Exploration is the theme for week 36 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. I was all set to write about a mariner ancestor of mine, but over the weekend I fell down an Uncle Harold shaped rabbit hole. I haven’t found my way out of it yet, so I’m going with it. Uncle Harold wasn’t an explorer in the literal sense, but he did try several different careers, lived in many states, and was married three times, so he explored the opportunities that crossed his path. He may have been a bit of a restless spirit – curious and adept at so many things that he couldn’t settle on just one.
Harold Eugene Turner was my father’s uncle. He was born in Mount Vernon, Maine on July 18, 1907, the son of Stanley Lester Turner and Emilie Caroline Wolf. The family briefly lived in Rhode Island, where the youngest child, Edith, was born, and moved to Amesbury, Massachusetts when Harold was young. The Turners embraced life in Amesbury, where they were active community members. No one in the family was liked or respected more than Harold, who was handsome, charismatic, and a stellar student. In his senior year, he organized an Honor Society at Amesbury High School. We get a glimpse of his restless nature in his senior yearbook. Unlike most people who try one or two things, Harold sampled multiple activities. He was in the Debating Club for a year and tried the Drama Club another year. He was the student manager for the Athletic Association. He joined the Yearbook Committee. Harold’s true passion was writing. He was a reporter for the weekly school newspaper, The Whittier Town Sentinel, during his sophomore, junior, and senior years, taking on the additional position of Managing Editor as a senior. His yearbook also mentions a special writing prize he won during his junior year. “Harold Turner, one of the foremost members of the Junior Writer’s League, proved what the class could accomplish in the way of literary features, by winning an essay prize of twenty-five dollars offered by the Haverhill Gazette on his essay, ‘Advantages of Amesbury as a Place of Residence.’” In 1925, $25 was a lot of money!
Supposedly, my grandfather, Fred, dropped out of school to help support the family and send Harold to college. He did drop out, and likely did help support his family, but whether that was by choice, necessity, or whether he helped pay for his brother to go to school, I’m not sure. Harold did attend a year of college at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. I don’t know what he studied or why he didn’t return after that first year. Maybe their finances were tight and they couldn’t afford to send him back. It definitely had nothing to do with his class standing. He ranked 17th out of his freshmen class of 400.
When Harold returned home, he became a reporter for the Amesbury Daily News and worked there for six years. During that time, he also ran for the school board and lost spectacularly. He hoped that his youth would be an asset and argued that he could understand the school board issues better because he wasn’t too many years removed from school. The voters disagreed. Despite his loss, Harold devoted a great deal of time to community causes. He and his father volunteered as troop leaders for the Boy Scouts. The two of them were also officers in the Allen’s Corner Neighborhood Club which hosted numerous social and community activities as fundraisers. They put on Christmas parties with visits from Santa (Harold and Stanley both had turns playing Santa), plays (and yes, Harold acted in them), dinners, and card tournaments. When a community member argued with the city council that the club promoted gambling and could instead donate more money to community causes through other means, Harold passionately argued that it was up to the club members to make that decision and the members overwhelmingly voted to play. It’s not surprising that Harold fought for whist; he and his parents were often mentioned in the newspaper as winners of the games their club hosted. The city council agreed with Harold and ruled in favor of the Allen’s Corner Neighborhood Club.
Harold left the newspaper to take a position as a landscape foreman for the US Dept. of Interior, where he became an expert with dynamite. It seems like an odd leap to go from reporter to landscape foreman, but Harold was born in Maine and visited his grandparents’ rural farm often. The Turner boys grew up hunting, fishing, and exploring the outdoors. Maybe he was bored after six years at the paper or didn’t see advancement opportunities. Perhaps a contact he made through the Boy Scouts offered him a job. When the paper mentioned him in connection with the Boy Scouts, he was always bringing in interesting speakers or arranging adventurous outings for them. An affable and intelligent man, it’s likely he encountered someone who saw his potential and wooed him away from the newspaper. One newspaper article mentions him working as a supervisor for the CCC – the Civilian Conservation Corps. This was a New Deal program established by Franklin D. Roosevelt. He did well with his new career path and even led a search for a missing girl in Upton, Massachusetts.
In 1934, a year and half into his new position, he married his first wife, the young and beautiful Catherine "Kay" McNally who was born in Schenectady, New York, but lived in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. A year later their daughter, Elizabeth Ann, was born. In a genealogy notebook put together by Harold’s sister, Edith, she described Elizabeth as “the light of his life.” The young family remained in Massachusetts for a few years, and lived in Amesbury as well as a few surrounding towns.
On the 1940 census, the family was living in New York, boarding at the YMCA. Harold was still working for the US Dept. of Interior. His WWII draft card was filled out in Schenectady, New York in 1940. After that, his whereabouts were scattered for the next several years. The family moved to Virginia in 1941, according to blurb in a newspaper. At some point over the next couple of years, they landed in Louisiana.
Harold and Catherine’s marriage fell apart sometime between 1940-1942 and they both remarried. Catherine married Harold Martin Bishop. On his WWII draft card, “Mrs. Harold E. Turner” living in Schenectady, New York was listed as a person who would always have his address, so the two were probably a couple before the divorce was finalized. Although I was unable to find a marriage record for them, a directory lists them as married and living in Shreveport, Louisiana in 1943. Due to Harold Bishop’s work, the family moved around often. This made it difficult for Uncle Harold to see his daughter, Elizabeth, but he visited whenever he could and remained on cordial terms with Catherine and her new husband.
Harold married Sarah Ruth Arthur in 1943 in Shreveport. He called her “my gal, Sal,” and according to Aunt Edith’s notes, she was a “southern beauty.” Sal’s divorce from her first husband came through days before she married Uncle Harold. Their marriage was tumultuous and short-lived. Aunt Edith wrote that Sal, “took him for a lot of money.” They divorced in Tennessee a little more than a year later, and Harold posted her in the paper there, saying he was no longer responsible for her expenses. Sal rebounded from her divorce by remarrying her first husband, only to divorce him a second time a few years later. After him, she married four more men!
Harold moved around a lot between 1940-1946, as evidenced by all the address updates on his draft card. In addition to Schenectady, New York, Blacksburg, Virginia, Shreveport, Louisiana, and Cleveland, Tennessee, he also lived in Ringgold, Georgia, and possibly Haverhill, Massachusetts. The Haverhill address was listed as a c/o address of a Mrs. Eleanor (last name illegible).
Whether it was restlessness or patriotism, Uncle Harold decided to enlist in 1946, though he was almost too old to do so. He volunteered for the Navy. His sister, Edith, wrote:
Because of his age, he was called “Pop.” One of the first things the Navy did was teach him how to swim. He trained to be a ship’s gunner. When the day came he was assigned to a ship, Harold was eager to put his training to good use. Standing at attention while orders were being given, he heard, “The galley needs men. I want you, you, and you.” Harold cooked his way through the war. He was stationed in the Pacific.
After the war, Harold moved again, this time to Hollywood, Florida, and took on a unique, new profession. He opened a seashell shop. I wish I knew the story as to how and why he ended up there. What made him choose seashells, of all things? The shop sold rare shells, jewelry, and anything made of seashells you could think of. My second cousin said his grandmother, Edith, used to have an ugly table covered in shells that he believes was gifted to her by Harold. Using his newspaper background, Uncle Harold wisely ensured the store’s opening had press coverage. He lured customers in during his grand opening on October 1, 1949 by displaying a 372 lb. giant “man-eating” clam. He ran his seashell shop for many years.
Although Harold loved women, he was so burned by his marriage to Sal that he didn’t marry again until 1974 when he wed Christine (Currier) Grant on January 24th. She may have gone by the nickname “Jean” as that’s how she signed letters to my grandparents after Harold’s death. The two married in Florida, but moved to Newburyport, Massachusetts, right outside of his beloved Amesbury. Harold didn’t have long with his new bride, as he passed away on January 31, 1975 from cancer. Their brief marriage was happy. Christine/Jean wrote to my grandmother, “It is hard to face the future without Harold – he was so wonderful, and I loved him and we were happy. Our marriage was so perfect – I wish that it could have lasted much longer.”
Though he may not have been a Lewis and Clark caliber explorer, Uncle Harold was undeniably a Renaissance man who fully explored his talents and interests. He lived life boldly; he wasn’t afraid of experiencing new things or living in different places. He dared to take chances, and his life was likely all the richer for it.
This is a beautiful tribute to your uncle. I laughed when I read your comment "Why a seashell shop?" - I am inclined to agree. It does seem a peculiar choice but then he was interested in a lot of things - maybe people the most and maybe he thought this was his strength - engaging with people in a relaxed setting. An interesting life. So sad about his final happy marriage which proved to be so short ;(