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https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/e89ad1259f5eaf0afa174e8758c7afaf.pdf
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EDWARD C. SALEEBY
1115 DOGWOOD RD.
STATESVILLE, NC 28677
Revised 12-15-01
ECS Autobiography
INTRODUCTION
I had no idea that the time would come when I would be asked to write about my life.
The way this autobiography got started originally was when my granddaughter Taylor
Saleeby told me that she would be studying American History in her senior year in
high school. They would be studying about World War II, and she wanted to know
something about my experiences during my military service. Taylor asked me if I
would compile my recollection and memories of my experiences that I could recall in
World War II (WW II). Her sister Erin saw me later and told me that she would like to
have a copy also. In 1998 I wrote my “WW II Memoirs” that I could remember and
finished in time to send Taylor her copy on her birthday, and, at the same time, I sent
copies to all the other family members. A little more than one year later, after our sonin-law, Mark Selna had read the WWII memoirs, he told me that he thought that all
my grandchildren should know something about their background. In that way if
someone asked them, “Who are you?” they would know enough to give an answer
that would explain something about their background and family history. Mark asked
me to write down the things I could recall about my entire life including what I could
remember of what my parents had told me about their coming to America.
Here I am more than 55 years after WWII trying to describe what happened where
and when in my life span from childhood until now. There are going to be some
spaces of time that I know are too fuzzy, but I will try my best. I am sure that my
grandchildren will have some questions about my life that they might want the
answers to. Hopefully this will answer some of them. I will list my recollections of the
experiences that I remember the most vividly at this late stage of my life. The first
question to answer is, “Where do you start in a situation like this? “ I am going to try
to recall as many of the things that my Father and Mother as well as what my
Grandmother told me. I will try to include as much about what I have learned,
including what they told me about their coming to America in as much detail as I can
recall. I have enlisted my sister Helen Saleeby, and my cousin, Rajah Arab and his
niece, Toni, on my mother’s side of the family to help me be as accurate as possible
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�with all the information.
Both of my parents arrived in the United States very early in the 20th century.
Between the two of them, my Mother, whose maiden name was Nellie Arab, got here
first. The information that I have received from the records of Ellis Island is that my
Mother came to the United States in 1911 with her brother Alex. My Father came to
the United States in 1912. It will be easier to keep things straight if I tell each of their
stories separately until they got married. Since Mother came first, I will detail her
information first.
MY MOTHER’S EARLY YEARS HERE
My Mother was born on February 14, 1896 in Beirut, Lebanon. While she was a teenager, her older brother, Alexander Arab, decided that he needed to make sure that he
did not get into the clutches of the Turkish army as they went about the countryside
“conscripting young men into their army. ”. In many of my conversations with him I
was left with the impression that it didn’t matter whether the Turkish army was doing
their thing or not, he indicated to me that his basic and primary idea was, that he
wanted to come to America anyway. The Ottoman Empire was in control of the entire
Middle East – including Lebanon. Uncle Alex did not want to go into their military
service under any circumstances, and so he got in touch with relatives, the George
Habib family, living in Winston-Salem, NC, asking them to sponsor him to come to
the United States of America. He said he would work for them. They told him to come
on over, because they needed help in their business. When my Mother found out that
he was planning to go to America, she insisted that he would take her along. From all
I can deduce, their family was wealthy enough to finance the voyage. My Grandfather
Asaad Khalil Arab had a hardware store and gave them his blessings, and, apparently,
he could and did finance the trip. Since the Habib family was sponsoring them, the
two of them made their plans, which included the modern day applying for a “Green
Card”, and they were soon on their way to the United States of America. I have since
learned that My Maternal Grandfather died in 1917, and I remember how sad my
Mother was when she received the notice of my Grandmother’s passing during the
1930’s.
Their trip took them through France on their way to the United States, and the final
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�leg was from Le Havre, France aboard ship to New York. From the archives of Ellis
Island my cousin Rajah Arab learned that my Mother arrived at Ells Island on
“October 17, 1911” aboard the Ship named “Niagara”. The ship departed from “Le
Havre, Seine-Inferior, France”. She was listed as 16 years of age. Mother apparently
told my sister Helen, in conversations they had later, that she was seasick on the
whole voyage to the United States in 1911, otherwise I would have never found this
out.
After they had been here for about a year, I gather from what I remember that my
Mother went on to California with the Habib family to be with and work for another
relative that owned an orange grove near Fresno, California. My Mother’s cousin
Violet Habib was born to Aunt Emma while they were in California. Mother told me
on several occasions that part of her work in California during her stay was to drive a
truck between the trees in the orchard. While she drove down between the rows of
trees, the workers were to place the fruit into the back of the truck as they picked. She
always bragged about learning to drive before she was 16 years old, although, I don’t
believe she drove on the highways or streets at that age. I have no knowledge when
George Habib died, but I think that he died while they were in California. After that
happened, Aunt Emma and her family came back east to Norfolk, VA, to work and to
live. I have since learned, from records about Uncle Alex, which Toni my cousin
Rajah Arab’s niece kept, that my Mother stayed in California until after World War I
was over. The primary reason that she stayed out there was because Uncle Alex
wanted to be free to go and get jobs wherever he could. This would allow him to seek
many opportunities without having to worry about her, and, anyway, her job in
California was hers as long as she wanted to stay there, because they needed her.
I think that must be how all that must have happened because, while she was out west,
Uncle Alex had got various jobs up and down the East Coast. And, apparently, he
worked in several places including New York City as a carpenter, also in a Paterson,
NJ ice cream factory, and, in addition, he went to night school to learn more trades. In
October 1913 he came to Fayetteville, NC to work for Tom Saleeby, one of my
Father’s first cousins, who, at that time, had moved there in the interim and had a
candy kitchen. A year later when the war broke out in Europe, Uncle Alex went back
to New York to find a better paying job. I have learned that he worked 12 hours a day
in the job he found. He was very good as a manager, and he learned many things that
helped him later to go into business for himself. Uncle Alex learned about a small
candy store that also sold fruit that was for sale in South Carolina, and he moved there
and bought it from the owner. He was very successful at this, and, a short time later,
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�someone made him an offer to buy the store that he could not refuse, and he sold out
and returned to Norfolk, VA. In Norfolk, he worked as a mechanic in an auto repair
shop, and later he was hired to manage a soda fountain and drug store. He was
becoming more successful in all his endeavors as he moved from one enterprise to
another. When the United States started drafting men for the army, he tried to enlist in
the Air Force as a mechanic, but they would not accept him because he was not yet a
United States citizen.
This all seems to have been about that time the war was over, and now he was getting
to stay in one place longer, and so Uncle Alex sent for my Mother to come east to live
with him in Norfolk after he returned there in 1919. Things went well for them, and in
1920 Uncle Alex bought a store in Roanoke Rapids, NC, and he and my Mother
moved there. At this time in his life, he decided to go back to selling things he knew
well, and so he sold fruit and also made candy to sell. We will return to this part of the
story later and tie it all together.
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�MY FATHER’S EARLY YEARS HERE
My Father, Nasry Rashid Saleeby, was born in Souk El Gharb, Lebanon in June 1892.
Souk El Gharb is a mountain resort community about seven miles from Beirut on the
mountainside in a location that overlooked that city and the Mediterranean Sea.
During those years, my Father’s family sent their children to the Presbyterian Church
School in their community where they studied the English language as part of their
education.
According to some of the stories that I heard, as they grew through their boyhood
years, and into their teen years, they worked at various jobs in and around Souk el
Gharb that included construction and road building. As I mentioned earlier, the
Ottoman Empire was in control of that area of the world, and they were conscripting
young boys into their armed forces, sometimes taking them whether they wanted to
join or not. Father and his brothers had no desire to be part of the Turkish military
forces, and they definitely wanted to get out from under the threat of the Turkish army
conscription that was going on.
My Grandfather, Rashid Asaad Saleeby, owned some property and houses in and
around Souk el Gharb, Lebanon. I received the impression that my Grandfather and
the rest of the family must have had a family discussion and agreed to the idea that the
entire family would go to the United States. They all agreed, I think, that the idea was
for my Father’s older brother, Gibran, to go to the United States get settled and
establish a stabilized base for them all to come to later. My Father, being the next
oldest, would remain there with the family to help my Grandfather, Rashid, support
the family. The family had cousins already living in Wilmington, NC and in other
cities in the United States. They got in touch with several families to learn about what
to expect when they did come to the United States.
My impression is that their plans developed faster with three first cousins, Elias,
Mitchell, and Thomas Saleeby who were living in Wilmington, NC at that time. Elias
and his brothers agreed to sponsor Gibran to come to Wilmington where he could
work with them and learn what would be involved to bring the rest of the family later.
As a result, Uncle Gibran came to the United States and worked with their cousins in
Wilmington selling produce wholesale to stores in the area near Wilmington. He
learned enough to go out on his own and to start his own business in Goldsboro, NC,
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�but I don’t know what year that took place. I have assumed all along that from the
beginning the family had planned for the rest of the family to go to the United States
later. I have learned nothing since that convinces me that anything else was in their
plans or intentions.
Apparently My Grandfather, Rashid, died in 1912, and I assume that my Father
discussed it with my Grandmother and the rest of the family, and they came to the
decision that they should all just come on over to the United States as soon as
possible. Since the original plan was for the entire family to come to the United States
even if earlier than they had planned, the next step was to get ready and go. The
family’s finances apparently were adequate and such that they did not need to sell any
of the property in Souk el Gharb at that time to pay for their passage. I do remember
that part of the property they owned as a family was sold many years later to the
Presbyterian Church School to build a larger school.
The family arrived in New York in December, 1912, and my Grandmother, my father,
his brothers, Michael, John, George, Elijah, and his sister Mary were all processed
through Ellis Island like all the immigrants did in that day and time. Elva and I have
given a gift toward the restoration of Ellis Island and to The Statue of Liberty as a
Memorial to both the Saleeby and Matney family members that came through there. I
don’t have any information as to whether the familyl went to Goldsboro or if they
went directly to Wilson, NC on their arrived in the United States. If I learn later, I will
include it here.
Apparently, the family bought the house at 508 South Park Avenue in Wilson. I have
no knowledge of any other house being their residence in Wilson prior to my birth.
My Uncle Eli, the youngest son, was still young enough to be enrolled in school, and I
don’t know if he finished high school in Wilson or before they left Lebanon. He was
enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he studied medicine
and became a doctor. He did his internship in Philadelphia at the Jefferson Memorial
Hospital where he remained for his practice. He lived there many years, and later, I
had the opportunity to visit him during my military service in World War II. He was
still living there in the 1957 when my Father died.
I don’t have any data to tell when the family’s first candy kitchen was started. What I
do know is that my Father was an expert candy maker, and in 1914 the family was in
business together in a candy store with a soda fountain where they also made all types
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�of Peanut Brittle and Coconut Macaroons in addition to other kinds of candy. The
store was on Nash Street directly across the street from the county court house. We
have a picture of the interior with my Father standing in the open area with my Uncle
George and Uncle John in the background. The picture was taken in 1914 about the
time that World War One was starting in Europe, but the United States was not
involved in it at that time. Much later, when I was in college, I located and kept two
pieces of the marble that were on the front of the soda fountain in that picture. Each of
the two pieces of marble that I made into coffee tables is about two feet by four feet in
size. I still have one of the pieces, which I had polished, and we are using it today in
the 21st century, as a coffee table.
The one here in Statesville is for my daughter Anne’s family to have. In addition I
gave the other piece from that soda fountain that I had polished to my son Gary for
him to have for his family. I have used them and made candy on them many times
down through all the years. Having visited many other countries during my lifetime, I
think I understand much better now why my Father and Mother both left Lebanon.
I now can better understand why he wanted to come to this country, and why he was
anxious for his Mother, along with the rest of his brothers, and sister to come over
here also. My Father was more fortunate than many who came to the United States,
because he came over here knowing how to read and speak English, but maybe not as
well as he wanted to, but he was willing to work and learn to do it better.
My Father had a deep appreciation of what an education means in your life. When I
asked my Father how he learned the English language well enough to speak and write
as well as he did, he would laugh and tell me the following story.
“We had studied English at the Presbyterian Church School in Souk el Gharb when
we were children, and we knew how to speak English, but not as well as we wanted
to. We needed to know more, and also we needed to know how to write properly. The
candy store became a very popular hangout for the high school students after school.
Fortunately for us with the variety of ice cream and candy and prices of our sweets,
the high school students soon made our store very popular. They must have advertised
us to the rest of the students how good the candy and sodas were, because more and
more students would come by every afternoon after school to buy ice cream, sodas,
and candy.” Father told me that he got much better acquainted with several of them
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�and made them a deal. He said that the deal was that, “if they would teach me to speak
the language better and also teach me how to read and write properly, they could eat
all the candy and have all the sodas they wanted.”
The group of students he approached with that idea apparently thought it was a good
deal, because my father told me that he never lacked a day of teaching from the
students of how to speak properly and to read and to write better. I think this is one of
the principal reasons he was so anxious for all of us to get all the education we could.
In1917 the United States became involved in World War One and my Uncle John got
drafted first and went into service, and my father was to be drafted next, but did not
have to go anywhere. What I remember him saying once was that the Armistice was
signed just as he was about to be sworn in, and he got sent back home right away.
Uncle Gibran was the only one who was married at the time. Uncle Gibran had started
his family and all the rest of the brothers and Aunt Mary were still single.
I am assuming that since Uncle Gibran was married and had started his family, that is
why he must have been still living in Goldsboro, NC selling wholesale produce in that
area. The rest of the family still lived together at 508 S. Park Avenue in Wilson while
my Father and the others continued to operate the ice cream, soda fountain, and candy
store in Wilson.
It wasn’t long after that until they lost the lease on the candy store building, and as a
result the soda fountain candy store was closed. They discussed the possibilities of
what to do next and looked into the idea of opening another wholesale produce
business. They also discussed this with their cousins in Wilmington and Fayetteville,
and the family decided it would be a good business for the family to get into that line
of work in Wilson. They agreed with their cousin Elias that they would sell their
produce in the northern and northeast section of the state. The Wilmington customers
were mainly in the southeastern North Carolina towns and South Carolina towns in
the area nearby. About that time Uncle Tom Saleeby who had already moved from
Wilmington and was living in Fayetteville with his family had started another
distributorship so as to spread the total coverage the Saleeby family would have in
sales area. Each company operated independently of the others, but they probably all
agreed not to infringe on each other’s operating territories. They met the banana boats
when they docked in Wilmington and bought produce from them there.
It is amazing how things in our lives seem to take place without any control on our
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�part. Here they were in the produce business in Eastern North Carolina, without any
plans other than to be successful in business. My father had started selling to stores in
the area to the north of Wilson up toward the Virginia State line. At this time, he is 27
years old helping support the family the best way they know how. I am sure he was
interested in girls just like any other young man. What I have learned is that in 1919
he met Alex Arab, who had become a customer in his store in Roanoke Rapids, NC.
During some of their conversations he learned that Alex was also a young Lebanese
who had come to America for the same reason he had.
As they became better acquainted, Dad was interested in meeting some others,
especially girls who had come from Lebanon. He asked Alex if he knew of any young
ladies of Lebanese extraction that he could meet and get to know better. Naturally,
Alex thought about his own sister, and Alex told him that it just so happened that he
knew of a young lady that might be someone to fit that description. That young lady
was his sister, Nellie Arab. Can you imagine his feelings at that time? I know what
mine would have been, and I expect he was very pleased and surprised at this turn of
good fortune in his life. This was the highest expectation of good fortune to be in the
right place at the right time of your life.
Now we can start connecting my Mother’s story to my Father’s story as we return in
my writing of where Uncle Alex had his store near Roanoke Rapids, NC. Who could
ever conceive of two people having lived within seven miles of each other as children
meeting each other in another country over 3,000 miles away.
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�MY FATHER AND MOTHER BECOME A FAMILY
After meeting Nellie and seeing her on subsequent trips, Dad must have become more
and more interested in this young lady, because he ended up choosing that section as
his permanent sales area. He told me that he started making quite a few extra sales
trips to that section of his territory. He apparently went as far as to tell his brothers
that they didn’t need to worry about the area up toward Virginia, he would make all
the sales trips that were needed to the northern part of the territory.
To make a long story longer, my Father made so many extra trips that he ended up
asking Nellie to marry him. By this time, it was no surprise to anyone when she
accepted and they were married, joining the two families together on February 13,
1921. For a time after the honeymoon, my Father and Mother lived with the rest of the
family at 508 S. Park Ave, but apparently, after she knew she was pregnant, my
Mother started trying to convince my Father that they needed more space and should
have their own house. At this point the house was a little crowded, and Mother told
me many times that she had learned as a result of living in the house with my
Grandmother and Aunt Mary that no house is large enough for two or more women to
run at the same time.
While they were living at 508 S. Park Avenue in Wilson I was born on November 15,
1921, and that must have been the item that finally convinced my Father to agree that
my Mother was right, and that they really needed to move. By this time, I am sure that
she had little or no problem convincing him with me running around the house all the
time. To solve the congestion problem, my Father bought a house that was being built
in a new section of town that had just been incorporated into the city limits on Gold
Street. That would equate to a suburban development today. I remember that Gold
Street had not been paved yet, because I still have memories of seeing the sewer lines
and the water line ditches being dug and installed in the street. The big, long, and high
piles of dirt from the ditch excavation-trenching machine for the main sewer line are
still vivid in my memory. I spent quite a lot of time watching all the construction and
excavation and eventually, the paving of the street, before we moved. Those are the
experiences that convince small children that they want to become construction
equipment operators when they grow up.
During the time we lived on Gold Street, I have memories of arguments with Spencer
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�Smiley who was my age and lived next door. By this time, I must have been around
three or four years old. Our biggest argument was about where the property line was
between our two houses. After we moved from Gold Street, I never saw him again.
All of this sounds reminiscent of when we bought the lot and built our house at 1115
Dogwood Rd. in Statesville, NC in 1955. When we bought the lot on Dogwood Road
in 1954, the street had not been paved, and there were no water or sewer lines in the
street here either when we built the house there. There was an empty lot, on the other
side of our house from Spencer’s house, which was between our house and the house
where Evelyn Barnes lived. She was my age also, and she lived on the other side from
Spencer. A large group of children lived in this new neighborhood. Another person in
the new neighborhood who was my age was a boy named Tom Davis.
The Davis family had three boys - Jasper, Tom, and Bill - and they were living in this
area on what may have been their farm before this section was taken into the city.
They had cows, and I remember that we bought fresh milk from them every day.
That was in the days before homogenization when milk was delivered in glass bottles
and you could see the cream on top of the milk. My Mother would wash and sterilize
the bottles and return them so they could be used again. Today we get milk
homogenized in coated paper cartons and plastic jugs. All the children of the
neighborhood played football, baseball, and other games in that empty lot. Tom Davis
and I tried to be on the same team when it came time to choose sides and teams. We
did many things together as youngsters. Tom Davis and I have remained friends all
our lives. We were in the same grade all the way through school in Wilson, and we
were graduated from high school in the same class in 1939. He is one of my lifelong
friends, and he still lives in Wilson. I played on the basketball team and on the track
team in high school, and Tom excelled in every sport in high school. When we left
home to go to college, he went to Duke on a football scholarship and became an AllAmerican, and he played in the Rose Bowl against Oregon. I went to college at NC
State to study Ceramic Engineering, but I never excelled in sports. The college sports
I took part in were on intramural teams, but I never tried out nor played on the intercollegiate teams. The farthest I got was to teach gymnastics in college.
I have only a faint recollection of my brother Wade who was born in 1923 and died of
pneumonia about age three months. While we were living on Gold Street my brother
Eli, who lives in Maryland now, was born in 1925. We had many friends in that
neighborhood, and enough children to make teams to play many different games.
Another incident connected with my childhood on Gold Street that I have learned
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�about, but I only vaguely remember, was that in late 1923 Uncle Alex went back to
Lebanon and during the several months he was there, he married Aunt Najla on May
18, 1924. He and Aunt Najla stayed in Lebanon for a month after they were married.
When they were ready to come back to the United States, he tried to persuade his
mother, who was my Grandmother that I never met, to come with them, but
apparently, she wouldn’t. On arrival at Ellis Island, Aunt Najla had to spend 3 weeks
there for her total processing, and then they took the train to Wilson. Uncle Alex had
bought a lot where he had plans to build a house in a section called Five Points about
a block from South Goldsboro Street. Uncle Alex opened a furniture repair shop, but
the furniture repair business was not making enough money for them to live the way
they wanted to, and they moved to Goldsboro hoping to do better. He worked for
Uncle Gibran in the produce business for a while, and later moved to Fayetteville to
work again with Uncle Tom Saleeby. Uncle Alex sold produce for him in the area
around Fayetteville for almost a year. He was offered a construction job in Florida,
which he accepted and went alone, leaving Aunt Najla to live with us in Wilson for a
few months. Before the end of the year, he came back from Florida. He and Aunt
Najla decided to move to Fayetteville, NC. This time when he was back in
Fayetteville, he decided to go into business for himself. and he opened a fruit store on
Person Street.
I remember one thing that I had as a small child that was my prize possession. I had
an Iver Johnson tricycle that I dearly loved to ride. My Uncle John Saleeby got
married to Aunt Helen in either 1924 or 1925. I liked my new aunt, and one day I
decided all by myself that I wanted to go to see her. I decided I would ride over to
Park Avenue to see her, and so I got on my trusty tricycle and headed out from Gold
Street.
Nobody knew what I had done until I arrived at the house on Park Avenue. Aunt
Helen asked me where my Mother was, and I proudly told her I had come by myself.
She screamed! She hugged me and told me that I should never do that again. Then she
went to the telephone and called My Mother and told her what I had done. What I
need to explain to you now is that it is about a mile and a half from Gold Street to
Park Avenue. Part of the trip is down Nash Street, one of the busiest streets in Wilson.
Needless to say, I never did that again. . That’s only one of my crazy trips I took on
my tricycle. I guess you would say I was a wanderer.
I remember many trips to Goldsboro when we would visit Uncle Gibran and his
family. My cousin Richard, who is two years older than I am, was the cousin closest
to my age, and we ended up being the ones to play more together. I remember that he
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�and his family were still living there when I was less than 6 years old, and the time
that we were at their house in Goldsboro, when I had my finger in the doorway
someone closed the door. I will never forget the scream I let out.
By now the Wilson wholesale produce operation must have been operating very
successfully, and I assume that this is when the Wilson and Goldsboro operations
were combined in Wilson. I don’t know the year, but that the decision was made to
close the Goldsboro produce operation and do all the business for the entire area from
Wilson. Uncle Gibran bought the empty lot at 506 S. Park Ave, and built a two-story
brick house for his family to live in. It had large round columns on the front porch,
and the porch had a ceramic quarry tile floor. While the house was being built, I
wandered around the construction site every chance I had. I must have stepped on a
nail on one of those visits, because I have scar tissue in the middle of the bottom of
my foot until today as a result. I don’t know if they gave me a tetanus shot or not. I
think this may have been the year the family bought the brick building on the corner
of Goldsboro and Barnes Streets. It had a basement and a second floor. (If I find out
later when this actually occurred, I will correct this.) Their combined wholesale
produce operation was called G. R. Saleeby and Bros. The basement was just cool
enough to store bananas to ripen. The building also had a freight elevator that was
moved up and down by using manual labor pulling an endless rope over a large pulley
up in the top of the building. When we were children we had fun pulling each other up
and down from the basement to the second floor.
During the years that I was a small child, I remember that my father took us to
Wilmington almost every summer to visit Uncle Elias and his wife, and we also
would stay at other times with Uncle Mitchell and his family. Uncle Elias had no
children, and so I would spend more time at Uncle Mitchell’s house playing with
Emile, who was my age, and his brothers and sisters Mitchell, Jr., William, Isabelle,
and Lilly.
I will always remember the trips that we would take to Wrightsville Beach, which was
only seven miles away. We would either take the streetcar from town or drive out to
Harbor Island, where we would park the car. Then we would have to take the streetcar
or walk over to the beach if we had not taken the streetcar from town, because that
was the only way to get out to the beach. It was only after the disastrous fire that
burned 50 houses and some hotels in 1934 that the bridge for cars was built to the
beach in 1935. No fire equipment from Wilmington could get over to help stop the
damage since there was no highway bridge.
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�Charlie Robert’s grocery store was the only place to spend money on the beach other
than that the Lumina, hotels, and the Johnny Mercer Pier back then. Silent movies
were shown on a screen out over the ocean at the Lumina in the early years - until the
sound movies came - to entertain the children at night while the parents danced to big
bands nightly, fished, or went to parties in the evenings.
It must have been during this time period that all this took place that my Aunt Mary
got married to David Saleeba. That evening after the wedding, the reception was held
at 508 South Park Avenue with music and dancing in the living room. I was dancing
on the front porch, and one of my uncles came outside, picked me up, and put me in
through the open window and told me to keep dancing. We had lots of fun that night. I
don’t remember the month, but it must have been warm weather, because all the
windows were open around the room. My Aunt Mary and I always had a special
relationship as long as she lived. She and Uncle David moved to Washington, DC. I
don’t know how long, after that, I remember that my Father drove us in our family car
to Washington to visit them. I also remember that the 14th Street Bridge was the
biggest thing I had ever seen, and I was very impressed with the experience. They
were living on Wisconsin Avenue in or near the Georgetown area in a two-story brick
house. This was my first exposure to all the historical sites in our nation’s capital.
I am not sure exactly what year it was, but it was while we were living on Gold Street,
that we were at 508 S. Park Avenue visiting one evening when a severe thunderstorm
was in progress. I will never forget that night. A chinaberry tree was in the front yard
near the corner of the house very close to the living room. A lightning bolt struck near
enough that pictures fell off the wall, and things fell off the tables. The whole house
shook, the lights went out, items fell to the floor, and someone screamed. After things
settled down, we went home. The next morning we went over to see all the damage
that had been done when the lightning bolt hit. The chinaberry tree was completely
destroyed. Everybody was helping to clean up the debris, and we pitched in to help.
By this time, power had been restored, and we all said a prayer of thanks to God that it
was the tree and not the house.
One of my enjoyable memories about living on Gold Street had to do with my Uncle
George who was single and a real sporty person. He loved to go fishing in Eastern
North Carolina, and he would bring back fish that my Mother would cook for us to
eat. He just had to have a sports car, and I remember that the automobile he owned
was either a Hupmobile or a Bearcat Stutz roadster that he would drive over to our
Saleeby 14
�house.
He used to enjoy coming over to see us on Gold Street, and he would park the car in
the yard out in front of the house. Naturally all the children in the neighborhood
clambered all over it every time he came to visit. I really enjoyed it when he would
take me for a ride. We would ride out to Silver Lake where we all went swimming,
because there was no swimming pool in town yet. With the top down and the wind
blowing through your hair, it was a thrill to remember forever. I remember that there
were two spare tires in the front fenders – one on each side - with metal covers over
each one. It was very fancy and showy,
When you went down Gold Street towards the downtown business district, with
Atlantic Christian College three blocks away, you would pass the homes of the
Gliarmis family and the Ynoulis family. All the kids in the neighborhood used to
climb and play in the trees in front of their houses. Also nearby, in the opposite
direction from the college, there was an area that was made into a park for the city,
and it was named Gold Park. A spring that had water pure enough that we used to
drink some from it was located in Gold Park. Someone had constructed a small
concrete pool around the spring. I think I know why the name was chosen, probably
because Mr. P. D. Gold, who owned the Wilson Daily Times, either owned or bought
the land and gave it to the city for a park. After all, the street probably was named for
him also.
We lived on Gold Street until about 1927 when our family moved to a new two-story
house at 111 W. Hines Street. That house had both a front porch and a back porch.
The front porch had four brick columns, one each side of the steps and one at each
corner of the porch. The back porch had two doorways that you could come out onto
the porch from inside the house, one from the hall, which came down the middle of
the house, and one from the kitchen. The porch went from the kitchen, which
projected out from the main part of the house, to the corner of the house. The porch
was not screened or enclosed at that time, and either that winter or the next it snowed
deeper than any time that I can remember in my lifetime in Wilson. What I can
remember is that there were about four, or maybe five, steps up to the porch. That
would make it about two to two and a half feet above the ground. I remember sliding
off the porch because of the snow being up to the level of the porch and I was almost
covered up in snow. I can still vividly recall the trench that my father dug as a
Saleeby 15
�pathway through the snow to get to the garage to check on the car. As a 6-year-old,
when I walked in it my head was not very far above the snow on both sides.
On March 30,1928 my sister Helen was born at home and I have to assume at this
point in my life that her pending birth must have been the reason Mom and Dad
decided to move when we did. The Gold street house only had three bedrooms and a
bath upstairs. The house at 111 W. Hines Street was larger with four bedrooms and a
bathroom upstairs, and a living room, dining room, den, an extra bedroom, kitchen,
and a bathroom downstairs. The extra bedroom downstairs, where Helen was born at
home, was next to the living room. I remember the doctor and nurse coming to the
house that day.
I don’t remember how much later it was after Helen was born that I remember the
discussion between my parents about my Father wanting a larger living room. As a
result he hired some carpenters, and he told them that he wanted the wall removed,
and he also wanted an arch left in the section where the wall was removed to support
the upstairs rooms. In that way what had been the bedroom space would be included
with the living room to make it larger. Part of the house modification included French
doors with glass panels between the added living room space and the new dining
room. At that point, the den became the formal dining room with a table that would
seat at least 10 or more people. The French doors would be opened to stretch the table
enough when there were more than ten people to serve. The room that had been the
dining room next to the kitchen then became the breakfast room and play room for us
children.
The breakfast room table was almost 4’ x 8’, but it was large enough for us children to
play table tennis, and as we grew up we did lots of that. My Father was not much of a
drinking partner for his friends, but he kept his carafe always filled for them to have a
drink if they wanted one when they visited.
The lot on Hines Street had more space in the back yard for us to play in than at the
house on Gold Street. My Mother had plenty of room to plant flowers and vegetables.
Father wanted a Fig tree, and in 1928 he ordered one from California. When it arrived,
that tree was planted behind the garage. (The fig tree in the back yard at 1115
Dogwood Road in Statesville is a shoot from that original tree.) That still left plenty of
space to play ball in the back yard. We also had a wash shed for washing clothes in
addition to the two-car garage. The house did not have central heat. Wilson is so close
Saleeby 16
�to the Atlantic Ocean that the water table is very close to the surface of the ground,
which meant no basement. There may be one, but I don’t know of a single house in
Wilson that has a basement. The elevation of Wilson is only 243 feet above sea level.
The store downtown on the corner of Goldsboro Street and Barnes Street with the
basement was a rarity in Wilson.
Our house on Hines Street had a coal stove in the living room and one in the dining
room. When needy people came by asking for help or food, Mom or Dad would have
them break up the coal lumps into the coal bucket, and they would be fed and given
clothes, food, or money. Once in a while, I had to do the coal lumps. Soon after that,
my Father decided that Oil heat was the best way to go. He bought two oil stoves with
fans that would blow hot air out into the rooms, and he had a large oil tank installed
outside. That made life more comfortable. Soon after that electric clothes washing
machines with a wringer on top became available, and my Mother purchased one. The
washing machine was installed on the back porch because the porch was long enough,
and an electric outlet was provided there along with water and a drain line that was
piped out to it. When the washing machine was installed, the porch had to be
enclosed. One day when I was helping with the wash, I made the mistake of not
letting go of an article that was going through the wringer. My fingers got pinched
between the ringer rolls good and proper. I learned a lesson from that very quickly. At
this time the wash shed became a shelter for the push mower and other yard
equipment.
My grammar school education started in September 1928 at Frederick Woodard
School on Kenan Street, which was parallel to Hines Street and only one block over
from it. I only had eight blocks to walk up Hines Street to get to the school
playground and then cross it to get to school every day. When the weather was good,
walking to school was fun. If you lived at least a mile and a half from school you rode
the bus, and we didn’t live far enough from school to rate a school bus ride. I
remember one trip we took to South Carolina to visit relatives in Florence and
Hartsville. The trip was made in the summer and we arrived in South Carolina after
the sun had set, and it was dark. Dad drove us down in a car that had freewheeling,
which equates to modern day over-drive. I think it was a 1928 or 1929 model Reo
Flying Cloud. I remember standing up in the front right behind the windshield while
we went down the hill to get on the ferry to cross the Pee Dee River. That was an
experience to remember for a lifetime, because the ferry crossed the river with men
pulling ropes on both sides of the car manually to get the ferry across the river.
Saleeby 17
�The ferry could carry only one vehicle at a time. The car headlights were used at night
to see in front of the ferry as we went along. My Father had Saleeby cousins living in
both cities, and we visited often. In Florence we stayed at the house where we played
with Mitchell, Edwin, Isabelle, and Elaine. In Hartsville we played with Alice,
Laurice, Edmund, and Margaret. Several other Saleeby families lived in both cities.
Mr. Eli Saleeby had a very popular candy store in Hartsville. His son Edward has
been elected a state senator time after time in South Carolina for many years.
The teachers in grammar school that I remember best are Mrs. Culpepper, Mrs.
Roberts, and Mrs. Grantham whose daughter Jean was in my class. While I was in the
second grade I remember dipping one girl’s hair in the inkwell on my desk. For
which, I might say, I was punished, both at school and at home. We had relay races
and other games like high jump, long jump, and ball games during our recess periods.
We did all the things that children that age get into. We went through the 6th grade
there, and when we finished, we had a graduation ceremony on May 24, 1934 with a
diploma, which I still have, just like a high school graduation. From there we went
straight to Charles L. Coon High School. At that time, there was no middle school and
graduation was after 11 grades. I had plenty of friends on Hines Street. John
DeKeyser lived around the corner, and we became lifelong close friends. His brother
Chris, lived nearby and had children who were older than John. John had fun at times
telling his “nephews”, that were older than he was, to call him “Uncle”. Dick Taylor,
Roger Rogers and his brother Ed, the Etheridge brothers, Ralph Webb, along with Jim
Petway are some of the other boys that lived in the neighborhood there.
Several girls lived around there, and some I remember are Mildred Barnes, whose
father was a policeman, Velma Hutchinson, Shirley Pearsall, Zula Eatman, Juanita
Tedder, and Pearl Lamb. Each afternoon when my Father came home from work, he
would take all the coins in his pocket and put them on the table for me to take all the
dimes and put them in a dime tube bank that I had. When it was full, it contained
$5.00. He would take them down to the bank and put them in my savings account. I
wanted to start my savings account at Branch Banking and Trust Co., because my
friend Jimmy Paschal’s father was one of the officers of the bank there, but my
Father’s business banking was at the Planters Bank across the street, and he started
my account there. When the 1929 stock market crash came, the banks had to close
their doors because of the run on them for cash money.
I seem to remember that Branch Banking and Trust Co. was the only bank in North
Carolina that did not close its doors. Today that bank still operates as BB&T. I lost all
Saleeby 18
�my savings, all $200.00 of it, when Planters Bank had to close after the 1929 stock
market crash, because of people wanting their money. Eventually Planters Bank went
bankrupt, and I think we only got ten percent of our deposits back in the end. My
Father and his brothers lost nearly a million dollars as a result of the bank failure. We
lost a lot of money, but never lost the house.
My Grandmother lived with us quite a bit as I was growing up, and she would not let
me get away with any wrongdoing. She said I should always do things right or not do
them at all. I remember vividly that she told me one day that she would teach me
something that I couldn’t learn in school. I asked her what it was, and she said that I
was going to learn to speak and understand the Arabic language fluently. She did and
I learned to speak it well. My Grandmother could speak six languages, and spent
different times at the Governor’s Mansion as a translator for the Governor. I still
remember times when the Governor’s car would come to Wilson to get my
grandmother. The highway patrolman would park the Governor’s car and then he
would get out and walk up to our front door. He would be in uniform and have his
revolver on his belt, and I thought he was a giant. He probably was at least six feet
tall. All the neighborhood children would come running to see him and the car. I was
asked questions about why he was there at first, but they would still run over to our
house after they knew why he came there.
I think it was in 1931 that our family took the longest trip that I remember we ever
took while I was a small child. Aunt Mary, Uncle David Saleeba, and their children,
Helen and Emma, and David, Jr., were living in Portsmouth, Ohio. Our whole family
was loaded into the car and we headed out. When we arrived in Lynchburg, VA we
developed car trouble in the 1930 Pontiac that Dad had bought. We spent at least two
nights there in a hotel while the Pontiac dealer was repairing the car. I remember
crossing the Ohio River at Huntington, West Virginia as we crossed over into Ohio
and being amazed at the size of the river. We arrived in Portsmouth, Ohio just after
lunch that day. The city had hills around it, and I remember climbing several while we
were there. We met several other children friends with whom we played regularly
during our visit. I remember a spring that discharged water out of a stone bank along a
street. We often took jars and bottles to fill with water that we drank because it tasted
so good.
For several years after that, I can remember a man coming to the house in Wilson to
buy gold. He would take my Mother’s gold bracelets and scratch them on a bar to test
Saleeby 19
�their Karat value. He would give them some money and leave. Dad took the money
and used it to rent a small place at the front of the Carolina Theater. We used to sell
popcorn and candy to people going to see the movies. That’s one of the ways they got
started again after losing everything in the crash. For about two years I would come
down to the store and help him every day after school. This must not have been
enough income for our family expenses, because then Dad opened a dry goods store
selling clothes for the entire family. I still remember the code word – RichmondVa that Dad figured out to mark our cost on price tickets of the items. This lasted a year
or so. I don’t recollect exactly how long. We were in the depression, and making
enough money to support a family was very difficult. A candy making and ice cream
parlor replaced the dry goods store, and that went on for a while until the health
inspector’s reports required more than could be done to the store at that location. I
remember that we made 10 gallons of ice cream at a time. I had a licking good time
after every batch was emptied from the can and put in the freezer.
In those depression years, our family got along well enough for us children to do
many of the things that the other children enjoyed. I had a bicycle, skates with ball
bearing steel wheels, a scooter, and had fun with all the other children in the
neighborhood. I delivered “Wilson Daily Times” newspapers around our section of
town in the afternoon. Many times I would go skating in the late afternoon and
evenings with many of my friends and especially on the weekends. We would go over
to the tobacco warehouses and skate when the tobacco market was not in operation.
At other times, we would skate on streets that did not have much traffic.
One of my good friends, Marjorie Harrell, lived on Broad Street, and she loved to
skate. The street in front of her house had been re-surfaced and was very smooth
because it had very little traffic on it. Quite often she would call me to come and bring
my skating group over there to skate with her. I cannot possibly remember how many
times we did that. Many people going from one side of town to the other used our
Hines Street as a cross-town boulevard and that made it rough as well as having too
many cars and trucks going up and down all the time. Before our family bought an
electrically operated refrigerator, a black man named Tom delivered ice to our house
every day. He drove a wagon pulled by a brown horse that had a beautiful mane.
Apparently that horse had done this so long that he knew where to turn corners, and
he obeyed verbal commands to stop and go when they were given. I rode the back
step of the wagon many times just to get a free ride around the area. One day I rode all
the way to the ice plant, and, as a result, I had to walk home. The first electric
refrigerator we owned was a Westinghouse. It was equipped with a freezer section at
Saleeby 20
�the top, and it must have lasted about 15 years. Uncle Gibran bought a Frigidare for
his house. I remember it, because it came with the coil on top.
Mr. High owned many of the open areas in our neighborhood where he planted
different crops to sell on these lots he owned. He planted corn, cotton, tobacco and
watermelons every year. Naturally, we took advantage of their proximity every once
in a while to “rescue” a watermelon or some cantaloupes. Mr. High paid us 10 cents
an hour to pick cotton when we wanted to work for him. When the fields were not in
use by him, we flew kites and played ball games in the open areas. Walnut Street was
three blocks to the south parallel to the railroad with black families living there. When
we started choosing up sides for ball games, the black children would come out there,
and they were chosen for their abilities when someone wanted one of them on their
team. It did not matter that they were black, because we all knew each other and were
friends. Often, all the boys would all get together as a group in the summer time and
walk up the Norfolk Southern railroad tracks to the trestle that was about a mile up the
tracks. We would swim in the creek that had a pool just out from under the trestle.
Our city had not built a swimming pool at that time. R. J. Reynolds Corporation had a
tobacco re-drying plant along the railroad with a platform for loading and unloading
the hogsheads of tobacco. When Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus
came to town they always unloaded on the tracks next to the RJR plant. We would
always come down and sit on the platform to watch the wagons and the animals
unloaded for the walk across town to the circus location. If you have ever done it, you
know the thrill we felt watching the unloading and re-loading afterwards. Many times
we would walk all the way across town with the elephants. Our town must have been
a good one for them, because they came almost every year.
In high school, the most memorable teachers I had were Mrs. Meyerberg for U. S.
History, Miss Grevilda Norman for European History, Mr. Underwood for all
mathematics courses, Mr. Morgan for Chemistry and Physics, Mrs. Hunter who taught
bookkeeping and typing, and best of all was Miss Jesse Brooks who taught each and
every one of my English classes from the 7th through the 11th grades. She made each
student give a 3-minute talk to the class every month. Once in a while, she allowed us
to pick our own subject to speak about. I had a pocket watch that had a second hand
on it. She appointed me as the timekeeper. She had us making these talks even when
we were studying literature.
That training has stood me in good stead all my life. I have never worried about
speaking in front of neither an audience nor how many people were in the audience.
Saleeby 21
�The largest group I have spoken to was a group of about 1,000 people in attendance
when I spoke about my trip to Russia in 1976. As a result, I have always been an
advocate of public speaking as a required course in school. I still believe that all
students should be required to take that course. Another course I think should be
required for all students – especially college students – is business law. We all are
going to be in the business world after graduation, and we should be familiar with
minimum requirements along those lines.
Apparently candy making and ice cream making were still in Dad’s blood, because he
and Uncle George went into partnership and opened a candy and ice cream store in
Fayetteville, NC while I was in High School. At this time, my Uncle Alex Arab and
his family were living there on Arch Street. Uncle Alex had a small restaurant in front
of Holmes Electric, which was right next door to our store. My Father was sleeping at
their house with them, and Uncle George was sleeping with Uncle Tom Saleeby and
his family on Gillespie Street. When school was out that summer, I went down to
Fayetteville, and I worked in the store with them.
It was a lot of fun, and it gave me a chance to be with my cousins, Rajah Arab and
Maurice Saleeby. Rajah and Maurice were younger than I was, but we still got along
very well. Maurice did not have a brother near his age, and Rajah had all sisters.
Rajah and I developed a very close relationship during that year that has endured until
today. Unfortunately for Dad and Uncle George, Branch Banking and Trust Co.
needed more space and the bank bought the building that the ice cream and candy
store was in. As a result they had to close the store when their lease expired, because
the bank wanted to expand.
At that point Dad decided to come back to Wilson for his business operations. This
time, he started a wholesale distributorship of school supplies, candy, chewing gum,
and paper goods that he sold in the area around Wilson. He sold mainly to the small
stores, service stations, and other businessmen in the rural areas that were not buying
enough merchandise for the large wholesalers to cover. Dad told me I should start
taking part in the school athletic programs in the afternoon instead of coming to help
him in the store after school every day. I started playing first on the Jayvee and then
on the varsity basketball team, on the track team, and on the swimming team. Our
school had a swimming pool that was 25 yards long on the first floor under the gym.
Since it was inside the building, we could swim all year round.
The Durham High School team had won the State Championship in Basketball the
Saleeby 22
�year before, and they had all their former team players back. We had to play them the
first game of the season in Durham. We had a hard time trying to stay close, and a few
lucky shots kept us within a few points as the game finished. We felt pretty good since
two of us were playing on our team for our first year. The year that I was in the Eighth
grade (1935), my Grandmother died during the winter months. I remember that,
because we had an ice storm, and the front steps were covered in ice. My Father had
sprinkled ashes on the ice to provide traction for visitors that came.
I was told to scrape what was being covered with more freezing rain so more ashes
could be sprinkled. The shovel handle had been broken and the end was jagged, not
big and round. I slipped on the slippery ice and punctured myself with the end of the
handle. I went around to the back of the house and motioned for my Father to come
out. I showed him what had happened and he took me to the Hospital Emergency
Room. They called Dr. Strickland, and he came and sewed me up. I was sent over to
Park Avenue to sleep for several days while my Grandmother was in her last days.
Mrs. Blackburn was my homeroom teacher. They knew at school that my
Grandmother was critically ill, and my absence was excused without question. My
Mother did not find out what had happened to me with the shovel handle until several
weeks later, if she ever did. Since I was taken over to Uncle Gibran’s house to sleep,
my father changed my bandages and dressed the wound every day like Doctor
Strickland had instructed him. His daughter Margaret Strickland was one of my
classmates at school. In 1937 I was going to be 16 years old, which would allow me to
get a drivers license. My Father decided I needed some driving lessons for my own
safety.
Dad took me to the Maplewood Cemetery on Saturdays where there is a wide street
over to one side away from the usual traffic pattern. He started off teaching me with
the car sitting in one spot, and he would tell me the things that pertained to safe
operation of the car and he answered my questions. He demonstrated the various
functions, such as, clutch operation, braking, turning, and parking. Then one day, we
went to the same spot, and he told me to get behind the wheel and said, “Start the
engine”. Before we left that day, I drove the car. I went forward, backward, turned
around using a 3-point turnaround, parallel parked the car between two cans on the
street, and I don’t remember how many other things. He made me turn a corner where
he had placed a can in the roadway around the corner. It was my emergency
avoidance lesson. I remember I was worn out when we finished that day’s lesson.
During the summer, I would ride with Dad to call on customers and rode with him
Saleeby 23
�some of the times to deliver the orders. Occasionally, when we were in a remote rural
area between calls, he would pull off on a dirt road to the side of the highway, and he
would let me drive a few hundred yards, then I would turn around and drive back up
near the highway and stop. On one of those trips, one of his customers had some
puppies that were just weaned. It was a litter of black and white fox terriers. One of
the puppies took up with me. I would like to tell you that it was accidental, but I had
been playing with them and fell in love with this one. Naturally, we had a new
member of the family when we came home that evening. Did you ask what his name
was? We called him King, and he acted like one. The first lesson we taught King was
to never chase cars. King knew every car and person in our whole neighborhood.
Neighbors and their cars could come and go, and King would just look, but let a
strange car or person come by and he would be barking to let us know they were
strangers to him. He even knew our regular mailman from his substitutes. I never
could understand all the nuances of his ability to distinguish people and cars. He
would identify the cars when they turned the corner to come up the street. He learned
and obeyed voice commands to sit, stay, go out, lie down, and others. If he was in the
house and needed to go out, he would go to the door and look around until someone
would come and open the door for him. King was never allowed to sleep inside our
house unless snow was out there.
He had his own little house, or he would go into the garage and sleep in there when it
was snowing or raining hard. King was a very obedient pet. We had a close
relationship that endured even after my absence for college and World War II. As a
matter of fact, King was so jealous when I got married many years later that he tried
to physically come between Elva and me when we were in the yard after we returned
to North Carolina from our stay in New Orleans. He lived to be 17 years old.
During my 11th grade senior year of high school, I had earned enough credits for
graduation from High School. But after learning the requirements for entry into N. C.
State College, I realized that I would have to go to college an extra year, or I could
take post-graduate courses in high school to be up to the level of students from New
York in my freshman year. My family would have to pay for postgraduate courses,
and so I decided to drop the last half-year credit in one of my courses so I could stay
in school as an undergraduate.
As a result there would be no extra cost for my parents to pay since I would not be a
post-graduate student. I didn’t know it, but I was jumping the gun by not asking what
was going on. What I did not know was that my father and others in town had started
a drive to give our school the first 12th grade in high school in North Carolina. In my
Saleeby 24
�12th year of school I took Physics, Chemistry, Advanced Algebra, and Solid
Geometry, which was required as a prerequisite for Analytical Geometry in College.
This was no picnic of courses to take all in the same year. This was the hardest school
year I ever had in my life, but in the end, it was well worth the effort, because I was
ready for college when I arrived. During the earliest events that took place prior to our
actually entering the conflict that came to be known as World War II, I was in the last
years of high school in Wilson, North Carolina. My studies had been aimed at
learning all the business courses I could take. I had planned to become a CPA, and I
wanted to then become a lawyer and specialize in patent law and do financial work.
But the war started in Europe and that changed everything.
The Congress had just started the program called Social Security just before this, and I
think it was in 1937. The National Guard had been called to active duty because of the
goings on in Europe. All of us that were 18 years of age or older were required to
register for the draft. I was graduated from high school in Wilson, N.C. in May 1939,
and I had applied at N. C, State College to go to school there. I had been accepted to
start in September. Having worked with my father in his business during the
depression that we were still in, I knew what the burden would be on my family if I
depended on them to pay for college. I realized the effects of the depression we had
been in since 1931. My studies helped me to prepare and keep a set of books for the
wholesale business, with all the accounts and correspondence. And so, I wrote to the
admissions office and told them to let someone else have my spot in registration and
room assignment. When I announced that I had cancelled my acceptance to N. C.
State, my father said to me, “SIT DOWN, we are not talking about IF you are going to
College, but WHEN”. I told him, “I want to work for two years so I can earn some
money and help pay my college expenses”. Then he asked what I would do to make
enough money. I told him I would sell wholesale school supplies and paper goods like
he did, but to different customers from the ones he called on. After my explanation, he
then agreed with my plans, and took me down to Abbitt Motors and bought me a
second-hand panel truck from the dealer to use in my work. On my 18th birthday,
November 15, 1939, I dutifully registered for the draft as was required.
I operated a wholesale company for those two years, and I made enough profit and
saved enough money to pay my way through college. I sold school supplies, patent
medicines, chewing gum, paper products, and other non-perishable items to small
country stores and service stations in eastern North Carolina.
We had a young people’s club named YALE –Young American Lebanese Elite – that
Saleeby 25
�was having a summer meeting at White Lake, NC on July 4th, 1941. I borrowed the
new 1941 Plymouth family car from my father to attend. I had invited Carrie Dell
McCall to go with me to the meeting. My brother Eli, my cousin Sam Saleeby and a
friend, Louis Kannan, also went with me. On our way down there I stopped at a soda
shop on the corner in Elizabethtown, NC, which is near the lake, to visit with friends.
While we were visiting with friends in the drug store next to the highway in
Elizabethtown, some young people came in. My first cousin, Richard Saleeby, was
one of the people in the group. Richard had been hitchhiking from Wake Forest
University where he was taking pre-med. courses. A group of young people from
Virginia had been invited to join our outing, and they were coming to our meeting.
They had seen Richard hitchhiking on the side of the road and offered him a ride.
They found out that he was going to the same place that they were. Richard apparently
recognized my family’s car outside the drug store as they were passing through
Elizabethtown, and he asked them to stop and let him go inside. All of them decided
to come in to get a cold drink or some ice cream.
As history will attest, one of the young people in the group that had given him the ride
was none other than the famous Elva Matney. I had never met her before. Her brother,
Victor Matney, had just received his driver’s license and wanted to drive their car
across the causeway and return. During his return trip another driver sideswiped their
car and that meant they were without an auto for transportation. My friend Louis
Parker was a lawyer in Elizabethtown, and he made the necessary arrangements to get
the car repaired for them. They were told that they couldn’t get it back for a week. We
had good weather and a good time all weekend. I offered to get Richard back to Wake
Forest University, and I offered the Virginia crowd a ride back to Danville, VA on
Sunday night. I tried to get Carrie Dell to return home to Smithfield, NC with some
other friends, but she wanted to stay and go with me. Richard said he would help me
drive, and so Carrie Dell sat on my lap in the front seat. We had ten people in the car
during that trip. Elva was sitting on the floor right behind me, and Elva and Carrie
Dell looked daggers at each other all the way to Burlington, NC. I didn’t know this
until later. I got home at about 5:00 a.m Monday morning.
I started writing short letters to Elva to exchange photos and to get to know her better.
Later that summer my brother Eli, my cousin Sam, Louis Kannan, and I were
planning to take a camping trip to the Smoky Mountains, and I suggested that we
would go by Danville, VA, on our way, to see how everything had gone with the
accident results. I really wanted to see Elva again. As history testifies, I saw her many
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�more times after that. I re-applied to go to N. C. State in the fall of 1941, this time to
take Ceramic Engineering. Business school students were not being deferred from the
draft, but all engineering students were not being called up in the draft and were being
left in school until they were needed. I started classes in September 1941.
The four courses I had taken in the last year of high school stood me in good stead
when I went into the college level classes. I could see and feel the difference when
tests were given, because I felt comfortable with the background I had in those
courses. I didn’t have to ask so many questions to understand the lesson material. In
that way I could spend more time on learning the techniques used in Drafting,
Ceramics, and the other courses that were totally new to me.
The dormitory I was assigned to room in was called 10th Dormitory, and it was the
building scheduled to be the infirmary for the school in the future. It had only 20
rooms, and that gave us the opportunity to become a close-knit group of freshmen,
even though we were four students to a room. I met freshmen students from Charlotte,
Gastonia, Greensboro, and Statesville. None of them were taking Ceramic
Engineering, and they asked me many questions about the course of study I was in.
Few of them understood what Ceramics was all about. Many of the courses we took as
freshmen were the same since we were all beginning our college life, and the basic
freshman curriculum was the same for all engineering students. One student was
studying Architecture; the others were in Chemical and Electrical Engineering. The
first few months were what I thought they would be, and I was thankful that I had
taken my twelfth grade courses to prepare me for the transition to college life.
All freshmen enrolled at North Carolina State were required to take ROTC as long as
they were physically qualified. We were enrolled in military science classroom
courses in addition to learning marching drills. It was a completely new experience for
me, but apparently I did well enough to be assigned as a squad leader. My Company
Commander was a senior class member named Ed Brown, and he was studying
Ceramic Engineering also. We were on the drill field three days a week learning how
to march, do left and right turns, in addition to “to the rear march”. However, we did
not have rifles, but we were taught about them and how to clean and care for them.
Saleeby 27
�EDWARD C. SALEEBY
World War II Memoirs
On Sunday, December 7, 1941 the Japanese Naval Forces attacked Pearl Harbor in
Hawaii. One of the students in our dormitory had been sent to school at N. C. State by
the U. S. Navy to study Electrical Engineering, since he was a radio operator. He was
listening on his short wave radio to navy frequencies when the clear message came
either to or from the naval base about the Japanese fleet attacking Pearl Harbor. He
yelled out down the hall, and we all rushed to his room to listen. We didn’t know it
then, but this message, unfortunately, was delayed in transmission to the commander
of the base. The rest is history.
The very next day, the entire student body at NC State started collecting scrap metal
and anything else in and around Raleigh in Wake County that could be used by our
country. They told us later, but I don’t recall exactly how many, but vaguely
remember that during the next two weeks we filled about 25, railroad gondola cars
with scrap metal. On December 19, 1941, along with 2500 other students, I enlisted in
the active reserves instead of waiting to be drafted. I was given Serial Number
14117390. We were told that the country needed Engineers, and, if we attended
school all year round that we would not be called until we were needed to fight. In the
meantime, we were required to attend classes full time 12 months of the year until
called. They wanted us to get all the education we could. At this point all our courses
became more important for all of us to get as much as we could out of them. In
addition, our military training course received more emphasis in our lives. None of us
knew how long we would be allowed to keep studying before we would be called to
active duty. All we knew was that we would be going to class year round until we
were needed. In my case, I was learning as much as I could every day. Our curriculum
did not change because of the war effort.
During one of my chemistry courses that I took, our professor - Dr. P. P. Sutton – had
one corner of the Laboratory closed off with a locked door. One day after class, he
asked me to stay for a discussion about the course. He complemented me on my work
and said that he had some special experiments to perform. He then asked me if I
would teach the lab as his assistant, to give him enough time to perform some special
experiments that needed to be done at our school. He explained that our school was
chosen for this project because we had the facilities to do them better than other
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�schools in the country. (I learned later that he was performing some special
preliminary work associated with the development of the atomic bomb). Little did I
know at that time what was happening in the world? The school kept us pretty busy,
because they realized that we would need to apply all the things we were learning
when we were called up to active duty in the military services. I would go to Danville
to see Elva when I thought I could leave the campus for the weekend. I would call at
the last minute on Friday to say I was coming. Naturally this did not always sit well
with her, because there were times when she had plans to see someone else.
The last time Elva and I were together, before I reported for active duty, I told Elva
that after the war and after I finished college, “I would come to Danville to get my
wife.” I didn’t want to tie her down to me in case I was seriously injured or something
else bad happened to me while I was on active duty wherever I would be sent. I had
the definite opinion that her family had wanted me to propose to her while I was in
College and before I left to go on active duty. I could not do that until I had finished
college and had a job to support a wife. I realized that people got hurt and killed in
wars and I didn’t want to have that on my conscience if I got seriously injured or
killed. In my family, when you got married, you were expected to support your wife,
and you didn’t expect your parents to do it for you. I understood that, but apparently at
that time, she and her family didn’t understand what I was trying to say. In addition, I
still had two more years of college to finish before I could go to work and earn a
livelihood for me and my wife and any family that I would have.
We were allowed to remain in school until March 1943, when the entire student body
was told to report for active duty to Fort Bragg, NC. We went through the
introduction to Army life and were issued uniforms, shots, and all the usual medical
tests. At the end of one week there, we were put on a troop trains and sent to our
assigned training facility. Since my R.O.T.C. training at N. C. State was in infantry
tactics, I was sent from Fort Bragg, N.C. to Camp Wheeler near Macon, GA, for
infantry basic training.
I was very fortunate because my Company Commander was Alexander Kahapea. He
was rated a Black Belt in Judo, and he used that background and training to teach us
survival tactics. We learned all kinds of hand-to-hand combat tactics, and learned how
to jump over obstacles and how to roll out afterwards. We were taught to take the
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�force of the impact on our shoulder, arms, and rumps as we landed. He showed us
how to defend ourselves if an attacker approached us from behind, and how we were
to deal with an attacker that was larger than we were. I can remember using some of
the things that I learned from him in my civilian life.
I also wrote to Elva trying to tell her what we were learning, and other things that
were permitted in letters. We went on many 20-mile marches, and we took part in
night patrols. I had been made a squad leader, and on one occasion I had to lead my
squad on a night patrol across a hilly terrain.
The route assigned to us was across an area with valleys at an angle, but not 90
degrees, to our assigned route. To make sure that we did not stray from the correct
line, I asked my assistant squad leader to help by watching my direction. He did this
because I chose a star in the sky that was in the direction we need to travel. Once in a
while he told me to go right a little or left a little to correct our route direction. Our
squad arrived at the checkpoint 30 minutes before another squad arrived. The major
who was in charge of the night test took us to the battalion office and questioned us as
to how we got there so far ahead of all the other squads. We finally told him that we
used the starry night, and he was very pleased that we had used what is now termed
and referred to as “astral navigation”. We were trained how to identify objects from
their shape while we were blindfolded. This was done so that we would learn how to
do things without exposing our position by showing a light. One of the principal items
we learned to do was how to take our rifles apart, clean them and put them back
together while blindfolded.
This was so we could do it at night if necessary and without any light to see by, and
more importantly so that we would not be giving our location away to an enemy if we
used a light to see by. This was demonstrated to by having another soldier light a
match one-mile away from us. We could see it very clearly. In addition, all of us were
tested for leadership qualifications, and I was asked to apply for Officer’s Candidate
School, and, afterwards, I was selected.
On my application, I indicated and stated that I wanted to be in the Corps of Engineers
or another branch of service, but they said they wanted me to continue in the Infantry,
because of my previous infantry training. They said Infantry or nothing, and I chose
nothing and remained an enlisted man. I declined the opportunity to become an
Infantry Officer. I was told to report to the camp headquarters. Then I was sent in to
see the Intelligence Officer who asked me if I would be willing to become a member
of the O.S.S. - later it was re-named the CIA – and I was to let no one know about my
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�involvement in that activity. Those instructions meant that not even my company
commander at the post was to know. I was told that I couldn’t tell my family either.
My duty would be to detect and report any service men or women of German or
Italian ancestry who showed any signs of sympathy for Germany or Italy. None of the
soldiers that I came in contact with during my entire tour of duty ever showed any
tendencies in that respect. In fact I soon learned that the soldiers of German and
Italian descent that I came in contact with, hated the enemy more than the rest of us. I
wrote reports and mailed them to my “Uncle Charlie” addressed to a Post Office Box
number every week. I was detached and sent to Stetson University for more testing.
From there I was sent to Rollins College in Florida and was enrolled in the Army
Specialized Training Program to study Electrical Engineering and Electronics. After
taking some preliminary courses at Rollins College in Florida, I was sent to the
University of New Hampshire to study more advanced courses in Electrical
Engineering. We were sent from Florida to New Hampshire in the cold weather
wearing our summer uniforms that were used all the time in Florida. When we arrived
there, we felt like we had been put in a deep freeze.
We were issued woolen winter uniforms on arrival, including underwear, and socks,
which immediately gave me contact dermatitis. At the infirmary, the doctor had the
nurses paint me with Calamine Lotion using a wallpaper brush, and I was given cotton
underwear, cotton sheets, and cotton blankets to use. Most of my body was as red as a
beet. Up to that point in my life, I had no idea that I was allergic to wool in that
degree. I had already learned previously that I was allergic to Poison Ivy. At the
University of New Hampshire in Durham, New Hampshire, we took all the normal
electrical engineering courses given along with the regular students. We made many
good friends with students we met there, and some of us were invited to some homes
of regular students for some of the weekends when we were given time off. It was
almost like being back in school again. The only difference was that those of who
were soldiers took classes 6 days a week. We were there through the winter, and had
many opportunities to go ice-skating, and we also took part in other winter sports.
Since the University of New Hampshire closed classes for the Christmas season, we
were given leaves to visit our families. Otis Clark, another soldier in our group, was
from Topeka, Kansas and did not want to spend the money to go all the way home,
and so, I invited him to go to Wilson, NC with me to spend Christmas with my family.
He accepted, and we bought train tickets and headed south.
Otis and I were the only two passengers in our railroad car during the first part of the
trip. When we were stopped in the station at Baltimore, MD, a young lady got on the
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�train and came into our car. She took a seat about three seats away from us but on the
other side of the car. At the same time two black men got on and came in from the
opposite end of our car also. The two black men first sat down at the other end of the
car. After the train started to move, and after the conductor took the tickets, the two
black men got up and came down toward our end and flipped the seat in front of the
young lady and sat down facing her. Otis said to me, “ I think we’ve got some
trouble”, and nodded toward the young lady.
I turned and looked. He said, “Back me up”, and he walked down to the young lady
and asked her, “Are these men with you?” She answered “No”. Otis looked at the two
men and said, “I think you gentlemen should go back to the seats you were in before.”
They looked as though they were not going to move, and he nodded to me, and I came
and stood beside him. I then asked them, “Are you moving, or do we move you?” We
were both in uniform, and they saw we meant business. They then looked at each
other, and one of them said to the lady, “We are sorry if we troubled you.” They got
up and went back to their original seats. The young lady looked up and said, “I don’t
know what I would have done without you two. I thank you from the bottom of my
heart.” The two black men got off in Washington, DC, and she went to the next stop
where she got off. After finishing the required courses in electrical engineering, I was
transferred to Camp Edison, NJ, to be trained in Long Lines Telephone
Communication at Fort Monmouth, NJ, which was nearby. God must have been
looking after me or wanting me to do something else before I died. I learned later that
the group that I had been in training with in the Infantry basic training at Camp
Wheeler had been sent to Anzio Beachhead in Italy where they suffered 98%
casualties in that battle.
We were extensively trained at Fort Monmouth in long distance surface
communications using the latest technology available at that time. We used 4-wire
cables and open wires on poles. We were sending four conversations over one cable
using the basic Army 4-wire system along with Teletype messages. Later we were
using FM radio frequencies to put even more calls on coaxial cable using both the “C”
and “J” Carrier systems. Some of these techniques were not in use yet in the public
sector. Some were in the development stages, and we helped perfect them to be used
in civilian work later.
Near the end of our training, we were put into teams to work together on problems.
We were classified as Telephone Repeatermen in the Signal Corps. A few weeks later,
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�when the hurricane that broke the Atlantic City Steel Pier in two came through our
area, we were all asked if we had previous experience driving trucks. Those of us who
had driving experiences with trucks were asked to drive the big two and a half ton six
wheel trucks, called 6 x 6’s, to open up the coastal highway and keep it open. It was
needed because of the military installations up and down the coast. We stayed in our
pyramidal tents with four trucks parked around them to protect us from the wind when
we were not on duty to drive our turn to patrol the highway. We used the trucks to
help rescue people and clear the highway for emergency vehicles. On one of my trips
I came to a house that had been washed partially across the highway. I got out and
knocked on the door. A lady came out and I told her that I had to clear the road.
She told me that she was staying in the house trying to protect it. To clear the
roadway, I needed to break off a section of her house. I didn’t have any choice,
because my orders were to clear the roadway for emergency vehicles that needed it.
She asked if I could leave her house where it was and as it was, and I had to tell her
my orders were to clear the road for ambulances and fire trucks, in addition to the
military needs that might arise for the highway. She understood, but she asked me to
help her get some of the items in the room that was on the roadway out of it and into
another part of the house. We did that and I put her in the truck with me while I put
the truck in low-low transfer and eased the truck bumper against that corner of the
house. As I broke the room off the house, she covered her eyes so she would not see
the damage.
I did not feel it was safe to leave her in the house, and so I took her along on the rest
of my run. She watched as I pushed a big yacht that was on the road back into the
water by getting into that low-low transfer again and pushing against the bow of the
yacht. I aligned the truck with the centerline of the yacht so as to minimize any more
damage to the boat. We pushed it just far enough to get it clear of the roadway, and I
hope it was without any extra damage to the hull. After completing my run to the end
of our assigned area, I took her to a safe place and dropped her off with some of her
friends. So that you can visualize the strength of a hurricane, I will give you an
example that you can understand.
We did our target practice with rifles at the firing range at Camp Edison. The solid
concrete backstops behind the rifle range were at least 7 feet thick 30 feet high and
100 feet long. The force of the water being pushed by the hurricane washed those
concrete backstops into the ocean, and I don’t mean just in the edge of the surf. The
concrete blocks were washed 500 feet off shore during the storm. That is where the
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�Coast Guard found them later. That gives you an idea of the force of water in a
hurricane. If anyone ever asks you to go to the beach to save a house, refuse to go. It
is not worth the risk to your life, and is definitely not a safe thing to be involved in.
On one of our night training projects, we were practicing laying some communication
cables and picking others up. During one of the loading operations, someone pushed a
200-pound reel of cable into another one that I was positioning in the bed of the truck.
I had my hand almost out of the way when the two reels came together. The end of
my ring finger on my right hand got caught between them and it almost severed the
end of my finger. I was rushed to the field hospital unit taking part in the project. The
doctor wanted to cut the end that was holding the little piece that was hanging down. I
told him that blood was coming out of it and I wanted to keep it. When he asked how,
I asked for a bandage pad and a strip of tape. When I folded it over the end, he agreed
to try to save it that way. He put sulfanilamide antiseptic powder on it and gave me a
bottle of peroxide to bathe it in every day. He also gave me a metal guard to protect
the end of my finger while it healed. As instructed, we changed bandages and bathed
it daily, and the only problem I have had connected with it until today is that there are
seven bone chips still inside, but I have been told that they are covered by scar tissue
now. Any x-rays taken now still show the bone pieces still in there. The doctor should
have removed the bone chips and used stitches to put it back together. It was ugly, but
it never got infected. Our teams were formed into companies and battalions and we
were assigned to the 3160th Signal Service Battalion.
THE 3160TH SIGNAL SERVICE BATTALION
COMPANY B, 10TH PLATOON
Lt. Paul W. Biehler
Otis L Clark, Louis H. Goddard, Lester S. Johnson, Walter F. Kugel, John R. LeGrys,
M. Keith Millhollen, Edward C. Saleeby, Albert B. Siegel, Albert L. Seigel, Fred M.
Simons, Kenneth M. Smith, Thomas F. Sweeney, Robert L. Terry, Clarence J.
Theilmann, Walter F. Thomson, and John Whitmore.
We received intensive training at Fort Monmouth with instructors from AT&T as well
as military people. We were taught and trained in the latest techniques to use in our
work. Our training continued in target practice and other military training, as well as
our communication skills. We were taught to be Wire Chiefs for a communications
center. We were taught about circuits, the sequence of color-coding of wires in cables,
terminal assignments, vacuum tubes, transformers, and all the complicated testing
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�procedures that we would need to use. We learned to determine how far a problem
was from the test point by using an instrument called a Wheatstone Bridge. In that
way, we could tell repair units where to find the problems.
They must have finally considered that our training was adequate, because on October
12, 1944, our orders came to be moved to Camp Myles Standish in Massachusetts.
This was our Port of Embarkation where we would be shipped out through Boston
Harbor where we would board ship to go to Europe. Some of the other teams went to
California to be sent to the Pacific.
We were told that we would be near the front lines at times, and that our function was
to maintain communications between Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary
Forces – called SHAEF – and the various Division headquarters and Army and Corps
headquarters. At times we would go into an area on the back of a tank that was in the
first wave so that we could get communication systems in operation as quickly as
possible. Our instructions were that if there was a counter-attack that would over-run
our position, we were instructed to join the infantry unit nearest us until we could get
transportation back to our headquarters unit. I tried to write Elva some of this
information without spelling out details, and she misunderstood the mission of my
letter.
We were going to be in harm’s way and I wanted to let her know that I could get
killed and may not get back. How do you let someone know you might get killed and
never see them again without shocking their senses? To this day, she still calls my
letter to her a “Dear Jane Letter”, which (she thought) in effect says, “we’re through”.
After a couple of weeks getting all our gear in proper order and training in drills on
how to abandon ship, we boarded the “USS West Point,” which was originally the
luxury passenger liner “SS America.” They had stripped all the trimmings to use it as
a troop transport. It had set transatlantic speed records, and, as it turned out, we were
scheduled to cross the Atlantic Ocean as a single ship without escort. We made the
crossing in less than six days instead of the longer time a convoy required. No
German submarine or warship could have kept up with us if we were attacked. Our
captain utilized a zigzag course at all times.
Two or three times during the crossing, the Captain diverted our course when
anything suspicious was sighted or suspected. Our ship was the fastest ship afloat and
too fast for any convoy, and so it was not unusual for our ship to take its chances solo
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�crossing. We were not the first troops that had used it. It had made many trips before.
Of course, we were blacked out all the way across, and no smoking was allowed on
deck at night. Apparently our captain decided to take us on a course through the South
Atlantic to avoid any German Wolf Pack Submarines known to be operating in the
North Atlantic. As I see it now, the southern route chosen by the captain is why we
were able to bask in the sunshine on deck. It was almost like a luxury cruises, but
definitely cheaper, and maybe a little more crowded. There must have been about
10,000 soldiers aboard. In some areas the bunks were stacked eight high to get as
many aboard as possible. The warm weather was a welcome change for us from the
Massachusetts weather we left in October. Our team’s compartment was right next to
the forecastle on the main deck. We found out later that our good fortune was to be
paid for by being on KP (Kitchen Police as cooks, servers, and clean up crew) for the
entire trip. Apparently our battalion commander had felt he should “volunteer” us for
that job. We were sharing the ship with a fresh infantry division, and our commander
felt that we should serve those soldiers who were on their way to combat on the front
lines. I have to agree with his decision now that I know why he did it.
However, like all military soldiers, we griped about it every day. But, the good side of
it is that we ate good food and plenty of it. I can’t complain, I was in the Signal Corps
and they were in the Infantry. If it was not for my good fortune of being sent to
electronics training, I may have been with them, because my ROTC training in
college at NC State was in the Infantry. As always, all good things must come to an
end. We arrived in the Irish Sea without incident. Unfortunately, (I’ll never
understand why) most of the tugboat captains were on strike, but our captain was not
going to sit out there as a target for the Germans. On November 8, 1944, with the pilot
boat leading the way, the captain decided to take the ship in to the dock under steam
without any tugboat assistance. We docked at Liverpool, England. In my civilian life,
I had the opportunity to operate a boat before getting in the army; I could appreciate
and admired the captain’s skill in maneuvering that large ship in the close quarters
that we had to deal with in coming in to the dock. Our captain had to dock our ship
parallel to the dock between two warships already parked there. The space allocated
for our ship was almost too limited to get in without tugs to push us in sideways. We
parallel park cars and have problems. Can you visualize the captain parallel parking
an ocean liner? The Captain literally “walked” the ship sideways into the space
allocated for us to use. He used one propeller forward with the other one in reverse at
the same time to move it into place. I think that every soldier on that ship was on the
rail watching the performance. We all cheered to show how much we appreciated and
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�marveled at his performance and the captain smiled and waved back to us. Since our
space was to be parallel parked between two warships, in the process of putting the
ship against the dock on the starboard “right hand” side, we ended up too close to one
of the warehouses. It was built out too close to the edge of the water and as a result
damaged a section of the flying bridge of our ship on that side.
The International Red Cross had a stand on the dock, but we were told that it was not
for Americans on guard duty to use and we didn’t like it. One of our soldiers told his
family about it, and I learned later that they cancelled a check to the Red Cross
because of that incident. I learned later from one of our team members that were
stationed in Bastogne, that when the infantry division that we shared the ship with
reached the shores of France they were sent to a “quiet” section of the front. They
were sent there to get acclimated to military life at the front without being involved in
too much action too soon or in too much danger until they were “ready”. It turned out
that they were sent to a place called Bastonge, Belgium, where the “Battle of the
Bulge” took place that December. (You may have seen the movie that was made later
with that title). The 101st Airborne Division came in to help defend the area from the
German counter-attack. Our team members joined their outfit until they could get
back with us. They told us all about it later.
After disembarking, we were taken by train to the little town of Hereford near the
border of Wales. It means a great deal to me but it won’t mean anything to you, but
when they let us out of the trucks that night about midnight, we had to walk some to
get to our sleeping quarters. We took our gear and walked between these brick
structures. After riding in the back of those trucks, it was a pleasure to be able to do
some walking. Some of the soldiers were commenting on how nice it was to get to
sleep in brick buildings. When I looked and saw what they were talking about, I
immediately realized that the “brick buildings” were ROUND DOWN DRAFT
KILNS, where bricks were fired. I knew what they were and I smiled and agreed. You
must remember that I had been studying Ceramic Engineering in college about how to
make bricks, sewer pipe and other clay products. Bricks are fired in these kilns to
2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The walls are about two feet thick and they have a small
vent hole in the peak of the crown to let the smoke, vapor, and other volatile products
of combustion out. So, my first experience at sleeping in Great Britain was in a brick
kiln with straw as a mattress. Apparently other soldiers had been there before us
because “Kilroy was here” was painted all over the place with the caricature of Kilroy
included. I don’t know anybody that ever met Kilroy in the flesh, but he sure got
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�around all over Europe. Our stay in Hereford was about 12 days, which ended up
being our total time in England. A local pub near the brickyard was our place of
learning about English money, culture, and slang. The bartender taught us about
pence, shillings, pounds, and crowns. We found out that they used no ice in drinks,
beer was never chilled, and when you wanted a beer it was either a “pint” or “half and
half”, but pronounced “arf and arf”.
A couple of soldiers wanted to call some girls they met. The girls had told them to,
“Knock me up”, if they wanted to see them some more that really said “call me on the
telephone”. Most of us walked around the town enjoying the sights and meeting
people. I met some of the people that had worked at the brickyard. The soldiers were
all interested in my explanation of how bricks were made. All the British kilns were
fired using coal that was plentiful there. A coating of soot prevailed everywhere. Soon
our orders came to move out. These were our orders to be sent to France. From
Hereford we went to Southampton, England to be put aboard the British ship “Pearl of
India”. The crew was from India, and the ship was what you would call a “Rust
Bucket”. The condition of the ship was terrible.
After being on that tub, I wanted to kiss the American seamen that kept our ships
spick and span. The decks were so slimy and dirty, that it was dangerous to try to
walk on them without using a safety rope to hang on to. Rusty metal abounded all
over the ship. The food they prepared was so bad that we finally sent all of it back to
the Galley. A few of us went to the galley to see the food prepared, and when we
returned and told the others what we saw, no one would eat any of it. The kitchen help
wore no shirts and leaned over the vats to stir the food and their sweat dripped into the
food. One soldier told us that when he went by the galley, he saw some of the Indian
crew washing their clothes in the cooking vats. We asked to have our “C” rations and
“K” rations opened so we could eat them instead of doing without. We lived for the
most part on bread, water, and coffee. Our British allies under the command of a
British general were supposed to have cleared the city and port of Le Havre, France so
we could land there. Apparently the British general had been involved in the attack at
Dunkirk and didn’t want to expose his troops to heavy enemy fire, and he sat in Le
Havre without attacking the Germans with a strong force. This was causing us to lay
around on the harbor on our “Rust Bucket” with the inedible food. The British were
not advancing far enough out of the city, and we had to spend two weeks on the “Pearl
of India” waiting to go ashore. I’ll have to be honest and tell you, my impression of
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�the English went not just down, but way down. It took us less than a week to cross the
Atlantic on the “USS West Point”, but it took us two weeks to cross the English
Channel. When our ship was to move us to the point where we would board landing
craft, the anchor was drawn up and it had snagged a mine. They let the mine back
down in the water so that it would not hit the side of the ship, and they moved the ship
very slowly to where we could get off. We all went to our assigned embarking
stations.
We got off the ship into landing craft that came alongside, but some of our belongings
didn’t make it. We had to climb down netting to step over into the landing craft. One
of our men missed his footing and fell into the ocean between the ship and the landing
craft. Fortunately, one of the officers on board caught him by his collar when he came
up for air and hauled him safely aboard before he was crushed between the landing
craft and the ship. The Corps of Engineers had cleared a strip of the beach from mines
so we could walk off the landing craft safely. The safe path was marked with flags to
indicate the area had been cleared of mines. They showed us where a soldier had gone
outside the line of flags to see something that caught his eye. He stepped on a mine
and was killed. The hole in the ground was still there when we came by. On shore, we
marched off to bivouac in a field outside of Le Havre. We had to march about two
miles into the countryside. The location was on a hillside overlooking the harbor. On a
clear day, we could see the smokestacks in the city and ships on the water. Between
the time we were camped there in 1944 and the end of the war, it was given the name
“Lucky Strike”, and that name is one many of us will remember. Our rations while we
were camped there consisted of Spam, Jam, and Bread. Three meals a day! To this
day, I cannot tolerate Spam. Our water was purified using chlorinated pills in Lister
Bags hung on tripods throughout the camp area. Our “bathroom” was a series of slit
trenches dug each day in a different spot. We were issued a canteen of water each
morning. It rained off and on every day. during our stay there, and everything was
muddy as could be. That muddy field had been someone’s beet field. Beets were still
in the ground, and I found some of them to eat as a supplement to our meals. I still
like beets and eat them often.
I don’t want to sound like I am complaining, because if I were in the Infantry, we
would have been where we would be shot at and shelled by German artillery. My lot
in life was a hundred percent better than life in the Infantry. Apparently, since we had
just come ashore, we were not assigned to any specific Army Group, and this created
a problem for drawing rations. Maybe that’s why we ended up on a diet of Spam, jam,
and bread. After two weeks the war front had moved enough, and our orders came to
Saleeby 39
�move out to make room for others coming in. When we left camp Lucky Strike, our
team was sent to the little coastal town of Cartaret, France, to live in what may have
been an unfinished hotel or a group of condos or apartments. At least in Cartaret, we
were out of the mud and under roof. We had no electricity, no running water, and no
modern conveniences, but we were dry and out of pup tents. I have to wonder after all
these years if it was completed. If it was, I probably could not afford to stay there
today. At this point we were assigned to an Army Group, probably Third Army, and
once that took place, we could draw rations. That meant that we could depend on
receiving regular rations instead of boxed and dehydrated food. We washed our
clothes, strung lines to hang our clothes on to dry, and made lamps out of empty tins
filled with sand, and we used gasoline, diesel fuel, or any other liquid that would burn
as fuel to give light at night. The only problem was the soot that got on everything
from the open flames.
In our job, as I explained earlier our primary assignment was that we were required to
maintain lines from Division and Army Corps headquarters back to Supreme
Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces (SHAEF), and to the Pentagon outside
Washington, DC. We offered no services to battalions or companies. That was the
responsibility of each division. As I said earlier our training at Fort Monmouth was in
“C Carriers” and “J Carriers” that were able to carry several conversations on one pair
of wires. I cannot emphasize too strongly how my ROTC training at NC State helped
a great deal in handling military life. We had no responsibilities until 30 miles of
territory had been gained. The Companies of 3160th Signal Service Battalion were
dispersed and the teams were assigned to locations in France and Belgium. Our Team
was sent to St. Lo, France, after General Patton’s forces cleared it of Germans. One of
our teams was assigned to – you may have guessed it - Bastogne, Belgium. Again,
that could have been me. As I mentioned earlier, during the Battle of the Bulge, they
had to abandon the Communications center and join the Infantry unit to help defend
the area from the German counterattack. That is how we found out where the Infantry
Unit that came over with us ended up after they came ashore. Some of our team
members ended up with them until after Christmas that winter.
Those soldiers that were sent to Bastonge really took it on the chin from the German
counter-attack that was mounted just before Christmas in the snow, cold, and
miserable weather with overcast cloudy skies that prevented our Air Force from
helping them most of the time. I think that it was our Fourth Armored Division
changed direction and came there and did get in to rescue them later, but it was a
Saleeby 40
�terrible time for them until the relief came. I have always thanked God for my lot in
life. The city of St. Lo was in a strategic position, and had been fought over very
fiercely several times, because of its location. The German high command recognized
this fact as well as we did. The communication center was a reinforced concrete
blockhouse with walls and ceiling about five or six feet thick. You could see the
places where artillery shells and bombs had hit the structure.
The impact points were pockmarks without apparent structural damage to the
building. The entire city was one large pile of rubble, and the blockhouse was about
the only safe structure still standing. Some of our men went into partially standing
buildings and camped out there. The area around St. Lo was littered with abandoned
and damaged war materiel both German and American equipment. The repeater and
carrier equipment in the blockhouse was a combination of French, and German, and
we added some American equipment. I did not stay in St. Lo more than two days.
We were split up into small groups of four and assigned to various locations. I was
assigned with three other team members to the communications center in Averanches,
France. Averanches is on a bluff on the coast near the famous “Cathedral at Mont San
Michel”, France. In fact, we could look out our windows of the communication center
and see the Cathedral on any clear day. When the tide rose at the same time that the
moon was near a full moon, the area around the cathedral became an island, because
the water at times covered the causeway leading out to it. Thank God that the
Germans had enough faith left in them to leave the Cathedral as it was and not involve
it in the war effort, because it was intact. The German Army had used the Cathedral in
downtown Averanches as an observation post, and as a result, our field artillery unit
had to use artillery shells in the attack to get them out. The French people in the city
understood and did not hold any animosity against America for the damage to the
Cathedral. The seaport of Granville, France was nearby, and the port was used to
bring in supplies for our forces. We were able as a team to draw rations from the
Military Police (MP) unit in Granville. They were assigned to provide us with our
requirement for MP guards on the door to our communications center. We needed the
guards on the door, because we were very near the front lines. In addition, the
Germans still had soldiers on the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey, which were
nearby. Those soldiers were left behind when the Germans retreated in the face of the
American breakthrough at Averanches and St Lo. We were getting information that
led us to believe that they would attempt to come ashore and try to re-take Averanches
where we were.
Saleeby 41
�We got in touch with some of the members of the French Resistance, and we found
the man who had worked in the telephone office before the war. His name was Roland
Thomas, and he also helped us understand and repair the German equipment that we
decided to put back in service. Using their equipment reduced the work we needed to
do, because this put us in communication with St Lo immediately with the lines that
had not been damaged. We hired him to assist us in the major repairs we needed to do.
We kept him on during my entire tour of duty in Avaranches, France. As a matter of
fact, we had no trouble working out an arrangement with local people to wash our
uniforms for us. We hired a lady after checking her out to be our cook and clean house
for us. Our living quarters had enough sleeping space for the assigned MP guards and
us.
The German Army had installed the communication center in an excavation that had
three levels underground, and they had built a house on top to have it appear as a
residence on the edge of town. That is why there was enough sleeping space for us
and the MP’s. After we had been stationed there for a while, we were able to buy eggs
and butter from some of the farmers nearby.
These were a delicacy to us as army troops, because our rations had no butter, and the
eggs we could get were made from powdered eggs. We were living in high cotton
with a cook, house cleaner, and someone to help with the communications equipment.
We made it a point to make friends with all the townspeople. French language, we had
to learn. Fortunately, Roland Thomas spoke English very well, because he was one of
the contacts the allies had used in communicating with the underground. He taught us
enough French to help us to communicate with the people in town. Our responsibility
was to maintain telephone communications day and night.24 hours a day. Some of our
circuits had a requirement that they must be repaired or replaced within 20 minutes.
As a group of four men, we arranged our work schedule with one man on for each 8hour shift. In this way, the time we worked each day shifted forward one segment. In
that way we all were able to use the day light hours to enjoy the environs of the
community all day long once every four days. In this way, we were able to make
friends with the citizens and shopkeepers in the community.
We learned a great deal about French people by sitting in our upstairs window when
everything was going well. We could see couples walking toward town holding hands.
It was not unusual to see the couple stop and the young man turn his back toward the
girl walking with him to urinate beside the road. If the young lady needed to, she
would walk off to the side of the road and squat behind a tree. It wasn’t a case of
Saleeby 42
�deliberately looking; it was there to see. Having lived under German Occupation, they
apparently had come to accept the normal bodily functions, as they needed to. During
my entire stay in Europe, I never was stationed near or with anyone from North
Carolina. Only on one occasion I saw a second Lieutenant from Newbern, N. C. who
was stationed where we got our food rations. He came to the Averanches station while
I was in France to inquire why 4 men needed so much food. We explained that we had
the MP’s that guarded the entrance to the Repeater Station living and eating with us.
That satisfied the Quartermaster Corps.
One day, I was on duty and the primary circuit for General Patton’s Army Tank Unit
was out of service, and I was working with our open wire line crew to get it repaired.
We notified the switchboard operator that it was out of service and worked toward
locating the break. All of a sudden General Patton was on the line demanding that I
open it up right then. We had our orders from ComZ, and I told him we were working
to get it back in service. I told him that if he would get off the line, we could get it
done. He asked, “Soldier, do you know who you are talking to?” I responded, “Sir, I
don’t care who you are. I’m trying to fix our problem, and I can’t do it if you don’t
shut up.” He told me who he was and then he asked for my name, rank, and serial
number. I gave it to him and told him to get in touch with General Bradley, because
he was my big boss. Naturally, I expected to be court-marshaled, but at the moment I
was concerned with getting the circuit back in service. He did file the complaint report
about me failing to obey an order from an officer, and the paper work came through
later with statements from SHAEF and my company commander and team leader, Lt.
Biehler, that I was performing my duties as assigned. General Bradley, our Battalion
commander, our Company Commander, and Lt. Biehler had signed it. I signed it as I
was told, and I sent it back through. I never heard anything more about it.
The Germans were re-supplying their troops on the Channel Islands of Jersey and
Guernsey by air. The word came that the Germans on the Islands were really planning
an attack to recapture Averanches, and I sent word with the MP’s to get in touch with
the Infantry Commander in Granville. I am sure that some of our army ground forces
were sent out on the peninsula toward Brest, France, to keep them from coming
ashore. As for the defensive positions for Averanches, we planned a defense that
included a machine gun emplacement on the only road coming up from the beach.
From there, our field of fire covered the ways they would try to come up to attack us.
Other units were positioned along the crest of the hillside next to the beach coming up
Saleeby 43
�to the city. Despite any reports to the contrary, the Germans never made it up the hill
to the city. With our defensive position planned as it was, we kept them from
accomplishing their mission. As a result of that incident, I think the high command
decided that we didn’t need to have the German soldiers in our back yard. An air
attack was planned and carried out to keep them from threatening us any longer. The
most impressive sight I ever witnessed was when the Air Force sent 2400 bombers
down to the Channel Islands. Wave after wave of bombers came over our area all day
long. The German soldiers there didn’t have a chance, and they finally surrendered.
On our day off, we could go anywhere in the area we wanted to. As a result most of us
took advantage of the opportunity to visit the Mont St. Michel Cathedral. I was
stationed there until after V E Day. The whole city had a great celebration, and we
were the center of attention by the townspeople. We were friends from before, but
now we were heroes in their eyes. They had a parade with all the trimmings, and they
asked us to be a big part of it. They treated us like we were the Grand Marshals of
their parade. I felt proud to be a part of it. Around the end of May, a new outfit just in
from the U.S.A. relieved us and we started to speculate if we were to be sent home, or
if we were to be sent to the Pacific Theater to help end that section of the conflict.
Would we go home, or would we go toward Japan? That was the question. We found
out very soon that we were not going home. We were sent to a military base outside
Versailles near Paris for a few days. I was able to get quite a few pictures of some of
the famous Paris landmarks. I still have the photos and negatives in black and white of
Napoleon’s Tomb, the Eiffel Tower, Place de Concorde, the Louvre, Rue de
Montmarte, Place Pigalle, and other notable sights. The guillotine was still there in the
middle of the square.
Then on May 30, 1945, we were loaded on a train and started east toward Germany.
That train ride was memorable only in the fact that several times as we were climbing
hills, we had to get out and literally push and help the engine get to the top of the hill.
Many times, we were able to get off and walk as fast as the train was moving. Maybe
that was why it was able to make it to the top. We went through Metz and
Kaiserslautern on the way to Wurzburg, Germany, which was our destination.
Wurzburg was to be our Battalion Headquarters. I only stayed in Wurzburg a few
days before being assigned and sent to Hallenburg, Germany, which is north of
Frankfurt on the Main and north of Marburg on the way to Hamburg. Our little group
of four apparently relieved a U. S. Army Infantry Company. I immediately put up my
large 48 star American Garrison Flag, and I have used it here and still have it in the
Saleeby 44
�closet at the end of the hall.
Remembering the things we had learned in Averanches, we found out about Herr
Westermann. He had worked in the long distance telephone installation during the
war. We found out very quickly that he did not like Hitler. He and his wife and
children were good people. He was not a Nazi, but was a communications expert. He
quickly told us that he would be glad to help us operate “his” repeater station. He told
us who were the Nazis and who could be trusted. He and I spoke the same engineering
language. I evaluated his knowledge as excellent. We hired him to help us work in the
repeater station, because he knew all about all the equipment. He could do anything
that needed to be done from starting the Diesel generator to repairing repeater circuits.
Here in Hallenburg as they had everywhere else, the Germans had dug a hole in the
ground that was three stories deep and built a house on top of the ground to make it
appear as only a residence. The installation had its own diesel generator power plant
in case it was needed. In addition there was a complete filtration system to purify the
air in case of a gas attack. All the communication lines came in and went out
underground. Here again, we were a four-man team, and again we worked 8-hour
shifts. In this way, every four days, each of us had the all the daylight hours off. Each
of us could do all the jobs, and with Herr Westermann available we had more freedom
and the ability to enjoy the surroundings.
I decided to learn to speak German, and used every opportunity to learn how to use
their language. Herr Westermann knew enough English to be understood, and he
taught me how to speak German very well. In teaching me to speak German, he
learned more English. I could carry on a conversation with most of the people. Since
then I have used my knowledge of the German language on my trips to Germany,
Denmark, and Russia. In addition, I have used it with the Germans who came to
Statesville to see brick making equipment and do business with J. C. Steele & Sons,
Inc. during the many years I worked there before retirement.
As I mentioned before, Hallenburg is in the northern section of Germany with hills
nearby. Right after we arrived, we had found a large crock and filled it with grapes
and other fruit to produce wine. We had bottled it in preparation to celebrate the
Fourth. On July 4, 1945 we were celebrating by inviting any American soldiers that
came through town to join us. Quite a few trucks with American soldiers in them
came through, and we invited each one and all to come in to help celebrate the Fourth.
We made some good friends in Hallenburg. Since the German civilian population was
Saleeby 45
�not allowed to have firearms, we took some of the townspeople out into the hills
around town to go hunting. We killed deer and boars and had them brought to the
town-square. They were hung for two weeks to age. The town butcher cut them up
and gave all the people some to take to their families. We told them all we wanted was
one meal out of each animal. Needless to say, when we wanted to buy fresh eggs and
butter, we had no trouble to get some from them. We paid for anything we got. We
had no trouble getting laundry washed and ironed. We found the German people easy
to get along with in that town. On one of the hunting trips, I found some equipment a
German soldier had abandoned. A pair of field glasses and some other military
hardware that I tried to bring home. .
Our team was the only American presence in Hallenburg, and we were supplied with
a Very pistol to fire in case we needed help. As I described earlier, Hallenburg is near
Hamburg, Germany. When the division of the country was made in the agreement
between the Russians, British, French, and Americans, Hallenburg ended up in the
British Zone. After the areas of responsibilities were established, an entire Company
of British soldiers came to relieve us. We still had some of our Very Shells, and
decided we would have a royal transition to British rule by firing almost all our shells
into the air as part of the transition of power celebration. This immediately brought
our nearby assigned American soldiers that were to help us in time of trouble. Our
Very pistol was to be used if we needed help, and they thought we were in need. We
invited them to help celebrate the transition.
After reporting back to Wurzburg, I was given some time off, and I used it to make a
one-week trip to Switzerland. We entered Switzerland at Basel and were sent by train
to Berne, Zurich, Lucerne, and Interlaken and on to a mountain top town named
Murren. We spent a day or two in each city. One part of the trip was by cable car to
get up the side of the mountain to the level of the next set of train tracks to get to
Murren. Murren was near the top of a snow-covered mountain. The famous peak of
Jungfrau was across the valley. It was very impressive. We went snow skiing and
were taught by a young lady who had competed in the Olympics. It was fun having
that young girl as our instructor. Not only was she a good skier, but also she was good
looking to go with it. We saw several people on crutches with casts on legs or arms.
When we asked about them, our instructor told us that all the people on crutches were
skiers that thought they were experts. She said that very seldom were any of the
beginners hurt. Naturally, we believed every word of it, with tongue in cheek, but she
Saleeby 46
�was a great teacher. Our instructor started us on the beginner slope, and by the third
morning we went all the way to the top of the ski lift. Our first trip down the mountain
was down a bobsled run. When we asked why we would be going to ski down the
bobsled run. She said we would be stopped at various points on the way down to see if
we were all there. While we were doing our thing, she cut across country and waited
at different points. She waited where there was no side to the bobsled run. It was
exciting, and we all made it without any problems. We went up on the lift again and
again, and those who wanted to ski cross-country went down the mountain with her
while some of the others did the bobsled run again. After that, we were pretty much
on our own with the privilege of getting more instruction if we wanted it.
We visited cities where Swiss cheese was made. We were allowed to go through the
Cheese factories, where they explained how they aged Swiss cheese. The building is
seven stories high, and the cheese is moved up one floor each year. They core the
cheese to see the size of the holes. We buy Swiss cheese with large holes in it. They
keep the cheese until the holes get very small – less than the size of the hole punched
in our three-hole notebooks. That tells me that Swiss cheese sold here cheese is very
young, because all of it has large holes inside. At Lucerne, we could see the
Matterhorn across the lake, but were not taken up to the top. The restaurants served
very delicious food. In Berne, which is the capital, we had a good opportunity to shop
for watches and other items that Switzerland is famous for. We went into the
Government buildings and watched their legislators in action. We were told about the
agricultural methods and manufacturing systems of their nation’s largest industries.
All of our travel in Switzerland was by train, but in the large cities, we were able to
ride in Taxis and Horse Drawn carriages. A few of the cities had trolley cars on the
streets. It was fun to do all these things after the war we had been through. On my
return to Wurzburg, I was sent to be part of the team at Giessen, Germany. Giessen
was in a hilly area much like the area around Hallenberg-, and I thought that game
should be available there. Remembering the eggs and butter we were able to get in the
other towns, I adopted the same tactics there that had worked before. Get the people
meat, and they will get you whatever you need in the surrounding area. I organized
hunting parties several times. I would furnish the gun, and they would furnish the
people to flush the deer or boar. We would field dress the animals, and they would
take them down to the center of the town to finish cleaning them, hung, and later
divided up with the citizens. As always, all we wanted was one good meal of venison.
That’s the time we started thinking of how soon we could get to go home. I hired the
smartest German technician that I could find to work for us here the same as I had
Saleeby 47
�done everywhere else before.
The most embarrassing incident I had to deal with while I was in Giessen was when
Fred Simons, one of our team members, was arrested by the MP’s and brought in. I
had to put him under house arrest, guard him, and keep him there until his situation
was disposed of. The MP’s that brought him in told me that he had posed as a Military
Policeman someplace nearby. Apparently he had found a motorcycle and used it
during his outing or outings. I guess they naturally didn’t appreciate it. I never did
find out what they did with him after I sent him back to Wurzburg. I assumed that Lt.
Biehler did what was required under military law and handled it for him.
It didn’t take the War Department long to come up with a system for bringing the
troops home. Our discharge date was to be based on “points” which were awarded on
the basis of length of service, length of overseas duty, wounds, awards, and probably
some other items that I didn’t know about. Most or all of us had more than enough
points necessary to be discharged. I certainly had more than enough points to go
home, but they told us that as “Telephone Repeatermen” we were classified
“Essential”. The reason was given that we couldn’t go home now was that we were
charged with the responsibility to maintain communications between the Potsdam
Conference and the Pentagon in Washington. As a result, we could not be discharged
until “replacements” were available. After quite a while of this, my response to that
was that I sent in a request for 12 men to be sent to our installation. Apparently the
training program a Fort Monmouth had been curtailed when the war was over. They
asked why did we need twelve, and I responded that I was setting up a school as a
training program for replacements. I was planning for the twelve to take the place of
the four of us by teaching them how to operate the repeater station as a group if
necessary. As I have mentioned earlier we had circuits that could not be out more than
20 minutes. That required people who knew what they were doing. We started off
teaching some simple lessons about the difference between AC and DC. From there
we progressed as they learned. I used blackboards, equipment from the repeater
station, and anything that pertained to the operation of the repeater station.
We taught classes just like regular school, except this was complete hands-on teaching
some of the soldiers that had requested this new service had no idea of the complexity
of their task. Some of them had thought this was a piece of cake. After the first week,
Saleeby 48
�some of them wanted out, and we said, “You asked for an inside job, and you’ve got
it.” Two more weeks and they got into it with both feet and applied themselves when
they learned this would help them get jobs after discharge. With some tutoring, all of
them learned how to run the station, especially with the German technician being on
hand. In the meantime, our life was changing. With the German surrender, the Army
issued orders that there was to be no fraternization with the German girls. With all
those American soldiers in Germany who had no female companionship for years, it
was inevitable for the natural desire for companionship to raise its head. In our group
Otis Clark was the first to begin to get involved with a German girl. He told me that
he would stay there until they let him marry her. Well, why not? German girls were
just as appealing to men as American girls. Nature took its course, and eventually Otis
did all the necessary paper work to get married. As far as I know he still lives in
Topeka, Kansas, with his German wife. I had met her and she was a nice person and
pretty.
I had an opportunity to take seven days leave to go to one of Hitler’s vacation spots in
the German Alps. The name of the area was Garmish Partinkirken, Germany, and the
snow and the scenery was beautiful. In order that I could go there, I was put on
temporary assignment to the Seventh Army so I could go to that place. I had a good
time skiing every day that week. The winter Olympics have been held there in recent
years. I never did go to the top of the highest ski run, because I knew I was not
proficient enough to come down the mountain from that level and do it safely. They
had beginner slopes and intermediate slopes all the way up in difficulty to the ones
they used in the Olympics.
One of the most moving experiences of my life took place in Geissen, Germany on
Christmas Eve in 1945. The German people there asked if they could do something
different, and they decided to have an international and interdenominational
Christmas Eve service. Soldiers and civilians with Chaplains from the Army and
civilian priests, and pastors and preachers from the churches in town got together in a
local movie theater. We had Bible readings, and we sang Christmas Carols. They sang
in German and we sang in English. Believe it or not, it was wonderful and moving.
The words fit, the music was just like at home, because, apparently, they sang the
same songs that we did. The tunes were the same, only the words changed languages.
Oddly enough, the English and German words fit together nicely.
I don’t remember why I was in Fulda, Germany a little later, but I assume it was to fill
Saleeby 49
�in for someone who had been sent back to the States. While I was helping out there, I
came closest to being killed than any other place in Europe. The occasion was in the
office area where we were having a discussion. Someone, maybe a driver, was
showing another person his 45-caliber handgun. It’s amazing what can happen if
people don’t know what to do. I remember watching him remove the magazine out of
the butt of the 45. I remember him handing the gun to his friend. As he raised it to
shoulder height to act like he would shoot, it was aimed toward another soldier (who I
don’t remember) and me.
When I saw his finger tighten my infantry training made me push the other person
sitting on the desk with me off the desk to the floor while I fell off the other side. The
crack of the bullet made everyone gasp. My automatic reaction came from my
previous infantry training, because my involuntary mental picture realized that they
had removed the magazine, but that they did not pull the barrel slide back to be sure
that no bullet was in the chamber. At Camp Wheeler in Infantry Basic Training, this
was one of the things that we were drilled over and over to remember. Rule Number
One, after you remove the magazine of bullets, always pull the slide back and release
it to be sure that no bullet is left in the chamber. We were trained to do this with both
rifles and pistols. If I had not reacted, I may not have been here today to write all this.
I learned that my cousin Albert Saleeby was stationed about 50 miles from Fulda. I
checked a vehicle out of the motor pool on my day off and drove down and spent the
day with him. He was amazed that I could get a vehicle to come to see him. I
explained that I told them I didn’t care what size vehicle it was, and that was all it
took, because they gave me a 3/4 ton 4 x 4 truck to drive. When Sgt. Kugel got his
orders to be sent home from Limburg, Germany, I was sent there to fill in for his
absence. He left his “Haus Frau” that did the cooking and cleaning in Limburg, and as
a result, I had to get a vehicle to return her to her town that she came from. Once he
was gone, she did not want to stay in Limburg to cook for us. Many times after that I
wished he had taken her back before he left. I placed her in the rear of a 3/4 ton 4 x 4
with the canvas cover in place to hide her while I took her back to her original home.
Fortunately, no one challenged me on the trip. Outside of that, our life in Limburg was
similar to the other places I had been. The difference here was that this was a large
city, and we had no hills or forests to hunt in. All our rations came from the local
Infantry Company located there. Limburg, Germany is on the Lahn River, and it was
one of the cities that the Germans used for execution of Jews.
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�The people of the city had not been aware of the atrocities that the Germans were
committing, and when they found out later, they were fearful of soldiers in general. I
spent some of my time trying to reassure the locals that we were not like the Gestapo.
They soon began to believe, and that made our lives more pleasant after that. Limburg
is an urban city, and so, we were not able to hunt game to furnish them with meat like
we had in the other towns. These people liked to work and make money. Cleaning our
uniforms and general cleaning up and cooking were the most needed items in
Limburg. We had no trouble finding those services. I missed the ability to hunt and
trade for fresh eggs and butter like we had done with the farmers in the other
locations. Apparently my suggestions for training our replacements were beginning to
bear fruit. The training of telephone repeatermen at Fort Monmouth had been
curtailed since the war was over. I had suggested that we start teaching our potential
replacements at all the stations. It must have worked for me, because my orders to be
discharged came while I was in Limburg, Germany. I was surprised and pleased that
this turned out to be the best solution to our problem of going home. On my way back
to France, I went through Belgium and Holland. The people there must have really
suffered. They begged for scraps and bits of food. Any rations that we did not eat
completely, they wanted the scraps. Candy was like gold to them. It was heart-rending
to see them in that state. You almost felt like giving them the shirt off your back.
Some of the stories they told made you wonder if the German soldiers were human.
The primary goal that all of us had was to get home. Finally, the group I was with
ended up back in Le Havre, France, at good old Camp Lucky Strike – this was where
we had come ashore and stayed in the beet field. The camp had barrack buildings now
with paved walkways and a little grass. But it was still on that famous beet field we
had camped in on our way to the fray. We could still see the harbor and smoke stacks
from the area. They processed us for the return trip, and gave us our orders for
returning to the United States. My return trip to the good old U. S. A. was not to be
aboard the USS West Point. We were loaded on a converted Liberty Ship that had
been used to carry munitions equipment, supplies, and troops to Europe. Again, we
had bunks, but we had an American crew instead of that crew from India. The ship
was obviously on its last legs, but it was painted and had clean decks that you could
walk on without sliding. We didn’t need any safety ropes to hang on to either. I was
surprised to learn that I was the only one of our communications team in this
repatriation group. I think that this ship could get up to 6 knots at full speed. I didn’t
complain, because I was on my way home!
Saleeby 51
�As we were leaving the harbor, the captain came on the loudspeaker system with the
announcement that storms were predicted over the Atlantic for the next two weeks. He
had asked for and received permission to use an alternate route to avoid rough seas.
We all were glad that he did, because we were only two days out of port when the
captain announced that we were altering our course. He needed to take a more
northerly course so that we could be in position to go to the aid of another ship taking
soldiers home if it became necessary.
The captain told us that we needed to be in position if they had trouble and if it
became necessary to rescue the soldiers on the other ship in the eye of the storm. They
had radioed that their ship was taking on water, and may need help. They also were on
a converted Liberty that had seen heavy service during the war. Here we were trying
to get home and the last thing we needed was to go into a stormy sea and delay our
return. I wondered at the time if we were actually in the storm itself, but after the
years in the war, this was like fun when we were kids. We laughed and joked about
the ride we were on. All the creaking and groaning the ship was doing was like some
of the shows we had gone to at the fairgrounds back home. The only difference was
that by now we were a thousand miles from land. Every heave of the bow meant we
were that much closer to home. The wind was howling and the salt-water spray was
blowing all over everything. The closer we got to the storm, can you picture the
heaving deck with soldiers lined up scanning the sea for the other ship? Some of the
soldiers got seasick, and nobody wanted to be standing near them. I got as far forward
as I could and enjoyed the ride. There were times when the ship would crest a wave,
and as it passed underneath the ship would drop about twenty or thirty feet and splash
water in all directions. The feeling you had was like falling through space. There was
very little weight on your feet. The sensation was like being on the Ferris Wheel at the
Fair and if the wheel speeded up to twice the normal speed. Breathtaking is what it
was. We got a bath whether we wanted it or not. But it was exhilarating to all of us
who were used to boating. This went on for two days and nights.
We stayed outside the worst of the storm, but close enough in case we were needed.
The captain apologized to us, but we told the crew to tell him we understood and
wanted him to stay on course to rescue the other soldiers if, as, and when, in case we
were needed. He had the radioman put messages that were received from the other
ship on the bulletin board for all of us to read. Finally the message came through
telling us they were out of the storm and had the leaks under control. Our captain then
moved a little farther away from the storm area to give us a smoother and more
Saleeby 52
�comfortable ride. These ships apparently had double bottoms and that made it safer in
situations like this. The reason I know this is that the captain told us on the last day
before docking in New York that the ship we were on would never make another
ocean crossing. The double bottom on our ship had finally given in to the storm
effects and started leaking, but it was not bad enough to be alarmed. He explained to
us that it would cost more to repair the damaged plates on our double bottom than the
ship would be worth. It had made hundreds of crossings during the war, and he felt
that it had earned its cost in tonnage it had carried to the war. It would be probably
sold for scrap metal.
For our patience in putting up with the rough seas, the captain had the galley crew
cook us a special dinner the last night we were at sea. When we came in to the New
York Harbor, the Fire Boats shot streams of water into the air following us in, and
other ships blasted their horns as we passed them on our way to the dock. It was very
impressive. When I saw the Statue of Liberty, I could easily imagine the emotion that
my Father and Mother had when they saw that beautiful sight for the first time. We all
cheered, because this meant that we were now back home.
After being processed through the port customs and Immigration in New York, we
were sent to Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. The army group there processed us and put us
on trains to our final destination for separation from service. Normally we were to be
returned to the fort or camp where we entered active duty. When we came back, we
had a choice of army installations to be sent for discharge. I went with a group bound
for Fort Bragg, NC, since that was where I went to report for active duty, and it was
the fort nearest my home. The trip was uneventful. Out of all the soldiers going back
to Fort Bragg, I did not know a single one of them. I didn’t care. Every city we went
through on the way back had familiar sites that made me feel good. Philadelphia, the
Washington Monument, the Capitol, Potomac River, Richmond, Rocky Mount, and
Wilson all gave me a warm feeling. Why didn’t they stop and let me off? That would
save a lot of time and trouble. I looked out at the station in Wilson, but nobody was
waiting for me. They should have called Mom and Dad to tell them I was on the train.
Oh well, I would have to wait to see them. The date was Good Friday 1946. On our
arrival at Fort Bragg, I received a message to report to the office. I was informed that
no discharges would be given over the weekend. However, I also learned that my
cousin Renee’ Arab was working in the Separation Center for the Officer in Charge.
Her boss, Paul Bissette was from my hometown of Wilson, and when he saw my
name on the list of returnees, he arranged for me to have a weekend pass to spend
Saleeby 53
�Easter with my family in town. My Father, Mother, and my sister Helen had come
down to Fayetteville when Renee’ called and told them I was on my way home. They
were staying at Uncle Alex’s house with them. No wonder they weren’t at the station
in Wilson, (some joke).
I found out later that I had made one big mistake by trusting the soldiers in the
barracks we were sharing. While I was spending the weekend at my Aunt Najla and
Uncle Alex Arab’s home, someone went through my duffel bag and stole all of my
valuables, and German souvenirs, even down to my Argus C3 camera with exposed
film with pictures of the boat ride home from France. At this point, I really didn’t care
about those small things. We had a good time over that Easter weekend, and I was
discharged on Monday morning. In my discharge interviews, the army officers kept
asking if I wanted to remain in the Army Reserves.
My standard answer was that the only thing I wanted to be was a P.F.C. (Poor Free
Civilian). You must realize that I was going to be 25 years old with still two years of
College studies to complete. All my friends were already working and making good
money. I can tell you, as enticing as it was, that was one of the hardest decisions I
ever had to make. I could have gone to work for AT&T the next day as a Central
Office Wire Chief because of all the work I did in the Signal Corps. That was
enticing, and as it turns out I could have had a great retirement today if I had done it. I
realized that an education is more valuable than a quick good paycheck in your pocket
right away. That has been borne out many times over in the succeeding years. I
wouldn’t change it if I could. That is truer today than it was then. So often, workers
only look at how much money can they can make instead of what they can
accomplish. Best of all, hard as it was to make that decision, I came home and
finished school at NC State University and graduated in Ceramic Engineering.
I may have left out some details, but they are probably insignificant. As I said in the
beginning, trying to remember things that happened over 50 years ago is not easy. The
important items are easy; the details are a bit fuzzy. I am proud that I was able to take
part in World War II, and I am glad that I came home with only minor injuries. Many
others were not so lucky, and some did not come home at all. The memories are all we
have of them. World War II was a time in history that we had to do something good
for mankind and we did it.
Saleeby 54
�MY RETURN TO COLLEGE
I applied to re-enroll at NC State to complete my studies toward my degree in
Ceramic Engineering. Dr. A. F. Greaves-Walker had retired, and Dr. Worth Kriegel
had been hired to head the Ceramics Department with new professors brought in to
teach the courses. I re-entered and took up my courses where I had left off as a rising
junior. I was elected president of the local chapter of the American Ceramic Society at
the first meeting of the group. My major laboratory project that year was to determine
if Haloisite could be used as a commercial product for the refractory industry. The
results were positive, but I never learned if they were utilized. I made new friends of
students who had not served in the military, and I did not have too much trouble
getting back into the swing of being a student.
I learned that a course in Business Law was available for me to take as an elective,
and I decided that I probably needed to have some knowledge of the subject. I found it
to be very interesting. Another subject that I chose was Public Speaking to help me in
being able to stand before strangers and talk without feeling uncomfortable. These
two courses have come in handy many times since then in my life. The largest group
that gave a speech to in my life was at an annual Ceramic Society Convention in 1976
after my trip to Russia. My presentation had to be moved to a larger room because
over 700 people had indicated that they wanted to hear it, and there were more than
that who came in to create a standing room only crowd in that meeting room.
The following year I was elected president of the student chapter at NC State of
Keramos, which is the Professional Ceramic Engineering Fraternity. My Senior-year
project was to design an automated plant to produce wall tile. I designed an automatic
hopper freight car weighing and unloading system for raw materials when they
arrived. Full cars were weighed coming in and weighed empty when leaving to
determine how much material had been delivered to the plant. I designed the plant
with pneumatic conveying systems, and screw conveyors for transferring the materials
to storage bins and silos from the hopper cars that they were delivered in. I was
designing a plant that would have minimal human contact with the product until it was
ready for packaging for delivery. The tiles were manufactured, dried, fired and color
matched using a photometer for packaging. Dr. Kriegel and Mike Lamb, my lab
professor, decided it was too impractical and gave me a C- on the design. I was going
to learn later that it was more than practical. We performed laboratory experiments
that required staying at the laboratory 24 hours a day tending to the dryers and kilns
Saleeby 55
�when drying and firing some of the products. As a result, we were set up in two man
teams so that we could alternate to perform the required duties.
After I was graduated from college in 1948, I accepted a position with US Gypsum
Corporation as an Industrial Sales Engineer. We had a good family discussion about
my leaving our home area to work. I felt that I needed to learn about corporate
business and how they operated. I knew how to run a small business. None of my
cousins had left our area after finishing their college education, and most, but not all,
of my uncles and aunts thought I might be making a mistake – all but one. My Uncle
George, who had never been married and had no children, came up to me and asked
me how much money I had in the bank. When I told him the amount I had, he gave
me a $500.00 check and told me to add it to my account. He said I didn’t have enough
money in my bank account to get along in Chicago. He was a wonderful inspiration to
me in our talks about my new venture into the corporate business world. There are
times in our lives that have incidents in them that are memorable. One such for me
occurred after I had been working at USG for about a year, and it was when an
account I handled for USG – Trinity Portland Cement – got too far out of balance. We
had been providing and were still shipping them one fifty-ton carload of gypsum rock
every day for the last three years. Gypsum is a required component to be included for
the manufacture of cement. In one way or another due to the freight allowance we had
in the contract, the account had gotten completely out of balance to the point that
Trinity Portland Cement claimed that we had overcharged them over $4000.00 during
that period. Mr. M. R. Druliner, Vice President of the Industrial Sales Division, asked
me to go see Mr. Edward Dutton, the Chief Financial Officer of the Corporation. I
was to learn if we could come up with a solution to straighten it out, since I was
handling the Southwestern Section accounts for gypsum rock. The Accounts
Receivable office didn’t want the job to try to fix it, the billing department didn’t
know what to do, and our Transportation Department didn’t want to touch it. They
asked me if I could or would tackle the problem and solve it in a way that both
companies would be satisfied. He told me that it would be my sole responsibility until
the problem was resolved. There were over 1,100 carloads of Gypsum Rock involved
with varying freight charges. I even called the Transportation Dept. in Washington,
DC. It took me quite a while to itemize, check, verify, and list all the amounts of
money paid, received, and charged. I listed every invoice with how much we charged
for each invoice, what they paid, the applicable freight rates, and what they should
have been charged, and determine any difference, whether plus or minus. I got in
touch with the railroad as well as Trinity’s transportation department. When I
Saleeby 56
�compiled all the information and did the necessary corrections I was surprised to learn
that we did not owe them any money, but they owed us. It turned out that Trinity’s
traffic department knew of the variations in approved freight rates, and they had
already made claims to the railroad for the overcharges on freight bills and had been
reimbursed. Their financial office misdirected the refund amounts in their books. I sat
down with their people and explained all my numbers, which correlated with their
books, and showed them that instead of USG owing them over $4,000.00, Trinity
owed USG $475.00. A check was cut and given to me with thanks from their accounts
payable office.
When I explained everything to Mr. Dutton in our office, and gave him the check, he
instructed his secretary get a file folder to put all this information in. He proceeded to
seal it with instructions written on the outside that it was never to be opened without
the CFO of the corporation present – he felt it was that important. The next day he
sent me a personal note of thanks for doing something that no one else would tackle –
not even his office. His secretary attached a personal note to me on the outside to the
effect that I should cherish that note from Edward Dutton as a once in a lifetime
message. She had been his personal secretary for 25 years, and he had never sent a
note of thanks like it to anyone else. That gave me a very good feeling to have done a
job that well for the firm.
In the summer of 1949 I was transferred to the New Orleans area to call on Architects,
Contractors, Oil Refiners, Sugar producers, and other sub-contractors in the
construction industry. My territory covered Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi. I
had an efficiency apartment near the Naval Air Station next to Lake Ponchartrain.
Since I had only a few customers in New Orleans, I was away from New Orleans 5
days a week for 5 out of every 6 weeks. Most of my contacts in New Orleans were
with Architects and Contractors as well as American Standard Corporation where they
manufactured sinks and commodes in that plant. My Ceramic background came into
use at that location. It was interesting to work with the Ceramic Engineer at the plant
and to meet the needs and solve the problems of the manufacturing situations as they
arose from time to time. At Exxon Corporation, in Baton Rouge, I learned how our
lime products were used in the Oil Processing Refineries in the production of oil and
gasoline.
I chose to take vacation time during the Christmas season in 1949 and planned to go
Saleeby 57
�to visit my family in North Carolina. When I came home for Christmas, I went over to
see Uncle George. While we were talking, I put my check for $500.00 in his shirt
pocket. He asked me what was I doing, and I told him I was returning his $500. He
laughed and said, “You’re the first nephew that ever returned my gift.” I answered
that I had considered it a loan, not a gift. The day after Christmas, I told my parents
that I was planning on going to Danville to visit Elva to see if she still cared for me,
and, if she did, I would ask her to marry me, because I had to ask and find out if she
still cared. I went to Danville, VA, and when I called her house Mrs. Matney, Elva’s
Mother, answered the phone. I told her that I was in town and wanted to see Elva. She
told me that Elva was working at Clark Equipment Co. and she would call her and ask
if she would like to see me. Later, she called me back at the pay phone where I was
waiting and said that Elva would see me. We spent the evening together talking after
she finished work, and I reminded her that I had told her that after the war I would
come to Danville to get me a wife. Then I asked her if she was still interested in
getting married, and, if so, would she marry me. Elva accepted my proposal of
marriage. We wanted our families involved, and I told her I would get my Mother and
Father to come back up there for a formal engagement so that we could include both
our families in the occasion.
When I got back home and told my family about Elva accepting my proposal, my
Mother, Father, and I went to Norfolk so I could get Elva an engagement ring. We had
found out about the Norfolk Navy Base having a special arrangement with a jewelry
importer with good prices and good quality diamonds especially for Veterans. When
we spread the word to the rest of the family about Elva and me, my Uncle Gibran said
he wanted to go with us to Danville because he remembered Eli Matney. He
remembered Elva’s father, from their childhood in Souk el Gharb, Lebanon. The four
of us went to Danville for the formal engagement. Everything went as smooth as silk.
When we came back to Wilson and told all the rest of the family that she had accepted
the ring and we were officially engaged, Uncle George called me over to the side and
handed me a check for $500.00 as a wedding present. His comment at that moment
was, “You remember that I said that you are the only nephew that ever returned my
$500? I want you to use this to buy a refrigerator and stove”. He was always a special
man in my life. This is one of my precious memories. You can’t ask for better than
that no matter how far you go or how good you get.
Things like that are the ones that you treasure for the rest of your life, and it still gives
me a warm feeling to bring that memory out and embrace it for what it meant to me
on that day.
Saleeby 58
�No matter that I had to return to New Orleans for the next three months without Elva
at my side, I was looking forward to the day we would be together every day and
every night for the rest of our lives. She wrote me about the parties that her friends
gave her, and we talked on the phone frequently. I told several of my customers about
the impending marriage, and they all wished us well. Several asked if I was planning
to bring her with me on my trips to see them. Some of the secretaries wanted to meet
her.
Saleeby 59
�MARRIED LIFE
I don’t need to tell those of you that are a part of my family that we got married on
April Fool’s Day in 1950. The number of guests that could be invited to the wedding
by my family was limited. I had reserved the bridal suite at the Roanoke Hotel, which
turned out to be a large room over the entry area of the hotel. We spent a few days
there and visited the Natural Bridge area – one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the
World - and other historical sites in the vicinity while we were there. A program is
given there during the spring and summer months and is presented below the Natural
Bridge nightly. The program is presented about the first chapter of Genesis in the
Bible. That night as the program reached the pint where the Bible says, “And God
said, ‘Let there be Light’,” lights are programmed to flash on the hillside below the
Natural Bridge. I think God decided to have a hand in it, because as the lights flashed
on the hillside, a lightning bolt flashed across the sky at the same instant. As it flashed
across the sky, everyone in the valley gasped aloud.
After we returned from our honeymoon in Roanoke, my Mother and Father gave us a
second reception in Wilson, NC, and this one included many of our family friends and
relatives that could not be invited to the wedding and reception in Danville on our
wedding day. The next day, Elva and I went from Wilson, NC, by train through
Atlanta to New Orleans. After a few weeks in New Orleans the humidity began to
take its toll on Elva’s complexion, and she developed a serious case of Acne. A visit
to a Dermatologist proved to us that we needed to move to another location. The
Dermatologist was humorous in his diagnosis about how this condition came on Elva,
but he was serious in his recommendation that we move and live elsewhere.
As a result of the Doctor’s recommendation, I made a telephone call to Chicago and
requested a visit by Mr. Roger Seng, my district manager, and I asked Mr. M. R.
Druliner the head of the USG Industrial Sales Division to come also. I explained our
problem, and asked them if they would come to New Orleans to discuss if a transfer
could be worked out for me to be transferred to a different location. They agreed to
come down for a conference. I reserved rooms for them at the Monteleone Hotel in
the French Quarter. During our conversation, at one point, Roger Seng complained
that he thought that I was taking their company’s time to seek employment elsewhere.
I responded that if that was what I was doing, I would have had a job already and this
would be only telling them I was leaving. Mr. Druliner said, “Roger just shut up and
listen.” He then told me that he understood our problem, and he was sorry that they
Saleeby 60
�had no position open at another location where I could be transferred. Mr. Druliner
told me that I could tell all the contacts in the applications that I made that I was still
employed by USG and to send their inquiries about me and recommendation requests
to him personally at USG. I am pleased and proud to be able to say that he kept his
word indicating to all of them that USG had no other positions available where I could
be moved to, and that he would have to accept my resignation with regrets. When I
left the company, I had been employed as an Industrial Sales Engineer with US
Gypsum Co. in Chicago and New Orleans over two years. I started corresponding and
interviewing with Cunningham Brick, Champion Spark Plug Corp. in Fostoria, Ohio,
the Atomic Energy Commission at Oak Ridge, TN, and J. C. Steele & Sons, Inc. that
summer.
One of the stipulations at the Steele interview was predicated on the fact that no one
other than a member of the Steele family had ever gone out in the plant to tell the
employees what and how to do something. As a result, they asked if I would be
willing to take an eighteen-month trial period to see if I liked them, or whether they
liked me, and whether the men in the plant would like me and accept my instructions
to do something, because no one outside the Steele family had ever told employees
what to do. After all the discussions with each of the companies I had contacted, we
chose to go with J. C. Steele & Sons, Inc.
The primary reason I wanted to go to work there was because it sounded very
interesting and challenging. On August 19, 1950 I reported for work with J. C. Steele
& Sons, Inc. in Statesville, NC as the assistant to the Vice President for Engineering
as the Chief Ceramic Design Engineer and Chief Field Service Engineer. The owners,
and employers, were J. C. Steele, Jr., Preston Steele, Clarence Steele, and
Montgomery Steele, all family members and first cousins to each other. My duties
included designing new machine lines and designing modifications to older models of
machinery for the Structural Clay Products manufacturers throughout the world.
When Elva and I moved to Statesville, the first house we lived in was at 336
Westwood Drive. While we were going around the neighborhood meeting all our new
neighbors, I found out that Evelyn Barnes – my early childhood friend and neighborand her husband lived almost directly across the street from our house on Westwood
Drive. I was never so surprised in my life than to see my former friend again after all
those years, and I was even more amazed that she remembered me.
I had been at work less than two weeks learning the layout of the plant, meeting the
workers in the machine shop, pattern shop, and foundry, and becoming familiar with
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�the facilities. Preston Steele sent word to me out in the shop, where I was watching the
assembly of an extruder, that he wanted me to come to his office. He introduced me to
a new customer from Australia that wanted us to build a machine that was larger than
any the Company had ever built. The bricks they used were larger than any bricks
made in our country. These new sized units meant that we had to design and build a
larger machine with more capacity than any we had ever built before. They also
wanted the machine shipped by the end of the year. Preston told me that evening as I
was leaving work that I could forget the orientation period. He wanted me to design
all the necessary components to build this new machine line. That meant designing
new patterns, and utilizing components of current machines that could be made a part
of the new design. Not only would I design the patterns, but also I would be
responsible for the machine drawings and executing purchase orders for the necessary
components to assemble them. Our pattern shop was overtaxed, and I learned about
and got in touch with the man in charge of the pattern shop for the L & N Railroad in
Roanoke, VA. He had a shop at home and often worked for others. He agreed to make
the patterns for me if I would get the drawings to him soon. I did what was needed so
he could build the patterns I needed for the new machine. As he finished each pattern,
I would go to Roanoke and bring it to Statesville for casting in our foundry and
machining in the machine shop. The machine was on a ship loaded and tied down in
Charleston, SC ready to depart the harbor on December 20, 1950.
Our first Thanksgiving of our married life was spent with three inches of ice on the
ground. The floor furnace in our rented house on Westwood Drive had to be repaired,
because the burner nozzle was clogged. Here we were with no heat and the
temperature well below freezing, Elva was feeling the effects of her pregnancy, and
we had a time getting our lives back to normal with the furnace acting up and our
water line frozen. When the plumber came, he knew exactly where the water line
problem was, since he had done this before. It turned out that the water line was in the
middle of the vent opening under the house. I wrapped the water line with newspaper
after he left to insulate it like I remembered my father doing in Wilson many years
before. I didn’t want to have to call him again. Once was enough.
We had our First Christmas as a family in that three bedroom brick house with
thoughts of the future, because our first child was due to arrive in February. On
February 18th we took a trip to the mountains. We took pictures up along the Blue
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�Ridge Parkway. That night Elva started having labor pains just before midnight. We
called Dr. John Stegall, and he said to call him when the pains were more frequent.
We did and met him at Long’s hospital about two o’clock AM. They gave me a cot at
the end of the hall to lie down on, and Gary Charles Saleeby arrived at 6:45 AM on
February 19, 1951. After seeing that Elva and Gary were all right, I went home and
called both sets of parents. Mrs. Matney said she was coming on the first bus. My
Mother waited until she left to come to help us. We needed it, because we had a
colicky child. Every afternoon when I came home from work Elva greeted me with,
“Your child needs you to hold him.” Gary was an active child, and he was very alert.
We had a lot of parenting to learn, and we learned it the hard way, one day at a time. I
was learning the ins and outs of my job, and learning the duties of a father with on the
job training. Before the next winter came, we had moved to the Montgomery House
on Mulberry Street. We had a nice yard with grass and trees as a play area. We had
our second Christmas there, and bought our first Television set while we lived there.
We stayed there for several months, before moving to the Duplex that my employers
owned across the street.
We were looking forward to our second child, and we went to Davis Hospital on
January 29, 1953 when Labor Pains came with a rush at 8:00 PM. The nurses took
Elva immediately to get her prepared, and Douglas Edward Saleeby came into our
lives before midnight. He didn’t waste any time getting here. We had thought that we
were busy before with one child, we learned fast that two children were not just twice
as much to take care of, but, to us, it seemed like four times as much. But we were
learning to enjoy the boys more and more every day. By the time Christmas came
around, we had electric trains, wagons, and tricycles in that little apartment.
The house had a coal stoker furnace, and it kept the house very warm, and the coal bin
had to be kept supplied by me shoveling coal from the pile. The hot water tank was
heated in the winter from a coil in the furnace. In the summer, it was heated from an
electric element that was controlled from a thermostat. The Stoker Coal was delivered
to the basement with a chute that went through one of the windows.
This was the beginning of my modifications to all the older model machines that were
in production. I had plans to convert them from bronze and poured babbit bearings
where they were on the machines to ball bearings, spherical bearings, and roller
bearings throughout. In addition, I instituted a design program to maintain all cast iron
machine component fits to within close tolerances of less than 0.005” (five
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�thousandths of an inch), which they had never done before. I had this done on all
machines that we built from that day forward, and we redesigned all the old machine
parts to the same limits. This new concept came to me, as an idea after being on the
assembly floor, while watching Ed Shoemaker align the master gear and pinion that
would drive the entire machine. He had spent 8 hours aligning one pair of gears using
a feeler gauge between the teeth on the driving pinion and master gear for the
machine. He was only able to drill and tap the holes to mount the bearing housings
after the gears were aligned in this manner. I considered this to be too inefficient. I
wanted to build one machine with my new ideas incorporated into all the parts. I had a
long discussion with I. L. Beaver, the pattern shop superintendent, about my ideas,
and how it could be incorporated into the older patterns we were already using. He
agreed with my ideas about the changes, and said he would have no problems doing
what I wanted. After discussing my thoughts with Preston Steele, he asked if
everything could be changed back to the way it was originally, if it didn’t work out. I
assured him that we could. I had purposely approached Preston Steele with the idea
instead of Montgomery Steele. The reason for going to Preston was that he would let
me try something innovative on a test, whereas Montgomery would want to “think
about it for a while”. I had already been through that response from Montgomery with
decisions delayed for a long time. I wanted to try this right away. I loved my work at
J. C. Steele & Sons, Inc., because I was given the freedom in my designs of machines
and to be creative.
I returned to our Pattern Shop Supervisor, I. L. Beaver, again and asked if he could
modify a set of bearing housings and the master gear case in the manner I wanted for
a test on a machine that was on the production schedule. He agreed that what I wanted
could be done very easily and in time for that unit. If it didn’t work, the modifications
could be removed without any problems. I thought it would save labor and give
customer installations of our equipment better performance. I assured him that if it did
work, it could be applied to every machine we made including the old ones that we
were modifying and up grading. I made the pattern drawings and machine drawings
and had I. L. Beaver supervise the pattern modifications. Then I discussed the
specifications for the machine drawings with, Fred Crawford, the machine shop
superintendent and the machinists that would be machining the parts, since I had
chosen the particular machine that was to be assembled for the test. The castings were
made, and they were machined in time to meet our current production schedule. I
talked with each machinist that had a component to make for me.
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�We put the gear case on the sills with the bearing housing seats bored to
specifications, and the holes were pre-drilled and tapped to receive the bearing
housings. The pinion and master gear were in place on their shafts with their driving
keys driven in place. I asked Preston Steele to come and observe the test on the
assembly floor, and he watched Ed Shumaker do the work. He assembled the shafts
and gears in the Master Gear Case in 30 minutes instead of 8 hours since the holes for
the bearing housing bolts were pre-drilled and the gear case holes already tapped to
receive the bolts.
Previously the holes couldn’t be drilled and tapped until after the gears were mated
using the feeler gauges. This time the holes for all the bearing housings were predrilled and tapped when the castings were sent to the assembly floor. The parts did
need to be taken apart and returned to the machine shop to have the holes drilled or
tapped as needed. This was the beginning of the modification of all our old patterns
for current and previous models of machines in the entire Steele machine line. This
idea was utilized wherever it could be applied. It saved thousands of man-hours of
labor every year thereafter. In addition the gears gave better service in our machines
since the gear teeth were perfectly aligned every time. This allowed replacement parts
to be put in service without tedious alignment.
Manufacturing bricks and sewer pipes were very labor intensive, and reducing the
manual labor in these operations would not only be beneficial to both in labor costs,
but they would improve quality. In 1953 we embarked on a program to design and
build a “Brick Hacker”, which is a series of automatic sequencing machine
components to stack extruded green bricks on dryer cars as they were being extruded
and cut into individual units. W. H. (Bill) Massey was assigned to work with me in
the test plant to design, manufacture, and assemble these components. He was an
expert welder and a well-qualified machinist. In addition we also designed
components to manufacture sewer pipe to specifications of diameter and length. The
idea was to extrude, cut, and place them upright on pallets or cars to be dried. In the
process of these design parameters, I came up with ideas to improve the manner in
which water was mixed with the clay and shale more efficiently. To accomplish this
result I started spraying the loose clay as it was falling from the conveyor belt into the
Pug Mill instead of pouring water on the pile of material as it sat in the machine. In
this way I was theoretically trying to get one drop of water onto each particle of clay
or shale as it fell from the conveyor into the Pug Tub. If we could do that, we would
make the system far more effective. I designed Water Spray Systems with flat
spraying nozzles and sold them with the machines after that.
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�By the beginning of the following year we had our first automatic sewer pipe
manufacturing system designed, built and shipped to Pomona Terra Cotta Co. in Gulf,
NC. I had just been elected as president of our local chapter of the Statesville Jaycees,
and it was unfortunate for E. H. (Mac) McJunkin, my Vice President. My
responsibilities required that I had to go to Gulf, NC every week for the next 13
months improving and modifying my designs on these machines. Fortunately for Mac,
I had appointed all the necessary committee chairmen and members for the entire
year’s program.
We laughed many times in later years about the only man who served two years as
president of the Statesville Jaycees, because he was the one elected president for the
following year. In 1955 my Father started having health problems, and by that
summer it was diagnosed as cancer. He was admitted to the hospital in Raleigh for the
necessary operation. Later while he was recovering, I asked Dr. Paschal, the
pathologist, to tell me the truth about his chances. His response was very simple,
“Two weeks, two months, two years at the outside.” How prophetic was his diagnosis
to the actual truth. On June 6, 1957, the 14th anniversary of D-Day, my Father
breathed his last on earth. I spent the last 11 days at his side trying to help keep him
comfortable. I have wonderful memories of his teachings and help during my life.
I was sent to the national convention of the American Ceramic Society in Pittsburgh,
PA as a representative of the Corporation. While I was at the meeting, a man from
Washington, DC, who had come to hear my talk, sought me out after my speech to tell
me that they had just completed certification of the Ceramic Department at NC State.
My automated tile plant design was the design project they had chosen to evaluate
when they were evaluating the Ceramic Engineering Department for certification. He
said it was the most advanced design they had seen, and he wanted to know where my
ideas had come from. I couldn’t wait to tease Dr. Kriegel about it. When I saw him
later that day I asked him if the Ceramic Department had been approved and certified?
He looked at me askance and sheepishly said that they had asked to see some of the
designs and chose mine as soon as they saw it. Dr. Kriegel said the Ceramic
Department owed me an apology for the grade they had given me on my plant design.
By this time pneumatic conveying was being utilized quite generally in industry. My
ideas for an automated hopper-car weighing system were also being used in many
installations. The design parameters were those that occurred to me while designing
my project to save material, man-hours of labor, and an attempt to reduce dust
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�problems in the environment and within the plant itself where the employees had to
work every day.
In 1958 I had been traveling extensively during the summer, and I needed to make a
trip to Pueblo, Colorado in August. I told Montgomery Steele that I had not been able
to spend any time with my two sons that summer, and I felt that I should be able to
take them with me on this trip. The company would not pay half of the airline fares,
and I offered to drive if they would pay the mileage and housing expenses. The
Company agreed, and we took a three-week trip while I visited plants in Wichita in
Kansas and Pueblo plus Denver in Colorado. We also took side trips to the Rocky
Mountains south of Pueblo and to Central City north of Denver. It was fun. All of us
remember Bob Brietweiser telling the boys not to go beyond his back fence in Pueblo
because of the rattlesnakes in the desert. When we went up to the mountains, we put
watermelons in the cold mountain streams to chill. We did a lot of sightseeing and had
a lot of family fun. We spent a week in Pueblo to teach the plant personnel how to
operate and service the automatic sewer pipe manufacturing equipment. They had not
previously had any automatic sewer pipe manufacturing machinery in that facility. We
went to Denver, Colorado before returning to Statesville, and I talked to them at
Denver Brick and Pipe about the order for their plant, because their equipment was to
be delivered soon after my visit and I would be returning after it arrived.
I went to Camaguey, Cuba for the start-up of the Automatic Sewer Pipe
manufacturing equipment for the Azorin family in 1959 during the time that Fidel
Castro was beginning his rebellion against Batista. The situation was so tense that four
bodyguards were assigned to protect me while I was there. The Woolworth Store, that
was next to my hotel, was threatened to be bombed by Fidel Castro’s followers one
night while I was there, and my protectors put me in a car and drove me out of town
for a few hours until after the threat was dealt with. I was provided with an interpreter,
Raphael Gonzales, to help me deal with the Spanish language while I was in
Camaguey, and unfortunately for him his mother died just a few days before we were
to go to Santiago del Sur for a deep-sea fishing trip.
I insisted that he should remain in Camaguey and take care of the situation for his
family, and I would just go on the trip and try to make out, since it was already paid
for.
It turned out that none of the crew on the deep-sea fishing boat knew any English. As
result, I found out that I could understand many Spanish words. The reason I could
understand was that the Moors had influenced the Spanish language during their
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�occupation of Spain in the Eighth Century. The Spanish people apparently started
using many words taken from Arabic, which I understood. I just didn’t know how to
use them yet. The personnel in the plant worked very diligently and learned quickly. It
was necessary for me to make another trip to Camaguey, Cuba in 1962 after Castro
came to power. The first person I spoke to outside the air terminal was the chief of
police. He remembered me, because I had been introduced to him when I was there
previously. He was polite and very friendly in welcoming me to Cuba again. That
made me feel more secure and comfortable with my being there. The Azorin family,
who owned the brick and pipe manufacturing facility, apparently, had paved the way
for me.
Little did I know that fate would have it’s own hand in the future, because I had the
opportunity to return the favor when I helped arrange for the entire Azorin Family as a
group to come to the United States. They eventually become citizens of our great
nation. I arranged for them to work in an automatic sewer pipe manufacturing plant
that I had designed for a company in Harlem, Georgia. The people that owned the
plant were happy to have them operating the equipment, since I told them that the
Azorin family had owned and operated a plant just like this one in Camaguey, Cuba.
Castro’s government eventually had not paid for many of the sewer pipes and bricks
that the Azorin family had furnished to them. These factors led to their coming to the
United States, and I am proud to have had a part in helping them come to this country
where they have become good citizens. Their family, which today includes children
and grandchildren, now has their own successful brick plant in Plant City, Florida. I
am proud to have them as friends.
Very shortly after my second trip to Cuba in 1962, I went to Australia on a two-month
trip to visit old and new customers. While I was there, I presented two seminars on
brick making for the manufacturers in that country. I visited many of the brick plants
and tile plants, as well as sewer pipe manufacturing facilities. While I was in Australia
I had the occasion to visit ceramic plant installations using our equipment in Sydney,
Melbourne, Ballarat, and Adelaide. A memorable incident for me took place in
Melbourne at the Hotel Australia. After checking into my hotel room, I came down to
the pub to have a “pony” (glass) of beer. When I placed my order a man seated across
the room that heard me, when I spoke, called out, “Yank”, and I responded. He then
told the bartender to bring my beer over to his side of the bar and to put my tab on his
ticket. He told me that this was his way to thank the United States for sending a Navy
fleet with Marines aboard to Sydney harbor after England pulled their navy ships and
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�army including the Australian National Guard out of Australia when they declared
war on Germany in WWII. He felt that England had betrayed them by leaving them
defenseless against the Japanese threat at that time. I gathered from my conversation
with him that we have a closer tie to Australia than England does. I will always
remember that incident in my life. As a result of my trip “Down Under” for two
months to Australia, we began to sell many more brick machines and other pieces of
equipment in that area of the world.
I was asked by the Australian Ceramic Society to give a seminar on the Installation,
Operation, Lubrication, and Maintenance of Brick making machinery. The audience
was very interested in all those aspects relating to their manufacturing operations.
Many of the attendees had never purchased any J. C. Steele machinery, and several
asked me to visit their installations. I did so, and as a result, we made many new
friends and customers during the time I was there. The Company was very generous
with an offer for Elva to come to Hawaii and meet me there on my way home to spend
a few days with me. However, she decided that since Anne Marie was so young, she
couldn’t leave her for a short stay in Hawaii. I was disappointed, because I thought
she would have enjoyed visiting that part of the world. I had the opportunity to meet
Preston Steele’s sister, Lila, and her husband who were living in Honolulu. I had
known her name all the time, but had never met her or her husband. They entertained
me for the few days I was there.
During the years from 1959 to 1964 that J. C. Steele and Sons, Inc. owned a twin
engine Aero Commander 560E airplane, I was a passenger during about 50 percent of
the hours it was flown. Since I had been gone from home most of the summer again in
1961, I asked permission and was given the opportunity to take Gary and Douglas
with me on a trip to Canada. Our new daughter Anne Marie was less than one year
old, and she and Elva flew with us to Danville, VA on our way where we dropped
them off, and picked them up on our return trip from Canada. New equipment had
been shipped, and I needed to be in Ottawa to visit the plant nearby. This gave me an
opportunity to show Gary and Doug that country while the Canadian Exposition was
in progress. We went through the Air Museum, and saw the Parliament House with all
the pomp and ceremony that went with it. We toured the exposition and saw the
parade that went with the celebration. We had a great time, because our hotel was
right down town in the midst of all the activities. “Wimpy” Mosser was our company
pilot, and he enjoyed being with Gary and Doug while I was doing my duties out at
the various nearby manufacturing plants. I think Gary and Douglas had a good time
visiting Canada with me.
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�In 1968 I needed to go on a trip to South Africa and I arranged my trip to make a stopoff in Germany, and so I arranged my stop-off to be on the weekend so that I had an
opportunity to see Ed and Herma Matney with their two sons Marc and David, who
was very young. We had a delightful weekend, and I used the time to also see two of
the places I served in during WWII. There was quite a bit of change in the 20 years
that had gone by since I returned to the United States. I enjoyed seeing many of the
places where I had been to, and stationed at, during this brief visit. I guess that I had
to contrast the previous visit with this one, since I came this time with a golf glove
and golf shoes instead of a soldier’s uniform with a gun and military boots. I’ll have
to admit that I enjoyed the peaceful pursuit of playing golf in Heidelberg. On the way
to Johannesburg from Frankfurt, Germany, my flight landed in Lagos, Nigeria to refuel the plane, and we took advantage of the short break in our trip. On arrival in
Johannesburg, one of the passengers was detained because he did not have a yellow
fever shot. The comical part was that he would be detained for eleven days while a
shot took effect, and the funniest part of all this was that his return trip to Germany
was supposed to be in12 days.
I asked and was informed that the requirement for the yellow fever shot was due to the
landing in Lagos. His travel agent neglected to tell him that even though we only
landed in Lagos, it would require a yellow fever shot. I stayed in South Africa for
eight weeks visiting factories all over the country including Kimberly and Cape
Town, where I saw the Peaks of the Twelve Disciples. During part of my return trip, I
also had an opportunity to see the Kimberly Diamond Mines. During my visit to the
Welcome Animal Preserve, a Park Ranger gave me a personal guided tour much like a
short safari in a vehicle built like a Jeep, and I saw many wild animals close up. One
of the most interesting animals I saw about 10 feet away was a rare white rhinoceros. I
saw many animal species close up since we were in a vehicle and the Ranger knew all
their natural habitats. On my return to Johannesburg I was asked to make a
presentation to the Brick Makers Division of the South African Ceramic Society on
the Installation, Operation, Lubrication and Maintenance of brick machines. About 75
people came to the meeting. As a result of that meeting, many of the manufacturers,
who had never owned our equipment before, eventually purchased some equipment
from J. C. Steele & Sons, Inc. That made the trip very worthwhile. Ken Hanafey was
working for our representatives in South Africa, and he expressed an interest in
coming to work for J. C. Steele and Sons, Inc. in the U. S. I talked to Preston from my
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�hotel room, and then I told Ken that J. C. Steele & Sons, Inc. could not offer him a job
to bring him to the U. S. The reason we could not hire him at that time was because he
was working for our representative in South Africa. I explained to him that he would.
need to quit his job and come to the United States, and at that time he could apply for
a job. He did that after I returned, and, as a result, J. C. Steele & Sons, Inc. hired him,
and he worked for the company until his death many years later.
On my return trip the first leg was through Nairobi, Kenya, and one of the passengers
was to make a connection to India. The Air India employees had gone on strike and he
spoke no English. I ended up translating his Arabic to the Airline employees in the
plane to make arrangements for him to transfer his flight plans from Nairobi to India.
We had a ten-hour layover in Nairobi to look around. Just outside Nairobi the wild
Animal Park and refuge is just outside the city. My plane took off and the flight path
went right over the park on takeoff. It was very interesting to look out the window and
see all the animals in their habitat. On landing in Cairo, we had to spend the night in
the transit hotel, and the next morning when I came down to breakfast a young lady
came to me and identified herself as an airline employee. She said she would make
my arrangements for boarding the plane. I learned later that my mother asked a
relative who worked for the airline to arrange this for me.
I had arranged my return flight plan from Johannesburg with a stopover of twelve
days in Beirut, Lebanon, to see Elva’s parents, where they were spending a year there.
I arrived in Beirut on Good Friday and was privileged to attend church services at one
a Greek Orthodox Church in Beirut. The church was filled with people standing in
every available spot inside plus enough people outside to fill the steps and out to the
street. They told me that, to them, this was the holiest day in Christendom, because
without Jesus Christ arising from the dead on Easter morning that there would be no
Christianity. I had not thought of it precisely in that vein previously. I realize now that
what they said is true. Easter morning their church was more crowded than Friday.
During the next week while I was there, I had the opportunity to visit Souk el Gharb
where my Father was born and grew up. I also visited Zahly, Broumana, Baalbek,
Bhamdoun and other historical sites. I saw aqueducts built to transport water from the
mountains hundreds of years ago still standing. I met distant cousins on my Mother’s
side of the family. My Father’s distant cousin, Elias Saleeby had me in his home for a
meal in Souk el Gharb, and while I was there I saw the Presbyterian Church School
that my Father and his brothers attended as children. I knew that my family had sold
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�land to the church on which to build the new Presbyterian school that I was seeing in
place there at that time. This school building replaced the one my Father’s family had
attended as children. It was a beautiful learning experience about my family’s past. I
was taken on a sight seeing trip to Baalbek where I saw the Temple to Baal. It was
very impressive with all the different temples within its confines. It was large enough
to put our present Pentagon building inside its walls. You could see what the Romans,
Assyrians, Baabylonians, and other captors had done as they captured it during its
centuries of existence.
As a part of my scheduled flight back to New York, I spent the next week in England
and Scotland visiting various plants that used our equipment. I had the opportunity to
visit with the Fawcett Company who was licensed to build and sell Steele equipment
in Europe. I went to some of the brick plants using our machines and discussed
manufacturing techniques with their production personnel just as I had done in South
Africa. I spent many hours in the Fawcett Inc. assembly room discussing techniques
with the plant personnel.
In the ensuing years, I was sent to Mexico several times to be on hand for start-ups of
machines we had sent to customers in that country. I had the opportunity to visit
customers in Mexico City, Chihuahua, Monterey, Puebla, and other locations in that
country. I was still making my scheduled visits to plants in Texas, Arkansas,
Oklahoma, and other Southwestern U. S. customers.
In June 1976 I was necessary for me to travel to Yaroslavl, Russia to be there for the
start-up of some of our machines that had been sold to them in 1971 through an Italian
firm. The Italians had the machines shipped to Italy, and it turned out that they had
taken the machines apart to learn how we built them. They copied our techniques to
start manufacturing machines like ours in Italy. Our machines were finally shipped to
Russia and installed. Preston Steele had never told me that he had sent my name to the
Russian embassy in 1971 as the person who would be going to Russia to start the
machines, and I was quite surprised to learn that I would go there.
When I learned that I was to be the one to go there for the start-up, I originally applied
to the Intourist division for a visa to visit Russia. They told me that I would need to
get my visa from the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC. I called the embassy for
instructions, and they said to send my passport with two extra pictures. The next
morning after talking with the visa expediting service, I sent my passport and pictures
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�to them rather than traveling to Washington. Eastern Airlines (EAL) carried my
passport and other papers to Washington, and a man from the visa expediting service
picked them up at the EAL ticket counter. He was accustomed to doing this, and he
took the passport to the Russian Embassy.
He asked the lady at the information desk when he should return to pick up the visa,
etc.
She told him to wait and she would let him know. She went to the other room, and
came back ten minutes later with the passport and visa completed. She handed them to
him and told him he could take them to me. He called me from the airport and asked
me who I was, because he had been going to the Russian embassy for visas many
times before, and this was the first time in his experience that he didn’t have to wait
ten days to two weeks. I found out later that the reason was that I was considered as
being “invited to come by the Import Minister of Russia”. My passport and visa were
back in Charlotte at 5:45 p.m. that same day.
I arrived in Russia on June 7, 1976 after a weekend stopover in Copenhagen,
Denmark. I never realized the detail that the Russian Government wanted followed
about visitors. The first question I was asked was if I had any books. I had a
pocketbook novel with me, which the customs guard scanned through the entire book.
I was then asked if I had a Bible. I said that I did not, but if I did, what would it mean.
The guard informed me that they would keep it “in safe-keeping” until I left the
country, and then it would be returned to me. I was there in Customs for over an hour
while my baggage was inspected. I have never had that detailed inspection of my
luggage going into or out of any other country and that is including the United States
on coming home.
So that I could be properly contacted on arrival, I had been instructed to have
something that would be indicative of my connection with J. C. Steele & Sons, Inc. I
chose one of the Parts Identification Books I had designed for our machines that had
our name emblazoned on the cover. A young girl interpreter came to me and said we
must hurry. She had a taxi waiting outside the airport with the engine running. We
went across Moscow from the airport to a train station at about 50 miles an hour. The
driver got into an express lane and we just flew. I found out why when we reached the
train station. A man was waiting to take our bags for us, and we literally ran to get on
the train. I put my luggage in the overhead rack and took a cursory look around the car
we were in. We no more than sat down, when the train lurched forward starting us on
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�our trip. That’s how close we came to missing our train for that day. We were on the
last train leaving for Yaroslavl, which is 300 miles north of Moscow, and it is only 7
degrees of latitude below the Arctic Circle. On the way up, we passed through a city
named Rostov, which is a city that has a Russian Orthodox Monastery. As we were in
the station at Rostov, it started snowing. Please, remember that this is on June 7, and I
had never seen snow on that date before. We had left Moscow at 5:30 p. m. and
arrived in Yaroslavl just before midnight.
The sun awakened me at 3:00 a. m. because we were very near the Arctic Circle. I got
out of bed and was ready to go until I saw what time it was. Naturally, I went back to
sleep, but not before I placed a blanket over the window. I knew three Russian words
when I left home, and they were “Da” for “Yes”, “Nyet” for “No”, and “Spaseeba” for
“Thank you”. Needless to say, I learned many more while there. After I had been
there about three weeks, a German smooth roll crusher broke a section of one of the
36” diameter rolls and killed the Russian worker working there by crushing his skull.
The piece of the machine that had broken out of the roll then traveled through the air
and broke through a 14” thick wall and landed about 15 feet away from the wall it had
gone through. The plant was shut down to determine the cause of the accident. Since I
had been learning more words in Russian every day, I had a three-hour conversation
with the chief mechanic, and I explained to him that no one should be walking on the
platform behind those machines when they were running. The part of the machine that
broke was made of cast iron and it was three inches thick, thirty-six inches wide and
twenty-four inches long. The piece that broke weighed several hundred pounds. I
examined the machine and explained to him and the Russian Ceramic Engineer that
the break had occurred because of the design of the scraper system the German’s had
used. The design used an air cylinder in the center to push the scraper, and it was
pushing more on one side than the other side, because material had blocked the
groove on that side. This created a stress in the part that made one end much hotter
than the other from friction, and the differential temperature across the casting caused
it to break. The plant remained closed until the Russian Government sent their
inspectors to examine the break. I made every effort to learn new Russian words daily,
and I had the opportunity to spend quite a long time talking to the maintenance
manager. He asked about our freedom and who could own property and cars. He
especially wanted to know if Black people could own cars and homes. At the end of
our conversation he asked me, “Could you put me in your briefcase and take me to
America with you?” It broke my heart, because, out of three hundred employees, he
was one of only three people in that entire factory that owned an automobile.
Saleeby 74
�After another week of investigation with no manufacturing being done, I decided to
return home. I arrived back in New York on July 3, 1976 at 11:30 p. m. We were
given overnight lodging in a hotel because we were late since the baggage handlers in
Copenhagen were on strike. The next morning, I took my bags to the LaGuardia
Airport, and then I took the subway down to the Battery Park at the lower end of
Manhattan. I took up a position about 100 feet from the Network Television Cameras
that were sending pictures all over the country showing the Tall Ships Sailing up the
Hudson River commemorating the 200th anniversary of our U. S. Independence. I had
film in my movie camera and took movies and stayed until I needed to go to the
airport for my flight to Charlotte.
As things turned out later that year, it was necessary for me to return to Yaroslavl,
Russia between Thanksgiving and Christmas in 1976 for another visit to help the plant
improve production. The Italian firm had problems meeting the production goals that
had been promised, and they needed some technical advice on how to achieve it.
Some of the discussion was about contract agreements between firms. On my return, I
told Preston that if any more trips needed to be made to Russia, he should be the one
to go. The reason I told him that was because the Italian contractors were bringing up
things that needed a Steele to answer. The Italian firm was under a performance and
production goal in their contract, and they were having a hard time achieving the goal
that was in the contract
Saleeby 75
�GRANDCHILDREN AND NEW FAMILY MEMBERS
Gary was married, and later Erin Nicole Saleeby came into the world as our first
grandchild on November 9, 1978. That was a wonderful occasion for us. It was an
experience that we enjoyed to the utmost. We took every opportunity to visit so that
we could see her. This was a new experience we loved and enjoyed it very much.
Three years later we had a second chance to be super happy when Taylor Richel
Saleeby came into the world as our second grandchild on August 15, 1981, and we
could dote on and be happy about her and with her as the newest addition to our
family. Life was getting better all the time.
I had an opportunity to take Elva with me to a meeting in Monterey, Mexico where I
delivered a paper on brick manufacture when Preston and I went to this meeting
together. He decided that we should take our wives with us to entertain our customers
that would be having their wives with them. After the meeting, he asked me if Elva
would mind if we took a side trip to Mexico City. He felt we should visit a customer
in Puebla, which was near Mexico City. Of course she agreed, and he used this as an
opportunity to rent a car with a driver to take us on a tour of the environs of that great
city. It was a lot of fun, and I know that Elva appreciated his generosity. We had
dinner in the best restaurant of the city, and toured their wonderful museum while we
were there.
I retired from J. C. Steele & Sons, Inc. on October 19, 1984, and when I got home that
evening, I called each of my children and told them that, “I was coming to see each of
them twice a year whether they wanted me or not”. We have pretty much done it too.
Since my retirement in 1984 I have served as a consultant to the Ceramic Industry.
During my life, I have lectured and given seminars at many Universities and Colleges
in addition to Corporations that manufacture ceramic products. And I have made
speeches at the National and Regional meetings of the American Ceramic Society, the
Canadian Ceramic Society, the Mexican Ceramic Society, the Australian Ceramic
Society, and the South African Ceramic Society.
I mentioned to Elva that I felt that in ten to twenty years after I retired that we would
need to move from our home in Statesville to be within 50 miles of one of our
children. At that time, Gary was in Chapel Hill, NC about 125 miles away. Douglas
had moved by this time from Las Vegas, Nevada and was now in Memphis, TN about
625 miles away. Anne Marie was living in Raleigh, NC about 150 miles away. We
Saleeby 76
�investigated the Research Triangle area for prices of houses and learned that we
would pay almost twice as much as we would get if we sold our house to get one with
half of the square footage in our present home for one in that area. That didn’t sound
too enticing to me.
During my retirement, General Shale Corporation asked me to give a seminar in 1986
for all their plant managers plus the production supervisors about production
efficiency and how to achieve it on Steele machines. At the end of my presentation,
the CEO called me aside and asked me to make a visit each of their 15 plants. He
wanted me to visit each installation every other year and give recommendations on
things that I observed, and I did that until 1996, at which time we agreed to terminate
the program.
Like all graduated High School Classes, we were having our usual class reunions.
During our 50th Charles L. Coon High School Class Reunion in 1989 Marjorie
Harrell Benton and I got together and reminisced about skating together when we
were teen-agers. We both remembered and talked about the fond memories of the
afternoon and evenings we skated together. She reminded me of the good fun we had
in those days. She and her husband H. P. (Red) Benton still live in Wilson.
In 1990 Gary asked Debi Berrier if she would marry him and become part of our
family with her daughters Shannon and Amy. She accepted and we were overjoyed.
Erin and Taylor have developed a very close and loving friendship with Amy and
Shannon in the ensuing years. Also, in the fall of1990, Mark Selna started coming
from Denver, Colorado to see our daughter Anne Marie in Raleigh, NC where she was
working for General Electric Capital Management. After several trips for him flying
to Raleigh and her flying to Denver, Mark came to Raleigh to spend a part of the time
before Christmas with us so he could become more acquainted with “all of her
family”. Apparently Mark and Anne Marie had already discussed the subject of her
asking for a leave of absence from her employer so that she could go to Denver for
two months for them to get to know each other better without all the traveling back
and forth. They could see each other every day. When the subject was bought up for
discussion about furniture and house rental, etc. they had answers for everything. We
agreed when Mark said that he had arranged with a friend nearby for Anne Marie to
live with while she was in Denver. As Mark and I were moving her furniture to the
storage unit, I told Mark, “If I was a mountaineer father in the Smoky Mountains, I
would walk over to the mantle and take my shotgun down from over the mantle. I
Saleeby 77
�would then place it so the barrel was under your chin. Then I would ask you, ‘Young
Man, what are your intentions toward my Daughter’?” At that point Mark broke out
laughing and told me that he promised me one thing, that I would be the first to know
if he was going to ask her to marry him. He kept his promise.
You will have to ask him for the details, it was fun because it involves them calling us
on our anniversary. The following year in April 1991 Mark Selna asked our daughter
Anne Marie if she would accept his offer of matrimony, and she said yes. They were
married September 29, 1991and they set up housekeeping in Denver where he worked
for Kaiser Permanente. Just as I had “threatened”, we traveled to Denver to visit them
twice a year during the time that they were living there, Their first child, Weston
Louis Selna, was born on November 5, 1994, and Elva flew to Denver the next day to
be with them. On the way from the airport to their home, Mark went by the hospital
and picked up Anne Marie and Weston, the newest addition to our family. I went
there one week later to greet my grandson. During my visit I took a beautiful picture
of their home with the snow covering the nearby park in the foreground. We enjoyed
meeting many of their friends in Denver. During one of our visits, I learned about
battery powered water control systems for gardens and plants. One of their neighbors
had a simple system set up to water his flower garden, which intrigued me, and I went
over and introduced myself and asked about it. I enjoyed working with Mark to
improve their landscaping around the house. On January 10, 1996 they added another
member to our growing family when Elaine Matney Selna came into the world.
Needless to say we have thoroughly enjoyed all the blessings and pleasure that all
grandparents have with grandchildren. Anne Marie and Mark lived the first six years
of their married life in Denver, CO. We used the trip to visit Doug in Memphis both
on the way going and on the way back to Statesville.
In 1994 the Charles L. Coon High School 1944 State Championship Football Team
was planning to celebrate the 50th anniversary of winning that honor. That team
wanted to make it a gala celebration, and they decided to invite all the players that had
played for Coach Leon Brogden while he was in Wilson. We were all to be invited to
be there to join in the celebration because the Coach was going to come from
Wilmington, NC, where he lived at that time. He wanted to see all of us and be a part
of the festivities. It was a memorable event to see all my old friends again after all
those years of being away from home. Tom Davis, H. P. (Red) Benton, my cousin
Saleeby 78
�George Saleeby, and I played a round of golf at the Wilson Country Club together
while we were there. I was able to renew acquaintances with many friends that I had
not seen for over 50 years. Many of them had not changed much in the ensuing years.
In 1997, Mark and Anne Marie moved to Birmingham, Alabma where he worked for
a different HMO for only one year. A better opportunity was presented, and they left.
In 1998 Mark accepted employment with Partners Health in Winston Salem, NC and
moved the family there. In so doing, Mark and Anne Marie provided the solution to
my original plans to move within 50 miles of one of our children. That was much
more convenient, since the distance was only 40 miles instead of 2,000 miles that we
had to travel when we wanted to visit them earlier in Denver. We were able to see
them more often and spend more time with Weston and Elaine as they grew up.
Erin completed her undergraduate college work at George Washington University in
Washington, DC, and graduated with honors in the year 2000 on completion of her
studies in pre-med. Erin was later accepted for Medical School and the University of
North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC. Amy was graduated from UNC Wilmington with
her degree in Marine Biology in the year 2001 on completion of her college
undergraduate studies. She was chosen to go to Sweden to observe and take part in a
research project being undertaken in that country before she started her work toward
her Masters Degree. In the meantime, Taylor was offered a scholarship and accepted
to study her chosen work in Stage Production and Management at Webster Hall
College outside of St. Louis, MO. After her sophomore year in college, she was
chosen to work with the Los Angeles Opera Company as an intern, and she was given
one year’s college credit for her work there.
It gave me a great deal of pride to see the accomplishments of not only my children as
I grew older, but to see the wonderful things that our grandchildren also were able to
do. I can say that it has made my life more complete to see them in their success.
Having done the things I did in my work, I was able to visit over 40 of the 50 states,
and I have visited more than 25 foreign countries, including Russia, South Africa, and
Australia. I was privileged to literally go all the way around the world.
My travels have given me the opportunity to learn and use about 6 languages in my
lifetime, and I have met some great people in my travels. Elva and I had three children
– two boys and one girl who have brought grandchildren into our lives to love and to
Saleeby 79
�add to our enjoyment down through the years.
We had our family that you are now a part of. Our children and grandchildren are the
joy of my life. One of the things I have observed in life is that when you enjoy doing
something it is much easier to be successful. The things a person does to get rich
always seem to end up being hard work, while the things we do that we like and enjoy
are fun and give us a sense of accomplishment. I do not and cannot really complain
about any of my choices that I have taken in my studies and work. My parents taught
me these things, and they have been the guiding lights of my life. My Father and
Mother loved this country of ours, and they taught me to love and appreciate it also. I
often tell people today that the greatest blessing that I ever had in my life was the fact
that my Mother and Father were living in the United States of America when I was
born. The more I have traveled over the rest of the world, the more I was convinced of
that fact. Even until today, peoples from all over the world continue to strive to come
here.
I hope that you can learn to come to know the warm feelings and the pride I get from
seeing the wonderful accomplishments of my children and grandchildren. One of
these days when you get to my place in life, you will understand what I am telling you
now. It is my fervent hope and prayer that God will bless each of you in your lives,
and that God will continue to Bless America.
Saleeby 80
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Edward and Callie Saleeby Papers
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical Note</h4>
<p>The Saleeby-Saliba Relief Association was created in 1916 with the objective of unifying and supporting members of the Saleeby-Saliba family across the Lebanese diaspora. The association sponsored members who emigrated from Syria and Lebanon, aiding them in their transitions to new countries. The association (now called the Saleeby-Saliba Association of Families) focuses on preserving family history and culture, especially through genealogy. Members of the extended Saleeby-Saliba family have documented the family’s diasporic history, including N.D. Saleeby's <em>A Brief History of the Saleeby/Saliba Clan and Their Branches</em>, published in 1950, and its updated version, <em>Worldwide Saleeby-Saliba Family from Ancient to Modern Times</em>, published by Callie R. Saleeby Stanley in 2008.</p>
<h4>Scope/Content Note</h4>
<p>This collection contains three autobiographical accounts of members of the North Carolina branch of the Saleeby-Saliba Family, including iral history and written testimony. The collection represents inter-generational experiences of members of the Saleeby family in North Carolina. The subjects are descended, by blood or marriage, from the same Saleeby ancestor who lived in Souk-el-Gharb in modern-day Lebanon.</p>
Relation
A related resource
<a href="http://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/collections/show/38" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Saleeby Family Papers</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Language
A language of the resource
English
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Processed by Khayrallah Center staff. Collection Guide content contributed by Claire A. Kempa and updated by Allison Hall, 2023 December.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Autobiography
Emigration and immigration
Lebanese--United States
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Edward Saleeby
Callie Saleeby Stanley
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2001-2013
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0047
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
This digital material is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
autobiography_wm
Title
A name given to the resource
Edward Saleeby Autobiography
Subject
The topic of the resource
Autobiography
Emigration and immigration
Description
An account of the resource
The autobiography of Edward C. Saleeby, revised in 2001. It contains detailed reminiscences of his childhood, time serving in the United States military during World War II, and his marriage and children. In addition to covering Saleeby's own life, it contains narratives of his parents' immigration to the United States.
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Edward C. Saleeby
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Edward C. Saleeby
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2001
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Text/pdf
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Families
Immigration
Lebanon
Military
World War II
-
https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/files/original/bbd4a5e70c39e79414943cbbd1b4f50e.pdf
e5d3961b1428db47253a9a23784ec87f
PDF Text
Text
��
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Zaytoun and Murman Family Photographs
Subject
The topic of the resource
Family business
Lebanese--United States
Military
Photographs
Description
An account of the resource
<h4>Biographical/Historical Note</h4>
<p>Ellis Zaytoun was born in Hammana, Lebanon on May 30, 1890. He immigrated to the United States in 1906 along with two of his brothers and by 1910 had moved to New Bern, North Carolina. Ellis began work as a peddler and dry goods clerk. In 1911, Ellis submitted an application for naturalization which was finalized in 1916. During this time, Ellis established himself as an integral member of the New Bern community. He volunteered for the local fire department and served as a member of the Syrian Brotherhood Society of New Bern, an early humanitarian group dedicated to providing aid to Lebanese, Syrians, and Armenians.</p>
<p>Ellis married Isabel DeKash in 1914, a fellow Lebanese immigrant from Hamana, Lebanon. Isabel and Ellis had six children who survived to adulthood: Evelyn Gladys Zaytoun Farris, Vivian Grace Zaytoun Salem, Constance Teresa Zaytoun Lamar, Joseph Ellis Zaytoun, Agnes Zaytoun Murman, and Henry Zaytoun. Ellis gradually expanded his business ventures from owning a fruit stand turned grocery to owning both a restaurant and a news agency. In 1940, Ellis was employed at John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company, and in 1957 he founded Zaytoun and Associates with his eldest son, Joseph.</p>
<p>During World War II Agnes Zaytoun worked at her father's newspaper stand in New Bern, North Carolina. During the war, she met her husband, Charles Murman, at a dance in Cherry Point. They married after the war and moved to Cleveland, Ohio. Agnes was an active member of St. Luke's Parish throughout her adult life. Agnes Zaytoun had six children: Michael Murman, Elaine Murman Ferguson, Evelyn Murman Quigley, David Murman, Ann Marie Murman Grove, and Maureen Murman.</p>
<h4>Scope/Content Note</h4>
<p>This collection primarily contains photographs collected by Agnes Zaytoun featuring her and members of the Zaytoun and Murman families.</p>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
circa 1890s-2001
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Processed by Celine Shay, 2021-2022. Collection Guide content contributed by Celine Shay and updated by Allison Hall, 2021-2022 and 2023, December.
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Agnes Zaytoun Estate
Language
A language of the resource
English
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KC 0058
Access Rights
Information about who can access the resource or an indication of its security status. Access Rights may include information regarding access or restrictions based on privacy, security, or other policies.
Digital material in this collection is provided here for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law.
Physical material in this collection is also available to researchers. For questions or to access a collection, please contact us at kcldsarchive@ncsu.edu. Please give at least 48 hours for responses to any inquiries regarding the materials.
Relation
A related resource
<a href="https://lebanesestudies.omeka.chass.ncsu.edu/collections/show/14">Joseph and Thelma Knuckley Zaytoun Papers</a>
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
Zaytoun355
Title
A name given to the resource
Portrait of Ann Marie and Family for Christmas, 2001
Subject
The topic of the resource
Photographs
Lebanese--United States
Description
An account of the resource
A portrait of Ann Marie Murman with her husband and two sons before Christmas. She wears a black dress and a thin gold chain necklace. The note on the back states, "Merry Christmas Mom! Love Ann Marie, 2001." Dated 2001.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2001
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Image
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
Image/pdf
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
Zaytoun Family
Murman Family
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Moise A. Khayrallah Center for Lebanese Diaspora Studies
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
The donor retains full ownership of any copyright and rights currently controlled. Nonexclusive right to authorize uses of these materials for non-commercial research, scholarly, or other educational purposes are granted to Khayrallah Center pursuant to U.S. Copyright Law. Usage of the materials for these purposes must be fully credited with the source. The user assumes full responsibility for any use of the materials.
2000s
Christmas
Families
portrait