Dillon Family

This brief history of John’s life was written by Nana for Troy and Ryan.

This is a story about your Dad. It is a story that he wanted written. He wanted you to know more about him – things that happened in the years before your Mom knew him. There is so much, I can’t begin to write it all, but I’ll try to write about some of the things that I know he would have told you if he had been here.

John Lawrence Dillon was born January 25, 1945, at the Naval Hospital at the Naval Air Station in Corpus Christi, Texas. His parents were Walter Earl Dillon and Bessie Lu Dillon, now known to you as Granddad and Nana. John was named for his Grandpas, John S. Dillon, Granddad’s father, and Lawrence Henthorne – my Dad. We were still in World War II, and Granddad was in the Navy. We lived in a Naval Housing Project called Peary Place, several miles out of Corpus Christi and close to the Naval Air Station, known as ‘the Base”. Peary Place was near the water, and there were often both seagulls and seaplanes flying overhead. Our home was in a small, one-story duplex, with a big yard, and lots of good neighbors. Granddad was an Aviation Machinist’s Mate, and his job was helping keep the Navy training planes in operation.

When John was eight months old, the war ended, and Granddad was discharged from the Navy. We then moved to another housing project, La Armada, which was for newly discharged servicemen and their families. The houses here were r-unit apartment houses. Each unit had two rooms downstairs and two upstairs. Our neighbors were young families like ourselves, with children near John’s age. I should mention here that we always called him “Johnny”. He was never known as “John” until he started to school, and then not at home.

John was just fourteen months old when his little sister, Nancy, was born. His grandmother Henthorne (my mother) came down from Kansas on the train to stay with him until Nancy and I came home from the hospital. She rocked him in the rocking chair and read books to him. His favorite book was “The Little Red Hen”. He always loved her very much.

Next to our apartment unit was a park, with swings, slides and monkey bars. All the children loved to play there, when they could get one of the mothers to take them. Other times they rode tricycles or pulled each other in wagons, up and down in front of the apartment. The weather was warm most of the year, so they played outdoors most days. It was while we lived here that John had his first real birthday party. The first two years we had just had a cake and two or three friends, but before his third birthday he told me he wanted a party. He had been to a few, and knew just what he wanted – cake, ice cream, cokes, lots of balloons, and Pin-the-Tail-on-the-Donkey. He told me all the names of the children he wanted to invite. All lived in the apartment units closest to us and all played together at least some of the tie. There were twenty-four, ranging in age from 1 to 5. So we gave out 24 invitations. I bought the refreshments he requested, made a cake, drew a donkey on a sheet and made 24 tails, and Granddad and I blew up balloons until we were blue in the face. The party was a big success. Nineteen children and nine mothers came – our little apartment was full almost to the bursting point. Everyone ate ice cream and cake, fought over balloons and pinned tails on the donkey and had a wonderful time. That was only the first of many parties, but it was one of the biggest.

When John was 3-1/2 and Nancy 2-1/2, we moved from La Armada and bought a house at 4405 Avenue B. This was clear on the other side of town, in the area known as North Beach, and we were actually just a block away from the beach and the water. This was an exciting place to live. Besides the face that we could go to the beach almost every day, we had a view from the front door of all the ships and tugboats coming into or leaving the Port of Corpus Christi. We would hear three long blasts from the ship’s whistle, which was a signal for the drawbridge to go up so that the ship could pass through the entrance to the port. When the whistle sounded, we would all run to the front door to see what was coming. We soon learned to recognize the shape of a freighter or a tanker, or a tug with barge, and to distinguish between the whistles of a big ship and a tug. There was one other source of excitement – the train. A track ran along about a block behind our house. When we heard the train whistle, John and Nancy would quickly grab all their stuffed animals and Nancy’s doll and run to the back door so that everyone could see the train go by. John’s favorite animals were a pink bear he called “Pear”, a black and white bear called “Little Bear” and a little red horse. Nancy’s favorite was a wooly lamb, named “Woolly Lamb”.

During the time we lived there, there weren’t many other children their age in the neighborhood, and John and Nancy were each other’s best playmates. They loved to build things with their Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, play with trains and cars, and of course, build sand castles and hunt shells at the beach. Occasionally, as a special treat, we would go to a little amusement park in the area, where John and Nancy could ride the boats, the cars, and the small Ferris wheel. Later we found one that had a real pony, as well as John’s favorite – the bumper cars. One birthday party took place there. For an hour and a half, all ten children could ride all the rides they wanted. John rode them all, but especially the bumper cars, and Nancy rode Tony the Pony again and again.

John and Nancy both loved books – they would go to bed at night and lie and listen while I read them one book after another. One of John’s favorites was a story about a family of beavers, and how they spent the summer and the winter in their home in the pond.

John always loved animals, both house pets and wild animals. He was five when he got his first puppy – a tiny, three-week-old Dalmatian whose mother had disappeared. We fed him from a bottle until he was old enough to eat by himself. Because he had a sprinkling of small black spots all over his little white body, we named him Pepper. Pepper officially belonged to the whole family, but as he grew to be a big, gangling long-legged puppy, he considered himself John’s dog. Pepper had strange tastes. He loved lettuce, and one day he snatched a head of lettuce from our refrigerator, and carried it behind the sofa, where he proceeded to eat it all.

About that time, there was another addition to the family – a little brother, Roger. John and Nancy loved to keep him entertained when I had to go outside to hang clothes on the line. (We didn’t have a clothes dryer in those days, so all the washing had to be hung out.)

John used to watch the older children go by the house on their way to school, and wish he was old enough to go too. He knew all his letters and could print anything I told him the letters for. He could count as high as he had the patience for, knew hose to go from thousand to million to billion to trillion, etc., and could double three-digit numbers in his head. We had visited North Beach Elementary school a few times at Hallowe’en Carnival time, so when it was time to start first grade, he could hardly wait. (There was no kindergarten in the Corpus Christi public schools at that time, so boys and girls went straight into first grade.) We went in together at registration time, but on the first day of school he didn’t want anyone to go with him. He watched the clock, and as soon as it was time, picked up his school supplies and ran out the door and down the street toward school.

John loved first grade. He left for school on the run every morning, and came running in every afternoon to tell us what had happened at school that day. Most days he opened his reader and read us his lesson for the day. Afterward he and Nancy played school, with Nancy sitting at the little table while John taught her what he had learned that day. I still have John’s first report card, on which his teacher wrote, “John is a good student and a good citizen”.

The year North Beach School presented “The Nutcracker” as its Christmas program. John, dressed in a gray mouse costume I had made him, played the part of the Mouse King.

During that school year we sold our house and moved two blocks down the street to a small motel we had bought. It was still just a block from the beach, but two blocks closer to school. This place was known then as a “tourist court”, although we had very few tourists. Mostly we rented to families who were working in town for a few months, and didn’t want to get a permanent place. These people became our neighbors, and some became good friends.

During all the years we lived in Corpus Christi, one of the highlights for John, Nancy and Roger was our almost yearly trip to Kansas to see their grandparents, my Mother and Dad, whom they called “Grandmother” and “Grandpa”. The other was the occasional visits that Grandmother and Grandpa made to Corpus Christi. These visits were always looked forward to for weeks and enjoyed thoroughly. Grandmother and Grandpa told them stories, read to them, walked on the beach and hunted shells. When we visited them in Kansas, Grandpa used to take John down to the railroad station in the evening to see the train, the “Texas Chief”, come in. Grandpa died when John was five, but he had many happy memories of him. As John and Nancy grew older, Grandmother still came to see us, and they could hardly wait to show her everything they had, or could do. Whenever we went to Winfield, all three children would also see their great-grandfather (my grandfather) who lived with “Grandmother”. He was called “Great-Grandpa”. Great-Grandpa loved to work jigsaw puzzles. While we were there he would set up a card table in his room and spread out a jigsaw puzzle. John, Nancy and Roger would help him work on it, and together they would finish it by the time we left. Another favorite thing was helping Great-Grandpa dig potatoes. Great-Grandpa always had a vegetable garden. When it was dinner time, he would go to the garden to pick whatever we needed, and all the kids thought the potatoes were the most fun. There was also their Great-Uncle Dick, Grandmother’s brother, and his wife, Aunt Nona, and their Great-Aunt Inez, Grandpa’s sister, all of whom lived in Winfield. Sometimes Great-Aunt Bess would be visiting from Kansas City. So there were a lot of family get-togethers when we went to visit.

When John was four or five, we visited his Grandmother and Grandpa Dillon, who lived in Longton, Kansas. They were much older than my parents and didn’t travel around much. Grandmother Dillon thought John looked so much like his Dad that she said she kept wanting to call him “Little Walter”. We also used to visit his Aunt Grace, Granddad’s sister, in San Antonio, and she visited us several times. Most of the rest of Granddad’s family lived in Hutchinson, Kansas, so we didn’t see them often.

Christmas we always spent at home. Sometimes Grandmother and Grandpa came to visit, but more often they didn’t, and we simply mailed our gifts to them, and they to us. We always decorated our Christmas tree early, and John enjoyed helping with it from the time he could hang an ornament on the low branches and throw icicles, as did Nancy and Roger in their turn. We used to put out milk and cookies for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve, and read “The Night Before Christmas”. Christmas morning was gift time. They used to get us up early to come and find the gifts and open the packages, of course. There weren’t as many gifts in those days, but they always made everyone very happy. Some of John’s favorite gifts over several years were his wagon, his tricycle, his electric train (when he was five), a big semi-trailer truck, and his Erector set. His first bicycle, when he got it, was not a Christmas gift, but a used one that Granddad bought from a neighbor. From the time John and Nancy were three and four years old, they used to save almost all their nickels, dimes, quarters and pennies for Christmas. They learned to count their money, and did it often. When Christmas came, I helped them make a list of the people they wanted to buy gifts for, and figure out how much they could spend for each one. Then we would go to a Woolworth’s variety store and find gifts for that amount of money. Sometimes I helped make the money stretch, but mostly it was their own. Then they wrapped the gifts and printed their own cards. Granddad always took them to buy my gifts.

When it was time to enroll in second grade, Nancy went with him to school, because she was to start first grade. However, when the teacher and principal discovered that she would read, write and do first grade arithmetic already, they put her in second grade too – although I a different room. John wasn’t sure he liked having his little sister in the same grade, but we told him he was just too good a teacher.

During second grace, I became a Cub Scout den mother. John was an honorary member of the den until his birthday in January, when he became a full-fledged Cub Scout. He had already done the work to earn several badges before his birthday. Besides working on badges, we made some field trips, and did some craft projects. One windy day we even made kites and flew them. That was a fun year, but it was my last as a den mother, because that summer we moved across town to 4306 Ramsey. This was a stone house with a big covered patio where John, Nancy and Roger used to play. There was also a fireplace, so there was a perfect place to hang Christmas stockings. John and Nancy attended Fannin School and John joined another Cub Scout den. This den wasn’t very active, but the following year we moved back to North Beach, where he was in a den with the same boys he had fun with before, but with a different den mother. John was in fourth grade that year, the highest grade in North Beach School, and was proud to be a member of the Safety Patrol.

In fifth grade, John and Nancy went to David Hirsch School. David Hirsch was some distance away, on the other side of the drawbridge over the ship channel, so they rode their bicycles to school. John was on the Safety Patrol there, too. His station was across the bridge from the school. Several times while he and his partners were on duty, the bridge went up to allow ships to pass. So, there was nothing to do but watch the ships at close range until the bridge went down so they could get back to school.

In January of that year John was 11, and in February he was promoted from Webelos to Boy Scouts. His Grandmother and his Great-Uncle Dick gave him his uniform, his Scout knife and cooking kit. His Scoutmaster was “Steamboat “Steele – who always went by that nickname, but never told the boys how he got it. He and his brother John, who was his assistant, made the new boys feel at home immediately. They loved camping and usually took the troop camping about once a month. For John’s first camping trip, we bought him his back pack and his first sleeping bag. He was also instructed to bring a piece of meat, a potato, a carrot and aluminum foil. That turned out to be his first experience in camp cooking, and he loved it! That summer his troop attended the week-long Corpus Christi Area Scouting Camporee at Lake Corpus Christi, about 35 miles from home.

In between Scouting activities, John often went fishing. He and a friend would go out to the end of a jetty (a long, rock pier that extended out into the bay) and fish for hours. Afterward they would get a tub of water and sit in the yard and clean their fish. We had some good fish dinners from those fishing trips. Sometimes the man next door took him fishing in the surf, where they fished for gafftops. A gafftop looks sort of like a big catfish. They are very good to eat. One night the whole family fished from a pier all night. About dawn the fish really started biting. We ended up with 16 fish, including redfish, ocean trout and a flounder.

Sometimes the family would drive out to Padre Island for a picnic on the each. The wide flat Padre Island beach extended for miles and miles. That was where we found our best seashells. Sand dollars were the favorite. Once we camped there overnight, right on the beach. John, Nancy and Roger had fun chasing sand crabs and climbing the sand dunes. As we cooked our breakfast on the beach, the seagulls flew down and squawked to be fed. We tossed them some pieces of burnt toast and egg which they caught and ate in the air.

Along Shoreline Drive in Corpus there were what they called T-heads. These were T-shaped piers where many people kept their boats. On the 4^th of July there would be fireworks set off over the water. Sometimes we went down to see them, but more often we sat in the yard of the court and watched them from there.

During the years we lived at the court, we had an assortment of pets – not all at once, but some at one time, some at another. There was Tippy, a black and blown puppy (who became a dog) with a white tip on his tail. There were always cats. The first was Esmeralda, who simply came to live with us, and left just as abruptly about a year later. She had four kittens, one of whom was a small, long-haired gray cat named Tiger who stayed with us as long as we lived there. She had two or three families of kittens, but I don’t remember much about them. Then there were the rabbits. John had a black rabbit named Scamper; Nancy’s white rabbit was Snowball. We also had two parakeets. John’s green parakeet was Peter, while Nancy’s was blue and was called Pretty Boy. Peter was pretty well behaved, but Pretty Boy was always getting out of his cages, then nipping the fingers of anyone who tried to catch him. Nancy was the only one who would pick him up! One Easter there were three chickens. John had a black rooster, Nancy had a red hen, and Roger’s hen was green. We had two goldfish for a while. And when someone in John’s and Nancy’s room at school rescued a hawk with a broken wing, we had the honor of keeping him (in his cage) one weekend – along with parakeets, rabbits and cats!

One bit of excitement occurred one day that John liked to talk about later. Two cars came speeding around our block and turned into the alley beside our house. The first car made a sharp turn to try to cut through the year, but crashed into our row of garbage cans and got tangled in the clothesline. Then two armed sheriff’s deputies jumped out of the second car and took the driver of the first car prisoner. We found out later that he was a bank robber trying to make a getaway.

The summer between fifth and sixth grade we were having business problems, and found it necessary to sell all our Corpus Christi property, including the court where we lived. Since it was nearly time for school to start and we didn’t know where we would be living next, we decided that I would take John, Nancy and Roger and go to Winfield to stay with my mother until we had things settled. That would give Granddad a chance to sell the property and have time to decide where we were going to live. Since Great-Grandpa had died that spring, at the age of 93, Grandmother was living alone, and was happy to have us.

We settled into Grandmother’s house in Winfield, Kansas, about two weeks before school was to start. This was the house where I grew up, from the time I was 10 years old. John, Nancy and Roger had visited there often enough to feel pretty much at home. They knew the boy who lived next door on the left and the two girls who lived next door to the right from other visits. On registration day, we went up to Lowell School – the same elementary school where I had gone – and enrolled John and Nancy in the sixth grade and Roger in the first. Roger wouldn’t be 6 until December 20^th, but according to Kansas law he could start first grade if his birthday was before December 31^st. In this school, there was just one room for each grade.

Probably John’s and Nancy’s hardest subject that year was history. Afar learning about Texas history for five years, they were suddenly expected to know Kansas history. Bu that was something that could be remedied by a little study. They had their first male teacher that year, Mr. Foster, He was a good teacher, and they liked him.

One of the first things I did when we got to Winfield was to call the Presbyterian Church to get the name of the Scoutmaster there. They told me it was Wayne Green, so I called him, and a night or two later he came by the house and picked John up for a meeting. John met the boys in the troop and settled right in. Wayne Green was a well-liked Scoutmaster, but he insisted that his boys get down to business and learn to do things right. He and John always got along well. They went on hikes and camping trips and some special trips to work on badges. When a new Den Chief was needed for the Church’s Cub Scout den, he recommended John for the job. John enjoyed being a Den Chief. The Den Mother said he worked well with the boys, kept them organized and made her job much easier. Besides, he enjoyed passing on his knowledge of Scouting to the younger boys.

John missed his Dad very much that fall. Granddad wrote that he was very busy trying to sell the Corpus Christi property. He had to get a job since he no longer had his grocery stores, so he had started working as an ironworker on the construction of buildings. He promised he would come for Christmas. For Christmas, John and Nancy were hoping for bicycles. Their old ones had nearly rusted to pieces in the sale air in Corpus Christi. Granddad arrived on Christmas Eve. About 3:00 A.M. John and Nancy woke up. They wanted to get up, but knew it was too early. So Nancy felt her way into the dark living room and explored a little. When she came back to John’s room, she reported that she had felt two bicycles! On that, they went back to bed and went to sleep until 5:30, when they came into our bedroom and got us up to come see the gifts. It had snowed a little in the night, but that didn’t keep them from going out to try out their new bicycles. It was a wonderful Christmas being all together again.

After Christmas Granddad had to go back to work in South Texas, and John, Nancy and Roger went back to school.

One of John’s prized possessions was a violin. Someone had given it to Granddad in exchange for groceries, and John wanted very much to learn to play it. So, when the opportunity came to sign up for violin classes for the elementary school orchestra, John enrolled in the class. They met once a week at the Junior High School for the class, where each one received some individual instruction, and the groups from all the elementary schools started practicing for a program to be given in the spring. John enjoyed playing with the orchestra, and was proud that he could actually play his violin.

One of John’s classmates that year was Lloyd Anderson. They often played together after school, and were members of the same Scout troop. There was a park in Winfield called Island Park, because it had a lagoon as the way around it. We often went there for picnics – John, Nancy, Roger and some of their friends, and their Grandmother and I. We always managed to take along a little extra bread to feed the ducks in the lagoon.

That spring we decided to take a weekend trip to the Ozark Mountains. These mountains are located in Missouri and Arkansas, and are much lower than the mountains in Colorado, but are very pretty. The place we decided to go was Branson, Missouri. That area was (and is) known as the “Shepherd of the Hills” country. Because a book by the name was written about people who, at one time, lived there. Grandmother had the book, and for several weeks before we went, we would sit just before bedtime and take turns reading the book aloud to the others. We managed to finish the book before we went, so we were really able to enjoy our visits to the various cabins and scenic spots where the story took place.

Just before the 4^th of July, Granddad called to say he was coming to Winfield, but wanted to go on to Colorado Springs to try to get a construction job on the Air force Academy, which was just being built at that time. He wanted us to go with him. Saturday would be the 4^th, so I had Friday off from my job at the Court House. We would spend the weekend vacationing in Colorado, then John, Nancy, Roger and I would take a train back to Winfield and Granddad would stay in Colorado and work. I was able to get off early Thursday, so we quickly packed and started out. We stopped at a motel for the night, and got to Colorado Springs about noon Friday. In that weekend we drove to Denver and back, went up Castle Rock, drove up Pike’s Peak, went to Seven Falls, and then drove down to the Royal Gorge on Sunday. That afternoon we went to the railroad station at Pueblo, where we got cleaned up, and John, Nancy, Roger and I caught a train back to Winfield. We rode all night, and got home tired but happy. It had been a wonderful weekend – and there were more to come.

My vacation came about a month later, and we went back to Colorado. Granddad was working on the Academy, so he rented a cabin for us at Cascade, near Pike’s Peak. It was a cabin on the mountainside, with a fireplace to sit around at night, and, best of all, two burros. The people at the motel showed John and Nancy how to saddle and unsaddle them, and they could ride whenever they wanted to. Sometimes the burros got tired of being ridden. When that happened the big one, Thunder, would head for the barn, taking his rider with him. When Jasper, the little one, was tired, he would simply lie down in the road, while his rider quickly jumped off. During the week Nancy twisted her ankle. It was pretty sore for a couple of days, so John brought Jasper clear up the hill to the front porch so she could get on. We did some more sightseeing, including the Cave of the Winds, the Car Museum, and a bit of driving around, and we were really sorry when it was time to go home. This was John’s first experience with real mountains, and he never forgot it.

John was rather small for his age at this time, but he really loved to eat, and could put away a surprising amount of food. Granddad used to tease him about it, saying that the reason he was so small was that it kept him skinny carrying around all the food he hate. Aunt Inez used to take us all out to dinner sometimes. We usually went to the Bob Inn, and all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant. John would go through the line and come out carrying a huge plate of food, including two or three meats plus vegetables, salad and bread. The employees used to look at him and shake their heads as if to say, “He’ll never eat all that”. But he did – and afterward would go back for seconds on his favorites, then top it all off with a piece of pie.

That fall we decided to go to the Ozarks for the weekend, but not to Missouri We went to Eureka Springs, a little town in the mountains of northern Arkansas. The autumn leaves were beautiful. We found a little motel where we stayed in a log cabin. There were a ping-pong table and a shuffleboard court at the motel, and a short hiking trail back of the cabins. The swimming pool was closed for the season, but we had plenty to do, exploring the little crooked streets and the little curio shops downtown. We liked the place and the people that ran it so much that we decided to go back in the spring when the redbuds and dogwoods were in bloom.

John and Nancy were in the seventh grade by now. They went to the junior high school, which was farther from home than Lowell school, but less than 23 blocks from the Courthouse where I worked. At noon they would meet me at the car in the Courthouse parking lot. We would drive home, fix and eat lunch and go back. Roger, who walked home from Lowell school, was usually home first, and after lunch would usually walk back with some of his friends.

One of the highlights of John’s seventh grade year was football. In spite of being rather small, he went out for the team and made it. The games were held on Saturday morning, and of course we all went to watch them play. John played halfback, which is now called running back. The big moment occurred in the game against the seventh grade from Arkansas City, a neighboring town. The quarterback handed off to John, who managed to escape from the would-be tacklers and ran for a touchdown, the only one of the game. We were all jumping up and down and cheering wildly, as were most of the Winfield crowd. There was only one other game against an out-of-town team, and nobody scored, so that was all the excitement that season.

John was playing in the Junior High Orchestra, and was doing so well that his teacher suggested he take private lessons, which he did. She decided he needed a new, better violin, so we got him one, and he practiced well. Of course his teacher thought he should practice two or three hours a day and he did well to manage one hour, but he liked it. In the spring, she persuaded him to enter the junior high music contest. The contests were held on a Saturday in many events. John came out with a I- rating, which mean that he was an alternate and would go to the district contest if the top ranked girl couldn’t go – but she did. He now was second chair in the violin section of the Junior High orchestra. At the end of the year he was promoted to the Senior High Orchestra.

One thing John missed in Winfield was having a pet. He had asked me if we could get a dog, but since it was his Grandmother’s house, I thought we’d better not. But – one evening after school a little dog showed up. She was a little black cocker spaniel, and she played happily with John, Nancy and Roger and the rest of the neighborhood kids. After supper they went out to play again, and she was still there. It was a chilly night, and after everyone came in, we hoped she’d go home. About ten o’clock I went out to get something out of the car, and she ran out with me and jumped into the car. Then she came back to the house with me, and we couldn’t resist letting her in. Of course, everyone’s question was “Can she stay?” – and my mother and I finally agreed that she could spend the night, but would have to go out in the morning when everyone left for school and work. So we fed her and fixed her a blanket in front of the fire for a bed. John wanted to sleep on the floor with her, because we were sure that would be the only night we would have her. In the morning we let her out, but that evening she was still there. We advertised in the “Lost and Found” section of the paper, but no one ever answered out ad. We finally decided she must have been with someone traveling through town and gotten out without being noticed. She was a darling little dog, who evidently had been someone’s pet. She was housebroken, knew the command “Stay”, knew to stay off the furniture, and loved to ride in the car. By the time we realized no one was going to claim her, she was a member of the family, and Grandmother loved her just as much as anyone else. We named her “Trinket”, after a little dog in a book that looked a lot like her. She soon became like part of our family, and went on all our trips with us. We got her a rubber bone, and she and John loved to play Tug-of-War with it. If she wanted to go for a walk, she would bring her leash and push it at us until someone took her out. John and Roger even taught her to climb a ladder.

Roger was now in Cub Scouts, in the same den in which John was a Den Chief. John’s Scouting activities were not as satisfactory. Wayne Green, their popular Scoutmaster, moved up to be leader of the new Explorer Scout Post, and his assistant, who took his place, just didn’t know how to be a good scoutmaster.

The summer between seventh and eighth grade we went back to Eureka Springs for my vacation. In addition to the other attractions, there was a heated pool, and there were Bingo games every evening. John and Nancy met other boys and girls who, with their families, came every year, and they planned to see each other the next summer.

The second week of my vacation, we went to Corpus Christi. Granddad had finished his job in Colorado Springs, and was working in Corpus Christi. At that time he was living in a trailer near the beach and we visited him there. We had a very good time. John and Nancy called some of their friends and we went swimming and shell-gathering at the beach. One day we went on a deep sea cruise. John, Nancy, Roger and Granddad fed the gulls, who took food from their hands. I wanted to take their picture, but discovered that I had left my camera in the car on shore.

During eighth grade John did not go out for football. He hadn’t grown as much as the other boys and the coach said he was too small. He went out for track, played in the Senior High Orchestra, sang in the junior high chorus, and had a part in the junior high play, Tom Sawyer. He continued with Scouts, of course, but didn’t do much work on badges, because it just wasn’t as interesting.

The summer John was fourteen he decided to mow lawns to make some money. Grandmother’s lawnmower was an old hand mower, so John and I went shopping for a used power mower. I bought him the mower, and he paid me back out of the money he earned mowing lawns. Nancy was babysitting that summer, so it was a busy year. At Scout camp that summer, John earned his Senior Life-Saving badge. He was a 1^st Class Scout and Patrol Leader, as well as Den Chief.

It was about this time that we got a second dog. We had lost Trinket and needed a dog. This one was a medium-sized black, awkward puppy that had turned up at Roger’s den mother’s house. Roger persuaded me to drive over and get her, and she became our dog. She used to run and skid on the kitchen floor when she tried to turn around. I laughed and said, “You’re a dilly of a dog, you are!” So we named her Dilly. Dilly learned a number of cute tricks. She would sit up and beg, and would run circles around us with something in her mouth to greet us when we came in. She had a red plastic food dish and a green plastic water dish. If she was hungry she would pick up the red dish and parade back and forth with it in her mouth. If her water dish was empty, she would do the same with the green dish. She loved to ride in the car, and went on all our trips with us.

In the middle of ninth grade, John’s 15^th birthday arrived, and the next month he was inducted into Explorer Scouts. Wayne Green was the Post leader, and things got interesting again. The Explorer post he was in had a practice of going on a major trip every second summer and a shorter camping trip in the in-between years, and they worked year-round to pay for their trips. At the time John joined, they were saving their money for a trip to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico that summer. Their main money-making project was delivering handbills. When there were handbills to be delivered, the boys would be notified to report to the pick-up point after school. Winfield was a small town, so it was possible for the boys in the Explorer post to cover the whole town. They always worked in pairs, and each pair of boys would be assigned a certain part of town. They carried the handbills in canvas bags, and worked till they finished their route. John would get home late for supper, tired and hungry and with his homework still to do, but he and most of the boys never complained, because they knew every job was getting them that much closer to Philmont.

Another high point that year was that John took Driver’s Ed. Before the course started, he and I used to take drives on the country roads near town where he could practice. He did well in Driver’s Ed and was soon looking for every possible chance to drive the car.

The Explorers’ handbill deliveries paid off in June when the time came for their long-awaited trip to Philmont. Wayne Green and the fathers of two of the boys each took a car. Four boys rode in each car, and the equipment and supplies were carried in trailers. They stopped at Philmont Headquarters to get their camping assignment and directions. Some of the groups were being given guides to keep them from getting lot or getting into trouble, but John’s group were proud to hear someone say that he knew Wayne Green’s group would be well-trained enough to follow directions and take care of themselves. It was a ten days’ trip, and the boys came back tired but happy. John talked for hours about it all. I wish I remembered more of it. He had brought souvenirs from an Indian curio shop for all of us. Mine was a silver and turquoise ring, which I wear all the time.

Later in the summer we took what had become our annual trip to Eureka Springs. Granddad came up from Corpus Christi and met us there, and we all went up to Missouri. We always enjoyed getting the family all together. Granddad couldn’t find work in Winfield, but used to come for weekends whenever he could. He still needed to be in Corpus Christi part of the time to oversee our property and to continue to try to sell it all.

At the start of John’s sophomore year in high school, he got a job at Dillon’s grocery store after school and Saturday, so he was busier than ever. He went out for football again, and played on the second team. He was busy with Scouts, too, including many a night of delivering handbills, and in the spring there would be track. He was still playing in the orchestra, and had advanced to fourth chair in the first violin section, but he could find very little practice time. And, of course, there was always homework. He was a good student, but didn’t make all A’s, by any means. He even let an occasional C creep in, if the subject was one he wasn’t too interested in. His favorite subjects were math (he was in the 99^th percentile in the country in the scholastic aptitude tests), science and history. Another favorite was one that required no homework – woodworking. He was able to fit a woodworking class into his schedule every year from seventh grade on. I have a set of salt and pepper shakes, a lamp, and a nightstand that he made. In his sophomore year he built a desk. The next year he built a bed, and in his senior year, a chest of drawers for himself and a cedar chest for Nancy.

That fall, Grandmother moved over to her brother Uncle Dick’s house. His wife, Aunt Nona, had died, and he was lonesome in his big house, so she left her home with us and moved to keep him company.

In the fall of John’s sophomore year, we were expecting Granddad for Thanksgiving, but he called us from Nebraska, where he was working, to say he couldn’t get away, but wanted us to come up there instead. So, on Thanksgiving Day, we got up early and started for Nebraska. John, as usual, wanted to drive (he was not 16 yet and was still driving with a student permit), and I let him drive most of the way. He had a wonderful time, and I could see he was becoming a good driver. We spent the weekend in Nebraska, then went home. Granddad was home for Christmas, and soon afterward he was able to find work in Kansas, close enough that he could live in Winfield for awhile. John’s 16^th birthday was in January, and he had been talking about needing a car. One day Granddad came home with a green 1954 Chevrolet that smoked badly and needed a lot of work. John suspected it might be for him, so when Granddad got ready to start working on it, John showed up, all ready to help. He had figured out that the best way to be sure he did get a car to drive was to learn to work on it. So the two of them repaired it together, and when it was done, it became John’s car to drive. He had to buy the gas and pay the expenses, but he was happy to do that.

Lloyd Anderson’s family had moved to Pennsylvania, and John’s best friend was Jerry O’Neil. Jerry lived on a farm about five miles from town, and John and Jerry spent a lot of time together. Sometimes that went fishing in the ponds where John caught at least one pretty big fish. John helped with the harvest when it was tie to harvest the wheat. One summer John and Jerry joined a harvest crew and worked the harvest from Oklahoma to Nebraska.

Sophomore year was John’s last year in the orchestra, and the last of the violin lessons. He had enjoyed it for several years, but there was just too much to do, and some choices had to be made.

The summer before junior year, John and his Scout post took a short trip to Grand Lake in Oklahoma because they were saving their money for a canoeing trip to Canada the next year.

In his Junior year, John was still working, and still busy with Scouts and handbill deliveries. In addition, he decided to go out for wrestling. He was in several wrestling meets, but didn’t win many matches, because he was pretty much of a beginner. He had chosen wrestling because he was still a little small for football, but it also became a good muscle developer. In the spring he went out for track, as usual. His best events were the 220 and the 440 yard dashes.

So far, I have not mentioned John’s asthma, but he had it to contend with, to some degree, most of the time he was growing up. From the time he was a year old, every time a “norther” blew in (that’s Texan for cold front, with a north wind), within a few hours John would be wheezing. His very worst year was when he was five. After that, he began to have asthma attacks less often, and they were less severe. After he was in school, he always tried to ignore it whenever he could, and did everything that everybody else did. By that time we had found some pills that were quite effective, and he also had a nebulizer (sort of like an atomizer) that gave pretty quick relief. When he started going on Scout campouts, he tucked the pills and nebulizer into the deepest part of his pack. If he had problems he would use them, but would never mention it to anybody if he could help it. He finally got to the point where he almost never was bothered by it except when he had a cold.

The summer before John’s senior year in high school, the Explorer post went on a canoe trip I Canada. They crossed into Canada from International Falls, Minnesota. Their base camp was the Charles L. Sommers Wilderness Canoe Base. They were given a guide so they could find their way among the lakes along the border. They traveled by canoe as much as possible, portaging the canoes between lakes anywhere the water route was impassable. They camped at night at selected camping spots along the shore of the lakes. John was the official cook for the trip – both because he liked to cook and because he was the best cook. Their guide showed him how to make some new things he’d never made before, and they all ate well – paddling or carrying a canoe all day made everyone hungry. The scenery was beautiful. There was so much to see and do and learn, and almost before they realized it, the trip was over and the truck was there to pick them up and carry them back to their base camp. When John got home he told us over and over about the trip. When school started, he had to write an essay on what he did during the summer. He chose his canoe trip to Canada. His essay got an A. I read it, and it was an excellent, interesting account of a wonderful trip. John and I both intended to see that it was kept always, but somehow, with all the moves we made, it got lost.

In John’s senior year in high school, he was a little bigger, so he once more went out for football. John always loved sports, and whatever he played, he played as hard as he cold. He didn’t make the first team. But the coach told him he would have if he had gone out the year before and knew the plays better – but since he had been too small the year before, it couldn’t be helped.

John and Nancy graduated from Winfield High in May, 1963. Granddad had taken the house trailer from Corpus Christi to Dallas, and was working in Dallas. Dallas was growing fast at the time and many large buildings were going up, so he decided this would be a good place to live and there would be plenty of work. John came to Dallas to spend June with his Dad. Nancy got married that summer, so in August John, Roger and I moved to Dallas. It was a little crowded with four people in the trailer, but we were busy getting acquainted with Dallas. Since John was 18, he was required to register for the draft for the armed services. He would be required at some time to serve in the Army, Navy, Air Force or Marines. John hadn’t decided yet where he wanted to go to college and what he wanted to study, so he decided, instead of being drafted, to enlist in the Naval Air Reserve. This would give him three months of basic training plus six months of school. After that, he would have to spend one weekend a month and two weeks each summer on active duty. Because of the educational opportunity, that seemed like the best choice.

John left in September, 1963 for the Naval Air Station at Memphis, Tennessee. He finished his Basic Training (or “Boot Camp”) in December and came home for Christmas. We all went to Winfield to spend Christmas with his Grandmother and Uncle Dick. Nancy was there too, and it was a wonderful Christmas. John went back to Memphis after Christmas and started electronics classes. In February during a break between courses, he and three of his fellow recruits, one of whom lived in New Orleans, got a leave and made a quick trip to New Orleans for Mardi Gras. It was a wonderful change from school, with parades and parties and sightseeing. Then, back to Memphis to finish their classes.

When he came back to Dallas in May, he had decided that he wanted to be an engineer. What was then the University of Arlington in Arlington, just west of Dallas, had an excellent school of Engineering. The only thing he lacked was the money to go to school. He found a job at Johnson Controls, an electronics company, as a draftsman, with a chance to work into engineering type work. Granddad helped him get a 1959 Hillman Minx to drive to work. After working there more than a year, in September 1965 he started college. He continued to work part time at Johnson Controls, where his responsibilities increased as he progressed in school.

We were no longer living in the house trailer by this time, but had bought and moved into a house in Duncanville. Roger was going to high school. Also in 1965 Nancy came to Dallas. She was separated from her husband, and moved in with us with Bobby and Gene, who were 2 and 1. So it was a houseful, but John enjoyed being back with the whole family, and Roger was very happy to have his brother and sister both back.

For a while John rode a motorcycle instead of driving a car, to save money. His first motorcycle was a used Ducati 250, which he later sold and bought a Honda 160. In John’s sophomore year he joined a local fraternity which was composed mostly of engineering students. During the second semester of that year, he moved to an apartment in Arlington with Chuck Gifford, Danny Davis and Tommy Wallace.

That spring, we moved from Duncanville to Dallas. The whole upstairs had to be renovated before being used. John moved home for the summer, and helped his Dad do the wiring and renovating so that he and Roger could use the two upstairs rooms. Nancy and Bobby and Gene lived in a little apartment in the back part of the house until she remarried.

The third year, the University of Arlington became Arlington State University, and the local fraternity affiliated with a national fraternity, Delta Tau Delta. John stayed in the fraternity until the second semester, when he decided he didn’t have the time of the money for fraternity activities. During this year, John and Chuck got an apartment to themselves, and continued as roommates during the rest of the time John was attending college. About this time, he went to work for Self Engineering. He sold the Hillman and bought a light blue MG to drive between home, school and work, and changed his major from electrical to mechanical engineering. He worked for Self Engineering, doing engineering work, a little over a year before going on vacation to Colorado. While there, he visited Lloyd and Linda Anderson, who were already living in Denver. He fell in love with Colorado. When he returned to Dallas, he decided to give himself six weeks to think about it. At the end of that time, he was still in love with Colorado, so he quit his job. Packed his things and in October, 1970, moved to Colorado.

When he first got to Denver, John stayed with Lloyd and Linda until he found a place of his own. Other friends who were there at the time were Chuck and Theresa LoPresti, who had lived in the same apartment house as John and Chuck during college. John moved into an apartment at 6054 W. 38^th St. in Wheat Ridge, but he was finding that jobs were scarce. He still had not found work at Christmas. He and Chuck and Theresa LoPresti drove back to Dallas together to save gas. When they started back to Colorado they ran into a snowstorm. By the time they got to Dumas, in the Panhandle of Texas, it was a real blizzard, so they tried to find a room, but all the motels were full. Sitting in the lobby of a motel, Theresa noticed they seemed short of help, so she asked if they had any vacant rooms that hadn’t been cleaned up yet. They said they did. Theresa then offered to clean a room if she, Chuck and John could have it. The motel agreed. John and Chuck helped Theresa clean the room, and they moved in for the night. In the morning the snow had stopped, and they went on to Denver.

In January 1971, John went to work at Knoll Engineering as a systems designer. During the winter eh started building a kayak in the apartment. Also that year, Chuck Gifford got out of the Navy and came to Denver. He moved into the apartment with John. During the time they lived together, John usually did the cooking, because he was a better cook, and Cuck washed the dishes. Granddad and I visited John there in 1971. We had been on a trip and were on the way back from Glacier and Yellowstone National Parks. It was the middle of September, but in the middle of the night before we got into Denver it started snowing. By the time we got to the apartment, there was a foot of snow on the ground. John cooked us a delicious supper and pancakes for breakfast. He showed us the kayak, which was hanging from the ceiling because that was the only place in the apartment where there was room for it.

During the winter of 1971-1978, John and Chuck learned to ski and spent many weekends on the ski slopes. Another thing wanted to do was take a trip to Alaska. With that in mind, he bought a van and started fixing it up for the trip. But about that time he met Diane Rautenstraus, and decided not to go to Alaska. He brought Diane to Dallas in September to meet our family. While they were here, Nancy gave a part for them to announce their engagement and let Diane meet a number of his college friends.

On November 25, 1972, John and Diane were married. They spent their honeymoon in Galveston, New Orleans and Dallas. In 1973, they bought the house at 15882 W 3^rd Place in Golden and moved in. They went on many camping trips in the mountains. Also, John joined the Golden Volunteer Fire Department.

We usually visited John and Diane every year. They visited us in Dallas several times. In August 1975 Granddad and I met them in Ouray, Colorado. We camped in the mountains one night, went to Mesa Verde, and rode the train from Durango to Silverton. After that, we all went back to Denver to finish our visit.

On January 27, 1977, John and Diane’s first son, Troy, was born.

In May of 1977, John, Diane and Troy spent a long Memorial Day weekend at our lake house on Lake Winnsboro with Granddad and me, Roger, Roby and Sandi, Nancy and Bob, and Bobby, Gene and Mike. Sandi loved her new little cousin Troy.

In the summer of 1977 John and Diane bought the home at 156 Quaker and moved there.

In 1978 everyone came back to the Lake home for Thanksgiving. This time Troy was big enough to get out and kick a ball around the yard and play with all his cousins. Sue was there too. She wanted to play with Troy, but she was still pretty much of a puppy, and played a little rough.

After studying most of a year, John took two examinations and got his professional engineering degree in 1979. And in November, 1979, Ryan was born.

In January of 1980, John and Steve Petersen formed their own company, Petersen-Dillon Engineering.

The last things I wrote about – everything that happened since your Mom and Dad were married – she knows a lot more about than I do, so she can tell you about those things. But your Dad was my son. I knew him from the first, and I know that you would want to know the things I can tell you about. And I’d like you to know the kind of boy and man he was.

To begin with, John was cheerful, friendly and helpful. From the tie he was a little boy, he loved to help. When he was five years old and saw me mowing the yard with the old hand mower, he wanted to help me mow – and did, even though he wasn’t tall enough to reach the handle and had to push it from the side. He helped Great-Grandpa dig potatoes and enjoyed helping in many ways. As a Den Chief, he enjoyed helping the Cut Scouts and the Den Mother. When he was older, if he came home from school or work and found Granddad working on a car or mowing the yard, he would drop his books and stop to help. In the years since he was grown, I have no idea how many times he has helped people move, helped cut wood, helped Granddad with a plumbing job, or just helped out someone in trouble. And certainly the Volunteer Fire Department was a perfect example of helping other people.

John was honest and truthful. He stood up for what he believed, even in the face of opposition. He wasn’t someone who would go along with the crowd if he believed what they were doing wasn’t right. He was always ready to defend someone against unfair criticism.

He was a responsible person – responsible for his own actions, responsible for whatever he was supposed to do or believed he needed to do. He was dependable in his own work, and considerate of those who worked for him or with him. He was a good friend – his friends remained his friends for many years. He played according to the rules, whether they were home rules, school rules, or the rules and laws of the world.

He loved sports, both as a spectator and as a participant. He loved to camp, particularly in the Colorado mountains. He was always ready to try something new, but enjoyed nothing more than a good get-together with old friends. He had a wonderful sense of humor, and almost always had a good time at whatever he did.

We loved John very much, and he loved us, and the rest of our family. He loved your Mom, and he loved you very, very dearly. It would please him very much to see you doing so well in school, with so many interests, and so involved in Scouts, which he loved so much, and becoming such fine people. He would be very proud of you – and you have every reason to be proud of him.