Steve Walter story

Here is the first post of my grandpa Steve Walter's life story as he wrote it to me in a series of emails. We then pieced them together and he is currently editing them. He has been writing to me for the past four years, telling me about himself, which I have really enjoyed. The last time we visited him at Christmas we went through a box of photographs and he told me more stories. I wish I had my recorder for those because they were fascinating. I don't know if he has photos of himself as a child. But I will look into it. In the meantime, here are photos of his Mother Margaret Griffith, and Father James Walter when they were in High School.

My father was born in Placerville, California in 1910. His dad was probably part Irish and part American Indian of some type or another. It was a sore subject with him so we never found out much about him. I would really like to know but probably never will. He was born in Lions Nebraska on January 15, 1879. My Dads mom was born in Lyons Nebraska on November 20, 1884 and was either 100% or half English. My Mother was born in Los Angeles on January 4, 1912. Her mother was born in Michigan on August 31 1889. Her dad disappeared on a trip to the drug store one evening. My mother never met him since he took off before she was born. My mother's maternal grandmother raised my mother for the most part since her mother had to work to support the three of them. The town my mother's mother came from was I think Greenville Texas where there used to be a big sign over the entrance to town on both ends "Welcome to Greenville Texas the home of the blackest soil and whitest people". I actually saw a picture of the sign. My grandmother said she was told to carry a stick with her when she went to school and to hit any black people she saw. She didn't do it and hated being told that. She used to cry when she talked about it which was almost never. My dad died at the age of 76 from prostate cancer and my mother lived to the age of 94 where she died happy in Alaska where she always dreamed of living. She was there for 14 years. I drove her up the Alaska highway when she was 80. She had lived in California all her life until then. She was going to drive up there alone but I decided she would never make it. My sister Joy went along and we had a pretty nice trip. It was quite an adventure for all of us. When we got there they both told me they would have never made it without me doing the driving. It was only September but we hit some snow and super cold weather. It was zero degrees one morning and I complained in a café where we had breakfast. They told me zero was nothing. It was 70 below the winter before. Now that's cold. We drove several hundred miles through ash so bad you could hardly see due to a volcano that was erupting. We didn't know the road we were on was closed 'till we got to Valdez where my sister lives. I was born in Los Angeles on September 13, 1938 and lived in the same house 'till I left home at the age of 18 (two months before my 19th birthday) to join the Navy. I have two sisters Joy born in 1936 and Terry in 1946. Joy still lives in the Los Angeles area and Terry lives in Valdez Alaska. Joy has two kids Irene and Dan. Her husband died of lung cancer at the age of about 50 and she is still single. Terry married the son of the ambassador to Greece and they have a son Scott and adopted daughter Jenny. I am the only kid of my parents that has grandkids. My mother was upset with me one time when she realized that I had more grandkids than she did. I appeased her by telling her she had more great grandkids than I did. At the time I didn't have any. Of course entertainment wasn't like it is today for kids so I entertained myself "building a thing". At least that was my response when people asked me what I was doing. I also liked to dig holes but my dad put his foot down about my elephant traps and made me fill them up. We lived in Los Angeles city limits but had a garden in the front yard every year. I sold corn to the neighbors for ten cents an ear. The neighbors kids teased me and called me "Farmer Jones". I went to an Adventist school for the first three years then to a public school for the fourth grade. They were conducting an experiment I public schools that year called "voluntary learning". We could either learn or go to the back of the room and goof off. I chose the goofing off where I learned to make drums out of nail kegs and to spin thumb tacks like a top (which I can still do) and a few other useful things. The next year my parents decided I better go back to private school and repeat the fourth grade. I went to a Lutheran school for the fourth through sixth grade where learning wasn't optional. That took some adjusting but I managed after finding out what happens to kids who don't do their homework. Junior high (7th through 9th) as it was called then was at Eastmont Junior High in East Los Angeles. I went to Montebello Senior High (in Montebello California) 'till graduation in 1957. My childhood wasn’t very happy. My parents were not at all happy about being stuck with kids especially an energetic boy. Today my treatment would be called child abuse although there were some fun times. My dad did encourage my interest in Ham Radio and electronics. I wanted to be a carpenter like he was but he discouraged that telling me to get a job working with my brain instead of my back. The theory was if I hurt my back I could still use my brain and wouldn't loose my job. (He spent six months flat on his back once due to a back injury). After a very fun day at the beach with my friends shortly after graduation, my parents went nuts telling me that it just wasn't right to have eight full hours of fun in one day. They were very serious since fun wasn't part of their make up. They grew up in tough times and actually seemed to think fun was a sin. I told my dad it seemed like every time I had any fun at all they wanted to spoil it by yelling at me. He said if I didn't like it why didn't I go join the Army? I told him it was Sunday and the recruiting office was closed. He told me I could get someone to open it if I wanted to bad enough. Of course I couldn't but the next day I joined the Navy and shipped out the day after that. I wasn’t going to tell my parents but left a note tied to an electric alarm clock I had hidden. It would buzz for an hour every 12 hours so I figured it wouldn’t take too long for them to find it. I didn’t write a bitter note but just told them where I had gone. As it turned out they found out anyway. The recruiter called my mother to find out if I was really born in Los Angeles. He had checked and they couldn't find my birth certificate. When she asked him why he wanted to know he told her I had just joined the Navy. I had only told one person (my boss at the TV repair shop) and swore him to secrecy. A friend of mine found me at another friend's house and asked me if it was true that I had joined the Navy. I was mad at my boss for letting the cat out of the bag but he swore he hadn't told anyone. I called my friend and he told me my grandmother had told him. I decided to ditch the note and 'fess up. I acted like I had intended all along to tell my parents. We had a pleasant evening and the next morning my Dad took me to the induction center in Los Angeles. The Navy was a piece of cake. My folks were sure I would end up in the brig but I found that having consistent rules made it easy to keep out of trouble. When I was living at home I got in trouble for getting in a fight. I got a real beating for fighting. A few days later a guy came over trying to pick a fight with me and I refused to fight him with my parents watching me out the window. When he left I got a beating for not defending myself. That was just one example of the way my parents were. I couldn't please them no matter what I did. The Navy was different. If you followed the consistent rules all was well. I loved my job in the Navy and did quite well. They sent me to a six month long school to become an Aviation Guided Missileman. It was an electronic school and I loved working on the missiles and the missile test equipment. I spent the first part of my enlistment after school in Fallbrook California at a Guided Missile Service Unit. I transferred to Seal Beach for a few months then back to Fallbrook 'till my shore time was used up. I was transferred to The USS Hancock (an aircraft carrier) in Alameda California then to another carrier (the USS Bon Homme Richard) in San Diego. (there is a long story about the transfer if you want to hear it). I'll start part 2 with the transfer to the Bon Homme Richard.