Thursday, February 11, 2021
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I visited Grandpa Walt in late February 2020, and took an audio recording where he spoke about his life on the last day of our trip. I've written the following based on his recollection. It was nice to listen to the part where he said he had a good life. I hope you enjoy learning about or remembering from his memories.
Walt was raised in Warren, going to school and working on his family farm. English was his best subject in grade school, and Math was something he always found interesting. He attended and graduated from Warren High School where he loved playing football as left tackle and left guard when farm duties were done for the season, generally going to school three days a week as the teachers allowed him to work on his farm the other two days a week. He mentioned how helpful his geometry class was in one of his many extra jobs after high school delivering coal for 18 months until the coal companies went on strike.
His family farm and that of his future wife Lorraine were next to each other. Walt recalled going to choir practice with Lorraine and her sister Rosie, with his mother driving one week and Lorraine's brother driving other weeks. Their relationship started when Walt was supposed to meet a girl at a dance in February of 1946, and when she didn't show, danced with Lorraine instead and asked her to Prom that May. He tried calling her on the phone in the meantime, but had the wrong number and could not get through, then took someone else to prom. Lorraine "had nothing to do with him" that summer but eventually agreed to go on another date in January of 1947 after which they continued dating as 17 year olds.
The couple's dates included going to movies where Lorraine would get some rest against his shoulder after full days of work since she had left school early to work and support her family. Walt recalled dates dropping produce for his father at the eastern market, sitting together in his truck at 9:30pm and watching bread be made at the next building until the market opened for drop offs at 10pm. He recalled getting home late once on a Sunday night after helping Lorraine's brother Don at the Campbell farm, getting home after midnight, then being asked by his mother to drive back to the eastern market in the morning to watch their family stand with his brother Bob, and seeing Lorraine as a "second date" at the same market. Walt worked jobs delivering coal and driving fuel in gas trucks until the couple got married in September 1950. They continued to live at and support their family farms after their wedding, first renting a room at the Campbell farm, then moving back to the Trombley farm after his father's passing three months later.
Walt first worked on a golf course on Maple Lane from 1950 to 1954, converting what had been intended as a 6 week job into an extended occupation based on his good work. In 1954 Walt bought a 42-acre farm in Fairhaven growing tomatoes, cauliflower, cabbage, radishes. Harvesting the vegetables with just Lorraine and their children for ten years, until they sold half the farm to build a house in Lake Orion. He took on general construction work for extra income when farm harvests didn't go well, building schools and things like that, before circling back to the same Maple Lane golf course around 1963 where he worked on water system pipes, drainage, and helping with building efforts. He was then brought over to work on creating a new golf course on land that would not ideally support such an effort, and decided to get certified in Pontiac as a golf course superintendent as a career shift. He was also tasked to write answers about grass for a news article each week. He was a golf course superintendent for 20 years, then came down to Florida in 1985 and was a superintendent at Sunnybreeze golf course full time for the next ten years before switching to part time and later retiring in the 2000s.
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