Page 61 - Senior Link Magazine Spring 2022 - Online Magazine
P. 61

ARMY AIR CORPS
                                                                                              WORLD WAR II ERA



                                                                 Texas/Oklahoma Panhandle and one in Kansas.” Ken
                                                                 retired in 1989.
                                                                 Sadly, Ernees passed away in January 2019 at the
                                                                 age of 88. She and Kenneth were married for over 71
                                                                 years. The 95-year-old farm boy turned cadet turned
                                                                 mechanic turned salesman turned postal worker
                                                                 stays busy. His daughter, Laura Skeen, says, “He can
             “I went back to Texas Tech for a time and got to try   still fix about anything.” Kenneth may have never
             freshman English class all over again; I still didn’t   “gotten off the
             pass. I didn’t have any money to pay for school and   ground”, but
             have a place to live. I only had a bicycle, so I went   it appears the
             to work at Godell’s Service Station down on 16th    West Texas boy
             and Texas. I did everything there from pumping gas   figured out that,
             and changing tires to mechanic work. With the first   really, life is
             money I earned, I bought a very used 1929 Model A   what happens
             Ford coupe with a rumble seat. Ernees and I married   when you are
             on September 8, 1947. I was almost 21, and she was   “grounded”.
             just 17. We had two girls and a boy and six grand-
             and seven great-grandchildren.”

             Ken went to work for Furr’s Grocery in Lubbock
             and worked his way up from package boy to store
             manager. “For some reason, I decided to buy the
             old service station where I used to work on Texas      Kincaid Roofing
             Ave. We had commercial accounts and car dealers
             – we would clean up and re-do trade-ins so the car
             dealers could resell them. I never got any time off
             and always had lots of cars waiting.                       Proudly Salutes
             “So I went back to work at Furr’s and got good
             at selling. After Roy Furr died, I trained his son,    our Veterans
             Corky. I left Furr’s in 1962 and took the Civil
             Service exam. I became a sub letter carrier for 18
             months, then went into postal maintenance in
             1964. I had over 160 Post Offices to maintain in the
























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