Passing along pieces of history
- From: "Catherine" <Catherine@yahoo!!!.com>
- Date: Tue, 27 Sep 2005 01:35:31 GMT
http://www.lenconnect.com/articles/2005/09/25/news/news06.txt
Passing along pieces of history
Saturday, September 24, 2005 9:48 PM EDT
Commentary by Mark Lenz
Hearing tales of "the old days" is something everyone, particularly journalists,
needs to make a priority. Which is why I sat down recently at Adrian's Big Boy to
listen to Frank Hooper.
How many people, after all, had a dad who could tell them what it was like to hear
Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated?
Hooper, 83 and until recently a Lenawee County resident, can tell his dad's tale.
Hooper was born Sept. 12, 1922, in Warnock, Ohio, east of Zanesville. His father was
69 at the time, a sharecropper since his own birth in 1853. Hooper's father was old
enough during the Civil War to consider being a bugle boy but help was needed tending
farms. Hooper's grandfather was drafted by the Union but paid a substitute a $300
bounty - an accepted practice at the time - so he could stay home and support his
family.
Hooper's father remembered Morgan's Raiders from the Confederate Army crossing the
Missouri River near Zanesville. Morgan was captured yet tunneled out of the Ohio
State Penitentiary at Columbus.
We talked about hard work. Hooper's own father farmed until he was 81. Then, in the
midst of the Depression, he went to work for the WPA building highways.
"My dad said hard work never killed anyone," Hooper said. "He made more money then
than he ever did farming. And I remember he kept the money under his mattress."
We talked about rustic living. Hooper's family didn't have indoor plumbing until
they moved to Columbus in 1941; and his father never bought a car, using a wagon
instead. Hooper didn't own his first car until he was 29, after a stint in France
with the U.S. Army during World War II (Hooper's father passed away during 1945 just
before turning 92).
Inspired by his father's first-hand stories of American figures such as orator
William Jennings Bryan, Hooper went on to study history; attending Moody Bible
Institute from 1946-'48 and receiving his history degree at the University of
Minnesota. There he also met his wife, Eloise. The couple spent 31 years as
missionaries in Puerto Rico, lived in Adrian for four years and helped teach at West
Rome Baptist Church. They recently relocated to Waterville, Ohio, just west of
Toledo.
Hooper passed his recollections along to his four daughters, including Jeannette
Eckles of Adrian Township, as well as nine grandchildren and five
great-grandchildren. He taught as a substitute in local schools including Alexander,
McKinley and Lincoln elementaries in Adrian, plus Lenawee Christian, Sand Creek,
Madison and Clinton.
The stories Hooper's father handed down gave him much more than just family history.
They shed light on our own out of control times.
Do you think it's a good idea to bring back the giant blimps that once cruised
America's skies? Hooper can remember the U.S. Army airship USS Shenandoah, which
broke apart and crashed near Caldwell, Ohio, in 1925. Fourteen of the 43 crewmen
died.
Does world travel seem mundane? Hooper can recall Lindbergh's historic solo flight
across the Atlantic in 1927.
I think of my own parents' stories sprinkled with bits of advice, such as how Mom
would pack days' worth of food and drinks when we'd drive across the California
desert. Had the car broken down it might have taken days for help to arrive.
Without air conditioning it was so hot that the jar of Tang ("Breakfast drink of
astronauts!") fermented in the 113-degree heat, and - left out in the sun - the box
of crayons melted into a block of wax.
In an age of information overload, it's helpful to have family members or friends
with vivid accounts of what happens and why. People such as Frank Hooper do more
than relate family history. They help us find context for the present and prepare us
for the future. After all, who among us knows when a depression, a civil war, a
tornado or perhaps a series of hurricanes may touch our lives.
.
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