I was named after a distant relative, John McCullough, who lived in the 1800’s and was captured by indians and live with them for many years. He wrote down his story, which was preserved by his son, David McCullough. The actual document is now supposedly stored in the archives of the State Of Ohio Library in Columbus, Ohio as an historical record. At one time I was given a photocopy of his book. My brother, Jim, has this photocopy and I made my own copy of it and now my son, Chris, has a copy. Jim sent me several scrap books that my Dad put together. These scrap books have see lots of photographs of my life as I grew up and even ones of my parents when they were young. These will greatly enhance this document as you can see photos of that time period.
You may remember the Great Depression. It was a period in our history when huge
numbers of men were out of work and many survived by eating in soup kitchen for free.
1931 was near the end of the Great Depression, which is generally recognized as ending
about 1933. You can easily look up fact about the Great Depression on the internet today.
But here is just a bit about it.
Thousands went hungry. Children suffered long term effects from a poor diet and inadequate medical care. People grew food and ate berries and other wild plants in the country and sold apples and pencils in the city. Land owners planted "relief gardens" for food and to barter. Living conditions changed when multiple families crowded into small houses or apartments Divorce went down because couples could not afford separate households and others postponed wedding plans. Unemployed men felt like failures when they could not support their families and lost their status when they saw their wives and children working to the point when they were too ashamed to get relief or help from friends . Women were blamed for taking the jobs of men and in 1931, the Federation of Labor even endorsed it . Women continued to work doing omen's work such as nursing, and even if they were able to get an industry job which seldom hired women, they usually were paid less than men.
With these bad times it is a wonder to me why my parents ever decided to have another child, me. But being only 14 months younger than my brother Jim, perhaps I was an "accident". I have never hear that I was and I certainly was never treated as an "accident", i.e. with less respect and love than my two older brothers. Being the youngest child I was, to the best of my knowledge, my Mom's favorite. I could get away with things with her that my brothers could not but, with my Dad? Never. He was equally strict with all three of us. My parents always encouraged us kids to clean up our plates and eat different types of food. As Mom's favorite I sometime didn't have to clean my plate or eat certain foods, e.g. I can remember be left at the dinner table with a plate full of peas, which I dearly hated - the taste was terrible although I can eat them today. I sat there, at the table, for about 30 minutes or so, refusing to eat the hated peas. Dad would have left me there forever but my Mom came to rescue and allowed me to leave without eating them.
Why I was born in Hempstead I am not sure but I assume it was because that is where the area hospital was located. My parents lived at 38 Oakmere Drive, Baldwin, N.Y. at the time. I got this information of my birth certificate. My Dad was listed as "Executive" on my birth certificate and my Mom as a housewife. Dad was 31 at the time of my birth and my Mom was 28. They were living in Baldwin as my Dad was working at the James A. Hern & Son, a retail store, at least I assume now it was a retail store as that is the occupation that my Dad was always in after college. As I said above, both my parents graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio. I have no idea what their majors were but I do know that my Dad worked in retailing, selling, most of his adult life.
I was my parent's third and last boy in the family. My two older brothers were Lawrence Tracy Thomson, Jr., who grew up as Tom, and James Parker Thomson, who was always called Jim. Tom was named after my father but never called "junior" while Jim was named after my Mom's oldest brother, James. Tom was born in 1927 but the exact day is lost in my memory. Jim was born on September 4, 1930 so, since he was only 14 months older than me, we spent a great deal of your younger years together.
Tom, being the oldest, was self-assured. He was the leader that Jim and I looked up to but we really didn't interact with him that much as he was three years older the Jim and, well, I was just to much of a "kid" for him to mess with.
It seemed as if Tom and I were much to distance in age to really become close. Tom was the lucky one as when Dad and Mom moved to East Lansing, Michigan in 1939, Tom, being the oldest boy, got his own room to sleep in although it was rather small. Jim and I shared a larger room and this lead to some interesting adventures later on.
Jim and I spent most of our childhood together, at least when we were under the teenage years. It was great growing up with a brother who was only 14 months older as we had someone our own age to play with. I am not sure how I would have turned out if I had not had two brothers. Perhaps I would have been as I am now but, with life, you can't experiment, i.e. try two different paths to see which is best. I know that my son, my only son, Chris, did turn on rather well. But you will have to wait a bit to see why.
I have broken my life's story up into parts as each is a story unto itself. Some parts are rather short due to it being early in my life or a lack of memories of that time. Other parts are long and involved as the memories are still fresh and vibrant. So, let's continue with the faded memories before they disappear.
