What would you do if you found a vintage, broken rolltop desk on the side of the road?
My father, Frank Claycomb, and his good friend, Otto Eickhoff, did find one that had obviously fallen off a vehicle. They, of course, picked up all the pieces and brought them home. It took a while, but they put it all back together and here they are posing with the rebuilt rolltop desk. 1989.
In the 1940s My father, Frank Claycomb, went with customers to Mexico on fishing trips. These are a few of the surviving photos.
I found an unused pack of business cards for Dad. Anaconda, Cincinnati, Ohio. Dad never transferred to the Cincinnati office.
He worked for Anaconda in St. Louis, transferred to Detroit, and again to Los Angeles. The family lived on Stanley Hills Drive in Hollywood in 1939 and during the Second World War. Not an easy time, but they liked the Southern California winters more than those in the Midwest.
Dad left Anaconda when they wanted to transfer him to Cincinnati. He took a job in San Diego with Pacific Wholesale Electric Company in 1945. I was born in San Diego rather than Ohio.
And that made all the difference? Who knows?
My sister, Jeanie, waiting for Dad (on right) to return from a sales trip. Taken about 1946 at the train station in San Diego, California.
Today would have been Frank Claycomb’s 107th birthday.
My father, Frank Claycomb (3rd from left), with golfing friends (or work associates?) at the Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, Michigan. Probably late 1930s.
In the first blog post I questioned whether Dad had gotten this car. There’s no photo of it. But he did get it. He went to Detroit from Los Angeles to pick it up and drive it home.
We can follow his route from Detroit – he first visited family in DeKalb, Illinois and then Wayne, Nebraska. Then Denver and south to Albuquerque, New Mexico. Holbrook, Kingman, Barstow, to Hollywood – sounds like Route 66. Then he used it as he called on customers in southern California and Arizona.
Here’s the description of the car and his contract.
Wouldn’t it be fun to do that same trip today in a 1940 Ford convertible?
A letter written to my father (Frank Claycomb) when he was 5 years old. From his Uncle John (Bressler).
June 11, 1920
Dear Frank:
Has your pony come yet? Tell your Daddy I have been by Mrs. Snyder’s several times, but have never been in. What do you do all the time?
I will send this letter to you by airplane to Omaha and then from there to Wayne on the train. With love, Uncle John.
This is my father, Frank Claycomb, with a dog, and I think, my grandfather’s team. That would make it be Wayne, Nebraska. And probably the early 1930s.
These are two of my father’s i.d. cards. One is his student activity card for Wayne (Nebraska) State Teachers College. It surprises me that it would cost $3.25 for one semester in 1933. Seems pricey.
The other is his Michigan driver’s license for 1936. It’s printed on shiny paper – like photo paper. He was 21 and would be getting married that April.
Like many young men, my father, Frank Claycomb, loved cars. I just found some old negatives of him and his friends posing with cars. Dad is on the left in the first three photos – not sure he owned that car. All the men look like they could be in Dillinger’s gang. These would have been taken 1933-35.
Dad in the passenger seat.
This I Leave 