The Early Life of Dave Wilson:
As related by his brother Steve.
Dave was the first baby in the Wilson family, born on December 17, 1938 in the dark years of a depression. Life was difficult. Dad had been going to Detroit looking for a job while Mom was in Indianapolis taking care of two year old Dave and a newborn Steve. They could not afford a home nor much of anything else so she was staying with her older sister Alta.
Dave was two years old and Steve was one when Mom left on a train with them from Indianapolis to join Dad. He had earlier gone to Detroit where there were opportunities for jobs in the automotive companies which were then manufacturing military equipment. They could not afford baby cloths so a friend of Alta’s gave some to Mom for her new life in Detroit. Unfortunately they were clothes for girls. Mom had to bear hearing ooh’s and aww’s for her two baby girls all the way to Detroit. They moved to an apartment on Hendrie and then into a house on Blackstone. Shortly after, they moved a couple blocks to a cheaper house where we stayed for about 17 years.
Dave was almost two when the US entered WWII. In Dave’s earliest years the atmosphere of the country was dominated by the depression like the 2020’s were dominated by the coronavirus. When he was one the country became dominated by the war effort.
The early years
We had a “victory garden” on a neighboring empty lot. Because coal was used in weapons manufacturing, we lived through an extreme coal shortage. Dad was planning on closing off the kitchen door and only heating the kitchen with the gas stove. We would set up beds on the kitchen floor. We kids thought that was a neat idea, but the coal man came through at the last minute. Everybody got ration booklets to prevent hoarding. Recycled tin cans with paper removed was the patriotic thing to do. Mom got a job punching gaskets and riveting airplanes. The entire country was of one mind.
After receiving a phone call Dad was very upset and sat on a couch with his face buried in his hands when he found out his brother had died in the war. Mom told us to be very quiet, and we were. We had never seen Dad like that.
One day after listening to the radio Mom and Dad were suddenly overjoyed. Mom gave us pans and large wooden spoons and told us to go to the front porch and beat the pans. We kids went out to the front porch to a strange cacophony. In the far distance was a roar, and nearby were all kinds of individual shouting voices and things being banged. It was really quite spooky, but we went on to our assigned tasks. We were 6 and 7 and came to understand later that at that moment on May 8, 1945, that the war had officially ended and everybody was excited about it.
We were by far the least dysfunctional family in the neighborhood. Dave and I got along very well with little teasing or competition. We kids always considered we were well off. We were not aware of hardships because Mom and Dad sheltered us from it. We always got everything we wanted for Christmas, including Red Rider BB guns. They even managed to buy us a book case with a compete set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. I found out later that Mom and Dad sometimes went into debt for a couple of months after Christmas.
Dave’s Hobbies
We and some of the neighbor kids bought war surplus canteens, ammunition belts, spats, etc. The neighborhood kids played “let’s pretend” war games between the “Japs” and Germans which was a compromise, because everyone wanted to be the Americans. Historical accuracy was not a major concern. The military gear also became handy for ready made Halloween costumes.
Toy soldiers and cannons and tanks were also popular. We would go to a vacant lot and dig little fox holes to protect the soldiers. We would play miniature war games with them. Dave left his toy soldiers on the front porch once and they disappeared. Probably one of the Blankenship kids took them. Dave made up for it in later life by literally buying thousands of those same toys as antiques.
We both started stamp collecting when we were in our early teens. Those were the days that many kids collected them and put them in stamp books. We collected a lot of German stamps which were very cheap because of the intense inflation in Germany. We also went to a stamp club held at the library. I later gave all my stamps to Dave and he went on to become an avid collector.
Another hobby was model trains. In the basement we built a large scenic layout with a paper mâché mountain and tunnels and miniature trees and houses. A control panel allowed two trains to be operated in the same layout. Neighbor kids were fascinated.
Dave had an interest in anything that made a sudden loud noise or brilliant flash. Of course firecrackers were fine, but Dad had to drive to Ohio around July 4th to get them, so we made do with kitchen matches and the gunpowder from caps. A flour bomb was fun. You simply put a small layer of flour at the bottom of a tobacco can, light a candle in the can, and with a hose connected to a rubber bulb, you blew in big puff of air. The flour would puff out of the can in a big cloud, and the candle would ignite the flour. That made a large fire ball in the basement.
Dave did something that made a huge crash. Mom came to the door and yelled down to the basement, “David, what are you doing?” Dave paused thoughtfully and said, “Nothing.” She tried again, “Stephen, what are you doing?” I simply said, “I’m helping Dave.” There was a stifled laugh and the sound of a door closing.
We discovered through one of out friends that kitchen match heads made good rocket fuel if you cut off the long wooden part to concentrate the active ingredients. Once while snipping match heads and letting them land in a big can, I snipped one too close. It ignited the can which contained over a full box of matches and went up in a brilliant whoosh that nearly blew us off our chairs. A large cloud of acrid blue smoke covered the ceiling. Mom came to the basement door and yelled, “What is that smell?” Dave, after some thought, said, “We lit a match.” That was sort of the truth. Mom said, “I don’t want you lighting matches.” Dave always managed a save.
Dave made a rocket with a balsa wood frame. He covered the frame with aluminum foil because rockets were supposed to be metal. The engine was metal can for tooth-powder with a screw cap with a hole in it. The fuel was of course match heads. He announced a launching and got a handful of neighbors to witness. The rocket went up maybe a foot but, the engine was under too much pressure and exploded and blew the whole thing apart. Dave never outgrew rockets. Decades later he eventually was involved the space shuttle systems design.
Dave was introduced to music with a plastic toy Arthur Godfrey ukulele with a plastic button fixture that would play a chord simply by pressing a button. Looking for a bigger challenge, he pried off the fixture and studied the levers inside to figure out where to put his fingers to play it. The fingering was awkward. He got ukulele song books and learned to strum the cords for different songs by finger diagrams. The finger diagrams were different from the button fixture and were easier to play.
One lazy day Dave and I were reading comic books. A salesman came to the door and asked Mom if her kids were interested in taking up music. We looked up briefly and then back to our comic books as he droned on. As soon as he said that the girl down the street was taking music lessons, Dave decided he wanted to take music lessons. It was a new girl that we didn’t know. Dave decided he was interested in music lessons. Mom was happy about it despite the obvious reference to the girl. The salesman talked more about the options and Dave decided he wanted to learn the Hawaiian guitar. I did not expect that he would actually want music lessons. He was no older than 14. I decided to emulate my big brother, and take up the accordion, the only other option. Dave did learn the Hawaiian guitar but later switched to an acoustic guitar. It is interesting that all of his childhood hobbies followed him through his later life – toy soldiers, stamp collecting, model trains and the guitar.
After High School
After high school Dave got a scholarship to Lawrence Technical Institute. The college was a good engineering school, but it didn’t teach Literature, History, etc. So it was unaccredited. There was some sort of ceremony to honor some students. The dean told Dave to bring his girlfriend. Dave asked Mom how did he know I have a girl friend? Mom laughed and indicated everyone his age has a girlfriend.
Dave and Mom worked at Hudson’s Northland, the first shopping mall in the East. Some other classmates also worked there. Eventually I worked there too. We were full time during the summer to save up for college expenses. He also worked at a small storefront laboratory with a few others. An engineer was developing and planned on marketing some sort of magnetic device that I know nothing about..
He went for a masters degree at University of Michigan. He was living at home and commuted the 43 miles to Ann Arbor 3 days a week from Ferndale. I was commuting to Wayne State in downtown Detroit. For one semester I took advantage of an exchange agreement between the two universities and took two courses at U of M. It was very handy because Dave was driving there anyway.
Dave’s teen friends
Terry Cotter lived down the block. Dave and I sometimes hung out with him. Terry would break into a neighbor’s garage and steal stuff. He would rush out of soda fountains without paying the bill and shop lift without compunction. Those were things Dave would never do. Why Terry hung out with him is a mystery. With all Dave’s friends I was often a sort of a tag-along little brother and heard or or sometimes witnessed it.
Frog was a master at picking up girls. We never knew his real name. Frog resembled a younger Elvis Presley. I have no idea why he hung around with Dave and I who were afraid to touch girls. We sometimes went to the movies with Frog. Once after following him around the aisles while he scouted the theater we sat behind a girl and her little sister. Frog leaned forward to chat with the girl. We watched in awe as Frog eventually moved to her row and they both started enthusiastic whole scale necking. Dave never talked about that incident. He showed disapproval of Frog, but Frog was fun to be around and watch.
Carl Lipkaman was an admirable sort for his inventiveness. He attached an airplane propeller to an engine mounted on a toboggan. They couldn’t get the engine started which was probably a good thing because it was deadly. Dave built a go cart and Carl sold him a motor. Dave was afraid to test drive it so Carl drove it and quickly ended up in a ditch two blocks away. He was going way too fast for the rickety cart. Carl was always stuffing gun power into tubes and blowing things up including a sign at a park stuck in the pitchers mound that said, “No Baseball”.
Carl sold Dave and I a lot of stuff real cheap: an outboard motor for a boat, a jukebox amplifier, a home built motor cycle, which was a kids bike with a welded platform to hold a one cycle engine. The police came to our door once and asked what we bought from Carl, he showed him all the stuff. The cop asked Dave his age and Dave said 17. The cop said, “You could go to Jackson [prison] for that.” Dave was panicky and easily convinced the cop that he did not realize it was stolen. Carl later said the motor bike was not stolen. I thought we should get it back but Dad and Dave wouldn’t have anything to do with it. Neighbors across the street sat on their porch and watched with glee the police carting away the stuff.
Bob Thompson was one of Dave’s closer pals throughout his teen years. He was not as “exciting” as the others, so Dave did more wholesome things with him. Bob was lanky and not much into education. He was slightly more forward with girls, but had bad luck when it came to picking up girls.
They often went to Edgewater Amusement Park, a rather shabby place with all kinds of side shows and carnival rides. It was within an easy walking distance. I would tag along. On the way home we would stop for a White Castle hamburger for 15 cents. I also tagged along when they took a bus to downtown Detroit and a Ferry to Bob Lo Island amusement park. When Bob got married Dave was his best man. Dave was paired with a bridesmaid who Dave later dated. More on that later. Much more. Dave’s friendship with Bob lasted until Bob got married rather young.
Larry was a friend of Dave’s. Both were stock boys at Hudson’s Northland. I tagged along once when they went to his house where he wanted to show us the speaker cabinet he made out of card board. There were three girls there too. They seemed to be bored and jeered at us. They wanted the guys to do something more interesting than intently hovering over that cardboard. More on one of the girls later.
Early on, Dave’s friends were sort of my friends. Later when Dave went to University of Michigan for a masters in engineering he tagged along with my graduate school friends for a while. They were quite active and Dave went with us on skiing trips and other ventures.
Dave’s girl friends
Mom, Dave and I worked at Hudson’s Northland, so we crossed paths a lot. Mom told me that Dave does not realize how many girls follow him with their gaze as they walk by.
Laura was a friend of Larry’s fiance. Dave took her out a few times. I only saw her twice. She looked good and was vivacious. Another girl in Larry’s group was jealous. I overheard her telling her friends, that Laura thinks she is so special because she captured Dave. I don’t know what happened to her, but she didn’t seem to last long. Not so special I guess.
Roberta was a college friend of Phil’s. She lived nearby and was often at our house and became a friend of the family. She was a live wire. Phil had a close platonic relation with her but she flirted with Dave and I. Dave dated her at least once. We went on a double date somewhere. I drove while Dave and Roberta sat in the back seat. I heard Dave say, “Gimme a kiss.” I don’t know if she did because my eyes were on the road. I thought, wow, that is the first time I heard him say anything like that because he was generally shy around girls. Dave didn’t pursue her probably because he realized he grabbed a tiger by the tail.
Barbara was a friend of my ex wife. It was a blind date for them. We four went somewhere and ended up back at our house. They played a word game while ex and I chatted about something else. As far as I know that was their only date. Ex told me later that Barbara said with a glow in her eyes, “I’m going to get him.” What I didn’t understand is that Barbara had been engaged for a couple years to somebody else. Dave wasn’t in a mood to be gotten.
Joanie was a bride’s maid at Bob Thompson’s wedding. Dave was best man and I was a groomsman. That was his first serious girlfriend. We were both in college. After spending the day escorting Joanie in his official duty as best man, Dave dated her for about a year or so. She was a ready made catch. Joanie was the more aggressive one about keeping their relationship alive. He would call her regularly and they would be on the phone for over an hour. There were long silences on his end of the phone. I overheard Mom asking Dave if she did a lot of talking and he said no. He said there was lots of silence between them. I’m sure that was awkward. The long calls (of mostly silence) were an extra charge on the phone bill because it was from Ferndale to Detroit, so after a while Dave drove to a drug store phone booth in Detroit and made the call for a dime.
Sometimes Dave had bad news for Joanie such as not being able to go to a party she planed because of school. Joanie would break into tears and her mother would pick up the other phone to find out what was happening and console her only child. That was obviously uncomfortable for Dave.
There came a time when the parents should meet. So our whole family went to visit their family. We saw slides and other entertainment. Joanies mom and pop were very nervous about their special guests. Her mom dropped a glass of beer which shattered leaving glass and a puddle of beer on the floor and she started crying. Her dad tried to console her, but the worst possible imaginable thing happened. The dog came up and started licking the beer. That was hilarious, but also was the height of embarrassment so her mom went into hysterical sobbing and had to rush out of the room. Her dad no doubt had seen this before. He was worried and soothing as he ran after her. The Wilson family was simultaneously aghast and amused.
I got a call from Joanie. She was coming back from a trip. Dave and Joanie’s mom and pop were to pick her up at the airport. They took two separate cars. They all would greet her at the airport and Joanie was to drive back with Dave. I got a call from Joanie who was frantic because they had not arrived yet and she wanted me to come and pick her up. I tried to convince her that they did leave for the airport and would be there soon, but she really wanted me to come. She told me she would make them wait if they arrived before I got there. While I was struggling for diplomatic ways of saying, NO WAY, YOU FRIGGIN IDIOT, she shouted there they are! Click. Whew.
They all came to our house with a great tale of woe. Dave was following the mom and pop to the airport and they got lost. They stopped by the side of the road so Dave and pop could consult a map. When they returned to our place they went into great detail about their misadventure, with the mom repeating how awful it was and the pop shaking his head and moaning it was all his fault and Joanie describing her feeling of abandonment. Dave was mostly grim and silent.
Finally Dave graduated from Lawrence Tech and was free from the shackles of school for a bit until he started at University of Michigan. Joanie had big plans. The bank where she worked was organizing a cruise, and Joanie invited Dave who she knew would be thrilled at this venture. It didn’t happen. Dave never confided with me about Joanie, but I could see that he felt trapped in a deep hole that would require intense explosions to get out of. Mom mildly probed Dave and expressed the fact that Joanie was not the best choice for Dave, but she didn’t nag. Mom told me later that Dave went to the drug store with his dime to finally say no to the cruise and break up with her. He came back drained. Mom asked him was it bad? He said “You don’t know the half of it.” He never talked about it with me and out of respect, I never asked, but he did confide in Mom later. She said it was a long call. Joanie’s started sobbing and her family rushed to the phones sobbing and imploring him to stick with their daughter, to no avail.
Epilogue. Around a year or so later Joanie came to the book department where Mom worked pushing a baby carriage. She got married to some hapless soul and had a baby. Mom was very delighted that Joanie found a husband. But Joanie’s attitude was. This could have been your grandchild, but it’s not. See what you are missing! The way Mom told it, she may have actually used those exact words.
Carrie was a daughter of cousin Bob and his wife Bernice. They had once met Joanie and were crestfallen. Bernice wondered how Dave ended up with that “heavily corseted” woman. Yes, Joanie was big boned and rather heavy. She had the kind of face that wouldn’t age well.
We knew Carrie since we were tots. While Mom and Dad were in the kitchen playing pinochle with Bob and Bee the three of us would tear up the living room. We piled sofa pillows on the floor and climbed on a desk to jump on them. Carrie was quite a tease at times and would often sneak up behind us and pinch our butts really hard and it hurt. I don’t think Dave liked her all that much. I didn’t.
Around the time Joanie was dumped Bob and Bee revealed Carrie was not their daughter, but was adopted. It’s possible they revealed it at that time so Dave might possibly take an interest in Carrie who had stopped pinching butts years ago. That did the trick. I went on a couple of double dates with them. I was with a cousin of hers who came from New York. I don’t know if the rest of the family knew how serious it was, but I was absolutely surprised when Dave and Carrie announced their engagement.
Bob, Bee, and Carrie came over and everyone had a grand time making toasts, and arguing how many cows should be in the dowry, and should the wedding be in the Sistine Chapel. I was living on Wayne State’s campus at the time and Dave was living at home and commuting to U of M so I didn’t have first hand knowledge of what was going on. Some time later I was the last to know that Dave and Carrie had broken up.
There was apparently a big party with everyone there but me. It may have been an engagement party, but I don’t remember. There was a lot of dancing, but Mom said Dave wasn’t feeling very well. He had an ear ache and couldn’t hear out of one ear. He wasn’t in the mood for a rowdy atmosphere. While he mostly sat it out sullenly, Carrie was on the dance floor flirting with all the guys. I learned later that Carrie said she was trying to make Dave jealous, and was crestfallen that it backfired on her.
After Graduation from U of M, Dave got a job at Honeywell in Minneapolis. I lost touch with Dave. He boarded at a place where the owner loved him because Dave didn’t have rowdy parties etc, but would repair things for the owner and do other odd jobs. Dave went through the trials of a bachelor in a new town. The landlord was sorry to see Dave go when the company had him move to Clearwater. I lost touch with him even further.
Wilson Cones Family History 