This is my third
year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write
each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My
Trails into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in
new and exciting ways.
George J. Gorrell, born in 1915, grew up in Webb City,
Missouri. He worked a lot of small jobs in the area and then in 1940, he went
to Glendale, California to enroll in an aircraft mechanics course for a year.
Here is a photo of the Kidder’s OH shop, where George wrote on the back that he
“witnessed a major fire due to carelessness.”
He finished the training in July of 1941 and accepted a
Junior Mechanic job at the Sacramento Air Depot (later McClellan Air Field) in
Sacramento, California. It had a yearly salary of $1680.
He wrote that he stayed first at “the YMCA in downtown
Sacramento, then stayed at a boarding house at 819 16th Street
(which has long gone) near the old Governor’s Mansion. On 7th street I bowled in the
downstairs bowling alley and with a friend played handball. Also did some black and white film developing
and printing in the darkroom there.”
He took the bus to the base with other workers. When he
joined the Freeport Blvd. Christian Church, fellow member, Mrs. Hardin,
suggested he take a room at her home. She became a life-long friend and later
was a favorite of George’s children.
His work at the base, “I was assigned to work at the
landing gear shop which repaired shock struts, wheels and brakes. The first aircraft I worked on was a Boeing
two-engine bomber, B-10.”
He worked at the base until July 1943, when a “call for
volunteers for foreign service doing a similar type of work” was given. Since
it was not to be in the tropics, George signed up and was inducted 27 July 1943.
Copyright © 2020 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.
How is George related to you? Is he an uncle?
ReplyDeleteHe was my father-in-law.
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