Happy Birthday, Hubert Kenneth Gaskell!

Hubert Kenneth Gaskell was born on January 23, 1914, in Grelton, Henry County, Ohio. He was the son of Eugene R Gaskell and Mary Effie Fish Gaskell. He had two older brothers, Jesse Gerald, born June 24, 1904, and Robert Eugene, born January 16, 1912.

The family lived in Grelton, Homer, MI, Tekonsha, MI, and Albion, MI, during Hubert's growing-up years. Hubert graduated from Albion High School in 1931 and Albion College in 1936, with a major in music and a teaching degree. He married Donna May Martin on October 7, 1937. They lived on East Michigan Ave in Albion. He may have worked at the Post Office during that time.

In October, 1943, Hub's brother urged him to apply for a job at Post Cereal. He got the job, so they purchased a home on East Michigan Ave in Battle Creek. In December of that year, he was notified that he was drafted into the US Army. Ernest and Gretta Martin sold their Eaton County farm and moved in with Donna and Mary while he was away. Hub went to Fort Lee, VA, for basic training, then worked in New York City with the APO during the remainder of the war. He told the story of the day a plane crashed into the Empire State Building. When he heard about it, he went over to see the building. I remember him also telling about eating at the Automat, an early restaurant version of vending machines, where you put in your nickel or dime and opened the little glass door to get your sandwich or pie. After the war was over, he served on ships which took prisoners of war back to Europe and picked up US prisoners of war. He docked once in Italy and once in Belgium, and may have gone one other time. He served in the entertainment area, showing movies, playing music, helping with leather crafts, etc.

When he returned home, he, Donna, and Mary took a vacation to the west, going out by way of Mt. Rushmore, visiting through California, and returning by way of Colorado, where an army buddy lived. He was considering taking a job there, but his dad called him and reported that a position was open at the Albion PO and that he should get right home, which he did. They bought a house at 707 N. Berrien, then moved to 302 College Court in the early 1950s. He worked the rest of his career at the PO, first as a clerk, and then as Superintendent of Mails.

He belonged to the Methodist Church. He and Mom went to Fortnightly Fellowship there (every other Sunday night), and sometimes it met at our house. He sometimes ushered at church, which meant he got to pass the collection plate. He and Mom also played bridge maybe monthly with a group of maybe half a dozen couples. It was fun to have them at our house, especially after my dad built the lazy susan table. We would set it up in the dining room--the center wheel with a round tabletop on it for the dishes-to-pass, then the four quarter-circles of masonite around the outside where the dinner plates went.

He was active in Eastern Star, locally and state-wide. I remember going to plenty of potlucks and square dances at the Masonic Temple. He also was involved in Knight's Templar, for which he had a pretty cool uniform, including a plumed hat and an awesome sword. He also attended Rotary Club every Thursday noon. He played the sousaphone in several bands, including the Albion Community band, which put on summer concerts at the band shell. I remember sitting on the lawn on a blanket, seeing night fall as we listened to music and watched fireflies. If it was cold or wet, we sat in the car and honked the horn at the end of songs. There were lots of Sousa marches, which were especially fun because someone would always come out and twirl the baton during them. When I was younger, I would take my little black-tipped baton along and try my best to twirl it. He also played in the Grand Rapids Shrine Band, which practiced every Monday night--was it at the Pantlind Hotel? I don't remember any concerts, but they did play when the circus came to Grand Rapids, and I do remember going to the circus, especially the strange smells that accompanied it. I believe that both bands honored him for longevity in playing for them. Was it 60 years with the Albion band?

Hub had several hobbies. Besides the sousaphone, he played piano and organ. He could play lots of popular songs from memory, and I remember lying in bed many a night, listening to his piano or organ music as I fell asleep. He tinkered a lot with pianos and organs. The fraternity guys across the street would bang on an old grand piano on their porch, until my dad offered to take it. He worked on it for quite a while until it looked beautiful and played OK. We also had a player piano that he worked on. Sometimes he would arrange the hammers or strings on it so that it sounded like a honky tonk piano. We were often among the first people to have a new invention. That was true of our reel-to-reel recorder We got the parts for it in Grand Rapids and Dad made a box for it and hooked up a speaker. My friends and I would spend hours recording "radio programs" that we made up. Our favorite was to do take-offs on Art Linkletter kids segments. Hub also was interested in photography. He took lots of photos and had his own darkroom in the basement. Hub often solved problems in clever ways--they sometimes took more time and energy than you might have had to spend, but they were always elegant. When he gave us his oldest organ, we had to get it out of his basement on Lombard St.--and it was HEAVY! He rigged up ramps and a series of pipes that we rolled it across, taking the back pipes up front as it rolled along. In this manner, he and Aaron and I were able to move that organ up from the basement, across the front room carpet, back down the front steps, down the sidewalk, and up into our van. I don't remember how we got it into our house.
Hub married Mary Pauline Fraser in 1962. He died on January 5, 2001, and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Albion, Michigan.

Robert, Gerald, and Hubert in 1915

Hubert in June, 1926

This may have been his college picture. It was taken at Ludwig Studios in the 1930s.

He and Mom were friends with their daughter Margaret Ludwig and Bill Cargo, who later married.

Mary, Donna, and Hubert at the National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

in the early 1940s.

Dad did a lot of photography and often made our Christmas cards.

This was the 1958 card.

You can see that Trudy was with us that year.

Back: Hubert, Donna, Gertraud, Mary. Front: Jon and Bonnie

Our first Polaroid picture. I think we were at the Cargos home in Maryland.

Same people, same order, except reverse Jon and Bonnie.

Marcia, Bonnie, Hubert, Matthew, Andrew, and Pauline.

At Marcia's on Golden Ave in Battle Creek. 1996

I think Carl, Marcia's husband, took that picture. He died August 15 of that year.

Grandma Gaskell's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Mary Effie Fish!

Mary Effie Fish was born January 17, 1881, in Lenawee County, MI. She was the daughter of Orlando Bascom Fish and Mary Anna Staples Fish. Her family included Julia Ann, born in 1873, Theodore Aldin (Thede), born in 1875, Edmund Ronayne (Roa), born in 1878, Augustus William (Gustus), born in 1884, Jesse Glenn, born in 1886, and Anna Pearl, born in 1888. Jesse died in 1890. Uncle Bob remembers hearing he died of appendicitis, but I have an obituary that mentions "inflammation of the brain". Does meningitis run in families?

Grandma grew up on a farm about two miles down the road from Grandpa. Uncle Bob remembers the house being tiny, with a larger part added on. By the time he was around to visit it, the larger part belonged to his Uncle Thede, while his grandparents had the smaller part. He also remembers a pump organ in the house, a dinner bell, buggies and sleighs in the barn, a scary woods, and Bible-reading and prayers after breakfast.

My mom lived next door to my dad's family one of the years she was in college. She says she remembers Grandma working all morning around the house in her house dress. Grandpa would come home about 1:30 from his post office job and they would have their main meal. After she did the dishes (Mom remembers her using a bar of Fels Naphtha soap to work up suds on her dish cloth), she would change her clothes and take the dollar Grandpa gave her and head downtown to do her grocery shopping. Anything she had left from the dollar she would squirrel away and save for things she wanted. Mom says she might buy clothes with it, and she thinks she also bought her china cabinet with that money. (That's the china cabinet Mom now has in her living room.)

Grandma had a grand piano that always had cool music on it. I don't remember seeing music for it, but one song she liked was Mocking Bird Hill. I remember her playing once, while some ladies were there--maybe for a meeting. She also had a pump organ upstairs--I wonder if it was the organ Bob remembers in her parents' house. Grandma sewed quite a bit. I know she made quilts--I have one of them. She also taught me how to cut little squares with a cardboard pattern and sew them together with a backstitch to make quilt squares. I remember her sewing a few things for me. One was an apron, but I didn't like to wear aprons. One was a pink and white tiny gingham check dress with a white collar, puffed sleeves, and a tie in back. It was quite a bit too big for me, and I refused to wear it. I'm not sure I ever did wear it. I think I did wear pajamas she made me, even though they always seemed big, too. I remember staying overnight at Grandma's only once. For breakfast she fixed us oatmeal, and I wouldn't eat it. Wow, I guess I was pretty rejecting!

I remember Grandma driving their gray Ford (1954?) around town and to our house. I think she had a cushion she sat on so she could see better over the steering wheel. Jon and I thought she had an odd style of driving--her hands would go back and forth as she turned the steering wheel just a tiny bit at a time.

Grandma belonged to the Entre Nous Club and was president of it for a while. Back then, they all dressed up for meetings, hats and gloves included. She also was quite active in the Methodist Church and participated in the women's society and in the choir (Grandpa, too).

Uncle Bob reports that Grandma had appendicitis when he was four or five and had to go to Ann Arbor for an operation. She had breast cancer in her later years. She had a radical mastectomy and was in the hospital quite a bit. I remember her being absent at Grandpa's 80th birthday party, and also in the hospital when he died a couple months later.

Grandma died on May 4, 1960. She was buried next to Grandpa in the Lime Creek Cemetery.

The Fish family in the mid 1890s.

Back: Orlando, Julia, Mary Anna.

Front: Roa(?), Pearl, Effie, Gustus, Thede(?)

Mary Effie Fish Gaskell

Birthday Cards and Plant Tags

While I'm posting, I guess I'll add a picture of some of the purses. I'll do better photos later, but I do have this one. The two back ones are Kristie's and Beverly's. The purple is Mara's, of course. The brown is Vanessa's and the green one is Sandy's. You can see that I didn't have all the handles finished.

Here are the plant tags I made for the cyclamen plants. They're made on a very stiff Pellon--it actually looks like it's 1/16" foam. On the tags there is some silver metallic thread, and on Beverly's card, I used copper. Hers is 4x6, but the tags are 2 1/2 by 2 1/2. As you can see, the color isn't true. On the pink one, the plant picture is closer to the true color. None of the purples is quite right. But I am happy with the tags themselves.


The company name will be EffieMae. I'm going to try to design the tags on the computer and print them myself on an iron-on material.

Accordion Album

All the Great-Grandmas got this little accordion album, or one similar to it, for their birthdays in 2007. Mary and I even extended the fun by making one that includes the rest of the Gaskell Greats, including the Schickhofers.

I took these pictures on my lap in the car on the way to Grandma P's house. It was the first one I made, and I decided I needed to remember what I did, so I didn't have to re-create for the next one. Fun little album, great little gift, and super inexpensive--all Melissa Frances products.