TheSchmitts.Org!

Uncle Gus adopted Cecile's 2 children after they married.  The girl's name was Margie ( I think), and the boy's name was Gordon.  I have no idea of what ever happened to Margie.  Gordon is now dead, having died several years ago.  Uncle Gus was a dentist and practiced in the Dallas Texas area.  I am under the impression that uncle Gus was living with Gordon and his wife in Midland Texas when he died.  As a matter of fact I wrote him there after Dad died.  We corresponded briefly until the death angel  got him.  I saw Gordon and Margie only once.  It must have been in 1934 or 35.  We all met up in Nashville.  Gordon was older than cousin Roger and I, and Roger was close to a year older than I am. Gordon must have been a year or two older than Roger.  I can remember several things about that stay at Nashville.  We 3 boys spent our time dong what 3 young boys do.  We tried smoking rolled up grape leaves, not much to them. Then either Roger or Gordon, I think it was Gordon (he's dead so he can take the blame) pilfered part of a pack of cigarettes from either Dad or Gus or uncle Ed or Uncle John.  Now Grandmother Schmitt didn't have running water in her house, she had long-range plumbing.  So us 3 boys, looking for a place to hide out and try a smoke, got in grandma's  outhouse and lit up.  Dad and uncle Gus saw the smoke pouring out of the outhouse, and thought it was on fire, so they came running out with buckets of water to save the outhouse.  That finished our smoking experience that trip.  The war came along, and Gordon went in the Airforce.  He was a gunner on one of the big bombing planes, either a B17 or B24.  Anyway, the plane got shot down somewhere over Europe.  Gordon managed to escape from the plane and was captured by the Germans, and held in a prisoner of war camp in Germany until the war was over.  After the war he settled in the Midland Texas area.  I don't know what he did for a living for certain, but he made lamps out of drill cores taken from deep in the earth in the drilling of oil wells. I have the one he made for your grandmother and granddad.  He also made one for Uncle Ed, and I don't know which one of his children got it, but I think it is still in the family.  The lamps are very pretty, you may remember it from grandma's house.  I use to have a tag that came with the one we got, that said the core came from so many feet down in the earth.  I don't remember just how far, but it was over 10,000 feet.  Another happening on that trip I remember was the making of ice cream.  The trip was made during the 4th of July of I think 1935.  Anyway, Ed, Dad, Johnny and Gus got up all the stuff to make up a batch of ice cream in the old hand crank freezer.  And they made a batch.  Uncle Gus wanted to flavor it up some, so he went to the drug store and got a bottle of banana oil and proceeded to lubricate the ice cream with a copious supply of banana oil.  It ruined the ice cream so bad that the adults couldn't eat it., and us kids were barely able to choke it down.  To this day, I can't stand the smell of banana oil. There was a coal mine not far from grandmother's house, and there was a pond next to the mine.  The town had made a park next to the pond.  Part of the 4th celebration was a baseball game.  One team was made up of a bunch of Oklahoma roughnecks who were in the area drilling oil wells, the other team was a team of blacks from St. Louis.  The game soon erupted into a general melee and fight between the Oakies and the blacks.  The folks gathered up us kids and got us out of there.  That was probably my first introduction to race relations.  That was the only time I ever saw Gordon or Margie.   I don't know how Uncle Gus got to Texas, but somewhere in the back of my mind is the belief that one of Dad's uncles had gone to Texas.  My great grandpa Schmitt had several brothers.  I will see what I can find out about them.