In order to understand the title above, one should be a student of the Old Testament. Mama was such a person , and it was due to her admiration for the two men who left Egypt and lived to enter Caanan that she named her first-born, after one of those two men. The righteous lives they led, doing good deeds at all times, striving at all times to do no man ill, endeared them to many a God-fearing person by inflicting upon their namesakes a heavy burden of trying to live up to their reputations.
Early in my life Mama and Papa did their best to instill in me the desire to live after my namesake. They never told me, but I began to suspect that if he were like other boys I knew, he may have made a few missteps along the way in gathering his worldly knowledge, and , of course he paid for some of his misdeeds, if he were caught.
Some of the things I remember as a youngster come back vividly. When my parents moved to the city - the day we arrived at our new home stands out. I had been raised in the Welsh language and I knew no other way to talk. I tried to help the hired man by asking him questions in Welsh, and he answered me in English. Neither of us knew what the other was saying, but my father translated for us and finally told me to keep quiet and get out of the way. One of my clearest recollections is the time I walked out to the woods in my barefeet where father was burning brush. He didn't see me coming and so couldn't warn me of the hot embers on the ground. It didn't take him long, though, to locate me when I began screaming from the pain of my burning feet. He carried me to the house where Mama applied coolind soda, cream, and anything handy to ease the agony.
I entered the first grade the Fall after we moved to the city. I remember that my classmates laughed at me because I couldn't talk English, but evidently it took me only a short while to get "hep". During the time I was in school we were near enough that I could walk home for noon lunch. On real cold days I was allowed to take my lunch. One girl, Eunice, had only a couple of blocks to go to school, but her father drove her to school each morning and came for her after school. I used to envy her because she had lunch at school every day, while I had to go home at noon and help by carrying in wood, pumping a pail of water, throwing coal in the furnace, etc.
One January some of my boyfriends told me I was going to get a new brother or sister. I wouldn't believe them. However, one weekend while I was at the farm with my maternal uncle and aunt, they told me that I had a new baby sister. I recalled what my friends had told me and wondered how they knew when I had no inkling of the event.
The usual childhood diseases attacked me - measles ( oh my poor eyes), mumps ( oh, my poor jaws), scarlet fever ( oh, my poor throat and my stinging back, which felt like a swarm of bees had landed in a mad frenzy), chicken pox, colds, etc. It seems like yesterday that I ran out the back door and jumped off the porch. I came back in carrying a board, with a nail in it, which had penetrated my hand when I landed on it when I lost my balance and fell. Mama held my hand while Papa pulled the nail out while I yelled. My bare feet were objects of sharp things such as axes, one of which split open one of my toes, sharp stones when stepped on, sandburrs which penetrated and stuck. I often wondered if the man after whom I was named ever said the things I did on such occassions.
Cousins were plentiful around our home in the city and maternal and paternal farm homes. One day my cousin David bargained with me to take him for a horse and buggy ride to the fish hatchery and back for a nickle. I carried out my part of the bargain but I'm still trying to collect my money. As we came back into town some men in front of the blacksmith shop yelled to warn us that 30 miles was the speed limit. I couldn't figure it out for the old nag was just barely moving in a walk.
Ralph was my "city-slicker" cousin and he never lost an opportunity to "show up" his country cousins. On our uncle's farm he always managed to get the riding sulky cultivator while I was left to walk behind the one-horse cultivator stubbing my toes on stones and getting stuck with sandburrs in my feet and ankles. One time Ralph enticed my sister and me to go fishing for "riches" in the little stream that ran through the farm. He assured us that the green, silky scum we gathered from the stream could be sold by him for enough to buy us all the candy and goodies we could ever wish for. My sister and I waded the stream and gathered the scum while Ralph stayed on the bank and made sure that nobody came to make off with our treasure. Imagine our embarrassment when he finally laughed and announced he was only kidding. But my day finally came when Ralph came to visit me while I was attending school in Oshkosh. He was on a vacation trip and wanted to spend the night with me. I had just finished shaving with a straight razor and Ralph decided he needed a shave too, and asked to borrow my razor. After doing one side of his face he attempted to clean off the razor blade, but instead of pushing the dull back side of the razor toward the end of his finger, he pulled the sharp side toward his finger, cutting it badly. Cold water, tissue paper, soap - nothing would stop the bleeding. Feeling sorry for him, the devil in me told him to use my Styptic pencil - " it won't hurt". So he let me apply it and I rubbed it in plenty. His cries of anguish still ring in my ears. I felt so badly I cried, and cried, the tears just streaming down my cheeks. What would Old Caleb have done?
One day our paternal aunt and uncle sent Ralph and me to the city with old Fox and the buggy to get supplies. It was about the Fourth of July, which meant plenty of firecrackers were available. I obtained a few and decided to see what effect they would have on old Fox and Ralph. As we left the city and were about to cross a stream I announced I had seen something in the ditch and wanted to get it, but told Ralph to drive on and I'd catch him. When I was about 30 feet behind I threw this cherry-bomb with a well directed aim and it landed smack in the middle of the back of the buggy, which was a bright shiny black color. To my consternation, old Fox just kept plodding on, Ralph turned around to see what had happened, and I gazed in utter fear and amazement at all the hues of color which now streaked in every direction from the point of contact of that &*(*% cherry-bomb. I rubbed and rubbed, and when we reached Gabrilski's Creek we stopped and I tried to wash off the colors to no avail. I wasn't honest enough to confess to my uncle what had really happened, but it didn't take long for him to find out that Ralph's country cousin had something to do with it. What would Old Caleb have thought of me then?
One of my most frightening experiences occurred with an animal of which I was very fond - Old Maud - a bay mare I used to ride. She had heaves so badly that she used to puff whenever she was asked to pull a load or trot while pulling a buggy. One day my friend Vernon and I went for a horseback ride on our horses. Papa had told me not to run Maud, so I kept reminding Vernon every time he suggested going faster. He finally decided we were going too slow and he "accidentally" hit Maud with his whip while spurring his own horse into a gallop. Old Maud took off like a Cherry-bomb had landed on her. I pulled on the reins and kept yelling "Whoa, whoa, whoa, Maud", but to no avail. Finally I realized I was nearing the end of my life and began hollering "Paaaa Paaa Paaa", but he never came. As we neared a V-turn in the road Old Maud made the V-turn, but I kept going and landed in a pile of sand, still clutching the reins, with Old Maud standing there looking at me and puffing like it was her last breath. It took some time for me to convince Papa that I had not disobeyed him, but that Vernon was the cause of it all.
After we moved to the city my father hired a number of men with families to operate the farm, which he still owned. At times between when one tenant left and a new one moved in, he would drive to the farm to do the chores. During one such time he had taken me along to help. One day he had to go elsewhere on business and told me to catch a ride after school with a neighbor and to start the chores- he'd be home as soon as possible. I milked the cows, ran the separator, fed the horses and cows, then decided to go to bed. About nine o'clock I heard the door open and thinking it was my father coming home, I called out "Dad?". The answer I heard was "your dad is dead". It was Roy, a neighbor, who had come to tell me that my father had drowned in an accident about three miles from the farm. Hugh, another neighbor, hitched up his team and drove me to the site, then on to town where we picked up the minister and we went home to tell mother.
Mother was a gentle person, but she had a way of letting one know that she expected obedience. One night, after I was in high school, I went on a double date with Marvin. Mama told me I was to be home by midnight, but it was 12:30 by the time I reached home. The doors were locked and I just couldn't believe it would be wise to waken Mama to let me in. So I pried off the basement window, sneaked up the basement stairs and gently pushed open the stairway door. My hair rose and I gazed at a ghost in a white nightgown. It was Mama standing there waiting for me. I can't remember what was said, but I did remember to come in on time after that.
Because I was a "growing boy", nearing six feet tall, I always had a good appetite and seldom turned anything down. But one time I did not relish my meal. Papa was in the farm machinery business as part of his work was to install lightning rods on farm buildings. One Saturday he took me with him to a farm on "The Prairie" to put up rods for a Polish farmer. During the morning, while we were both at the peak of the barn rook, he sent me down to get some tool that was needed. While sliding down the roof I slipped and slid down to the edge too rapidly to be able to stop myself. Luckily, I was aimed straight for the ladder and as I reached it I grabbed for it and kept from falling off the roof. Before long it was time for the noon meal. I was still somewhat shook up and wasn't very hungry. I knew that the lady of the house had driven to town and left her young daughter to prepare the meal. It consisted, I clearly recall, of boiled potatoes, melted butter, running edge to edge of the butter dish, old bread and slices of meat. When the food passed around to me I took a few halves of potatoes, some bread and butter. But when the meat was passed, I declined. Papa told me I'd better take some, but when I declined again, he kicked my foot under the table and told me to take some. I did, but had trouble eating it. When we were back at work again, he asked me why I hadn't wanted to take some meat. So I had to explain that I knew we were in a Polish home, and I had been under the impression that Polish families ate only dog meat, and I didn't think I cared for that.
Following a term in the Oshkosh Business College I obtained employment as a bookkeeper and typist with the Berlin Flannel Garment Company. That job didn't last long and I was let go after about six months because the firm was placed in the hands of a "receiver". After only two weeks without work, I got a job with Corps of Engineers Office in Appleton, where my work consisted of taking dictation, typing correspondence, payrolls, memos, etc., and keeping records of freight passing through the locks on the Fox River from DePere to Portage. Less than a year after I started work there I contracted polio in September 1927. I was off work until December, but the office held my job for me. In August 1930 I learned of a vacancy in the Corps of Engineers Office in Sault Ste. Marie Michigan. I was transferred to that office and began work there on September 10th, after driving from home to there in my old Model T Ford Coupe over winding gravel roads that took a day and a half of driving. Now I travel the route in 8 1/2 hours.
In 1936 I was married Ginevra Acree, a laboratory and xray technician in the Soo hospital, whom I had met while we both attended a Sunday School class in the Presbyterian Church. Our first son was born in 1939, we adopted a 5 month old baby girl in 1943 , and our second son was born in 1944.
1949 was a year for me to remember. I had been elected as Moderator of our Lake Superior Presbytery, my baby sister was married, and I got Polio for the second time. I was in the hospital for seven weeks, but came home for Thanksgiving.
My employment with the Corps of Engineers lasted for 38 1/2 years, and I retired at the end of 1965. My employment was 1 1/2 years short of the length of time it took Old Caleb to travel from Egypt to Caanan, but "we made it".
