated Julie. The Goodings brought Robyn, Bill, Gordon and Irene. Altogether, that month of June, 1953 was very productive for the corps – about a dozen new cradle roll members.<img style=”margin: 5px;” title=”1954_Band” src=”http://pasadenatab.org/wordpress_main/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/1954_Band-300×133.jpg” alt=”1954_Band” width=”300″ height=”133″ />
I’ve always said: — “Got to build the corps some way.”
Irv Pope married Ellen Brewer, and they had Lisa and Andy. Glen Lycan made it back from Korea, married Pat Boyd and along came three sons, Scott, Russell and Larry.
In 1954 we heard about this Marine fighter pilot who just got transferred to El Toro. His name was William (Bill) Bearchell – and that alone was enough to attract our attention. Bandsmen had played his father’s march Brooklyn Citadel enough to know that if those genes got passed on we could use this guy. We soon learned they did. He was married and had a couple of boys, Craig and Bryan. He and his wife, Grace, visited once, saw the crowd in their own age group with the ever growing number of children, heard about the athletic activities, met Ray Ogg and then joined the corps. Later two girls were born, Janice and Joann. It was a pattern emulated by a couple of dozen or so other couples.
Evan Ramsdale married Cathy Telfer and dedicated Ron and Robbie. Gordon and Ellen Feldman gave Linda to the corps Two wonderful couples from the neighborhood joined the corps and each brought two daughters. They were: Charles and Bernadine Brown who introduced Betty and Susan; and Ralph and Venice Powell gave us Carol and Gloria. John and Theresa Van Dahlen immigrated from the Netherlands and presented Connie, Henry and John. Roy and Juanita Orr showed up from somewhere in the midwest and introduced Randy, Robyn and Bryan. Dorothy Morton married Irv , Orr and they added Christine. Pete and Dorothy Stewart had Gilfrey. Walt and Louella Jackson had Dan and Larry.<img style=”margin: 5px;” title=”1950s_BabyBoom” src=”http://pasadenatab.org/wordpress_main/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/1950s_BabyBoom-300×180.jpg” alt=”1950s_BabyBoom” width=”300″ height=”180″ />
Several Salvationists from around Boston made the trek west, found jobs and fit into the corps. Among the first of the Boston contingent, around 1956, were Russ and Joyce Smalley with their two children, Joy and Russ. They moved into a duplex the corps owned on the eastern edge of Hollywood and met Eric and Vivian Skarnas along with their daughter Inger, Salvationists from Sweden.
Bob and Bobbie Wilmer brought two sons. Ruth Wood married John Morton, and they had Karen and Mark. Ruth also had a single digit ID number with a rapidly growing firm that eventually carried the name TRW – Thompson, Ramo, Wooldridge. For a while she was secretary to Jimmy Doolittle. This had a promise of jobs. Things were on the move in southern California. Jobs and housing were plentiful. Sam and Margo Horwood melded two families and brought five more to the mix – Debbie, David, Ted, Mike and Marguerite. Sam’s friends from the Boston area, Bill and Jackie Hussey, contributed two sons, John and Warren. Harold and Sam Smalley, along with their wives, Ena and Elsie, followed Russ out to the land of gold and sunshine. They added six kids. Harold and Ena had Ian, and Sam and Elsie had Cheryl, Connie, Beth, Lynn and Chuck.
In 1953, the Newboulds farewelled and Captains Jim and Judy Watt came with two sons, Jim and Dave, and it wasn’t too long before Kathy arrived.
All the parents and grandparents of this brood, this gaggle, this herd, this flock were most grateful for Mrs. Crabtree, the nursery supervisor who administered, loved, disciplined, diapered all these tremendous, unique, special, highly intelligent genius children and pampered the parents as well. “Thank God for Mrs. Crabtree” was an expression heard throughout the corps every weekend.
All of these kids were within five years of each other. Count them.
And their parents – what to do with them.
Jack Wood Sr. had a great idea. He suggested that we start a Sunday School class and make a group of the bunch – at least as many as possible.
We did. It was very democratic. We elected officers, and Jack Wood Jr. was elected the first President of what we came to call the Phosterian class. I think it’s Greek — has something to do with “light.”
We met Sunday mornings while our kids were in Sunday School and had wonderful fellowship. We had some excellent teachers – Kyle Piercy for a few years, and then Russ Crowell.
We had “socials” every month with a social chairman and everything. We never got out of line at these affairs, and it built a solid community of friendships which have lasted lifetimes.
As you’ve gathered – I was in this class.
Tab soldiers have always had fun at the corps. For example, in Hollywood at the Palace Theater, one-half a block up from Hollywood and Vine, Ken Murray produced the “Blackouts of 1951“ annually. It was a slightly raunchy, somewhat risque vaudeville show starring his voluptuous wife. I mention this, because our corps produced our version, cleaned up considerably, and called it the “Brownouts of 1951.”
We only had the one room, so, in order to avoid “desecrating the sanctuary” we turned all the seats around and build a stage at the rear of the room. We sold tickets as a self-denial offering, and involved many people in the corps. One particular act involved our quite elderly Scotish drummer, Albert Sheerman, as the referee of a wrestling match that ended with Albert being “beat-up” by both wrestlers. The show always climaxed with a mock wedding. The “bride” was always a guy in a pre-used bridal gown. By this time, we were good at weddings.
The songsters were always in kind of a maintenance program during these years. Art Baker was the songster leader, and he was able to get them performing fairly well. There was, however, a strong desire on his part to get one voice out. He searched his mind to try to figure a nice way to retire this lovely, totally committed lady, and decided that the songsters should have an age limit – 60. Without too much discussion with anyone he informed the group that those over 60 would retire from the songsters. It affected three ladies – two of whom sang very well, and the target person who didn’t. He ended up with three unhappy people.
<strong>Another way to build a corps
</strong>A significant asset to the corps, around 1956, came with the retirement of Lt. Colonel and Mrs. H. B. (Bram) Collier from active officership. There was for them, however, no retirement from active soldiership. He was a dynamo. There was nothing “old” about him. Filled with boundless energy, a sharp mind, and a drive for achievement, he pitched in at the corps in any of a number of ways. He was a real soldier. Captains Herb and Donna Wiseman became corps officers in 1957, and Herb, Ray Ogg and a few bandsmen talked Bram into becoming the Band’s Executive Officer. Bram was a thinker and a planner – and then he was an action agent and an implementer.
Along with Ray Ogg, he helped the band believe in itself, and began the process of planning for major trips. He hypothesized that preparation for a band trip to a distant location was highly motivational, and that if there were “celebrated” local bands at the trip’s destination, it was even better. We had always had several short distance bus trips, like Las Vegas, Palm Springs, and the Rose Parade – but they all ended with parades, not concerts.
Bram Collier never thought “small.” In 1958 he lined up a trip to Vancouver, British Columbia with stops in Oakland and Seattle on the way up. The band was on the way.
Commissioner and Mrs. Wycliffe Booth, grandson of the founder, William, were the Territorial Commanders for Canada. They were there, and we played in this large arena with a sizeable crowd. On this trip we met Major Arnold Brown and recognized exceptional talent. Others must have recognized the same thing, because in a few years he became the Army 11th General.
I had two jobs on this trip, to deliver a monologue and play a cornet solo. I think it was Tucker. I think my playing a cornet solo on this trip clearly reveals Ray’s propensity toward risk taking. The monologue was even more of a risk. He wanted something humorous but not impolite, so I found this long – very long poem by John Trowbridge called Darius Green and His Flying Machine about a “hick” farm boy trying to fly off a barn with homemade wings. It was definitely written with a deep “country” accent, and I did my best to navigate it with all the twang and twist at my disposal. It had to take more than fifteen minutes. The band needed the break. I got some laughs and polite applause at the end, but the band had a clear view of Wycliffe and wife – especially his French wife – and my twang desperately needed translation for her and, judging by the look on his face, a lot more humor for him.
I think, that afternoon, Mrs. Booth dedicated a drum for the Vancouver Citadel Band. She spoke with a rich, French accent about … “ze drom” – and that pronunciation was used to describe that instrument by the band for years thereafter.
The trip was highly motivational and became addictive. Bram started planning the next one immediately.
***
In Pasadena in the 50s the corps continued to build on the Goldthwaite and Mann work. They were very good years. In 1953, with Brigadier William Curry as corps officer, the corps through a big 65th birthday celebration. The Territorial Chief Secretary, Colonel Samuel Hepburn chaired the weekend festivities. He was assisted by the Divisional Commander, Lt. Colonel and Mrs. George Johnstone. Following holiness meeting in the morning, community leaders were invited to an afternoon music festival featuring the Congress Hall Band with a special “anniversary address” by Hepburn. It took place in the First Baptist church on North Marengo. The band performed Ray Ogg’s march Rosseau based on the hymn of the name as well as Treasures from Tchaikovsky by Coles. Hepburn spoke on “The Strength of The Salvation Army.” He could have been speaking about corps like Pasadena.
Brigadier and Mrs. Earl Williams were corps officers for six years in this decade – from 1954-1960. Jerry Holan succeeded Marian Sparks as bandmaster in 1949 when she and her husband Art left for the training college. He had the band through 1957. Lawrence Gilmore (Gillie) ran the youth center, and it was the scene of some ferocious Salvation Army basketball league games. Young men in their 20s and 30s seemed to revel in making basketball a contact sport.
Open air services at Fair Oaks and Colorado Blvd were an on-going tradition, and so was the self-denial giving levels initiated by Frank Mann. The numbers stayed at a consistent level – always the highest in the division.
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