The Reed Pen

The Reed Pen

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Some Wonderful New-Found Pictures of Dad/Howard Vincent Reed As A Little Guy



Top Three Pictures are Dad and His Brother Robert - Can't Get Much Cuter

Dad and Dad's Half Brother Sherman A. Who Was Born in 1921 When Dad Was 11



Dad on the Right, His Brother Robert on the Left and His Dad Sherman V. and His Stepmother Ida

Left to Right Dad, Sherman A. and Robert
L to R Brother Robert, Father Sherman V., Baby Brother Sherman A. and Dad in 1921




Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Get To Know My Dad, Howard Vincent Reed

I decided my Dad's ancestry deserved some attention. He would so have enjoyed finding out about his relatives.

Born 15 Apr 1910 in Columbus, Franklin County, Ohio




This was written on the back of his pictures . "Isn't he cute. He looks like this too all the time."

This happy attitude continued his whole life. He was very even tempered. I can only remember his getting upset with me once. In fact, he raised his hand to spank me. Unbelieving that he was really mad at me, I pointed my index finger at his upraised hand and said touche. We both started laughing. He just didn't show much emotion,  but he sure was excited when the Playboy Club opened in Atlanta in 1965.


In the 1910 Census which was taken on April 19 he was 4 days old, the first born of Sherman, age 27, and Olive, age 26. They had been married 1 year. Dad's father was a retail hardware salesman, and they were renting a home. Sometime before the 1920 census Olive died perhaps in childbirth when Robert was born in 1911. Ida, dad's stepmother, had one more child my uncle Sherman. 




Portrait of Dad's First Decade

The Cars


The Fashion


Inventions
  • Traffic Light
  • Zipper
  • Fridge
  • Telephone
  • Safety Razor
  • Radio
  • Vacuum Cleaner
  • Teddy Bear
  • Crayons
  • Gas Motored Airplane
  • Wind Shield Wipers
  • Air Conditioner
  • Teabags
  • Tractor
  • E=mc2
  • Cornflakes
  • Helicopter
  • Model T


The  Timeline
1910 
  • Union of South Africa established
  • Japan annexes Korea
  • Revolution overthrows Portuguese monarchy
  • Boy Scouts of America and Campfire Girls are founded
  • Radon discovered
  • Deaths of Edward VII, nursing pioneer Florence Nightingale, writers Mark Twain, O. Henry and Tolstoy and painter William Holman Hunt
1911 
  • "Agadir crisis" brings France and Germany to the brink of wa.
  • Manchu dynasty overthrown in China and a republic established 
  • Triangle Shirtwaist fire leads to reforms in building codes and labor laws
  • First electric self-starter for automobiles
  • First air conditioner invented
  • Italy annexes Libya
  • Amundsen beats Scott to the South Pole
  • Assassination of Russian Premier Peter Stolypin
  • Deaths of composer Mahler and writer/librettist W.S.Gilbert
1912
  • U.S. Public Health Service is established
  • Arizona becomes the 48th state
  • Albania declares its independence
  • Woodrow Wilson elected as U.S. president
  • Sinking of the Titanic
  • First use of zippers in clothing
1913
  • Panama Canal completed
  • Ford Motor Company introduces moving assembly line
1914
  • Ireland on the brink of civil war
  • Outbreak of World War I
  • Anglo-French forces halt German advance at Battle of the Marne
  • U.S. Federal Trade Commission established
  • Panama Canal opens
1915
  • Fist use of poison gas in warfare
  • Liner Lusitania sunk by German U-boat
  • Japan’s "Twenty-One Demands"? an attempt to reduce China to a protectorate
  • Deaths of poet Rupert Brooke and educator Booker T. Washington
1916 
  • Battle of Jutland — major naval engagement of World War I
  • Battle of the Somme
  • First use of tanks in war
  • Abortive " Easter Uprising" in Dublin
  • Arab revolt against Ottoman rule
  • Albert Einstein proposes General Theory of Relativity
  • Woodrow Wilson reelected as U.S. president
  • Deaths of writers Henry James and Jack London
1917
  • The United States enters World War I
  • Revolution in Russia forces tsar’s abdication
  • Italian armies collapse at Caporetto
  • Finland proclaims independence
  • Puerto Rico becomes a U.S. territory
  • Deaths of showman "Buffalo Bill" Cody, painter Edgar Degas and sculptor Auguste Rodin
1918
  • Treaty of Brest-Litovsk ends war between Bolshevik Russia and Central Powers
  • Civil war in Russia leads to murder of tsar and his family
  • President Woodrow Wilson proposes Fourteen Points, a plan for world peace
  • Austria becomes a Republic
  • T.E. Lawrence leads Arabs into Damascus
  • Germany accepts terms of Allied armistice
  • Deaths of composer Claude Debussy, and poet Joyce Kilmer
1919
  • Communist rising crushed in Germany
  • Treaty of Versailles signed in Paris
  • Amritsar massacre — British forces kill unarmed Indian demonstrators
  • First airline links established between London and Paris
  • Alcock and Brown fly the Atlantic nonstop
  • Paris Peace Conference redraws European frontiers
  • Worldwide influenza epidemic
  • White Sox' scandal


Monday, February 6, 2012

Howard/Dad as a Young Man

I remember  Dad talking about how high the corn grew in Ohio. Think this is good proof.


Sometime in the 1920s the family moved to Tampa. Dad graduated from Hillsborough High in 1928.
Hillsborough High School is one of the South's oldest high schools and the oldest high school in Hillsborough County. Although the school probably dates closer to 1880, a room over a Franklin Street livery stable in 1885 is recognized as the first location of the school. Hillsborough High School moved into its present day home, located at 5000 N. Central Ave., in 1928.
1928 Yearbook




(Top Right) With Inscription:

HOWARD REED...............................Academic
A chemistry student of marked ability.
Though rather quiet in manner, Howard has a pleasing personality.

 He was in the Chemistry Club, the Scientific Society,  and the Home Tech Club.

 The description of the Home Tech Club is: "Another new club in Hillsborough is the Home Tech club for boys. They study how to cook simple dishes, the proper manner in which to serve a meal, how to carve meat and various other things that every host should know. The subject of dress is also included in the club program. So much enthusiasm and interest in the club has been shown by the boys that the club has grown to more than twice the original size. It was necessary to divide the club into two parts for laboratory work.'

Amazingly, this was one of the bigger clubs in the school.

The 1930 Census shows Dad living in Miami, Dade County, Florida. On line 29 it recounts he is a "roomer" (meaning boarder), he is single, 19 years old, going to school, and is working as a laborer in the paper supply business. I remember seeing a little notebook where Dad itemized every cent, and I remember seeing 2 cents written out for a postage stamp. Wish we could find this book. What a treasure.

Dad on the Left. What a handsome guy.