Sbperkins: 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.