Ernest Willis Schleicher

  General Notes:

Ernie to Jeff Padell:

You prod me to relate a few thoughts in response to your inquiries

You probably knew your grandmother (and her sister) each went their own way
after their mother died at an early age. Estella was fortunate by becoming a member of the Wertman family in Mantzville ,he was a funeral director and started the local telephone company. So she was raised in frugal but prosperous surroundings. As a teenager she manned her shift on the telephone switchboard plugging in cable cords etc
The switchboard was at one end of the dinning room, so when it wasn't busy she could go about making dinner or setting the table. It was a very large house with all the amenities and funeral viewings took place in the "other" living room.
Mother was married and first lived with the Wertman?s and I was born at home. We lived across the street from Dr. Weisner and I was named after his eldest son who went on to become a doctor. My middle name is after Mr. Wertman who was Willis Wertman.
They prepared bodies for burial in a special room in the barn. Who can ever forget the smell of formaldehyde in the barn which housed the hearses and also a lot of telephone line hardware.
Your grand father was working for the Jersey Central RR when he was married but travel to Packerton RR shops was an ordeal at that time so he took a job at the Atlas Powder Works in Reynolds and they moved closer to his work (at Zehners Station) they lived in rent in a semi detached house and I suspect your mother was born at this location. They then bought a house in Reynolds but about 34 he quit the powder co and bought the country store in Clamtown, it was a gas station (7 gal for $1). grocery store, bar room, restaurant. Mother had a brisk trade for her chicken dinners with waffles and gravy.
My job was to kill the chickens, scald them, remove the feathers, singe off the hair, gut them and deliver them to the kitchen.
Dad had a panel truck and we delivered groceries for many miles. he also was a major source of charity during the depression years as many, many grocery bills could never be paid.

School --I was lucky and only walked 1/8th mile to a one room school
house with an outside outhouse. We may have had 20 kids in our school grades one thru eight as one grade recited all could hear and soon it was possible to advance by skipping one grade when I was in the fifth grade we moved to Tamaqua and I attended a school with running water and flush toilets.
I remember I was a 158 pound 6 ft weakling and did not play sports. Many of the kids worked part time in the coal strippings and had the bodies of men. Worked for Hoppes lumber yard part time, this was the start of the war years. Did not work very hard in High School and as a consequence had to buckle down in College.

With the store we had no indoor pets but had a collie or shep tied to the chicken house

The United States had been involved in World War II for almost two years, when in 1943 I entered the Navy. I was an 18 year old sophomore at PSU when the draft board came after me. Manpower was difficult as many 32 year old fathers were being drafted when I went in.
Standing on the train platform at Tamaqua they began splitting up the draftees before boarding the train to Philadelphia. Reading the horror stories of mud soldiers I wormed my way into the line which appeared to be going Navy.
I was sent to Bainbridge Md. while in boot training we were sometimes sent to a pea cannery in Lancaster Co to relieve the manpower shortage.
This was much like Summer Camp, at Camp Miller PT training was a piece of cake for me with these older recruits. Having had ROTC at PSU I was a hot shot platoon leader since I was the only one who knew how to march. It was summer time and beautiful along the Susquehanna River.
Passing a test they selected me to go to Washington DC to a Fire control school at Anacosta MD.
Being an ignorant country boy I never took advantage of all the benefits of DC. Some of my classmates did and ended up in sick bay with various social diseases and worse.
After graduating from school I hopped a troop train across country to San Diego where the USS Cabot was undergoing extensive repair and sailors lost to enemy action were replaced with us greenies.
I went on board as seaman 1st class and in a year became a 3rd class Petty Officer. The Cabot had a tough veteran crew and I was replacing someone who had been killed in action, it took a while to be accepted.
Our berthing compartment was not luxurious, in fact we were in the fantail right above the screws it was very noisy in bunks, hung with chains three high.
During general quarters, I manned a radar scope which was a gun director right in side, the catwalk next to the 40mm gun mounts. During the battle of Okinawa, we went thru a typhoon off of Okinawa, the Cabot was shown at a 70 degree list in a national magazine, I've forgotten which magazine. I recall during the typhoon we did not have mess hall for two days and literally tied ourselves into our bunks - of
course several planes were lost from the flight deck
Life was not all general quarters and storms. The chow on the mess decks was fantastic, and when we were not at GQ, we passed our time painting, cleaning and chinning in the torpedo room. After returning thru the Panama Canal we docked in Philadelphia and I was one of the few who stayed on board to put the gun mounts "in mothballs" I guess I got out around August 1947.

Christmas

In the late 20's we went to the wertmans in Mantzville for Christmas
After Dad bought the store it was work work work 365 days a year

When we moved to Tamaqua and the store was closed on Sunday and holiday's we
always celebrated those occasions at Aunt Minnie's and Uncle Charlie's in
Lehighton

Can't recall ever having lamb or beef-that was because the Pa. Dutch on
every farm had chickens, geese and turkeys
Our families grew out of a self suficient climate where little if anything
was purchased preparing food
Dried corn with potato/bread stuffing and gallons of gravy were always on
the menu
After the Wertmans passed out of the picture we traded visits with the
Gerbers and Dottie was always there

Summer Camp was spent at Shawnee on the Deleware
about 3 years, I went to Camp Miller and Naomi went to Hagen next store. We would vacation in a old Pontiac, mostly sightseeing, not much more than that.
I asked Ernie how and where he bought Grace's wedding ring and how he proposed:
Pap pap was working for New York Life and delivered the insurance check for Grandpa Fisher's death benefit. Mom mom Fisher was quite the cook and Pap pap was quite the eater so the friendship flourished. One weekend Pap pap insisted that Dad show off his new red Mercury with white wall tires and black leather seats so they rode over to New Tripoli - this is how he met mom. I believe I asked mom to marry him in the spring of 1955 in New Tripoli. I was a cheap skate then and now and bought it on my own out of a Chicago catalog. I felt that mom was happy to have a man so she didn't care. When and where the ring was offered I am not positive but believe it was informal at mom mom's house.


Ernie's Obituary

Ernest W. Schleicher, 87, a resident of Luther Crest, South Whitehall Township, formerly of Mount Penn, Reading, PA passed away on February 10, 2013 . Born in West Penn Township, Schuylkill County, he was the son of the late Clayton P. and Estella A. (Wehr) Schleicher. He graduated from Tamaqua High School in 1943. A World War II veteran, he served in the US Navy as a Fire Controlman aboard the USS Cabot in the South Pacific.
He graduated from Penn State University with a BS in Electrical Engineering in 1949 and was a member of Triangle Fraternity. He began a 40-year career with Metropolitan Edison Company as a summer employee in 1947, retiring as Senior Vice President of Customer Operations. Some of his many civic duties include service as treasurer of the Mt. Penn Municipal Authority, vice-chairman of the Berks County Chamber of Commerce, chairman of the Pennsylvania Electric Association, executive committee member and director of the Reading Hospital and Medical Center, director and trustee of the Topton Lutheran Home, and as president of the Greater Berks Food Bank. He was a member and past lay leader at Trinity Lutheran Church in Reading. During retirement he became a Master Gardener, was active with the Pennsylvania German Heritage Cultural Center and was an accomplished woodworker. He resided in Mount Penn for over 40 years, before moving to Allentown in 2010.
Survivors include his wife of 57 years, Grace (Fisher); 3 sons: David and his wife Barbara of Allentown and Statesville, NC; Tom and his wife Janet of Richmond, VA; John and his wife Barbara of New Freedom, PA; 7 grandchildren; and 2 great-grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his sister, Naomi Padell.

  Noted events in his life were:

• Education: in a one room school house, Between 1930 and 1935, Clamtown, West Penn Twp, Carbon Co, Pennsylvania.

• Residence, Abt 1935, Tamaqua / West Penn Twp, Schuykill Co, Pennsylvania.

• Education: in Tamaqua High School, Abt 1939, Tamaqua / West Penn Twp, Schuykill Co, Pennsylvania.

• Military, Between 1942 and 1945, Usn, Uss Cabot Cvl-28, Fire Controlman. ¹¹

Ernest married Private