Honoring those who have served our country - Donald William Caman

(Ooops. I missed yesterday.)

Donald William Caman also began his military career in high school. He was in the ROTC, and in his Senior year he was a commissioned officer in Company C, Second Platoon. He was on the Boy's Rifle Team as well.



From the 1939 Scroll Yearbook of Herbert Hoover High School in Glendale, California.



Donald Caman, bottom photo, standing far left

Donald Caman, bottom photo, front row sitting, 6th from the left

Donald attended the Citizen's Military Training camp in Monterey, California and was appointed corporal. This program covered four summers, but Donald's completion of the ROTC program in high school allowed him skip the initial "basic" course.



Donald was also, at some point, an R.A.F. cadet (?). He is seen in the lower right with his back to the camera.



In 1942 was at Ft. Riley in Kansas and at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina in 1943, before being sent with his division to European Theater, where he was stationed in Germany and France during WWII.



From an interview with my Gpa Don Caman, in 18 October 1998 he talked about his time in the military.

"When I was a very young teenager, my father used to teach me that American citizens had many privileges, but they also had some responsibilities. To fulfill the responsibility was to prepare yourself militarily. In those days they had what was called Citizen's Military Training Camps, CMTC. The deal was to go for a month in the summertime and be trained by the regular army, reserve officers on active duty would go through the basic course, or the red, white, and blue course, which I did, for four summers. If you successfully passed the four courses, then you coulees apply to take the tenth series course, the correspondence course, and then you could dapple for commission as a second lieutenant, which I did. There was no pay, the reimbursement was $.05 a mile for your travel from home to the military post. Well, I could have gone to Ft. McArthur or Monterey. Well, I took Monterey because it was farther away and I got more five cents. I joined the cavalry, which at the time was a horse cavalry, because I figured riding a horse beat walking in the infantry. So, that's what started my military career.

"After I completed school, and after about a month at Ft. Riley - I was teaching communications to the recruits our at the CRTC, which is the Cavalry Replacement Training Center - I got my orders to report tot he reconnaissance troop of the 100th infantry division at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina.

"[I was in the Army] four years and ten days. I was enlisted, and officers are not enlisted. When my term was up and I had the points to get out. I got out and I stayed in the reserve and I got called for Korea, although I didn't go to Korea. I was instructor at Ft. Knox in Armored School, and then, that call up was supposed to for two years, but it only lasted seventeen months, so I separated and I came back [to California] and joined the Guard then, stayed in the Guard until April '65. I had command of the 1st battalion, 160th armored infantry battalion and the summer after I retired it was the battalion that was called in for the riots in Los Angeles in 1965. The Watts riots. If I had known that was going to happen, I would have stayed in."




Donald William Caman was buried with military honors in the Riverside National Cemetery in Riverside, California. He took his responsibility to serve his country seriously, and today I honor him.

Direct line ancestry: Donald William Caman --> Donald William (Caman) Marshall --> Lora Marshall Nehring

Explanation about the parenthases

Some of you may have noticed that when I write my dad's name in the direct line ancestry I always write it: Donald William (Caman) Marshall. I thought I would take a moment to explain why Caman is in parenthesis for those of you who are not familiar with that bit of family history.

My dad was originally born Donald William Caman, Jr., the son of Donald Caman and Wilburta Love. He was born at Ft. Jackson, South Carolina while his dad was training for his deployment to the European Theater in WWII.


Willie Love and Don Caman - circa 1939


Willie and Don - 1943

While Don was in France, he met a girl named Eliane (pronounced ee-lee-on) and fell in love with her and when he returned home he told WIllie he didn't want to be married to her anymore, so they were divorced.

I had a conversation with my Gpa Caman in October 1998, a few years before he died, and I asked him to tell me about what happened.

"Don was eighteen months old when I went to Europe. All three of us were living in Fayetteville, North Carolina, and when I got orders for the division to go overseas [Willie] came out to [California], and I don't remember, did she live with her mother and dad, or my mother and dad? Although I know that when Willie went to work that my mother and dad babysat for Don. They were more close to Don, even so than I was. Anyway, and of course, when I divorced Willie, you know that I divorced Willie, Willie didn't divorce me, and I told Don some time ago that if there is any blame to be placed, the blame is for me, not for Willie. I'm the villain in this case. My mother and father were really, really, really upset. They got over it."

I asked him how he met Eliane.

"About two weeks after the war ended, I was laying on my bunk - we were in Geislingen, Germany, starting the occupation, and about mid-morning a runner came down and said that the Old Man wants to see you. So I went up to see the Old Man, and he said, here are your orders. The Old Man and I did not get along. The Old Man is the Commanding Officer. Prior to this time I had been the, for about three of four months, I was the Commanding Officer temporarily. Of course, I was hoping to get to be the Commanding Officer and get promoted to Captain. When these guy came in, and there was no love lost on my part. And it turned out he wasn't really that great a commander. But anyway, so when he had an opportunity to get rid of me, I got the orders to go to Marseille. I thought I was on my way to the Pacific, but when I got there, there were forty-two first and second lieutenants, forty of them got assigned as hotel officers, mess officers, transportation officers, on the Riviera, and Cannes, and Nice. Two of us got assigned to build a base headquarters and I was stationed in Marseilles, and the other fellow was stationed in the staging area out in Marles (?), so in Marseilles I was put up in a crummy little hotel on the Canner Villa and I was in a section with a warrant officer who had been with the Delta Base section since Africa and Italy and all of that, so he knew everybody in the Delta Base headquarters, including the billeting officer, so he got himself and I and another lieutenant an apartment on Cessan Rue Paradie. Well, we had the apartment on what we call the second floor, Europeans callout the first floor, and Eliane and her sister Colette and Nanan, the mother, loved in the apartment above us. So, that's how I met her, and one thing led to another."



On the 29th of March, 1947 Willie Caman married Richard Marshall. She had Don and he had a son, Darryl.


Don Caman and Darryl Marshall - 1946

I have been told that at that time it was more "presentable" if you didn't have a family with a lot of last names, so Richard adopted Don and he became Donald William Marshall. And, a few years later, they had a daughter, Lindi.

In an interview with Richard Marshall in June 1999, I asked him how old [my] dad was when he and Willie were married and he adopted him.

"About two. From the time he was born, until the time we moved to Fresno, he was three years old when we moved to Fresno. That time your grandmother worked all during the war and lived with her mother. We were getting reestablished in several ways. First of all, I was an integral part of opening a new business, and my first priorities were getting that business running, being somewhat of a workaholic, and wages were not all that great. About $200 a month. I wasn't able to bring too much with him. Willie had absolutely nothing. I had to put the down payment on the house. It was my ambition back then to give him the best home that I could have, that I could afford, and live in the best neighborhood that I could afford. See to it that they went to summer camps and stuff."



So my dad is a Caman and a Marshall, hence the parentheses. There are interesting twists in every family story. To me it means that I have more family history to do! Woohoo! : )

Wilbur Ticknor Love

Wilbur Ticknor Love was born on 26 August 1886 in Navasota, Grimes County, Texas. He was the fourth of seven children born to Robert and Joella Love. Not much has been recorded about his youth.

On 7 April 1917, WIlbur married Florence Faye Alkire in Alvin, Brazoria Couthy, Texas.

On 5 June 1917, Wilbur joined the Marine Corps as a Private. On his Registration Card he listed his employment as an Assistant Sales Manager at the Imperial Sugar Company in Sugar Land, Texas. His physical description was listed as tall and slender with blue eyes and light hair.



Wilbur served in the Marines for eight years, both in the Phillippines and in the European Theater. He was a Lieutenant serving with the 2nd Marine Division, and while in France with the 6th Machine Gun Battalion. He received many high military decorations, including the Croix de Guerre, the Silver Star, the Bronze Star and the Fer du Jour.




Wilbur Love (in the sidecar) in Germany in 1919

Recently, I was talking to a lady at the Daughters of Utah Pioneers and she asked about an artifact that I had brought to display at our luncheon. I was telling her about Gpa Love and where he had served. When I mentioned Verdun, France (where Wilbur received a medal for his involvement), she started to get teary-eyed and told me that was where many of her family were from and that many of them had not survived. I realized that I knew absolutely nothing about the Battle of Verdun, so I came home and did some research on it. It is still referred to as the worst battles in wartime history. One of the websites I found was the Sons of the Sixth (referring to the 6th Machine Gun Battalion). I emailed the webmaster and asked him about Gpa Love's citations, etc., and I sent him a photo of WIlbur and copies of his citations. He has added Gpa to his website, Old World War , and soon, also to his Sons of the Sixth website. He found an even better description of why Wilbur received one of his medals. Very cool!

When Wilbur returned home from WWI, he and Florence had two daughters, Juanita Faye, born in 1921 and Wilburta June, born in 1922.


Wilburta, Wilbur, Florence and Juanita Love, 1934, Reseda, CA

According to Gma Willie, when he returned home from the war, Wilbur and his brother-in-law, Clyde established a restaurant equipment business in Los Angeles, until the depression. Later he worked for the California Department of Employment in Los Angeles, as an Assistant Manager, until he retired in 1952.

In a book called "Grandma, Tell Me Your Memories. . . .", Wilburta Linenbach wrote of her father:

"I'm proud that my parents wanted to name me after my dad, but I wish his name hadn't been Wilbur. Nobody could spell it and half the people could't say it correctly. I think my family started [calling me] "Willie" for my sake.

"My father, bless his heart. It was never a secret that he wanted a son. He never, ever made me feel like I should have been a boy, except once. I wasn't too old but he told my mom one day that he'd take me for a haircut. He did ask me if I would try a "boy's bob". I know I did not want one but I said yes to please him and then I think I cried for 24 hours.

"When we lived in those two years in Reseda, next to Van Nuys, it was because my dad had a relapse of what they use to call "shell shocked" from WWI. He went on total disability for two years. The small acreage we had there did him a world of good. No outside work as far as another job went but outside work physically, garden, chickens and rabbits, eggs to sell, etc. Anyway, when we moved there from Glendale I was broken hearted - but it turned into the best memories I'll never forget.

"My dad was an ex-Marine and had tons of pictures, medals and clippings. For yeas my mom had letters he wrote to her. He had volumes of pictures that you view through a view master and I looked at them a million times. I wish I knew what happened to them. (I do too!!)

"My dad was super military oriented. I remember being proud of him as a "big wig" in the American Legion and in parades. I always was aware of how much he loved my mom.

"My dad didn't give advice, as I recall, but he instilled a deep patriotism in me. He loved our country.

"He wasn't good at building and even not good at girl's toys or games. But he taught me card games and a love of reading. He did not finish school but he could do the hardest word puzzles and read tough to read books. He was a born leader of men - not in a big way like a governor, etc., but among his friends and employees. His gift was his family love."

Wilbur was a commander of the Los Angeles American Legion Post, commander of the Second Division Association, a member of the J.B. Clark American Legion Post 149, the John R. Simpson Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1513 (both in Escondido, CA) and an elder in the Presbyterian Church.



In an undated newspaper clipping it is reported that "Wilbur T. Love, 52, suffered injuries that required hospital treatment when he was struck by a Pacific Electric bus."

Wilbur died from complications due to heart disease in Escondido, San Diego County, California, on 5 June 1958. He was cremated on the 15 July 1958 and is interred at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Los Angeles, California.

In a recent email from Lindi to me she wrote of her Gpa Love:

"I remember Mom & Dad brought  him to live near us in Fresno after Gma Love died, but I was in 3rd grade, or so, and don't remember a whole lot.  He was a kind Gpa, soft spoken.  From what I am told he had PTSD, which was called "shell shocked" at that time.  I also learned that he worked for the State of CA at the EDD/Unemployment office after the war.  That is where I started my first State job.  His birthday was 8/27, mine is 8/28.  So with a few things in common with him I have always had a soft spot in my heart for him.
 
"Gpa [Richard] Marshall doesn't have a whole lot of good things to say about him due to him always reminding Gma that she was supposed to be a boy.  (Keep in mind the one pic of her dressed like a boy.) I guess it was a real issue.  Also, the "Love" side were more "commoners" than the Marshall's.  Social class was a real biggie in those days.
 
"Darryl has great memories of him as he taught him how to fish.  Darryl still loves to fish to this day.  Those are my memories of him.  I treasure the new ones that you are finding.  Thank you!!"

Lindi said that Gpa and Gma Love would be proud of me for doing this, and that means so much to me!


Wilbur Love, late 1950s