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Ripley Roots |
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Ripley
Genealogy Moschel
Genealogy
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1963
I wanted to go further. I even had an application to join the Peace Corps after Sargent Shriver came to campus, calling us to arms to help with the problems of the world. I wanted to be involved. I wanted to help. I wanted to leave Illinois and the farm. My parents were less than enthusiastic about the Peace Corps idea and stifled my even filling out the long application. Instead I came home that first summer after college and drove my grandfather's 1953 white Chevy every day to and from work. The one-way trip was a total of five miles. The scene was same every day. I went down the gravel driveway of the farm, looked to my left at the oncoming cars going south on Route 66 and crossed over into the median strip when it was safe to do so. Straight across from me was the Ocoya Co-op Grain elevator looming up what seemed like a lofty 100 feet into the air. Then I looked right and watched for the traffic going north on Route 66 and slide into the mighty highway to start the five-mile trek to work. As I drove to work that summer, the days were much the same, hot, often humid, and hazy only as it can be in Illinois as the summer heat builds up day after day, only to be changed by the onslaught on lightening and thunderstorms that never ceased to scare the living daylights out of me, especially at night. About half way into town I passed the Illinois State Police Headquarters on my left. The pinkish, grey building with the thick rounded glass bricks seemed elegant to me. The state police cars were poised and ready to rush to any crisis on the road. Nearing town, the state correctional facility (we called it the pen) was on my right. The facility was large and a major employer in town, but because it was not a place to go or see, it was just there like the corn and bean fields surrounding it. The summer passed, measuring corn and bean compliance for the federal government off of aerial maps. The tasks of this job were quite precise and certainly important to the farmer trying to stay in compliance with the government regulations. The task had two parts. Part one was someone going out in the field and actually measuring how much crop was planted and putting that information on an aerial map. Part two, where I came in, was figuring the acreage off the aerial maps that had been plotted. The task required a lot of math. It was not a job for a math phobic, which I was not. The highpoint of the summer was seeing Jane everyday at work. She, too, was going to Illinois State; and she drove into work from Odell, five miles north of Pontiac. The other highpoint at work was being taken out by the office boss to have a soda during one work day. This was not really as nice as it seems since our boss, who was about 45 years my senior and quite strict, only did this when he had been very angry with you. The soda routine was his way of making up. I had seen him do it with other coworkers. I can't remember why he was mad at me, but I clearly remember the soda experience. He came into our work pen, wiggled his finger at me to join him, and we went in his car the several blocks downtown to the drugstore and enjoyed our two sodas. Mom and Dad during the summer of 1963 were probably much like they had been most summers before and after. The crops had been planted in spring and now they were growing. My brother, Ray, and his wife, Janice, lived on a nearby farm as tenants and the two families farmed together. Ray's two sons were 6 and 3 and Janice was pregnant again. I was ready for the summer to be over. I was no longer taken with our small community and the rhythm between farming, school, and church. I don't even remember seeing or talking with any Sullivans during the summer. I must have, but I don't remember. Probably now as I look back on it, the three oldest Sullivan "girls" had already left our community. They were all flying the coop. And I wanted to do the same. I wanted to return to college as a sophomore. My first year had been enjoyable and I worked hard at getting good grades. I would again be roommates with Janet and we would live on the fourth floor at the end of the hallway in the ten-story highrise dorm named Atkin-Colby. Janet and I had purposely chosen the fourth floor room. Rules allowed residents on the fourth floor to take the elevator. Floors 2 and 3 could not. We figured fourth floor had it coming and going; we could use the elevator, but if there was a long lineup for the elevator, we could use the stairs without being entirely worn out. The end of the hall naturally meant we had neighbors on only one side and less noise. Our plans worked and we got the room we wanted. Fall semester started and I worked as a typist for a faculty member in the political science department. I began to realize how much I loved the social sciences. Business was my major, and it seemed practical, but my heart was with courses in history, political science, and economics.
It was only later that Kennedy being Catholic AND Irish began to have significance to me. |
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I
turned 19 in the fall of 1963 and had just finished a second summer of
working at the ASCS at the USDA. Translated, that means the Agricultural
Stabilization and Conservation Service at the United States Department
of Agriculture in Pontiac, Illinois. I was also restless at being home
for the entire summer after finishing my freshmen year at Illinois State
Normal University. The freedom of college had made me a bit restless with
life on the farm on Route 66. I wanted to be someplace more "exciting,"
even if I could not define what or where that was. Traveling was becoming
a passion, but it's reality had been confined to trips with my parents
out west and to Wisconsin and Minnesota and other surrounding states.
For
all in my generation, you know what you were doing on November 22, 1963.
I was in my dorm room doing some last minute cramming for an accounting
exam that was to be at 2 p.m. My roommate was not there. I must have heard
something in the hall from someone and turned on the radio. It was true.
President Kennedy was shot. Then I heard he was dead. I knelt down by
the bed and said whatever I did in prayer to try to take comfort, any
comfort. President Kennedy and the First Lady had meant so much to me.
They represented style, grace, dignity, humor, wit, intelligence, elegance,
and hope. Most importantly hope. There was the vision as a young person
that you could be involved and make a difference. Even more important
for me was that they were Catholic. He had made it to the White House
being a Catholic. This meant a great deal to me.