Last updated February 28, 2021
This Post contains short bits of information that can be added to whenever a new rememberance pops into your mind. Some of the things you read here would be unheard of today.
Judi. Bill was in the Air Force when he and Judi married and they moved to New York to finish out his language school. When school was over, Bill was assigned to Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas for what was supposed a four to six weeks of training followed by an assignment to Germany. Because the training was to be of short duration, Judi stayed behind. Because of a bureaucratic problem, after about 6 weeks, the short tour was converted to an “indefinite” tour. Judi then joined Bill in Texas. During that six week interim Judi would visit the Hartmann house on the weekend for a visit. Among other things, she would put rollers in Mom’s hair. She and Linda also spread the outrageous rumor that Judi gave Linda a bath in the sink. Linda was 12 at the time.
School. Billy, like his older siblings, was given the privilege to walk the half mile to East Street School to go to kindergarten. He found out later that he had the same teacher, Mrs Meers, as his wife Judi had at Schiller School.
In the tradition of his father and his older brothers he went to St. Boniface School for grades one through eight. He also had Sister Otillia as one of his teachers. Yes, she was one of dad’s teachers as well. When the boys who went to St. Boniface were in the sixth(?)grade, they were enrolled in a once-a-week afternoon shop class at Latimer high school. As w look back on his elementary school years, he was both smart and gullible. He was susceptible to the suggestion that he was destined to be a priest. At 13 he knew what his future was going to be! Thus, he applied and was accepted to the seminary at St. Vincent Scholasticate in Latrobe. Some 45 miles from home. He boarded there except for major holidays and summer vacation. He graduated from high school in June of 1957 and started college in September. How that ended is in another post.
From the 1957 Chimes Yearbook
The page below lists all the high school students in the Scholasticate for the 1956-57 school year. Like most other activities, all skillies had to participate,
The photo below shows all the honor students from the class of ’57
Social Activities.There was the standard unsupervised kid stuff, such as playing ball in the school yard, riding bicycles, and just hanging around with the neighborhood kids. In the summer he would ride his bike and sometimes hitchhike the eleven miles to go swimming in the North Park pool.
Sarah Heinz House and the Salvation Army both had after school and weekend activities at their respective club houses in which Billy participated. Although Sarah Heinz house flooded a field in winter for ice skating, because he had no skates, he watched but did not participate.
During several of the summer vacations he and his brothers were able to attend a boys’ camp sponsored by the Pittsburgh diocese. Camp O’Connell was either free or very cheap and lasted 10 days.
Billy was a Boy Scout for about two or three years. He earned a number of merit badges and reached First Class Scout. His Scouting career ended when he went off to St. Vincent.
Work. Like his brothers before him, he had summer jobs when he was in highschool. He was a clerk in Isaly’s dairy when he was 16, and worked for a printing company, the Caslon Press, as a helper in the shipping department when he was 17.
Bill’s first job after the seminary was at Crandall, McKenzie and Henderson rug cleaning company. He had two basic functions: rolling and wrapping paper around cleaned rugs and nailing rugs to the floor in the drying room so that they could be starched.
The next job was working at Washington Trust Bank as the mail teller and courier. Everyday he walked the cancelled checks from the previous day to the Federal Reserve Bank about a mile away. He was also on call to deliver pocket cash to certain big depositors.
But Dad found him a job in J&L’s galvanizing plant, earning $2.65 an hour, up from his $1.00 per hour in the bank. The probationary job lasted 59 days, one day short of becoming a permanent union employee. He was working the min shift and was responsible for putting steel bands around stacks of steel plates that were delivered by crane. He had 15 minutes or more of down time from the time the crane came to take away the lift and returned with a fresh stack. He decided to take a book with him to read during the down time. The foreman saw him and had him terminated.
Then came a few weeks of unemployment and single day jobs. He made a wise choice and joined the Air Force.