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Notable Relatives
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Notable Relatives
For some time I have intended to write a series of biographical sketches about relatives of us all or close family friends that I knew perhaps better then you did because you are so much younger than these relatives. I will frankly admit that none of these people are famous nor are they so unusual that they would stand out in a crowd. They were rather plain people but in them I found a wealth of love and care and concern that made me happy that they were there and I want to perpetuate if I can their lives so that you may see a glimpse of the people that they were. All of the people that I write about here are now dead. Many of them you will never have heard of or had any desire to know; skip those if you like.
Very few of us have the originality and creative thought of a Galileo or a Descartes. Instead of thinking out our view of the world we mostly develop it cafeteria style from those with whom we associate. We become products of all the people around us and especially those for whom we have a great respect. I think that those people that I have outlined are in large measure the source of my world view. I learned a little in emulation of all the people I have listed below.
Weldon Hamilton
Weldon was my mother’s younger brother. He was the only son in a family of four daughters. His parents were Walter Thomas Hamilton and Mary Ellen Dennis Hamilton who I called “Mama” and “Grandad” all my life. As I have explained in other writings I used to spend the summers of my childhood at my Grandad’s farm so that family came to be my second family as I grew up. ,During the summers that I spent there both Weldon and his younger sister Rowena were still living at home and had not yet married. Weldon was born in 1914 on May 14 so he was only thirteen when I was born and by the time I was old enough to have memories of him he was in his last teen years and was approaching young adulthood.. He was one of my heroes and all of my life I longed to be like him in many ways.
He was an unusually talented , gifted and gentle man. He was a master craftsman and I have often said of him that given the tools and the time he could build a Swiss watch and if necessary he could make his own tools. In later life he became a general supervisor of aircraft assemblers at North American Aviation during World War II and after the war he was a Superintendent of Manufacturing for successively Temco Aircraft Corp, , Ling-Temco-Vought Corp, and finally for Chance Vought Aircraft Corp. In addition to being an artisan he was a skilled and effective leader and manager and won significant recognition in the industry as a manager. Since I worked in the same companies that he did I knew many of the people who worked under his direction. Since our names were different very few people at that company knew that we were related and I received many candid and honest appraisals of Weldon’s character as boss; they were all favorable and laudatory.
I came to know Weldon best though as a helper to his father in running the 160 acre tenant farm in Hale County Texas near Plainview. It was an irrigated farm supplied with water from the wonderful Ogallala aquifer which underlies a great part of the high plains of the Texas Panhandle. The water was lifted to field level at the rate of twelve hundred gallons per minute by a huge single cylinder diesel engine of British Manufacture that had a most unusual method of starting up. On top of the single cylinder was a round knob about the size of a softball which was heated red hot with a blow torch. When this had been accomplished Weldon would run to the side of the engine which had a huge six foot diameter flywheel with five spokes and would walk the spokes of the wheel turning it backward to compress the fuel mixture in the cylinder until it would explode and suddenly kick forward with enough force to carry it into the next combustion cycle. When Weldon would feel the compression tightening up his walk on the spokes he would jump off the flywheel just before the ignition of the first cycle of the engine. He was only thrown through the tin top of the pumphouse once that I knew about.
My Grandfather was a very traditional man and for many years did not want a tractor. He used as a justification of this position the theory that a tractor tended to pack the ground in the field.. He preferred to continue to operate the farm with a four horse team. Weldon finally prevailed on him however and they bought a tractor which was his pride and joy. He loved all things mechanical. Weldon had a an unusual trait which a few master craftsmen have. He could disassemble that tractor or an automobile down to the bare frame and put it together again wearing a white shirt and never get a mark on his clothes. He was the cleanest worker I have ever known and the tools in his tool chest were immaculate and orderly.
Weldon also had the capability of assuming, in jest, a facial expression that scared small children almost beyond measure. When tried on my cousins and I who were about nine years old by this time it did not work and merely amused us but the smaller children would be petrified. Weldon had a good sense of humor. He played the harmonica well and the Jew’s Harp and frequently entertained we younger children with concerts. He was aware of some of our major sins and never betrayed us to the adult world.
He was not without health problems. He had frequent tonsilitis and had his tonsils removed when a young adult and the operation was not without complications. He had severe indigestion as a teen-ager which my grandfather blamed on his eating bakery bread and prepared cereals rather than biscuits and oatmeal.
Weldon married in 1938 to Leona MacElroy that I thought was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. Weldon came to Dallas and went through a training program to become an Aircraft Assembler on the P51 Fighter line at Grand Prairie. In an incredibly short time he was a supervisor and remained in management with that company and its corporate successors for thirty years or so until he retired.
All of his life Weldon loved cars. When he would get a car new to him he would park it in his driveway on a white sheet to check for drips of hydraulic oil or lubricatiuon grease or engine oiul from a loose fitting. He would systemetically torque all oif the frame bolts and every threaded device he could reach from benjeath the car to assure that there was no loose hardware under there. As a general rule the interior of his car was always neat and clean no matter what its age
There is no doubt that smoking was a contributor to Weldon’s ultimate death. He was a heavy smoker for many years and he died of respiratory complications.
He was my mentor in more ways than most people knew. His advice was quietly and kindly given and I never knew it to be in error. He died in 1998 and I have since sorely missed him.
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