Talk to Dad

My father had been dead for years when I started to look into his past. I had known him all my life, but really did not know him at all. My father was at work, or reading the newspaper, or trying to watch a ballgame. We missed our chance.

What I knew. I knew my father had been abandoned by his father and his mother died of Type-1 diabetes when he was only 12. He was left at the doorstep of his relatives. It was 1930.

Over the years he told us stories of working on farms, sleeping in lofts with lots of kids. He was a story teller at heart. We will never know what really happened, probably too painful for him to admit, so he glossed over the story.

My only source for knowing his whereabouts was the United States census as most of those who would have known were also gone. In 2010, the 1940 census was released. I knew he was raised around Cherry Valley, Ark., on the border of Poinsett and Cross County.

As census records are according to streets and roads, I started with page one looking for a James William McCarter. I searched for 27 pages, finding some relatives, but not him. For some reason I turned the page, and on page 28, the last page, there was only one name, James William McCarter. Even then alone.

I knew he was a soldier during World War II, so I went to the United States Archives World War II records. I typed his name into the search blank and only one person with the name of James William McCarter appeared. Finding this record, I discovered that my father had joined the military three months before the draft was instituted and the most surprising information, he was inducted into the Puerto Rican Army and was a cook. With this information, began many more searches for the past 17 years.

Happy Father’s Day, talk to your dad and find out his story.