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THE YEAR 1927

The year 1927 was one of the most important in my life because it witnessed practically a complete change my whole way of living. Willie and I were married on January 22nd, making a vast change in my personal life. And because of my entering the GE engineering organization on November 15, 1926, my professional life underwent a metamorphosis also. Both changes marked the beginning of long, happy experiences. On January 2nd, Lenore Sterrett entered training in Warren State Hospital and that was to terminate that association which had been a good deal of help to me during my first year in Erie. Willie and I settled in the lower apartment at 1308 West 9th Street. In the spring we bought a second hand 1922 Dodge touring car for $225 and began to "see the world" in it, more specifically, some trips to Syracuse to see Mother and a summer vacation trip to Louisville to visit Willie's parents. I remember distinctly that on the first trip to Syracuse, we had to buy four new tires en route as the ones that came with the car blew out one by one. Not only was this a nuisance but also a decided catastrophe financially with my earnings failing to top $100 a month by very much. I started off on gas-electric car control design and later shifted to locomotive control. I made my first Company trip, to J.G.Brill Car Co. in Philadelphia and felt that now I was really off and running. We made many new friends, most of them among the young GE engineers and their wives. Among the first were Ben and Toni Luther who, being some five or six years older than we, sort of took us under their wing to a minor extent. Mother gave up her apartment in Syracuse and transferred to Southern Seminary in Buena Vista where she was to work in the school library for a number of years in association with Uncle Robert and Aunt Mary Durham as well as Russell and Peg Robey. I continued a fairly regular correspondence with Mother and she continued to keep my letters, which will form the principal basis for this write-up on 1927 because I let my diary slip again very severely although where there is any, I shall include it. In reading through the material I'm under the impression that if I edit it carefully, it will tell an interesting story of my new life that was unfolding with considerable rapidity. I fear, however, that the supplementary material which I've found valuable in filling out the story in the past, will be largely lacking this time as I just don't seem to find much of it.

Forman H. Craton

Erie, Pa.,
July 23, 1973.

Transcription Notes:
The reason I'm using so many carriage returns is, because I am using the Dragon voice recognition product, Smithsonian server does not recognize that I am working on something unless there is actual typing. Too often, without this, I wind up losing the work I've done because someone else is working on that page. I have found that regularly using ENTER will make the system understand that someone is working on that page.