Memories of Ben Reagan | goddard-reagan

Memories of Benjamin Franklin Reagan

(1921-1956)
Written by Herb Reagan for Ben's children
February, 1988

Dear Arlene, Tom, Ben and Dan,

Riverside, Illinois in the 1920's was a small town - there were few cars in those days and far fewer airplanes. Ben and I, when we were about four and six used to carry our kid size porch chairs to the far corner of the property so we could sit by the street and get a good look at the cars going by. We enjoyed counting them and I suspect that five to ten per hour was a pretty good count. Planes were even more exciting! Perhaps every month or two one would fly over. They were left over World War I planes - usually flying passengers for a buck or two a trip. On these occasions, the house would empty in a hurry, because everyone wanted a look.

We were living at 82 Nuttall Road in Riverside and the house was an enormous Victorian job - 21 rooms, three stories and a basement, seven bathrooms, a big old barn with stables, chicken coops, and room for two or three carriages. All this on about an acre of land one block from "downtown" Riverside with "Bessie" the cow in residence to furnish a constant supply of fresh milk. Today there are three houses on the property and old "82" is completely remodeled and looks nothing like the original.

Anyway, the house was originally built by the MacArthur family and when

Father (he was never Dad!) (Herbert E. Reagan) married Ethel MacArthur they lived in the house and raised their children there - Arch, Keturah, Ethel (Babbie), Barbara, and Ruth. The house, in fact, belonged to them, as they inherited it from their mother when she died in 1916.

At the same time in

Riverside, Sterling Goddard and his wife Ellen (Ware) were also raising five children - Caroline, Elizabeth, Sterling, Lester and Jaque. He also died about the same time and eventually, in 1918, Herbert Reagan married Ellen Goddard. She moved her family into "82" and the two families soon became one.

In 1919 I was born of this marriage and Ben followed in 1921. In 1922 Father died of pernicious anemia, leaving Mother a widow for the second time in six years, but now with 12 children to raise. She lived to be 91, loved by her large family of children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren - about 135 in all, including in-laws. Everyone affectionately knew her as Grannie. She died in 1973 in Hinsdale, and was buried in the Bronzewood Cemetery there.

As the family grew the house eventually came to be called the "Reagan Hotel," because it was always full of friends and neighbors. Everyone seemed to be welcome at almost anytime, and they all enjoyed visiting. I suppose five girls, all within about four years of one another was a great attraction in the mid 20's when they were of high school age.

Ben and I, as the babies of the family, received lots of attention from the older ones and had little chance of being bored. We were regularly "entered" in various events, such as the 4th of July parade, probably more as someone's experiment in costume design than for any other reason.

Of course, Ben and I never knew our father. He died when Ben was about one and I was about two and a half. I've always regretted this. The older ones in the family have told me many times what a wonderful man he was.

In 1926, Mother took Ben and me to Indianapolis to visit Grandpa and Grandma Reagan (Benjamin F. Reagan and Hannah (Polk)). They were both in their mid to late eighties. This was the only time I remember seeing them. He died the next year and Grandma lived until 1935.

Grandpa was born in Central Indiana on a farm. After he and Grandma married, they lived in Knightstown until they they moved to the small town of Raymond, Nebraska - about 12 miles out of Lincoln, in 1879. I've never heard why they chose to move to Raymond. In any case, he opened a general store there, selling everything and anything, including lumber and nursery stock. I believe they lived in rooms above the store.

He was the second Postmaster in Raymond, serving from 1880 to 1885.

The children went to school in Raymond, and, above elementary grades, in Lincoln. Our father, Herbert, graduated from the University of Nebraska in 1897 with a Civil Engineering degree.

In 1901 Grandpa and Grandma moved back to Indianapolis. He was 62 at the time, and may have already been blind, for he was blind when I saw him in 1926. They lived with their daughter, Tressa, at 3951 N. Illinois St. until their deaths.

The principle memory of the trip was an electric car they owned. It truly looked like a "horseless carriage" with a glass enclosed cab, and was the only electric car, I believe, that ever went into production.

An Indianapolis paper wrote an article about them that year: Reagan-Polk 67th Anniversary

In 1927 Mother, Jaque, Ben and I went to New Mexico to visit Grandpa and Grandma Ware, mother's folks. They had moved to the Pecos Valley (south of Roswell) in 1905. They owned one half section of land (one mile by one half mile) which they homesteaded. Most of it was range for about ten or so horses and about 20 cattle. They did all the hard work associated with a small farm milking four or five cows, raising chickens, plowing fields, planting, etc. No tractors in those days. In fact, no electricity on the farm. They had a central carbide gas system in the house with center fixtures in each room for light. It wasn't until the "New Deal" days of F.D.R. in the 30's that electricity came into the area.

It was hot and dusty there in the summer heat. Ben and I, on a number of occasions, would strip and wallow around in the irrigation ditches which are the secret to farming in that area.

Grandpa Ware had a Ford Model T touring sedan, as did just about everyone else in the area. You had to make sure you knew your license plate when you went to town on Saturday. The main street looked like a company production line.

Grandpa took Ben and me to the Carlsbad Caverns (about 60 miles) one day. They were fairly new then (as a tourist attraction) and great to see. However, we no sooner left there than one of the hoses in the radiator developed a leak and we were stuck in the middle of nowhere with a steaming radiator. One car stopped and gave us the contents of their water jug which lasted a few miles. By that time there was no more traffic from the caverns and we were on our own. At least three times we carried water in Grandpa's old felt hat across fields from irrigation ditches to keep us going. It must have been seven or eight o'clock before we got to Carlsbad and got the hose fixed, and almost midnight getting to the farm and a bunch of frantic women. Some fun!

In spite.of the physical hardships of the farm and especially the extremely tough times during the depression of the thirties, I don't believe either one of them ever gave a thought to giving up. They subsisted on the products they grew and about the only cash they were able to come up with was from the sale of cream, butter and eggs.

Grandpa died in 1942, after about five years of what we now realize was Alzheimer's disease. At that time it was just "senility,, or "old age".

Grandma Ware moved to Riverside in about 1952 to live with her daughter Ellen (our mother). She died in 1954 at age 92. The farm was taken over by their son, Hal and his wife who farmed it until 1964, at which time it was sold.

When Sterling Goddard, Grannie's first husband died in 1916, she and her children inherited a summer cottage at Pointe-Aux-Peaux, Michigan. The site was on Lake Erie, about eight miles south of Monroe. The entire "Pointe" as it was called, was a privately held small peninsula which consisted of about 2,000 feet of waterfront and probably 150 acres of land, most of which was operated as a farm. It was owned by the Sterling family and originally each cottage was on about one half acre along the waterfront, so there was lots of lawn and open space. The development dated back to the late 1800's, so by the time we were involved in the 20's it was already 40 to 50 years old and somewhat staid and stuffy.

Most of the people who owned the eight or ten cottages were from Monroe, and were rather well off, so they came to the Pointe with no intention of doing any work. The caretakers operated the farm and lived in the "stone house," a large farmhouse which happened to be built of stone. A major part of their job was to cook all the meals which were served in a common dining room in the farmhouse.

Gradually, in the depression days of the thirties, people started to install kitchens in their individual cottages to avoid the expense of "eating out" for all meals. The common dining room was eventually abandoned about 1931.

We spent many summers, or parts of summers at the Pointe from about 1928 until about 1942, when Mario died there in a drowning accident.

By about that time most of the family owners of the property were dying off and the following generations were no longer interested in keeping up the houses. Within the next five to ten years the entire property had changed hands and none of the Sterling family retained ownership.

During the next four years (1928 to 1932) our lives were pretty standard for kids of about eight to eleven years old, although I do think we had more freedom than most kids our age. We went into Chicago on the train by ourselves a number of times just to wander around downtown, or perhaps to go to the zoo in Lincoln Park. Many times we went to the ball games at Wrigley Field or Comiskey Park. I distinctly remember watching Babe Ruth play which was a real treat at that time.

In 1930 and 1931 we both had morning paper routes in Riverside. We were both pretty young and small, but somehow we seemed to manage. The routes paid $1.25 per week!

About this time Mother went to Europe with another Riverside woman, as her traveling companion. Although the trip turned out to be a pretty miserable experience for her, she did meet Mario Saint-Cyr, an Italian musician who was playing in a string quartet at the hotel she was staying at in Rome. They corresponded for several years, and although Mother wanted to marry him, she had the responsibility of a houseful of children. By the end of 1931, she pretty well had the problems resolved. Arch had left home and was on his own. Keturah, Caroline, Elizabeth and Babbie were married. Ster and Lester were in college at the University of Pennsylvania and Yale. Ruth was in nurses training in Boston and Jaque was in boarding school. That left Barbara, who had been ill for some time, Ben and I at home.

To help Caroline, Elizabeth and Babbie and their husbands, who were all feeling the pressures of the depression, she had the house partitioned here and there; added some stoves and refrigerators and turned "82" into three apartments for them. She was later challenged on this in court because of zoning laws, but won the case because the occupants were all family.

In February 1932, Mother packed up Barbara, Ben and I, took the train to

New York and we boarded the Aquatania, one of the major ships of the English Cunard Lines fleet. We took a 20 day Mediterranean Cruise, before leaving the ship at Naples, Italy. We visited Gibralter, Algiers, Nice, Cairo, and Athens.

In Rome, Mother rented an apartment while she got

reacquainted with Mario and to decide whether she should marry him. Ben and I finished the school year with the help of an English man who tutored us.

In June we went up to Paris and rented an apartment for the summer months. Jaque and Lester joined us there during summer vacation from school. This was a "fun" summer, with five of the "gang" together. Among other things, Lester, Ben and I rented bicycles and took a three day tour south of Paris staying in small towns and visiting various famous sites.

It didn't take us long to figure out the bus and subway systems, and one of the first places we headed for was the amusement park.

In the fall we - Mother, Barbara, Ben and I - headed back to Rome, where Ben and I were enrolled in an Italian boys school. This was quite an experience, for them as well as us. We knew very little Italian, and as I remember, no one spoke English. Trying to learn such things as Latin, math and history in Italian left us totally in the dark. Consequently, we were bored all the time and often ended up with the giggles and did other disrupting things. The teachers were baffled by us. Sideline - we gave the Facist salute at the start of every class. It wasn't until many years later that we understood the implications of this.

Mother married Mario Saint-Cyr in October, 1932. He died in 1942 at Lake Erie near Monroe, Michigan. Mother lost three husbands and had been married a total of less than 25 years.

Early in 1933, Elizabeth lost her husband, John Silverthorne, when he took his own life. Mother asked her to bring her one year old, Jaque and join us in Rome until she could get her life back together. She also brought sister Jaque with her since she wasn't doing much in school except wasting time. We rented a very nice home where we could all be together again. There were eight of us and Angelina, the maid, who was a young woman just off the farm. She worked very hard to try to do a good job - all for room and board and about $10 a month. Everyone in the family became quite fond of her.

During the spring and summer of 1933, I had polio, and from what I'm told I was lucky to survive. It was touch and go for a while, but gradually I recovered, although I think I was in bed for about six weeks. I walked with a limp for about three months but that eventually disappeared. My right shoulder was the major damage point, and I've never been able to raise my right arm. Somehow you compensate, and it hasn't been much more then an annoyance to me all my life.

Because of all the attention I received, I guess I was becoming pretty spoiled. In any case, Mother felt that Ben and I would be better off in a disciplined situation, so off we went (by ourselves) to a small boys school in Switzerland. It was located in an old farm house in the country, and one half mile outside of Celigny, a small town on Lake Geneva, about 15 miles from the city of Geneva. It was called "Institution Juillerst". There were about 25 boys from all over Europe, America, and North Africa. It was a wonderful experience. There were horses to ride, tennis courts, woods all around us, the lake to fish and swim in and the companionship of boys our age.

During the winter months they rented a chalet in a winter resort area at a town called Les Diablerets, and moved the whole school there. We loved the sledding, ice skating, and skiing and the great surroundings. I think I would classify that school year as the greatest year of our childhood.

We spent the next summer with Mother and Mario in Rome and in a small apartment in the tiny and very old walled town of Soriano hel Chimina about 40 miles north of Rome. I think it had something to do with getting an atmosphere for artistic expression, for Mario wrote a lot of poetry and essays, but no one specifically said so. This is just my conclusion in retrospect.

By this time everyone else in the family - Elizabeth, Jaque, baby Jaque and Barbara - had gone back home, leaving Mother and Mario alone. Mother felt we too should get back to the States and about that time a solution appeared. Lester had graduated from Yale and had accepted a teaching job in a small private school in Havana expressly formed for the children of Americans living in Cuba. They had room and board available for about five boys, so that's where we headed next.

We boarded a small Italian freighter in Livorno, Italy and arrived in Havana three weeks later. On the way we stopped at Genoa, Marseilles, Barcelona, Valencia and Cadiz before heading west. There were ten or twelve passengers, so we pretty much had the run of the ship. Occasionally the captain would let us take the wheel and it was surprisingly difficult to keep the

ship from wandering off course. Of course the engine room was fascinating. Best of all was the food. They had a wonderful cook who loved to make all sorts of special pastries and other goodies.

The next year In Havana was pretty routine. We were back among Americans and we felt more at home than we had in some time. The major memories of Cuba are magnificent white sand beaches and the heat of the Carribean. Even the Mediterranian seemed cool by comparison.

Lester had bought an old open touring car - probably for about $50. When school was out we took a boat to Tampa, and then drove up to Riverside. It's a wonder we made it - the brakes were almost non-existant!

Mother and Mario had come to Riverside by that time and rented a house in Riverside for the summer. Ben and I, Jaque and Lester stayed there during the summer.

In the fall, Ben and I went to Boston to live In an apartment with Barbara and Ruth. Ruth was a nurse at Children's Hospital and Barbara kind of "managed" the apartment for the four of us. The main reason for going to Boston was to treat me for polio.

We were enrolled in the Boston Public Latin School, a prestigious affair, founded in 1635 - about a year before Harvard. It was planned originally as a preparatory school for Harvard, and is the oldest secondary school in the United States.

This school attracted the "brains" from all over Boston, and Ben and I found ourselves just squeaking by, since neither one of us were in that class. It's hard to imagine it today, but we were assigned about two to three hours of homework every night in addition to a study hour during the day.

In spite of a minimum of money, we enjoyed Boston a lot. We managed to get downtown on Saturdays quite often to see a movie and stage show combination which was very common in those days. The show ran continuously so the theater was never deliberatly emptied for a new audience. You could stay as long as you wanted - and sometimes we would stay to see the stage show three times - in at 10 am and not out until about 5 pm - all for about 50 to 75 cents.

Ben was doing so poorly in the Latin School that, after two years, Mother sent him down to Virginia to a private school - Episcopal, I think, that was run by some shirt tail relative of hers. I believe he did much better there where there was better supervision and discipline.

It was about three years before I saw him again when he enrolled in DePauw a year behind me (class of 1944). We were both members of Delta Upsilon Fraternity but our lives were going in different directions. We were never as close again as we had been when we were younger.

I believe Ben and Marilyn started dating about 1941. Almost at once it was a steady affair and they went with one another until they were married in 1946.

Ben managed to complete three years of school before he was drafted into the Army. World War II was going strong at that time - 1943 - and very few boys of that age were able to avoid the service. After basic training, he

eventually ended up in Europe as part of the Occupational Government forces. I don't believe he ever had to serve in the combat areas, which was certainly a lucky break. When an area was cleared of the enemy, his group would go in and try to re-establish a functioning government. I remember him mentioning that he was one of the first in Paris after the combat troops forced the Germans out.

Although the war in Europe was over in the spring of 1945, it was January 1946 before he got back to the States and was discharged. He and Marilyn were married February 2, 1946 and they headed back to DePauw so he could finish up now in the class of 1946.

After graduation, they found a small apartment on the near north side of Chicago and Ben went to work for Babson Brothers, a company specializing in automatic milking machinery. Right after the war, the pent-up demand was enormous, and they were planning to expand their sales into Mexico. Ben's knowledge of Spanish made it probable that a move to Mexico was a distinct possibility.

About that time, Marilyn became pregnant (Arlene) and Marilyn's father, president of Freeman Shoes in Beloit, Wisconsin offered Ben a job that was much better than the one he had. They moved to Beloit in 1947 where Mr. Carey had also set them up in a house. Things were falling into place for them In a hurry. A few years later they moved into a bigger house where the children were raised. They were living there when Ben died in an airplane accident in 1956, at age 35.

In about 1954, Mr. Carey was involved in a power struggle at Freeman and was eventually forced out of the company. Ben had little choice but to follow

him. Within a short time, however, he went to work for Beloit Iron Works - specialists in paper manufacturing machinery. Ben was slated for the sales department and because of his language abilities was groomed for their expansion into South America.

After two years or so of training he was assigned to Caracas, Venezuela. He was to go down in October 1956 to get things

established so the family could be moved down after Christmas.

Marilyn had a real phobia about flying so Ben had agreed to take a ship to set her mind at ease. He went to New York, but due to a dockworkers strike the ship wasn't going anywhere. He spent about three weeks with his sister, Elizabeth in Stanford waiting for the strike to be settled. Finally, he decided he couldn't wait any longer and, without telling Marilyn, he flew down on Venezuela Airlines. The plane flew into a mountain, about two miles from the Caracas airport.

The accident was devastating to Marilyn who, for some time totally isolated herself from almost everyone. Of couse, Grannie Saint-Cyr was also deeply distressed, and especially so since Ben was her "baby."

To add to the pain, it was about four to six weeks before the body was returned to Beloit. Venezuelan politics took care of that. The period of grief was strung out for a long time.

Ben is buried in a cemetery in Beloit.

Grannie, who was deeply religious and who turned to prayer in times of grief, took great solace in the thought that God might have spared Ben a life of suffering, for a few years earlier he had been diagnosed as having Multiple Sclerosis. The disease had been in remission but we all knew that eventually he would end up in a wheel chair, physically incapacitated, although still mentally unaffected.

I hope this brief account of your father's life and background has been of interest to you. There may be some discrepancies on specifics of which you four may know more details, especially in the years you lived in Beloit. If so, please forgive me and make your own corrections.

My best wishes to all of you.

Sincerely,

Herb Reagan