Thanks to the fame of my Aunt Peggy, my father's side of the family has been well discussed in several books, two of them are A portrait of Myself by Margaret, and Margaret Bourke-White: a Biography, by Vicki Goldberg.
My mother's side has not been so well covered.
My mother was born Gertrude Anne Meyer in Lakewood, Ohio in 1917. She hated the Gertrude so she dropped that quickly to become Anne, and even more quickly took up the nickname of Micky. Through her childhood she was Micky and in young adulthood she switched to the more sophisticated (in her mind of the time) Mike.
She was the second daughter and third child of Louis E. Meyer, born in Cleveland, and ________ also born in Cleveland. Her grandparents on both sides were born in Germany -- _______ and Frankfort areas, respectively. Her sister was Ruth and brother Henry, and the family had many relatives in the Cleveland area. Another member of her family was "Pal" Calister. He was the orphaned son of Larry and ______ Calister. Larry Calister accomplished the curious feat of getting voted in as a senator in the Ohio legislature posthumously. (He died between getting nominated and election day, before the ballots could be reprinted.) While they were still alive, Pal had become good friends with the Meyer family, and when his second parent had died, he wished to live with them. There was some dispute on this from the mother's relatives, so he became a ward of the court for many years.
As a child Mike was sickly. She suffered from Osteomalitis, in pre-penicillin days, an incurable bone disease. She underwent several operations on her legs to cure it. As she put it: "Micky Mantle and I were two of the first survivors of this disease." In part to help her health, the family moved from urbanized Lakewood south to the then-rural area of Parma Heights.
(Much of my stature comes from my mother's side. My dad was no slouch, height-wise, standing in at 6'1", but the men of the Meyer side all measured in at between 6'3" and 6'5".)
Her father, Louis, was a successful businessman. Early in his career he ran an imported carpet store, specializing in Persian rugs. He was often traveling to New York City on buying trips. The Great Depression slowed his business and finally sank it in the mid-30's. He moved to selling furniture for Higbee's, a prominent department store in Cleveland, where he was consistently a top salesman. "He was a very quiet and very likable person." says Mike, "he was not pushy or loud like the stereotypical salesman is portrayed."
Her bother, Hank, was a soldier in World War II. He took part in D-Day in the 4th Division of the US Army, landing on Utah beach, and rolling across France and Germany. After the war he followed in his father's footsteps, to some extent, and became a salesman of food products, first Tetley Tea, then Grandma's molasses.
Her sister, Ruth, married Otto Tichy. He was an electrical engineer of Hungarian descent who worked for GE's lamp division in Nela Park, on Cleveland's SW side. (Cleveland in this era was a classic Eastern US "melting pot" of a city: fast growing, and filled with many different ethnic groups. The heart of its growth were the booming auto and steel industries, and during this time it swelled to the seventh largest US city, just behind Detroit.)
Before the war, Mike aspired to be sophisticated, and dated many men. One of them invited her to parachute into Lake Erie as part of a publicity stunt. Her father was aghast when he heard about this and put his foot down. She never jumped into Lake Erie. "It was probably a good thing, because I'm a poor swimmer." she said. Many men asked her to marry and mostly she said, "No.", but she did say yes to _______. The marriage was brief, but after that she went by Anne D. Meyer as her formal name. (and still Mike as a nickname.)
When the US joined World War II, she was in her twenties and wanted to do her part. She couldn't join the armed forces because of her medical history, so she did what was, in her mind, the next best thing: she quit her job with a pharmaceutical company and joined a startup company of young people that was making products that would help the war industry. She worked as office administrator and secretary. The company was Lewis Welding, and it was there she met my future father: Roger White.
One of Mom's favorite stories:
"Your father and I got married as your father was starting Glastic. We took a small plane to fly to Oak Ridge, Tennessee from Cleveland, for our honeymoon. He had done some work there for the Manhattan Project, and your father thought I might get a kick out of seeing a place where atomic bombs were made. When we got over Kentucky, we got lost, and we were low on fuel, so your father landed the plane in a farm field.
"After we landed, people appeared out of nowhere. I remember see nothing but trees for miles around as we were landing, so I was surprised to see so many people. I remember one old woman coming up, looking at the plane, and saying, 'It sort of favors a truck, don't it.'
"Once your father got directions, we took off again... and promptly crashed -- a tree at the end of the field was a bit higher than he thought, and it pulled us down. We were both OK, but that was the end of that plane, and our honeymoon. We took a bus back to Cleveland."
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Mike with grandchildren Heather and Roger III, Summer 2003 |
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Heather and Roger with Mike's brother, Henry "Hank" Meyer (2003). |
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Myself, Mike and Roger III |
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Hank Meyer, Mike's brother, as a soldier in WWII (1943). He landed on the Normandy beaches as part of D-Day, and advanced into Germany. |
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Edward Enich Olday, a half uncle of Mike's. Here he is pictured in a WWI uniform. He also wrote science fiction stories, including some of the first about germ warfare. (picture date unknown) |
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Elizabeth Huntington Meyer, Mike's grandmother. She came from Germany and spoke five languages fluently. (picture date unknown.) |