What Happened in 1914? AND Coast Guard Memories

 Originally Written Between 2013-2015  

Albina Valenta, a young dressmaker from Chicago traveled to a little town near Duluth to visit relatives during the summer of 1913.  And that is where she met her future husband, John Lehecka.  The young and handsome, John, worked as a hired hand on one of the farms in the area.  They met at a local dance where John played the concertina.  They soon learned that they had a mutual talent for dancing waltzes and polkas.  They “courted” for the two weeks of Albina’s vacation and then corresponded through the mail for the next several months.

 

The next time they saw each other was when they were married on January 10, 1914.  John and Albina were my grandparents.  I have many of the letters they wrote to each other which were filled with their individual hopes for the future, their mutual love of God, and eventually, their love for each other. 

 

I wrote about my grandparents a couple of years ago and so I won’t repeat the remainder of their love story.  Besides, Lyle had such a great list of 1914 “happenings” that I thought I’d also choose one from his list.  And, that is:  “The Coast Guard was formed in 1914.

 

I chose to write about the Coast Guard because I just happened to have married one of the finest Seaman Reservists they ever produced:  my husband, Norm.  Norm has many stories to tell about his six years in the Coast Guard Reserves and I’ll share a few with you; however, I think I must share some history of the Coast Guard first.

 

Well, first of all, the Coast Guard was actually formed from the merger of the Revenue Cutter Service and the U.S. Life-Saving Service on January 28, 1915, as an organization under the U.S. Department of the Treasury.  Not quite 1914…. But I figure they must have started working on this merger in 1914 so this counts as a 1914 event.  And since there isn’t anyone here that was alive at that time to disprove my statistics, I’m considering this “the truth.”

 

The United States Coast Guard is a branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the country’s seven uniformed services.  The Coast Guard is a maritime, military, multi-mission service unique among the U.S. military branches for having a maritime law enforcement mission and a federal regulatory agency mission as part of its mission set.  It operates under the U.S. Department of Homeland Security during peacetime, and can be transferred to the U.S. Department of the Navy by the U. S. President at any time, or by the U. S. Congress during times of war.  To date, this has happened twice, in 1917 during World War I and 1941 during World War II.

 

Created by Congress in 1790 at the request of Alexander Hamilton as the “Revenue Marine,” it is the oldest continuous seagoing service of the United States.  Its original purpose was that of a collector of customs duties in the nation’s seaports.

 

Now, back to the stories of a real Coast Guardman.  Norm had just graduated from St. Thomas in 1960 and because of the draft, his number was coming up.  Most of his buddies were joining the Army or the Air Force or Army Reserves.  However, Norm took a little bit longer to decide on which branch of the service would be graced with his presence.  One day, he met a former neighbor walking down the street dressed in the Coast Guard “whites.”  Norm didn’t even know that the Coast Guard existed in Minnesota!  So, his neighbor filled him in and told him about the Coast Guard Reserves.  Norm then joined the Coast Guard Reserves.  One had to go to 13 weeks of Boot Camp in Cape May, New Jersey.  Norm got sick with pneumonia one of the weeks of Boot Camp and therefore, had to stay an extra week in order to graduate with a class of strangers.

 

One thing that his neighbor didn’t tell him was that in order to be in the Coast Guard, it would be nice if one knew how to swim.  Guess who didn’t know how to swim?  Yep! I’m sure you can picture each guy standing on the edge of the diving board five stories up from the swimming pool.  Now, picture those who were really scared being pushed off the board with a long stick.  And, oh….. I forget to mention that all of the sailors were naked.  You really don’t have to try to picture that!  Norm finally got the dog paddle down pretty well and managed to swim the required number of laps in order to pass swimming.  While Boot Camp is always considered the worst way to spend three months, they did get some weekends off from duty and went to New York.  Since he was in uniform, he got to go to the front of the lines to see Broadway shows.  Yes, he had quite the hard duty!

 

So, after Boot Camp, Norm spent the next few months in Croton, Connecticut for training.  After that time, Norm went back to St. Paul, got a job, and for the next five and a half years, spent every Thursday evening attending a Reserve meeting at Navy Island.  His quote “job” unquote was a Yeoman (which means a typist in non-military language).  It didn’t matter that he didn’t know how to type.  He soon learned, however.

 

Besides his weekly Thursday-night meetings, Norm was required to attend a two-week camp once a year for those years of in-active duty.  Since he was in a water-centered branch of the Armed Forces, he had to be stationed near water.  Poor Norm….. one spring, he had to spend two weeks in Bermuda, and other years, Norfolk, Virginia, and Jacksonville, Florida. 

 

Actually, one year wasn’t quite a piece of cake.  He was stationed in St. Louis, Missouri.  In August.  Norm told me that one doesn’t quite know the definition of “hot and humid” until one stays in Missouri in the summertime.  Anyway, one hot night, Norm was “volunteered” to go in a rowboat with a couple of other Reservists to find the body of a man who had drowned in the river.  It was Hot.  Humid.  Nighttime.  Mosquitoes.  Snakes.  I’m not sure about alligators, but I’ll include them since this makes Norm’s story even more miserable.

 

Well, they dragged the river for quite a while with no luck.  It eventually was really too dark out to search so they went ashore.  They ended up on a piece of land owned by some rich people having a party in their mansion!  Norm and his fellow searchers were immediately invited to “cool off” in their home and to join the party.  They were given lots of food and drink.  Their hosts even insisted that they stay in their guesthouse overnight.  Being in uniform really does have its advantages.  They never did go back to search for the body.  It was eventually found a week later. 

 

Fast forward to June 1979.  Norm and I and our four children took our first driving trip to the East Coast.  We were in the vicinity of Croton, Connecticut where Norm had his training.  The camp was gone and the University of Connecticut had a campus there.  We drove around the campus and soon found the famous anchor that Norm had to guard many times.  It was still there.  He had done his job and had done it well.  My Hero!