Chapter 4. SUMMER CAMP (1953-1964)

Veterans Day

Veterans Day is a time to honor those who have served, are serving, and will serve in our nation's armed forces.  In keeping with this tradition, the following is a brief history of my own family's service, which began in the Revolutionary War, and has continued to the present day.

The tradition of military service is very strong in the Schumaker family.  Members of my extended family have served honorably in the military at least as far back as the mid-18^th Century.  My 4th Great Grandfather, George Shoemaker, served in the Fairfax Militia in 1758 and, during the Revolutionary War, in Captain Baxter's Company of Rockingham Militia. During the 18th, 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, most of my direct ancestors were farmers and clergy, and, with the exception of the Turners, appear not to have entered military service.  This changed, however, with the beginning of the Second World War. 

My Father

My father, Fred L Schumaker, served as a Captain in the Army Engineers from 1943 to 1946.  He designed topographic models of Pacific Islands, including one of Iwo Jima.  Drawing on his experience in the aircraft industry in the 1930s, his specialty was designing combat airfields. My Uncle Joe Matthews also joined the Army during the war, serving as an Infantry officer in the Pacific Theater.  My Uncle Jack Flowers served in the Army as an Infantry officer during the Korean War, earning a bronze star, and my Uncle Shirley Dean Flowers was an Air Force pilot for much of the Cold War.

Over the years, the family has also endured its share of sacrifice.  During the Civil War, my Great Grandfather, Frederick Samuel Turner, fought for the Union.  He was captured by the Confederates, but survived the war and lived to the ripe old age of 77.  His brother, my Great Granduncle, George Butler Turner, was not so lucky.  He could have bought his way out of the Union draft by paying $300, but he volunteered instead. 
He was killed at the Battle of Missionary Ridge in 1863, but not before leaving a detailed chronicle of his military experiences in hundreds of letters sent back to his parents. 

Ned Dybvig

Perhaps most tragically, my cousin, Ned Turner Dybvig, was killed in action in Vietnam.  Ned was a talented artist and an athlete, and a graduate of Cornell.  He was in top physical shape and highly intelligent.  He was an outdoorsman and skydived for fun.  He was drafted, and joined the 101st Airborne in 1967.  He was killed in a firefight near the ancient capital of Hue in April of 1968. 

Admiralty Arch, Leningrad 1972

Finally, I was also drafted into the Army in October of 1969.  I served for four years, taking Russian for 15 months at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California, and then working for three years at the White House Communications Agency as a Russian translator and communications specialist.  My experience in the Army set me on a path to a Foreign Service career.  

Chapter 3.8 Moving to St. Louis

Chapter 3.7 First and Second Grade 1953-55 Florence Bernd School

Chapter 3.6 Kindergarten 1952

Chapter 3.5 Four Years Old 1951

Chapter 3.4 Three Years Old 1950

 

Chapter 3.3 Two Years Old 1949

 

Chapter 3.2 One Year Old 1948

Chapter 3.1 Early Memories 1947

Chapter 3. MACON (1947-1955)

Family Origins

Excerpt from Chapter 1
My Father, Fred L. Schumaker (1908-1963)

Family Origins.
Family legend has it that my father's remote ancestors were Pennsylvania Dutch, who came to America from Holland in the seventeenth century at the invitation of William Penn. They reputedly settled in Germantown, once known as Shoemakertown, which is now a part of Philadelphia. Legend also has it that one of the Shoemakers founded the first tavern in the state.

Like many legends, it appears that large portions of this “family history” have been mixed up with the histories of other, more illustrious settlers. There were Schumacher families, Dutch Quakers, who immigrated to Germantown in the 1680's from the city of Kreigsheim in the Palatinate. One Schumacher came over in 1683 as an indentured servant to Francis Daniel Pastorius, the founder of Germantown. In 1709, most these Schumachers were naturalized and changed their names to the English spelling. For most of the early 18th Century, they lived in a small community called “Shoemakersville,” which was near Germantown. The Schumachers did intermarry with the original thirteen families of Germantown, but, most importantly for this story, none of them were directly related to members of my own family, who came from an entirely different region of Europe.

My own genealogical research indicates that my father's ancestors were actually from Alsace-Lorraine. Most evidence suggests that they were Protestant German farmers living in and around present-day Cleebourg, a small town in Lower Alsace, although before that they probably lived in Holland. It is unknown exactly why the family immigrated to America, although it is likely that they did so as a result of religious persecution. Under Louis XIV, the French annexed Alsace-Lorraine in the late 1600's and attempted to impose the French language and Roman Catholicism on the local population, a policy my ancestors would naturally have resisted.




The Schumaker family in the mid-1920's:

L.J. and his children Frederick, Virginia, Dorothy and Elsie.

 
My father's 4th Great Grandfather, Rudolph Schumacher, immigrated to Loudoun County, Virginia in 1752, along with his wife and many of his seven children. My father's 3rd Great Grandfather, George Shoemaker, farmed in Loudoun County, Virginia. He was married to Anna Maria Barbara of Salzburg, Austria, and had 10 children. Dad's 2nd Great Grandfather, George Shoemaker, Jr., was a farmer. He married Margaret Miller and moved to Armstrong County, Western Pennsylvania, in 1802. They had 10 children. Dad's Great Grandfather, Daniel Shoemaker, was a Pennsylvania farmer. He married Catherine Ringer around 1830 and had 11 children. Dad's Grandfather, Lebbeus James Shoemaker, married Emily Coulter in 1878 and had six children. Lebbeus was a Protestant minister in Western Pennsylvania in the late 1800's and early 1900s. Dad's Father, my Grandfather, Lorraine James (L.J.) Schumaker, married Dora Turner in 1907 and had four children: Frederick (my father), Dorothy, Elsie and Virginia. L.J. Schumaker also started the American Cone and Pretzel Company in Philadelphia in the early 1900s, a growing business that remained in the family until the early 1960's. The Schumaker family has lived in America for eight generations.