Everybody Has a Story: Truth about father deepens appreciation

I grew up in the 1940s. Soldiers were coming back from World War II, and our postwar economy was beginning to build. People were mobile and went where the jobs were. I was born in Minneapolis, where my parents were married. My mother was born there and all of her family, who emigrated from Italy, lived there. Dad was from Glasgow, Scotland, and moving around seemed natural to him. There were jobs available in the shipyards in Oregon. So we left Minnesota and moved to Vanport, Ore.

At this time in my life, I understood, sort of, where I came from, who my family was and what family life was all about. I was secure. It wasn’t until I was older that I became interested in my father’s background. He told me what he remembered of his father and his grandfather, Charles, whom I was named after. He recalled that his dad was from Cork, Ireland.

My father regaled us with the story that at age 14, he ran away from home in Glasgow because there were too many mouths to feed. He said he stowed away on a ship bound for Canada. When he landed in 1925, he found odd jobs and lived hand to mouth. He said he grew up fast. He told us that when he was 17, he heard that anyone who joined the United States Army could become a U.S. citizen. So he worked his way to New York, lied about his age and joined the Army. He got his citizenship. The Army sent him to Juarez, Texas, where he was assigned to the cavalry. A kid from a shipbuilding town, who’d never been on a horse, became a pony soldier.

That’s the story I grew up with.

About four years ago, I started delving into my family history on both sides. My mother’s side was lengthy but pretty straightforward, going back a few hundred years. I had a lot of information to start with. Not so with Dad’s side. He was the third of seven children born to William and Isabella Martin in Glasgow, Scotland, Feb. 3, 1911. They lived in a tenement house on Paisley Street that was already old then. The family was poor.

My grandfather was a merchant seaman and away most of the time, but I could find no record of him in Ireland. My grandmother worked in laundry. My father was, indeed, born in Glasgow. At 14, he did leave home. I searched some ships’ records from that year from Glasgow, trying to piece together what his trip might have been like. To my surprise, I found his name, “Charles Constance Pittman Martin,” and a note that his passage was paid for by the government.

Probably more than any other Commonwealth country, Scotland suffered at the end of World War I. Its once-thriving economy, based on shipbuilding, began to deteriorate. There were fewer and fewer jobs, and people began to leave. To help relieve the pressure, the government devised a program to move people out of depressed areas and to other countries; these were mostly members of the Commonwealth, such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.

The people who went were usually the poorest. Some were eager to accept the offer of an opportunity for a fresh start. For many others there was little choice. Many went willingly, some went unhappily and some children were sent. Many families were torn apart.

My father had not stowed away, after all. He was one of those poor kids whose family could not afford to keep him. He was sent away — for his own good, I’m sure they felt. He never saw his parents again.

Why the stow-away story? I can only believe that, as tough an old bird as my dad was, he could not bear to tell his children that his parents sent him away. I wish I had known. I don’t know what knowing would have changed, maybe nothing. But I have a greater appreciation for the things he taught me, for expecting me to be strong, mentally and physically, and for teaching me to appreciate the rewards that hard work sometimes brings. I sometimes wonder where he learned the things he taught me. I think of him often.

Everybody Has a Story welcomes nonfiction contributions, 1,000 words maximum, and relevant photographs. Email is the best way to send materials so we don’t have to retype your words or borrow original photos. Send to: neighbors@columbian.com or P.O. Box 180, Vancouver WA, 98666. Call Scott Hewitt, 360-735-4525, with questions.