It must have been sometime in the winter, because I recall that Therese and I were leaving the King's Mill office of the Ordnance field office, heading for Loveland, when the car skidded off the road into a ditch as I tried turning a sharp right turn. The land was very flat and everything was white with snow. The road and the fields were all one. I didn't see the curve until I was in it. I tried steering the car, but it just kept sliding and dumped us into a ditch. The car was resting on the driver's side, so we both had to get out on the passenger side. Luckily, a farmer was on his tractor nearby. He hooked a chain to the car and pulled us out with narry a scratch to us or the car.
Yes, the name of the nearest town was Loveland and somehow we found a nice little home on the Loveland Miamiville Rd. But there were some things we didn't know about the Loveland Ohio area when looking for a house.The most important was the roof area. As you can see from the picture to the left, the house had a single gable, that is, one front and one back. Also, the front gable was split by a chimney. Yes, we had a nice fireplace, but very little roof area. We were soon to find out why this was a problem.
There was no water service in the outlying areas and there were likewise, no wells. All of our water, for drinking and otherwise, was what was accumulated from rainfall. The falling water was diverted by the gutters and rainspouts into a cistern. This was an enclosed room at the basement level. An indoor water tank with a pump that was our sole source of water. Rainfall was scarce the 2 years we were there and every few weeks or so, we had to buy our water. This was delivered on a tanker truck, much like for swimming pools being filled.
Most homes in that area were built with large roof areas. This so that they couldaccumulate a lot of water when it rained. Garages were built adjoining so that they had a roof. Our house had its origin as a field office for the engineers when the Cincinnati VA hospital was built. It was later bought and transported to its present location and rebuilt on a rise. The garage was made a part of the basement and the fireplace chimney split the front roof in two sections, only one of which could contribute to the water supply. In the picture on the left, you can see how the driveway led to he basement area.
Often, after a good rain, I was expecting to see the cistern filled, but found no increase in the water table. The kids would sometimes play with the rainspout lever and leave it switched off. The lever allowed water to run off away from the cistern to prevent overfilling.
The house did have a large grassy backyard. One day, while mowing the grass in the back, I almost ran into a snake in the grass; really. I didn't know what kind it was, but I wasn't going to inquire. I raised the front of the mower and brought it down on the snake; sausage links. With three kids playing in the backyard, there was no room for snakes of any kind.
One house we looked at was in Middletown, Ohio. That was the filthiest house anyone could ever find. The walls had been painted with human excrement. Unbelievable that a realtor would even think of bringing a client to see that house.
My work was the same as I had done in Pittsburgh, but a much larger area to cover. One of the missile sites was in Indiana.
Claire and Roger started school in Loveland; Saint Columban School. There was no school bus service, so we had to bring them to school and then pickthem up later. Aside from the water problem, Loveland was a nice neighborhood to live in and raise a family. Our neighbors were very friendly and helpful. We often went fishing at a small pond not too far away. One of our neighbors, Dan Young, worked for the Picker X-Ray Company office in Cincinnati. He got me interested in the X-Ray servicing business and I soon left the Army life and signed up with the Picker X-Ray Co.
The Picker X-Ray Co. had its main office in Cleveland Ohio and we often had to go there for classroom work and to pick up a company car. That was one of the benefits of the job. We each had a company car and the company picked up all of our gas slips. The car was replaced each year. I could take the car on vacation, I just had to pay for my own gas. We did drive to Connecticut on occaision. The job took me all over the state of Ohio and parts of Indiana, Kentucky and West Virginia. The work involved installing servicing and repairing X-Ray machines in doctors' offices and hospitals. Later, I became involved with nuclear medicine machines. It was very interesting work.
This was 1960, and Therese was pregnant again. In November, Robert was born at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital in Cincinnati. This was also the year that the Pittsburgh Pirates won the World Series by beating the Yankees. Unfortunately we were no longer in Pittsburgh, so we could not get to Forbes Field for the event. We went to Crosley field in Cincinnati on occasions when the Pirates came to town. Naturally, we rooted for the Pirates, at our peril.
I worked at Picker X-Ray in Cincinnati until the summer of 1961. I was beginning to feel that Therese was tired of being away from home for so long and was anxious to go back to CT. We had been gone for about ten years and I let it be known to my office manager. He felt that the office was overstaffed, so he had no objections to my sending letters to other offices on the east coast, inquiring on openings. I received two replies, one from the New York city office and one from the Boston office. The New York office offered more money, but no car. That meant that I would have to hand carry my tool kit and travel by bus, cab or subway to where ever I was needed. The Boston offer would allow me to keep my car and I would be located at the New Haven office. Naturally, I accepted the Boston offer. The only stipulation was that I would have to pay my own expenses for the move. That was because I had requested the transfer.
Before the move got under way, the Cleveland office (our regional office) got word of the transfer and could not understand why the Boston office would not pay for the move. So they said "If Boston won't pay, then the Cleveland office would pay." For some reason that I can't recall, I wasn't able to let the Cleveland office know that I had requested the transfer. They believed that the Boston office had made the offer. It wasn't that big of a deal, the whole move cost $800.00, but in 1961 dollars, that was probably $2500 to $3000.
On the appointed day, the movers came to the house, packed everything up and left. The plan was to drive one of the cars (the company car, I believe) and tow the other car (the red and white '56 Pontiac).I had rented a tow-bar and disconnected the drive shaft of the other car. We didn't get very far when I realized that this would not work. I had no steering control of the first car and knew that we would never make it to CT that way. So we went back to the house; I reconnected the drive shaft, returned the tow bar and waited till the next day to move out. I don't recall where we spent the night. In any case, the next day we did leave. I drove the Ford and Therese drove the Pontiac. Except for a broken fan belt on the Pontiac on the Pennsylvania turnpike, we got to CT OK.
While sitting alongside the PA turnpike, a state trooper stopped by and called for assistance. The problem was fixed and we were back on the road.
