My Early Years
I was born on April 4th, 1942 in Denver,
Colorado.
My parents, James Lewis Wuergler (who everybody called Lew) and Dorothy Dean O’Reilly (who everybody called Deanie) were married on Christmas Eve of 1937.
I wish I knew the real story of how they met but I think it’s close to being introduced by mutual friends. Dad was a salesman and Mom had been singing around town with the big bands under the stage name of Kay Robinson. I have no idea why it took five years for me to come along, but it did.
Dad was born in Tioga, Colorado, an old coal-mining town that no longer exists. He had three younger sisters, Mae, Mildred and Marjorie.
I sure loved my Aunts and their families.
Our first home was an apartment building on 14th
and Downing Street. My Grandfather, James Henry Wuergler (who everybody called Jim) came to visit quite a bit as I recall.
I remember that he worked in the Clover Club potato chip factory and would take us on tours, just to eat a chip hot off the conveyor belt.
We moved to Glencoe Street just after I learned to walk and
after my brother Larry was born.
That home was really interesting because it was what they called a Duplex – two residences under one roof.
That home was really interesting because it was what they called a Duplex – two residences under one roof.
The living situation was also very interesting because my Grandmother, Dorothy Dean Kurland and her third husband, Max Michael Kurland (for whom I am named) lived in the other duplex along with her mother (my great-grandmother) Florence Lucinda Daniels. So, the entire family lived together. I never thought much about it as it seemed quite natural to me and it was actually quite fun. You probably know the old saying that if “mom says no, ask grandma” so Larry and I spent nearly just as much time in their house as we did in ours.
It was a wonderful neighborhood and I had terrific friends my
own age in almost every other house on the block. We stayed out until dark or
until Mom would “whistle” us to come home. We went to the Saturday morning
movies together then would come home and make up games for whatever the movie
theme was for that day – cowboys and Indians, swashbuckling knights of yore, pirates
of the high seas, or cops and robbers – we had great fun a great imaginations.
As soon as we could ride bikes we went everywhere on them.
Almost without limits it seemed. Youth football league (I was on the Bombers)
in the fall and baseball in the summer. We rode to school as well. And
(shudder) no helmets. Mr. Wilson lived on the corner of 7th and
Glencoe and his was our favorite house of all…because he was a candy broker and
his basement was lined with shelves of every kind of candy known to mankind. We
were always asking him if we could shovel his walk or rake his leaves because he
never paid us but let us sweep thru his basement for as much as we could carry
out in two hands. He was also our first stop on Halloween.
Mom was born in Dallas and had two brothers, Sherman and Danny.
Grandma Dorothy was only 15 when she married Lawrence Sherman O’Reilly (he was just 17) and had Mom three years later. They looked like sisters growing up.
Mom’s younger brother, Danny, was a B-29 pilot who was killed just at the end of World War II in 1945 as his plane took off from the island of Guam. It was really tragic because it was a saboteur who bombed the plane. One of my most indelible memories as a little kid was going to a memorial service put on by the Navy and which had a great deal of cementing a lasting impression of how the military honors their fallen heroes.
All 14 of the families of that B-29 crew were brought to the
naval base in San Diego, got onboard a light cruiser naval ship and steamed out
over the horizon where we rendezvoused with a submarine that had a deck covered
in gigantic floral wreathes. They brought everyone to the port side of the
ship, read the names of the fallen airmen over the loudspeaker, played the Navy
Hymn, fired off a cannonade gun salute, and played “Taps” as the submarine
submerged, leaving the flowers floating on the surface of the water. Mom had
her brownie camera and snapped this picture just as the sub was going under.
It is one of my treasured memories and one that locked in my love of those who serve our country and, most especially, those who have given the last “full measure of devotion” as they fought and died for our freedoms and liberty.
I would come to love the game of baseball as I started on
the 6th grade team at Fulton Elementary School and would play on
Little League Teams all through Junior High School.
My Mother had a saying for just about everything and one
that has stuck with me is that “music is not an elective, but part of your
education”. We got a piano when I was five years old and I started lessons
right away. Trust me, at first I would much rather be outside playing ball with
the gang than sitting there doing scales and learning tunes and, of course,
feeling like a prisoner in my own home.
But, one day, my Dad’s boss came to
town.
Mr. Franks, a kindly man, came to the house and literally rocked my world when he put on gloves and started playing the wildest honky-tonk tune I had ever heard. Then, he wowed me yet again when he asked for a bedsheet and covered the keyboard and once again, played out a tune that shook the room. I was absolutely mesmerized and right then and there, resolved inside myself to practice and practice until I could play like Mr. Franks. No more a prisoner of lessons, but a willing practitioner who would go on to let music pay my way through school.
We started going to church around the corner when the Pastor
stopped by and invited us to join his congregation. We were a real mix of
religions in our two households. Mom had been a Catholic and Dad family was
Nazarene. Grandma was currently a practicing Christian Scientist and Papa Max
was Jewish. So, with all of that as background, we became a one-church family,
joining Gloria Dei Lutheran Church, where I went to Catechism School and served
as an Altar Boy for many, many years all throughout elementary, Junior High and
High School.
We moved to a brand new house out in Aurora, and if I
remember correctly, it cost us $4,900. It was on the corner of East Lowry Place
(the Air Force Base was at the end of our street) and Fulton St. It was a much
bigger house than our duplex and had a giant basement and a huge backyard.
And, to keep our family close by, Grandma Kurland and Great-Grandma Daniel moved to the house right across the street.
Papa Max had, sadly, passed away back in 1951 and Mama wanted to stay close to us. It was still fun to have her there, but it was no longer under the same roof.
I started the 5th grade at Fulton Elementary School
and something wonderful happened when Shirley Schrader, the music teacher and
band director approached me and my family and wanted to know if I would be willing
to learn to play the trombone and be in the band. Wow! I jumped at the chance
to do that, mainly because Mrs. Schrader was providing the instrument and would
start me off with free lessons as well. When the Air Force Academy opened their
temporary quarters at Lowry AFB in 1955, I started taking trombone lessons from
the first-chair trombonist as well as got some training from Sgt. Bill Stokes,
the Academy Band Drum Major which would really pay off when I got to High
School. And…even better, I wound up winning a full-ride music scholarship to
the University of Colorado, all because of my beloved Trombone. Thank you
Shirley Schrader!
One more grand memory of my childhood. One hot summer, all
of the living Wuergler family gathered in the City Park of La Junta, Colorado
for a reunion. I was pretty young (you can see how young in the group photo) so
I don’t recall a lot about it.
But, just studying the photo, I can see Dad’s sisters, his grandmother, my great-grandmother and her fifth husband. I think the reason there are so many cousins at this event is because great-grandmother wound up outliving all five of her husbands and, amazingly enough, having at least one child by each of those husbands. It made for a rather large party as you can see. And, it also made it really hard to try and figure out who belonged to who. At my age, I didn’t even try…now, of course, I wish I had done so.
We lived in the Lowry Place home all throughout my elementary
and Junior High years. It was in the 5th grade that I took up magic,
which is yet another hobby that would bring in some cash as I occasionally hired myself out for birthday parties and bar
mitzvahs and even one big show for the American Legion Christmas Party.
What fun magic was…and still is!
I have such wonderfully warm memories of my early years. Loving and being loved by my family.
And, I loved getting to know my Dad's parents, Grandma Ethel (who lived to be 100 years old) and Grandpa Jim. What dear, dear souls they are.
And, of course, on my Mom's side, I lived with wonderful women. Great-Grandmother Florence also lived to be 100 years old. You may recall from an earlier article that I got to actually see the broken bricks of the foundation of the home in which she was born in Poplar Creek, Mississippi.
I have come to love my ancestors, and I am trusting that those who follow me in the Wuergler line will come to love them as I do.
