Clarence Harry Scrivens Jr. (1919 - 1989)

Born 13 Jun 1919 in Williamstown, MA

Ancestors

Husband of Doris Pauline (Fountain) Scrivens — married 22 Apr 1946 in North Adams, MA

Descendants

Died 2 Jun 1989 at age 69 in North Adams, MA

Problems/Questions Profile manager: Bob Scrivens [send private message]

Biography

I remember my father as a kind of "hard luck" guy. He was born into a big family that lived on Front St. in North Adams. He had to quit school after the 8th grade to help support that family as the other older siblings did. I'm not sure if his enlistment in the Army paratroopers on the eve of World War II was patriotism, looking for adventure, or looking for an out. Maybe a mixture of the three.

The Public Record

US Public Record Index, Vol. 2 has Jack born at 118 Church St, Williamstown, MA, 01267. (This was a surprise, since I thought the whole family resided in North Adams, MA, at least since his father, Clarence Sr., was married.) If that is true, it's ironic, because my mother, his wife, Doris, lived in Proprietor's Fields, an elderly housing project on the same street, before she died. There is no house at 118 now, but Google Earth puts that address just past the corner where Southworth St. meets Church St. and on Proprietor's Fields' property. It is also just up the street from the new Williamstown Elementary School. Meanwhile, there is a document listing his birth in North Adams, with his family living on 53 Montgomery St. (see copy).

The Massachusetts, Birth Index, 1860-1970 has his middle name listed as "Harry," not Henry. His draft registration also uses Harry as does his newspaper obituary. My recollection is that he used both Harry and Henry because there was some uncertainty there.

1920 United States Federal Census shows Jack as 4th born in his family. His father was 25 at the time. Note, however, that this census lists his birth in North Adams. So, if my father was born in Williamstown, he lived there with his family for the briefest time.

1930 US Census has him living at home with his parents, attending school, with eight siblings, and his grandfather, Frederick Reginald Scriven. (He attended the same elementary school as I did, St. Joseph's School, a free Catholic parish school of St. Francis Church.)

US Cities Directory for 1930--1939 had the family living on 115 Front St. in N.Adams, MA, where his father was listed as a rug salesman (with his brother) and a carpenter. In 1939, Jack was working as a 20 year old clerk for the Municipal Market.

An article in The North Adams Transcript dated July 16, 1942 [1] , tells how Jack Scrivens received his "wings" after four weeks of paratrooper training at Fort Benning, GA. He was living on Center St. at the time. After serving with his Company K National Guard unit that was federalized in 1941, he volunteered for the paratroopers. He received training in jumping and packing his parachute. The article also mentions that his brother Hank was, at that point, a corporal in the Marines.

U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946 state this about Clarence H Scrivens, Jr: Enlistment Date: 16 Jan 1941, (age 21), Potsdam, NY, National Guard, infantry. Education listed as grammar school. Occupation: Semi-skilled chauffeurs and drivers, bus, taxi, truck, and tractor. (I think he may have driven a bus locally for a while, like his father-in-law, Bill Fountain.) Height is 6 ft. but weight was only 130 lbs. Release date: May 16, 1945.

The Collins engagement in 1942

An article in the North Adams Transcript, June 12, 1942, was headlined "Frances Loretta Collins Engaged to Pvt. Scrivens." It went on to say that Frances' mother, Lillian, announced the engagement of her daughter to my father who was at the time stationed at Fort Benning, GA with no date set for the wedding. The engagement was announced the day after her graduation from North Adams State Teachers' College in the same newspaper. I had heard nothing about this while I was growing up or in my adulthood until, , almost accidentally, I came across the article while doing research. (See Frances L. Collins for more details on her.) [2] Frances married a man named John Nelson Lamoureaux in 1945. My father married my mother on April 22, 1946.

There are plenty of questions about this engagement, but only speculation for answers, and nobody to confirm them. Foremost among them was whether the "engagement" with the undetermined wedding date meant anything other than a young couple trying to hold onto their love while a World War pulled them apart. At the opposite extreme was the question of whether the marriage was somehow forced by pregnancy, and if so, what happened next. There is no record of a birth in North Adams in that time frame by anyone named Collins or Scrivens. But there was no wedding either. Frances had a short-lived membership in The Cadet Nursing Corps which she began in September, 1943, but ended by her withdrawal in October, the same year. Her abortive enlistment may have had something to do with her engagement--or the breaking off of it. Then, there was the wide gulf in education between college graduate Frances Collins and 8th grade graduate, Jack Scrivens. Whatever the case, by 1945, she was wed to another man, and my father, a year later to my mother.

In 1948, the US Cities Directory lists him living at 138 E. Quincy St. with my mother. This was the year I was born. It was noted in The North Adams Transcript [3]

Life in North Adams around 1948

A snapshot of what life was like for my father in North Adams on the day I was born could be derived from The North Adams Transcript, April 6, 1948. There were showers that ended in the evening; the temperature ranged from a low of 35 to a high of 48, and it was supposed to be sunny, but cooler the next day. The big headline of the day was how United Mine Workers Union President, John L. Lewis, disobeyed a court order to bring the union mine workers back to work. (Interesting because, when my father was president of his local union, it was a UMW local--even though he worked for a tannery, not a mining operation.) The lead photo showed a crash of a British European Airways plane in Berlin. Meanwhile, tensions eased in negotiations with the Soviet Union over the post-war partition of Berlin. President Truman was expected to name the head of a car company as the head of the European Recovery Program. Locally, five unions fought over the right to represent the workers of Sprague Electric Co. and Sprague's took out a full page add urging workers to accept their current contract offer, which included six paid holidays, and a year end bonus for a minimum of $20. The R. J. Weden Tannery, where my father worked, continued to negotiate their contract after a brief walkout. A fire destroyed a barn on Daniels Road. There was a special at The Boston Store for Oxford shoes with Cuban heels for $1.99 each. An editorial asked, "Does North Adams really need a big airport?" In a column, "Ask the Transcript," one person asked how much the subsistence allowance was for a veteran with one dependent attending college full time. The answer: $105. There was no sports page. On the other hand, there was a comics page, the lead ones being Popeye, Terri and the Pirates, Blondie, and Henry; on the same page was a listing of radio programs (Transcript News, The Tommy Dorsey Show, and Luncheon Concert) and the nightly programs on network TV (which included comedians Bob Hope and Milton Berle).

The North Adams City Directory in 1950 gives our address as 281 Houghton St. This was a duplex home which, I'm told, was purchased with the GI Bill as downpayment. More about that later.

In 1955, we were living at 1565 Massachusetts Ave. in N. Adams. After that, we moved to 19 Gallup St., then to 208 E. Quincy St. (all in North Adams), and finally to a double width mobile home on 21 Overlook Ter. in Adams (which my grandmother Fountain gave to my mother and moved in with them.)

An article in The North Adams Transcript on April 21, 1958, listed Jack Scrivens as vice president of the Company K Oldtimers Association, a group of retired National Guardsmen who participated in WW II. [4] In The North Adams Transcript, North Adams, Massachusetts, Dec 9 1959, he is mentioned as president of the organization and planning a New Year's party.

Dad was a Lefty

Dad was a complete lefty, except in baseball where he switch hit. He had some typical left-handed problems, like an occasional stutter and letter reversals. His handwriting was actually pretty good, although he didn't think so, and regarded it as "hen-scratching." He had a terrible time (like me) with directions. I got the impression that, when he was in school he had a hard time; probably he would have been labeled "learning disabled" today, and that may have been the other reason he quit school after 8th grade. He didn't read much, but did read the North Adams Transcript, the local newspaper, faithfully every day. (I can still see him holding up the paper and tipping his head back so he could read through his bifocals.)

A Paratrooper in WW II

The hard luck I spoke of earlier probably started in the Army. There was the malaria, a broken leg during one combat jump, and a nervous breakdown where he was in "a padded cell" (his words for it) in England for a time (no doubt, PTSD). He also told a story of how he accidentally shot another soldier while cleaning his gun. He had nightmares about this and other war experiences. There was an ambush he said his unit walked into at a place in the Kasserine Pass. (More than likely, that was Faïd Pass, where "US armored forces had fallen victim to an old German tactic, previously employed with much success against British forces. The German tank retirement was a ploy, and when the Panzers reached their old positions, with U.S. armor in hot pursuit, a screen of German anti-tank guns opened up, destroying nearly all the American tanks. A U.S. forward artillery observer whose radio and landlines had been destroyed by shellfire recalled, "It was murder. They rolled right into the muzzles of the concealed eighty-eights, and all I could do was stand by and watch tank after tank blown to bits or burst into flames or just stop, wrecked. Those in the rear tried to turn back, but the eighty-eights seemed to be everywhere." (See Kasserine Pass)

Dad fought mainly in the North Africa and Italian campaigns. The Kasserine Pass incident mentioned above was during the North African Campaign in Tunisia. In Sicily and in Anzio, Italy, he was part of an amphibious assault, ironic considering his training as a paratrooper. The battle for Sicily was over quickly, but Anzio turned sour after the initial success of surprise. (See Battle of Anzio) There was mention in the family of the fact that he jumped once in combat with a broken leg and was sent back to base. That may have been Normandy, although records do not support that. In general, Dad refused to talk about the War. He said those who did "hadn't seen any real combat." That says something right there. (See [Airborne During WW II] for details of what Jack did while he was in the army paratroopers.) The chronology up to and including the battle for Anzio, Italy, matches what my father told me of his experiences in the war.)

Here is a touching story my cousin Jack Swift told me about my father. Jack, as a boy, was with my father's mother and father when they drove to the train station to pick my father up after he was mustered out of the service. Being poor, they didn't have much to offer him by way of a celebration, so "Grammie," as Jack Swift called her, made up a bowl of spaghetti for him. Jack remembers my father crying as he ate the spaghetti, and that made a powerful impression on cousin Jack: it was the first time he had ever seen a grown man cry before. Later, when my father coached the Elk's Little League team in North Adams, cousin Bob DeSanty became his assistant coach, then cousin Jack Swift became Bob's, then I became Jack's. It was nice family continuity.

Jack, the Family Man

"Jack" was quite close to his family. He loved taking us to his father's camp in Rowe, MA on weekends and sometimes for a few days of vacation there during the summer. His brother Hank spoke of a touching reunion when they were both in training in the South before the War. (Scrivens' Ancestral Book, p. 102) You got the feeling that they always stuck together. Bill, unlike Hank, lived in town, and we saw quite a bit of him and his family. We used to eat breakfast a lot as a family at Dilego's Coffee Shop after Sunday Masses. The whole family was very religious and used to get together after Mass a lot like that at that restaurant on Eagle St. in North Adams.

That tough luck followed him into his first home purchase on Quincy St. where he used the GI Bill. It was a two tenement house, and he rented the other part to his father. They had problems, I think, because Clarence Sr. used to drink and throw his money around, and my dad resented the fact that his father didn't treat his mother better. My father finally sold the house at a loss, mainly to avoid the constant friction with his father. "After all," my mom said, "he couldn't evict his own parents." Dad and mom were renters after that until they moved to Adams with my mother's mother, in the mobile home he bought with my grandmother's property as collateral.

Work and the labor union

My father worked in R.J. Weeden Tannery in Blackington during my childhood. There, he was president of his local union, a chapter of I.U.E., for over 20 years. He had a reputation of sticking up for the underdog and said management used to try to cheat some of the uneducated workers out of their wages. The owners' son-in-law, Werner Smith, used to ask him "why he fought for these guys?" that they were "just bums." There was one retarded guy named Jo Jo who he always used to stick up for. The other workers sometimes did mean things to him, like pulling his pants down on the shipping elevator and leaving him there like that. But my father had made a promise to Jo's father before he died to look out for him, and he stuck to it. So, this labor union background explains a lot of my politics. I worked there for four summers in later high school and college. I doubt any of my friends had harder jobs, but I really got a taste of how hard my dad worked. Eventually, he hurt his back on the job and never fully recovered after two back operations. He had to go on disability. Had he gotten a job he applied for as custodian of the local Armory, the back injury would no doubt have never happened. (Another bad break, since he was all but promised the job until a political fix aced him out of it.)

Memories growing up

My fondest memories of him are when I was a boy. He played baseball a lot with me and became my Little League coach. Most of the kids loved him. There was one in particular named Joe who grew up with a big family but no father and lived on River St., one of the poorest sections of town. To this day, Joe's always had kind things to say about my Dad, his surrogate father for a while. Simple things like going out for ice cream after games stand out. Pitching me extra batting practice when I was in a hitting slump. He used to enjoy buying me comic books. We used to listen to Notre Dame football and Red Sox games on the radio together and watch Celtics games on our black and white TV. He also made me a fan of Hank Aaron, the home run king, who started his career as a member of the Boston Braves. Later on, sending me to Notre Dame was a very big deal for him and my mother. He would often say, he didn't know "where I came from" (because I did so much better in school than he did). When you think about it, it's hard to overestimate the sacrifice they made to do that. He especially took a vicarious joy in my Notre Dame experience.

My biggest regret is that the closeness we had when I was young didn't survive into adulthood. Part of it was the education, which he was so proud of getting me, also created a distance in interests and attitudes. The other thing was that I was his only child, and his expectations for visits, family time, and things like that were pretty high. He wanted us with them every holiday. He also suffered from depression once he was forced to quit work because of his back, and that played into it, too. I'm sorry things couldn't have gone better.

My Dad died of a stroke on Memorial Day at his brother Bill's house. I always said going quickly like that isn't a bad way to go when you consider the alternatives. Did he deserve better from life? Of course he did, just like most kids who grew up in the teeth of the Great Depression. He worked really hard and was a kind and decent man. If there were any justice, the American Dream would have treated him better.

Sources

Personal Knowledge.

Massachusetts, Birth Index, 1901-1960 and 1967-1970 Births 1916-1920

Clarence H Scrivens in the U.S. Public Records Index, 1950-1993, Volume 2 (listed POB as 118 Church St. Williamstown)

US Census for 1920, 1930

North Adams City Directories, 1930-1955.

U.S. World War II Army Enlistment Records, 1938-1946, Clarence H. Scrivens,Jr.

The North Adams Transcript [5] --June 12, 1942, “Frances Loretta Collins Engaged to Pvt. Scrivens” , Ancestry.com.

Massachusetts Death Index, 1970-2003, Adams, for Clarence Scrivens

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Robert Scrivens for starting this profile. Click the Changes tab for the details of contributions by Robert and others.

Thanks to uncle Hank Scriven and cousin Jack Swift for some good stories.

Click to the Changes page for the details of edits by Robert and others.