Two Into One: The Lives of Russ and Winnie Kingman (Russ and Winnie)

Russ

After a weekend visit to Vergennes and Ferrisburgh, Vermont, to locate information about Russ Kingman's early life, I received this response to one of my inquiries from a Mrs. Charlotte E. Tatro dated July 18, 1996:

Your request for information on Albert Russell Kingman was given to me by our Town Clerk. A. [Albert] Russell Kingman was a high school classmate at Vergennes High School, of my brother-in-law. I understand he gave up his mischievous ways and became a minister in Texas. His parents were Raymond and Lucy (Kimball) Kingman.

Since Mrs. Tatro never wrote back to elaborate, one must wonder what "mischievous ways" refers to in young Russ's life. Winnie Kingman does recall several stories Russ used to tell about pulling practical jokes when he was growing up, such as the time he and several of his high school friends dismantled a farm wagon, hoisted it onto the roof of Vergennes High School, and reassembled it there. Throughout life, Russ always had a plan, and this early incident is a perfect example of his mechanical talents and Yankee ingenuity.

On August 8, 1917, Albert Russell Kingman was born in the "Creamery House" to Raymond Albert Kingman, Manager of Sheffield Farms Milk Plant at Ferrisburgh, and Lucy Melissa Kimball, Ferrisburgh, Vermont, the second of four children. The first was Raymond Homer Kingman, born August 11, 1912; a sister, Irene Evylin Kingman was born December 15, 1923; and the youngest son, Darwin Jon Kingman, was born September 26, 1934. The Kingman family was well-known and highly respected for many generations in and around Vergennes, and local records trace the Kingmans to a Mitchell Kingman, Russ's great, great-grandfather, an influential and wealthy member of the early settlers and developers of Addison County, Vermont. An 1871 map of the Ferrisburgh Center published in William Wallace Higbee, Around the Mountains: Historical Essays About Charlotte, Ferrisburgh and Monkton (Charlotte, Vermont: The Charlotte Historical Society, 1991), shows the location of the Mitchell Kingman house on the south side of Little Chicago Road traveling west from Route 7, across Little Otter Creek, the old Rutland Railroad line, and past the Enoch Woodbridge Sawmill, whose foundation can still be outlined. The same map also shows the farms owned by the Kimballs and Tuppers, two families of respectable dairymen, whose daughters married into the Kingman family.

The house where Russ was born still stands, much modernized, about a mile from Ferrisburgh Center, on the left side of Little Chicago Road. The present owners know of the Kingman family, but couldn't provide any extensive details.

The one-room grammar school that Russ attended was about a one-mile walk from the house. According to Paulena Hollenback and Ronald W. Slayton, eds., Ferrisburgh: A Scrapbook of Memories (Ferrisburgh, Vermont: Ferrisburgh Bicentennial Committee, 1976), p. 44, the first district school at the Center was established by Henry Rogers in 1862:

The yard was small and surrounded by a high board fence. About 1920 the building was remodeled and a kitchenette added. The fence was removed and land large enough for a playground and ball field purchased. A superior plaque was awarded. Since 1960 the school has served as "Ferrisburgh Town Clerk Office."

School life for young Russ was typical of the 1920's. Wood stoves provided heat in the winter, toilets were of the outside variety, children drank water from an open drinking pail, and each child had to bring a clean drinking cup once each week. Multiple grades were taught together, the younger children often learning good and bad from the older kids. Many children went home for lunch, although a hot lunch was served; and during heavy snowfalls parents would sometimes trudge through drifts to deliver lunch at school so that the children could stay for their lessons. For the term ending November 26, 1928, Russ received an honor roll certificate as ". . . a Testimonial of Earnest and Fruitful Study, Correct Deportment, Punctual Attendance, and Fidelity in the Center School." He was also a fair speller, being chosen as a delegate from Ferrisburgh to the Vermont State Spelling Championship in 1929.

Summer recess allowed Russ time to play boyhood games, walk the fields learning about nature, and help his father with the many practical projects that occupied him around the house; and the family often traveled the short distance to Lake Champlain for outings or shopped in nearby Vergennes, the growing business center for the area.

After his graduation from eight years of grammar school, Russ enrolled in Vergennes High School, where he received a diploma in 1934, one of the darkest years of the Great Depression. Russ walked the three miles to Vergennes every day to attend school until he got a Model A Ford Roadster, and Winnie recalls him telling the time he placed himself in great danger by walking home in a blizzard, holding his notebook in front of his face to keep from being blinded. Russ did passably well in all of his subjects, but didn't prepare himself specifically for a college career. At the time there were few opportunities for either high school or college graduates, so Russ made the most of his high school days (with limited finances), enjoying the pleasures of boyhood in a largely rural area.

In a personal recollection of his school days with Russ, published in A Jack London Echo, January 1983, p. 91, Arnold Morgan Wheelock, Sr., in "Green Mountain Memories," recalls that

Russ and I became the best of friends and boon companions and our excursions were facilitated by the fact that he had a Model A Ford Roadster. Russ has characterized us as juvenile delinquents, but, in truth, we were a couple of pretty decent kids imbued with an enthusiastic joie de vivre. Although Russ might want you to think that we were rakehells, roues and reprobates, our activities were limited to romance, mischief and deviltry, and there was nothing malicious or destructive about us. The grass was greener on the other side of the fence, and the girls were prettier and more intriguing. And that rattly Model A was our magic carpet to the other side.

Wheelock recalls Russ's Yankee ingenuity in obtaining gasoline for weekend outings, his ability to attract the brightest and most fashionable dates (because they could sit with him in the front), his love of practical jokes, and his ability to con others into working for his benefit:

Russ's dad was the manager of a huge creamery that processed dairy products for the New York and Boston markets. Through nepotism, Russ occasionally was able to pick up a little gasoline money doing odd jobs at the creamery. Dawned Saturday morning and I found out that Russ had contracted to load a freight car with cases of condensed milk. This was in the days before fork lifts and material handling equipment. A man's work was cheaper than machinery, and mine, in this case, was free. So, all day, pick up two cases, stagger out of the warehouse, up the ramp, into the boxcar, take a deep breath, and heave them up onto the stack. Do you have any idea how many cases of condensed milk it takes to fill a boxcar? I have, and to this day I drink coffee black! At the end of the day Russ was rich and I was exhausted. (A Jack London Echo, p. 93).

In sum, however, Wheelock leaves one with the impression that Russ was a good friend, a generous companion, an entertainer of the first order with his Vermont sense of humor and his trademark Kingman smile.

Boys graduating from high school in 1934 in rural Vermont had limited horizons with respect to work. Russ had been offered an appointment at West Point with the condition that he would first attend a military preparatory school for one year. However, money being short for tuition (although he could have applied for some scholarship money), Russ, along with Wheelock, decided to join the U.S. Navy. Thereafter their lives took separate paths. From September 11, 1935, to February 15, 1936, Russ completed his recruit training in Newport, Rhode Island. He shipped via the U.S.S. Henderson to San Francisco where he assumed duties aboard the U.S.S. Texas. He was rated Seaman 2nd Class on January 11, 1936, spending until March 15, 1937, aboard the Texas.

In October, 1937, Russ's father Raymond was accidentally killed in a construction mishap. This was a serious blow to Russ who had always been close with his father. Both were jacks of all trades, Russ becoming mechanically inclined while growing up by working closely with his father. His mother Lucy was left with her daughter Irene, fourteen at the time, and Russ's baby brother Darwin, who was three. Subsequently, Russ's mother remarried a local man, Ed Tucker, whom she divorced much later in life to marry a man by the name of Walsh.

From the time of his enlistment in 1935, Russ distinguished himself and moved rapidly up the promotion ladder. Rated Seaman 1st Class on December 1, 1936, he assumed the duties of Coxswain on a fifty-foot Liberty boat and performed general deck force duties.

From March 15, 2024 to September 1, 1939, he was transferred to the Naval Air Station, Norfolk, Virginia, via the U.S.S. New York. Subsequently, he was assigned to the U.S.S. Yorktown where he performed helmsman's duties as Coxswain of a fifty-foot Liberty boat and a twenty six-foot rescue whaleboat. On February 6, 1940, he completed the Naval Training Course for Aviation First Mate Second Class with a score of 40/40.

On September 9, 1940, he was transferred to the Naval Air Station, Alameda, California, where he was stationed when the Second World War broke out. He was stationed there until February 1, 1942. During that time he spent four months as Acting Chaplain of the Naval Air Station, was appointed Aviation Machinist Mate First Class, and met and married Winifred Eileen Harris on November 1, 1941.

In 1941 Russ was a handsome, ambitious young man, with an eye for beauty, and a strong will to be and do his best. When he first saw Winnie in the First Baptist Church in Alameda, it was, on his part, the proverbial "love at first sight." The young woman who became Mrs. Kingman had a totally different background from her husband.

Winnie

Winifred Eileen Harris was born on September 22, 1921, in Crowland Township, Welland, Ontario, Canada, the only daughter of George Anthony Harris and Adelaide H. Harris, nee Hoy. Both father and mother lived in London, England, until they married and emigrated to Welland, Canada, shortly after they were married. Welland, the town, is situated at one end of the Welland Canal, not far past the Canadian side of Niagra Falls. The Harris family lived in Welland until Winnie was twenty-one months old, at which time they moved to Buffalo, New York, so that George could work at the Pullman Company there, work being short in Canada. On the train going to Buffalo, Winnie picked up scarlet fever and was deathly ill with it for weeks. Quarantined to the house, she was rubbed down with cocoa butter to keep her delicate skin from cracking. She was terribly sickly as a child, following the scarlet fever with whooping cough and infected tonsils and adenoids. At one point when she was nothing but skin and bones, the family doctor advised her parents that if they wanted the child to live, they should seek a more healthy climate in California. In 1925, her parents sold all their possessions, bought an old touring car, and drove across the country to settle first in El Cerrito, just north of Oakland, and then to the City of Oakland. All of Winnie's early school years were spent in Oakland, through Grade 10, when the family moved to Alameda. She graduated from Alameda High School in 1939. Winnie loved school and was always a conscientious student who received marks satisfactory or above. She even excelled in sciences, not her favorite area of study.

The Acorn, Vol. 40, 1939, yearbook of Alameda High School, contains Winnie's graduation picture: her hair was not quite shoulder length and curly, parted in the middle and tied with a bow on both sides; she wore a modest sweater overlaid with a starched white collar; a delicate chain with a small cross adorned her front; and she displayed a half-smile, indicative of her charming but modest demeanor. Her yearbook also lists her as a writer for the "Buzzing Hornet," the school newspaper, and a key member of the Junior Prom Committee and Senior Play Committee that performed The Mikado. A yearbook poll of the senior class shows that 151 students approved of necking and 102 against. On out-of-town dates, 210 approved, while 39 disapproved. Winnie and her classmates hung out at the Alameda Dairy Co., Ltd., whose motto was: "You can whip our cream, but you can't beat our milk."

She met her best friend, Joyce Ritz, in 1926 when they were both pre-schoolers. Joyce's mother and father were also from England. In those days, in the 1920's and 1930's, English people were looked down on in the United States. Winnie's father and Joyce's father both worked in the Pullman Company factory in Richmond, California, and both of them being English, they became friends and then introduced the families to each other. Joyce, like Winnie, was an only child, though Joyce was born in the U.S. A year older than Joyce, Winnie would entertain her friend for hours by reading to her everything in sight. They would lie under the kitchen table--to be out of everyone's way--with funny papers spread out in front of them. Winnie recalls one day that Joyce's teacher sent home a note saying, "Please don't let Winnie read to Joyce anymore. She is not up on her reading and she can't spell." As Winnie would read the school lessons to Joyce, Joyce would remember it, and that is how she was passing her lessons. Winnie's favorite adolescent reading material included Heidi, Playmate magazine, the Nancy Drew mysteries, Robinson Crusoe, and Little Women. Heidi was her favorite.

Joyce Ritz recalls her beginning and continuing relationship with Winnie this way:

I'm proud to say I am Winnie Harris Kingman's best friend. So, I take great pleasure in recalling some of her early years. Perhaps I should state I'm really Winnie's second best friend, because her very best friend was Russ Kingman.

However, even before Russ, Winnie was a specially sweet person. My memories of our friendship are filled with many happy thoughts. We first met at an English Christmas party. Our fathers, who worked together, belonged to the Sons of St. George, an English lodge. Winnie and I were quite shy at first, but after an hour or two we were friends. This was the beginning of a 70-year friendship! Our parents came from England, so we had similar traditions and customs. We liked each other and were happy children. Money was a bit scarce then, but Winnie and I didn't know that; we were content with books, games, make-believe stories and two funny-looking stuffed animals. I don't remember us playing with dolls, just with an old teddy bear and a monkey.

Winnie took care of me when I had my tonsils out, and I stood by as she suffered through measles, mumps, and chicken pox. At the time of the Great Depression, Winnie's Mother and Dad moved into our home, and Winnie and I were soon closer than ever. As young girls we hiked in the Oakland hills, read books, and played outdoor games with our neighborhood friends. Somehow or other our parents found dimes so we could go to the Saturday matinees and have an extra nickel for penny candy. It also became clear that Winnie had to be in charge of the money because I lost my dime and nickel twice and she wouldn't go to the show without me. That was a real buddy!

We went to the same grammar school and we were made to take our studies very seriously. However, we were allowed to stay up late on Friday nights. We listened to our favorite radio program called The City of the Dead. I would be so scared I'd hide under the covers, but Winnie, who I'm sure was just as scared, would hold my hand and say, "Don't be afraid, I'm here." We both enjoyed books, Nancy Drew and Elsie Dinsmore being high on our list. Winnie would read to me and this was almost a fatal mistake for me. I was twelve years old when my friend finally said, "This is it. You have to learn to read on your own." My reading did improve but never my spelling. So if you find a misspelled word here, blame it on Winnie!

As the depression ended, Uncle George found work in Oakland, and Winnie moved to San Lorenzo. My Dad became Chief Steward and Correctional Officer for a new prison in San Francisco Bay and we moved to Alcatraz Island. These changes in location didn't stop Winnie and me from seeing each other. We could spend five cents to ride the streetcar to the Ferry Building in San Francisco, ten cents for the ferry ride to Oakland, and ten cents for the train to San Lorenzo (the reverse when Winnie came to see me on the Island). At ages thirteen and fourteen we could find our way around the Bay Area and San Francisco without help from anyone but each other. As we reached our high school years, we drifted apart somewhat. Winnie became very active in her church, and I had my friends on the Island. Our parents, however, were still close friends, and there were always birthday parties, special occasions, etc., and we were always happy to be together.

My friendship now had some serious competition. In 1941 along came a sailor boy called Russell Kingman. It soon became clear to me that someone very, very important had entered my friend's life. She was getting someone else for a best friend, and from the day of their marriage on November 1, 1941, Winnie did have a new best friend; she put her husband Russ first from then on. Still, happily for me, she kept me as her second best friend. No matter how far apart we were we kept in touch. Not too easy during the war years and telephone calls were too expensive. Cards and letters were our way of knowing where and how we were.

Russ and Winnie

Although the grips of the Depression were easing somewhat in 1939, when Winnie graduated, her parents did not have the money to send her to college even though she showed strong academic promise. She took a job with the Federal Government, Department of Agriculture, in San Francisco. There she worked as a clerk-stenographer for about a year to help with family expenses and to save what money she could for the day she would marry.

That day soon arrived. Rumblings of war were in the air, and the Alameda Naval Air Station had opened in early 1941. Russ, who was the second sailor assigned to the new air base, was living during the month of March in a small apartment over a grocery store in the town of Alameda. He preferred living off-base for the extra freedom it offered. A lady by the name of Mabel Adams owned a grocery store in the first floor of the apartment building. Mrs. Adams, a widow, had a very bad heart and was no longer able to drive. Russ became close friends with her through helping her in the store and doing odd jobs. Mabel asked Russ one Sunday to drive her to church, and Russ replied, "I'll do better than that, Mabel. I'll go with you."

In a taped interview with Winnie dated August 11, 1995, Winnie relates the details of how she met and married Russ:

Russ at that time was a nominal member of the Methodist Church. He was driving Mabel to the First Baptist Church of Alameda. He came in and sat in the back of the church; and just about the time the choir had come in (I was singing in the choir), he turned to Mabel and said, "Mabel, who is that girl third from the right in the back row?" She said, "That's Winnie Harris." He thought just for a moment and said, "I'm going to marry her." And that was it. I didn't even get a formal proposal. I was just told we were going to get married.

I first reacted to his advances by pushing him off. That same Sunday night he came back. We had a youth group at the church and an evening service. And after the evening service we hopped into several cars to go over to someone's house to have a "Singspiration." We would sit around and talk, sing, and have some refreshments. So there was nothing to do but have Russ go along to that.

I didn't fully realize at the time what he was doing. After the evening service everyone was going out to get in different cars. Most of us weren't driving then; most of us were just out of high school and most didn't have cars. I remembered that I had forgotten something that night, a notebook or something I had left in the church. So I went back, and when I returned to the front of the church, the pastor, who was waiting in his car for me, motioned for me to get in. The car was jammed to the gills. There were only two places I could squeeze in--on two laps. The lap on the far side of the car belonged to Warren Perry, and I was not about to sit on Warren's lap. So I climbed in the door nearest the sidewalk and sat on Russ's lap way up forward on his knees and leaned on the back of the front seat talking to someone. I didn't even talk to him. I didn't pay any attention to him that night. I tried not to, but he was putting on a real drive for me. I was going with another boy at the time.

His name was Dick Rice. He was about a year younger than I was. We had been going together twice. Once earlier, and we were now both out of high school and I was going with him again. I wouldn't talk to anybody else or date anybody else because I was going with Dick. So Russ tried right away to get a date with me, and I just pushed him aside.

I remember going out a few nights later. We all went to a see a friend off on the train. One of the young people was going back home or doing something, but the church group was all down at the station. Russ was there, and I couldn't get away from him. Every time I turned around, he was there beside me. I'd go over to talk to someone else, and there he'd be again. I was getting kind of disgusted. He kept calling me on the phone, asking me for a date. I'd say, "No, I'm going with Dick."

One night a few days later I met Dick coming home from work--we both worked in San Francisco--and I told him I was going to break up with him. I said there wasn't anybody else, that I just wanted to be free.

So the next time Russ called for a date, I said OK, I no longer belong to Dick. I guess we went to a movie that night, but I don't remember exactly what we did. Yes, the letter I just read from Russ said, "the movie that night"--but I don't remember what movie it was.

He was never a demonstrative person. He seldom said, "I love you," or anything like that, but he made such a push for me--because I was going with Dick for one thing--and another thing was that he just figured he had to get in right then and there.

So we started going together, and he phoned me every night--always at supper time. My poor father would say, "Why doesn't he call you when you're through eating?" Then he started coming down to the house almost every night--he was about three or four miles away. It was only about six weeks after we met that we announced our engagement. And it was just a few nights before that, evidently, that he had bought the ring. I didn't get a proposal. He just gave me the ring. One night, though, I do remember Russ saying to me, as we were sitting in the beautiful lobby of the Alameda Theater, "Well, someday we're going to have a home like that."

Six weeks later we announced our engagement, and six months later we were married in the First Baptist Church of Alameda, the one I was a member of. Fortunately, Russ was given permission to be married in civilian clothes. Already we were in an emergency situation before the war; and if he had waited a few more weeks, he would have had to wear his uniform everywhere at all times. He didn't want to get married in a uniform. He didn't want people to say I was marrying a sailor and that he had a girl in every port. So he was married in a tux and the whole works. We had three bridesmaids. Joyce Ritz was maid of honor. All three I had grown up with. Although we had a very nice wedding on a Saturday night, it rained. We went off on a honeymoon for two weeks to Southern California, Hollywood and North Hollywood--that area. On our first night we drove to a motel in San Jose for our first night. Russ had everything arranged. He liked to plan in advance. (By the way, that motel is still there. Russ and I spent our 25th wedding anniversary in the same room.) Russ was making $70.00 per month as a First Class Petty Officer--not much money. We couldn't afford to go off very far. He had bought a car after we had gotten engaged, so we drove down the coast to Los Angeles.

When we came back, we moved into brand-new Navy housing outside the air station, which is now part of Alameda College. We had a little house--a nice little place--had our furniture and settled down. By then it was the middle of November. During the first week in February, 1942, I got a phone call from Russ. "Start packing. We have to leave in two or three nights for Philadelphia."

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