Happy 125th or 131st birthday to my grandfather, John Alphonsus Lyons (he shaved off a few years between registering for the draft in WWI and WWII). He must have been an imposing figure: 6'2" and 220 lbs. according to his WWII draft card. I was very surprised to find a WWII draft registration for a man in his 60s and am curious to find out more about what the regulations were at that point.
He died before i was born, but from the stories my father told me it sounds like he may be the source for our somewhat perverse sense of humor. One day, he was walking down Market St. in Philadelphia, back when all the major department stores were there. As he passed a window display of slender mannequins in fashionable dresses, he noticed an overweight, middle-aged woman looking in the window. "Reminiscing?" he asked her.
He worked on the waterfront. My father used to talk about how he would come home from work half-frozen in the winter. He'd stand in front of the kitchen stove stripping off layer after layer after layer of clothes. My dad was a great storyteller; when he would tell this one, i would always get such a vivid picture of this huge man, made even bigger by all those clothes. I would shiver imagining how cold he must have been after working a long night on those frigid docks.
Here he is as a young man with his brothers Pat & Mike. He's the one on the right.
***UPDATE 08 January 2013 ***
As i noted above, i was surprised to discover that my grandfather had registered for the draft in WWII, since he was almost 62 years old at the time (he's listed as being 55 years old, born in 1886, on his WWII draft card, but his WWI draft card, which agrees with most of the other records i've found, gives his date of birth as 1880). With only a little digging, i learned a valuable lesson in U.S. history: The 4th Draft Registration of WWII--the so-called "old-man's draft"-- took place on 27 April 1942, the date of record on Grandpop's draft card. This draft targeted men between the ages of 45 and 64, not with the idea of sending all those poor old geezers into battle, but in order to get a better sense of the available labor pool.
He died before i was born, but from the stories my father told me it sounds like he may be the source for our somewhat perverse sense of humor. One day, he was walking down Market St. in Philadelphia, back when all the major department stores were there. As he passed a window display of slender mannequins in fashionable dresses, he noticed an overweight, middle-aged woman looking in the window. "Reminiscing?" he asked her.
He worked on the waterfront. My father used to talk about how he would come home from work half-frozen in the winter. He'd stand in front of the kitchen stove stripping off layer after layer after layer of clothes. My dad was a great storyteller; when he would tell this one, i would always get such a vivid picture of this huge man, made even bigger by all those clothes. I would shiver imagining how cold he must have been after working a long night on those frigid docks.
Here he is as a young man with his brothers Pat & Mike. He's the one on the right.
***UPDATE 08 January 2013 ***
As i noted above, i was surprised to discover that my grandfather had registered for the draft in WWII, since he was almost 62 years old at the time (he's listed as being 55 years old, born in 1886, on his WWII draft card, but his WWI draft card, which agrees with most of the other records i've found, gives his date of birth as 1880). With only a little digging, i learned a valuable lesson in U.S. history: The 4th Draft Registration of WWII--the so-called "old-man's draft"-- took place on 27 April 1942, the date of record on Grandpop's draft card. This draft targeted men between the ages of 45 and 64, not with the idea of sending all those poor old geezers into battle, but in order to get a better sense of the available labor pool.
Late, in typical fashion, catching up with this coal miner’s granddaughter. Keep up the good work; you know how I love the twining paths and tales associated with ancestry!
ReplyDeleteI look forward to each new submission as I did for each of the missives you shared when you were in Germany. I still have a copy of all of them, albeit on floppy disk and no longer possess a computer that will read a floppy disk. I must convert my floppy disks to current media - late, in typical fashion!
Miriam