A while back I was going through a box of old family pictures when, as sometimes happens, I came across several items that distracted me totally from my original reason for going through the box. When this sort of thing happens it can be a real adventure as memories, many of which you have filed away and forgotten, come back into focus and lead you to additional memories.

Tucked in with the pictures was a receipt which happened to be a paid copy of a hospital bill from St. Mary’s Hospital in Milwaukee, dated July 7, 1945. The hospital building I was born in was a five-story red brick structure built in 1909 and still stands today but is dwarfed by what is now the campus of Ascension Columbia St. Mary’s Hospital on the shore of Lake Michigan.

The hospital bill was very interesting. In those days mothers and babies spent a week or so in the hospital after birth, and my mother and I spent eight days in the hospital from June 29 to July 6. The “room and board” charge was $65, not for a day, but for the whole eight days. The charge for “Care of Infant,” whatever that was, totaled a mere $8. Added to all this was a $1.35 pharmacy charge, and a 50-cent necklace charge for a wrist band with beads that spelled out my name and was a way to ensure I went home with the right mother. I remember seeing it once back in the 1950s but sadly have no idea what happened to it. The entire bill came to $74.85 in 1945 equal to $1,274.24 in 2024 and almost two weeks’ pay for some families in those days.

I also came across a Certificate of Baptism attesting to my baptism on July 15, 1945, at St Peter and Paul Church in Milwaukee. My Godparents who were my maternal Grandfather Leo Ulik and his daughter my aunt Marge who would later marry my father’s brother Joe and like my mother spend the rest of her life in Fort Plain, N.Y.

My grandfather was a grain inspector employed by the Milwaukee Grain Exchange. His job consisted of inspecting grain passing through the Port of Milwaukee for things such as quality, insect infestation, and contaminants. He was a great guy whose only quirk was to drive far out of his way to avoid traffic lights. As the years went by even though he lived in Wisconsin, and we lived in New York, I got to know him fairly well because he thought nothing of getting on a train and heading to New York to see two of his daughters.

I have no memories of this time, but I was born in Milwaukee because my mother had returned home to stay with her family in the run up to the big day, my birth. This was because my father, then a Marine Corps officer, had been ordered to Okinawa to command a machine gun company in the planned invasion of Japan which probably explains why our family always supported the use of the atomic bombs against Japan.

My mother had an independent and adventurous streak she inherited from her father. At some point after high school, she had worked as a doctor’s secretary but still found time to play tennis, ride horses, and with her friends take day trips on excursion steamers up and down Lake Michigan. In 1943 after having served as an assistant to the Registrar at Marquette University she joined the U.S. Navy’s Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service better known as the WAVES.

Following training she was assigned to the Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, Calif. as a Pharmacist Mate third class. It was here that she met my father, who while recovering from a serious case of Malaria contracted on Bougainville in the Solomon Islands, commanded the Marine detachment at the Hospital.

After a whirlwind courtship complicated by the Department of the Navy’s frowning on officer and enlisted relationships, they were married in the fall of 1944, and I came along nine months later.

In the winter of 1945-46 finding that my father was returning from occupation duty in China, my mother and I headed for his hometown of Fort Plain. I finally met my father in early 1946. I recall nothing of that experience, although I have seen the pictures, and I was a good looking baby.

By spring Dad had been released from active duty and in September 1946 he entered a two year program at Albany Law School. Three brothers came along between 1946 and 1953 completing the family.

Most of the major players in this family tale have passed from the scene and one of these days it will be my turn but a family saga that started long before me will go on.

Before I forget, the final piece of thought-provoking memorabilia from my past was the score sheet for my driver education road test I took in the summer of 1962. My final score was a B+ and what I do remember is that the driver ed teacher told me I was a good driver but overconfident. I probably was, but I was 16 to going on 17 then.

Thomas Kirkpatrick Sr. is a Silver Creek resident. Send comments to editorial@observertoday.com