Bud and Allen’s Little Brother

A chapter from “An Artist’s Story,” the life story Lee wrote in his eighties. In his words, as he wrote them.

Douglas and Allen were 5 and 6 years older than I. This had a profound effect on me through out my childhood and even into my adult life. They were both very good to me as a small child but tended to ignore me, as I grew older. I seemed to grow into a teaser and I pestered the daylights out of them. It didn’t take long for me to learn how to get my own way and I used it to the fullest. Mother seemed to take my side perhaps it was because I was the “Baby“. Bud and Allen were well into grade school in the 4th or 5th grades before I started into kindergarten. They had this 5- year start on me. I also found out that my acquisition of knowledge was somewhat slower than my two brothers. They both were excellent students especially Allen who always was an all “A” student even through college. Bud did nearly as well. Whenever I was moved up a grade into a new teachers room the teacher’s first remarks went something like this, “Oh your Bud and Allen’s little brother, I hope you are as good a student as they are“. It didn’t take me long to disillusion each teacher that I met.

I was very active and never learned the art of studying. School was most difficult for me. Reading was good; I liked to read, Spelling? Well that is something else.

When it came to learning to spell I just would not take the time to remember and it didn’t help me much that every new semester the teaching program would change from phonics to some other new fangled teaching program so I just gave up. I hated every Friday at school, that was always the last day of the week and was “Spelling Day“, Remember?

I longed to go outside and play but I had to spend hours pouring over a list of words that didn’t make sense. I think I had a learning disorder called “Attention Deficit“, what ever that is. I often felt that if anyone would look at my absenteeism that I am sure that it was plain to see that Fridays were not my day. That was the day I would fake sickness and get away with it.

I am sure this must have been a big disappointment for my mother and father. Good grades were just not my thing. I have often wished that my parents would have pushed me along in my studies but I understand that they were busy people too and had a life to live and 3 children to rise.

Leland Mick’s Flint public schools class standing and attendance record, age 11, 1929-1930.

Leland Mick’s Flint public schools class standing and attendance record, age 9, 1928-1929.

Leland as a young boy, shirtsleeves rolled up, standing in a yard in front of a house.

Early in my high school days I was oft times influenced by my peers. I ran around with four other school chums. Harold and Howard Richard who were twins and lived a block west on Nebraska Ave. Then there was Bill Clark who also lived near. The next guy was Bill Richard who lived on Stevens St. a block or two from the bridge on Hamilton Ave. near the Buick Plant.

We often went to school events as a 5-man group such as Fri. night foot ball games or bowling together at the capital theater. The bowling allies were in the basements below the theater.

In our younger years we did not stray very far from our own neighborhood on the east side of Flint. We spent a lot of our time in Kersley Park sliding and skating at the armory on Lewis Street.

Kersley Park was a great place to slide down the big hill during winter it seems we had more snow then than now, certainly we had more time and we spent it out doors.

I seemed to always get into trouble because I didn’t listen at least that’s what my folks told me.

I remember a summer day during school break when my dad tried to get me interested in some work around the house and of course at the age of 12, I was not much interested in work of any kind.

This specific assignment was to weed in the garden. Now pulling weeds was not one of my best attributes. First because it was hot, second because you had to bend over and pay close attention to what you were doing and third because three of my best friends were on their way to Rys’s farm and did I want to go swimming? Well what could I say?

Their peer pressure felt like a good idea and besides, Dad had just left for work and mom wasn’t home.

So off we went the four of us. Rys’s farm was located a good ways out in the country. It was not off limits but nearly so. We went east to Dort Highway then farther east along the Grand Trunk railroad to where it crossed the north south railroad.

Rys’s farm was on the south side of Court St. and if you went south down their farm lane you would come to a creek and that’s where the swimming hole was.

In order to get the water deep enough to swim you had to repair the dirt dam that was always washed out. We had the dam fixed in short order because we were real dam experts (no pun intended).

I had just taken my shoes off when I saw my dad walking down the lane towards me. He stopped on the bank over looking the creek and never said a word. I put my shoes back on and walked behind him to the car, got in, and with in a few minutes we were in front of the garden. He opened the door and I got out and he never said a word. I did a superior job of weeding the garden for the rest of that day and the next and the next and the next.

You remember earlier I wrote that there is something between children and their birth parents that is unspoken but known; well this was an example of that type of clairvoyance. I knew and my dad sure knew, we didn’t have to say a word, we just knew.

Well I did graduate from high school even though no one ever thought about my skipping a semester or giving any special attention to my academics. They just figured I wasn’t too bright.

Even though I graduated from Flint Central High in 1937 I have very little remembrance of Whitter Junior High, it’s a complete blank. I remember no teachers or classrooms back then. I do remember getting there however it was a long walk and I most always went alone - usually down our street, Nebraska Ave. west then cut across Kersley Park along the Railroad tracks to Kersley street then west past Mr. Mott’s old mansion with the high iron fence to a cinder path, then past Central High Power Plant and into the north end of Whitter. Most always we had to stand in line until the bell rang and the doors were open, then a mad rush to a homeroom class that would start our day. I do remember the locker rooms in gym class where we had to change into gym clothes mostly because of the smell of dirty sweaty clothes. What did we do in gym? It was uneventful because I don’t remember a thing. We did do a lot of running around but no structured activities. I do remember lunch hour. Most days I carried a sack lunch with a sandwich, cookies and perhaps a sweet pickle or two. Things did not keep too well in a hot locker so I never gained weight on that diet.

About twenty Whitter Junior High boys posed in rows on the school steps before an arched brick doorway, most wearing neckties. — Whitter Jr. High. Almost everyone had a tie.

There was a place across Crapo Street in a little green house where a man and his wife set up a small hamburger stand. For only 10 cents you could buy a pretty good hamburger. It was sort of a hang out for Junior High kids and because it was not on school property you could pass around cigarettes.

I had not smoked until my latter high school years. I worked part time for Mr. Harborn in a little flower shop on the southwest corner of Wood and Detroit St.

My Dad was part owner in this venture with Mr. Harborn and part of his contract with my Dad was my assignment as a helper in the flower shop. I worked hard during the Christmas season making Christmas wreaths and delivering poinsettias by the hundreds.

It was about this time that I started a regular use of tobacco. My dad caught me once setting up a window display with a cigarette dangling from my mouth, all he said was. “So you have now reached manhood eh?” This didn’t stop me from smoking but I have always remembered his remark with a bit of shame.

I must have been 16 or 17 years old and I smoked for some 10 to 15 years until the Lord helped me break this habit. It happened shortly after I had been in Hurley Hospital with pneumonia. While I was confined there for a week or more the man across the isle from me was dying from cancer of the larynx. He never spoke to anyone during that time, not even his loved ones. On the day I was to be discharged from the hospital he whispered this question to me,” young man do you smoke?” When I answered yes all he said was, “Don’t“. I think that started me on the road of withdrawal. The Lords prompting was very strong and few months later I was able to stop. It was not easy; the influence of tobacco on me has lasted for years.

I most regretted the effects of years of smoking had on my children and my wife Lois. I owe a big apology to her and my children for all of the dumb habits I had in my early years of marriage. I have always loved her more than anyone; she has been my everything for years. The children did not need that abuse either.

I moved into Central High School in 1934. The depression was still going strong but we did not feel badly about that, it just seemed normal. The big pool that was built in the lower floor of Central had no water for all the years that I went there. The gym teachers put the wrestling mat in it and took other short cuts to keep the school in operation. I had some good classes in high school but my grades did not improve, except in a history classroom held in the old sanitarium. The teacher was Florence Roberts. The room was small and always warm and I liked history so I think that is why it went well.

I enjoyed music and since I didn’t play an instrument I joined the Flint Central A- Cappella Choir. Frank Weddle who was an exceptional director gave us all very good direction.

In the 11th grade choir I became interested in a very beautiful blonde about 17 years old, she had been in high school since moving from Ann Arbor. We became friends and we ate our lunches under the big oak trees that were all over the campus.

When we graduated in’37 Lois went off to private school in Ann Arbor. She lived on East Ann Street with her grandmother Sanford. I went there to see her as often as I could mostly on weekends. Hitchhiking was not always a good way to get there and often I would be late in arriving and Lois would wait. I thank the Lord that she waited.

Studio portrait of Leland at his 1937 high school graduation, wearing wire-rim glasses, a suit, and a patterned tie. — High School Graduation in 1937

There were few jobs the year that we graduated from Central High. During my Junior and Senior years I worked evenings for the McGinnis Drug Store on the corner of Lewis and Broadway. This was a very popular Drug Store located in an old Bank Building on the corner. It had a real old-fashioned soda counter and I worked most evenings dishing up ice cream and making sodas. I could wait on other customers when things were slow at the soda fountain. Glen Seekings was a good druggist and a great guy to work under. He taught me some good work ethics.

One time I got a good lesson on how it pays to be honest. There was a young guy about my age who was hired as a “soda jerk“, he was good at his job, very popular, got along with all the girls well. After he had been there for only a few weeks the cash register that we both used, always was short of cash at the end of the day. This happened so often that a private detective was hired un be known to me, to determine who the culprit was. It didn’t take long to find out who was dipping into that cash and he was very promptly discharged. Honesty is the best policy.

I did leave that job though after a few months. Mr. McGinnis informed me one day that he no longer needed my services after a rain storm flooded the basement where I had stacked several hundred boxes of ice cream cones on the floor. They were a soggy mess the next day so I went out with the cones and started looking for new employment. I never thought to place the cones on a table to keep them dry.

There were not a lot of jobs in those years and it was especially hard during the summer months between semesters of school.

Ken Taylor, my old scoutmaster, had attended a CMTC (Citizens Military Training Camp) one summer at Camp Custer near Battle Creek, Michigan. He suggested to my Dad that it might be a good experience for me. So in 1936 I went to my first CMTC.

Leland in CMTC uniform and garrison cap, holding a rifle with bayonet fixed, cars parked in the background, 1936. — CMTC Training 1936

Many young men could take advantage of this when they reached 16. We were under the leadership of regular army officers who were permanently stationed at Camp Custer. We spent four weeks of training in the basics of army life during the month of July. The second summer you were graduated to a higher level. I enjoyed the training and went to camp each summer for four years and moved up after each camp.

We were housed in large pyramid tents erected on wooden platforms. Eight bunks to a tent. Each year there were approximately 1500 young men with 300 officers along with many regular army enlisted men who taught us weaponry, marching, discipline, and even KP (kitchen duty). We were given surplus uniforms, shoes and packs with all the necessary equipment for army life. You should know that this was before World War II. There were only rumors of what Hitler was doing in Germany then.

A CMTC machine gun company posed in rows before pyramid tents at Camp Custer, 1937, with their unit flag raised at left.

The number of trainees that took this training beyond the second summer decreased rapidly and by the time I reached the fourth year of training there were very few of us who attained to higher rating. I was fortunate to reach the rank of Cadet Lt. Colonel and win the John J Pershing award and a week trip to Washington D.C.

Each year there were CMTC camps in each of the nine core areas in the US, thus there were eight other men in the US to receive the same award. I felt proud to be the first in Michigan to win and it was a real honor to have General George C. Marshall pin this award on me at the army, navy, day dinner along with many other dignitaries.

Letter from the Civilian Military Education Fund notifying Leland Mick of his selection for the John J. Pershing Award, September 15, 1939.

By this time I was working as a blue print operator in the Engineering Dept. of Buick. It wasn’t long after this that Lois and I were married in 1940 but that is another story. Three years earlier when I got out of high school I took a civil service exam in Saginaw and found that I could get employment at the Lapeer State home and training school. This was one of the largest schools of its kind in Michigan. There were approximately 4000 girls and boy there of all ages, the boys being south of the railroad tracks and the girl’s dorms were north.

These children were under confinement and kept under lock and key at night and were under watchful supervision at all times. My rating was an attendant nurse “C” and it required very little knowledge other than to stay awake nights and report in to central office each hour by phone.

My first assignment was in a dormitory, which was known as a low-grade colony. The director of this dorm was John Macomb; he lived there with his wife and small daughter. Mrs. MaComb was the cook as well as dorm supervisor and there were four others who were attendants in this building. They were all 1st shift day attendants.

There were approximately 65 children who were housed in this two-story dorm. Some 10 or 12 were mongoloid children who were blind from birth and totally dependant on some one else for their care. Some of the younger boys were orphaned and were wards of the State, the older inmates were placed there in their specific settings to work as helpers. It was not the best of organizations nor was it a good procedure for their growth. Many of the older patients lived there for years and often were assigned places of work in Lapeer where they were paid very little for their work. Some were picked up by farmers in the area and were worked very hard for the meager pay they received.

I worked there for over a year and a half earning $52.00 a month with room and board. I worked many night shifts from 6 pm in the evening till 6 am with 2 days off a month. I could do lots of reading and listening to the radio. It was required that I walk through each of the sleeping rooms to check on each patient several times a night. There were many of them who wet their beds at night. It made for a very smelly place as they would try and dry their bedclothes on the hot radiators so they would not have to answer for their misbehavior the next morning.

I have always remembered the mistreatment I witnessed being used on a patient by an attendant. It was my introduction to a new job assignment and it was shocking.

This attendant supervisor was over seeing a number of patients in the playground and as I was introduced to him. He said that he would show me how to get control right off the start. He proceeded to call one of the bigger and older men patients to him. He then took hold of him around the neck and choked him until the patient fell to the ground. That was my introduction to the Lapeer State Home and Training School, my first day on the job.

In another occasion it was my responsibility to oversee a number of low-grade patients as they were escorted to the Hospital. This hospital as located on the school grounds right next to the school bakery. I proceeded to line up each of the patients in single file at the nurse’s office for their weekly check-ups. While we were waiting for the office to open someone in the bakery mischievously tossed a large piece of uncooked baking dough to one of the patients waiting in line. This patient, like a child, put the whole thing in his mouth and choked to death before anything could be done.

Many other things took place during my employment there, I am not sure that any of them rounded out my education as an attendant nurse.

Talk about a low entry job. This was it. This was before McDonalds, TV and WWII and many people were happy to work there. Some thing was always happening and most was not good. After I had been there a year or so my mother and dad stopped in for a visit. I happened to be working so I took my dad through the colony (mother stayed in the car). My dad didn’t say much but at the end of our visit he made the suggestion that perhaps it would be a good idea if I found some other type of employment. I got the distinct feeling that he didn’t care much for the “Lapeer State Home and Training School” and the atmosphere in which I worked. It’s hard to believe after 60 years that this school is no longer standing, not one building is left. What happened to all of these children? Well they were assimilated into society and many are street people, others are in hospitals and in neighborhood homes in our cities and in many institutions no better off than in those days of the big state run homes. I must say however that there were many fine people working to improve their life style. Many new medicines have been developed and tested such as those to treat seizures and epilepsy. In our low-grade dorm I would handle as many a 5 or 6 seizures a day and some were very severe.

I am not sure where I should end this story. There is so much to tell, but sometimes its just best to move on and that is what I did. I found a job with a building contractor shoveling clay out of a basement window of a new drug store that he was building just across the street from Central High School in Flint. One day I got a call from a Mr. Willard Height who offered me a starting position at Buick Engineering dept. in the blue print room. This proved to be a wonderful opportunity. I was just turning 20 years old and I had an eye on a great girl and the future looked good.

I started at $25.00 a week and worked 8 to 5 cutting and sorting blue prints that came out of a big monstrous machine. Some of the blue prints were as small as an 8 ½ x 11-inch sheet; others were as long as 10 feet. They were warm and smelled of a fixative because they had been dried while going over several rollers that were heated by a gas flame. It was important to have long sharp shears that could slice through the paper and be sorted between your fingers as you tried to keep up with the speed of the operator running the originals through the printer. This was a fun job and a good place to work. Handling blue prints was the first start in a long career at Buick Engineering. I could see many possibilities in the future.

The art deco entrance to Buick’s Engineering building in Flint, with a man in a suit standing in the doorway.

My dad had made many friends in his years at Buick and I am sure that it was due to his influence that the call came from Mr. Willard Height.

A few months after I had hired in at Buick I went to Washington D.C. to accept the award I had been given for completing four years of summer camp at CMTC at camp Custer in Battle creek. The resulting news story of my being awarded the Pershing Award was published in the GM news magazine and it could not have come in a more opportune time. It helped me in many ways and one of them was my pride. I realized that there were other people who had things that they could be proud of too, and I should be cautious and not be over come with pride.

I started night school at GMI and enjoyed my first drafting lessons. At this same time things started picking up at Buick and there were hints of a government contract for Buick to build some type of army ordinance.

Leland Wales Mick

November 4, 1918 - July 26, 2012

Bud and Allen’s Little Brother