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Page 143: Autobiography of Thomas Paterno [1937-] Dated July 11, 2022
I was born on August 20, 1937 at Gotham Hospital in New York City. There were very few things I can remember before the age of four, although I do remember having a German nanny named “Feraleine” and getting the shock of my life when I put a hairpin in an electric receptacle. The first home I can really remember was at 85 Ridge Road in Yonkers. I also remember the blackouts we had to comply with as World War II was still going on. The we lived at 75 Ft. Washington Avenue in Manhattan about ten years. At the end of the war when we all threw scraps of paper out the window on the crowds below that were celebrating. I also remember the horse drawn milk wagon and produce wagon that came by our neighborhood daily. One day a horse fight occurred which resulted in produce and milk all over the place and one dead horse. One Christmas, a large heavy box was delivered to the apartment. Bob, Annette and I were so excited thinking we were going to have a great Christmas. We were so disappointed when we opened it, as there were only clothes and food in the box. We didn’t understand the circumstances; although I’m sure Mom was happy to see the contents.
We didn’t have a television but we did have a radio. Inner Sanctum, The Shadow, The Lone Ranger were just a few stories that we listened to. I remember Annette was dating Ed at the time and Bob and I would put on the most outrageous music to see if they could dance to whatever we played. They always did and even danced to a Mother Cabrini record. On cold mornings Mom would heat up the kitchen using the four gas burners on the stove. We would rush down the long hall with our clothes in our hands and then jump up on the kitchen chairs to get dressed because it was warmer near the ceiling.
It seemed like I went to a different school every year: St. Catherine’s Academy, Graham School. P.S. 109 (when Bob and I lived with Paul and Helen Jones), Linton Hall Military School in Virginia, P.S. 169, P.S. 187, St. Rose of Lima Elementary School, and finally four years at Bishop Dubois High School. The start of high school was a memorable one! On the second day of school, I came down with chills and leg cramps and when it got bad enough, mom took me to the hospital and it was discovered that I had polio. God was good to me; I did not have a severed case and I was released from the hospital before Christmas.
While I was going to P.. 187 near Nanny’s apartment on 190th Street, I met my first girl friend, PeeDee Weil. Her mom, Marjory, was like a second mom to me and at times, I stayed at their apartment. She often fixed us snacks after school and would have something interesting for us to occupy our time. One evening when I was spending the night, Marjory says to me: “Do you know how babies come about?” I told her no so that night plus several others, I learned all about the birds and the bees. It was at this time that I learned what was in those plain wrapped boxes that Annette asked me to pick up for her at the drug store. And while we’re on the subject of sex, Bob and I learned the rougher edges of sex from the paperbacks we would find in the paper bins in the basement at 75 Ft. Washington Ave. The best was Eric Fromm’s “The Art of Love” which…
Page 144: …was very explicit. We also got educated from the little Popeye comic books that we found in one of our sister’s nightstand.
On June 2, 1953, we watched the coronation of Queen Elizabeth on a television that Charl (Charlotte) and Joe had purchased. It must have weighed over one hundred pounds but the screen was only four inches square. Soon thereafter, Charl and Joe and Lee (Lisa) and Frank moved to 600 W. 178th Street. Mom moved into Nanny’s (Angela Centrone Silvestri) apartment after Nanny died in 1953. I used to hang out near 178th Street with my high school buddies where we would swipe fruit and vegetables from the open trucks coming off the George Washington Bridge.
I graduated from high school in 1955 and joined the Navy the day before my eighteenth birthday. However, this was not my first introduction to the service. In 1953, the National Guard Chaplin just happened to be my Latin teacher and he somehow got me in the National Guard at age sixteen. I ended up on the kitchen galley crew. Every Monday night we met for four hours. During the summer, I spent two weeks at Camp Drum in upstate New York. One morning at camp, I awoke to find that I was the only one sober enough to work in the kitchen. Needless to say, breakfast was a disaster!
The Navy was good to me. I went to boot camp in Bainbridge, Maryland, then Airman Preparatory School in Norman, Oklahoma and finally Aviation Electronics School in Memphis, Tennessee. Just before graduating in August 1956, I met Fran Clay. I was transferred to Jacksonville, Florida. (Patrol Squadron Five), but Fran and I continued to communicate by mail. While on Christmas leave, I went to Mississippi to see Fran. We were married on January 3, 1957. Our first son Marty was born in November of 1958. Soon after his birth, I was transferred to VX-1 in Key West, Florida. This was an experimental equipment evaluation squadron and we flew several types of planes including blimps. I was assigned to a blimp crew. They were not air-conditioned so the long flights were hot. Sometimes we were airborne for days.
In August of 1960, I got an honorable discharge from the Navy and the three of us moved to Northport, Long Island where I worked at Republic Aviation the F-104 and F-105 fighter aircraft as an electrician. Grumman Aircraft offered me a better paying job, which I accepted. I worked in their experimental lab on submarine underwater detection equipment that was mounted on a newly developed hydrofoil boat. After five years in the Navy, I finally set foot on a boat (or ship) while working for an aircraft company! When Grumman had a layoff, I was hired by Remington Rand Univac, a company looking for a “few good men” to learn about their new computer system. Soon, we were off to Ilion, New York for a 24-week school. I discovered that Ilion was among the coldest places on earth with temperatures of minus 25 degrees for days on end. Univac promised to send me to a plant in Florida when I passed their school, but they did not keep their promise. Instead, I was sent to Bethlehem Steel Mill in Baltimore, Maryland. Computers were then huge machines that required mammoth rooms with controlled temperatures. When Univac had a layoff, Fran and Marty moved back to Mississippi while I went down to Orlando, Florida. I found a job with the Martin Corporation working on missile components. I joined the Naval Reserve in 1961 and had weekend drill each month in Jacksonville. In 1963, Martin started having layoffs and eventually my department was effected. Fortunately, the Naval Reserve was…
Page 145: …looking for a recruiter for the central Florida area and I got the job. Orlando was an Air Force town (McCoy AFB) so recruiting was a snap. I usually exceeded my quota every month. It was during the Active duty period that Russell was born at the Navy’s expense. In early 1964, I applied at the University of Florida and was accepted for the spring semester. At first, the Navy let me continue to be a full time recruiter operating out of Gainesville, but then I had to get off full time active duty in order to go to school. Money was tight, but we lived in campus housing at Flavet III, which cost us $29 per month including utilities. Deborah was born in 1965 in Gainesville while I was in my sophomore year. I graduated with honors from the College of Building Construction in August of 1967 and found a job there as a project manager on 221-D3 low-income housing. A year later, I began working for McGowan Developers. When I passed the Florida State exam for the contractor’s license, I became the licensee for McGowan. In the spring of 1969, Fran and I divorced. I received a commission as an Ensign in the Naval Reserve. By this time, McGowan was in financial trouble, so I started working for NN&B, a large construction company that was involved in apartments, single-family homes and nursing homes. While with NN&B, I moved a lot. After leaving Athens, Georgia, I moved to Florida where I lived in Jacksonville, Marianna, and Tampa. In Tamps, I met Evelyn Chitwood in January 1973. We were married in July of 1974.
I parted company with NN&B about this same time to start a pool building company, which folded after building three pools because my partner took off for unknown places with our entire bank account. After working as an air Force building inspector at McDill AFB for several months, I got the job I had been seeking as an inspector within the construction division of the Veteran Association. We moved to Montgomery, Alabama where Angela was born in December of 1976. In May 1977, I was transferred to Jacksonville, Florida where I worked until 1980. Then I accepted a job with Dave Robinson Builder and Developer in DeLand, Florida. Two days after starting this job, Thomas Charles, nicknamed “TC,” was born in December 1980. I worked in Orange Park at the Oak Forest Apartments. We moved to DeLand, Florida in May 1981. It was then that I became Dave’s licensed contractor. I commuted back and forth to Orange Park where I worked at the Oak Forest Apartments, and soon-to-be condominium project. After finishing that project, I was able to stay in DeLand working with Dave on developing pieces of property.
The construction business had some bad times in the mid ’80’s so my boss decided to get into the Dialysis business. Plans were drawn and I built the Dial Medical Plant at the DeLand Airport and then accepted the job of Plant Manager in June 1987. In 1994, Dave sold out to Gambro Health Care. That same year, Evelyn and I were divorced. In January 1998, I retired from Gambro but stayed on as a consultant for two and a half years. In February 2000, I met a wonderful lady by the name of Frances Brown Young at a church singles club. A widow with two sons and a grandson, Frances was a teacher assistant at Orange City elementary School. We were married in August of that same year. We designed and built a beautiful home together on Ridgewood Avenue in DeLand, Florida.
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