The last four and a half years I have been treasurer for Honey Brook Meals on Wheels. I have had contact with many of the Meals on Wheels’ clients and much more contact with them in the last two years since I have also been a substitute coordinator and substitute driver delivering meals. Most of the clients are anywhere from their 70s to their mid-90s. I started to think how I really don’t know much about them and they probably have many memorable experiences as well as much wisdom that they have learned over the years. So I arranged to have lunch with one of our clients, Walt Funk.
I spent four lunches and a total of about eight hours with Walt, who graduated from high school in 1940. I learned a lot from him. Walt grew up in Phoenixville with his sister, parents and grandparents on a 100 acre farm. He had an older brother who died at the age of three or four from suspected pneumonia. His dad, who seemed to me to be a real taskmaster taught Walt many good qualities including working hard, being honest, and the value of a good education. His dad, after graduating from high school, went to a Pottstown Business School to learn the various aspects of becoming a clerk and used this training to work for the Pennsylvania Railroad on Race Street in Philadelphia and became supervisor of 16 other clerks. Of course, any spare time he had was used in working on his farm. Walt’s mother was the first female to graduate from West Chester Normal School which is now West Chester University. She majored in teaching.
After high school, Walt’s parents expected him to attend college. “I did so poorly in high school there wasn’t a college that would let me in the boy’s room!” Walt said to me. However, he was a hard worker outside the classroom. Many days around 4 a.m., he would get up and check his trap line that ran one and a half miles in French Creek. He trapped skunks, opossums (35 cents per pelt) and muskrat (he could receive as much as $3.60 per pelt). He also delivered the now defunct Philadelphia Bulletin newspaper and on Saturdays he worked at a gas station. When returning from French Creek, he would milk the 13 cows they had on the farm, clean up and go to school. After school, there was milking cows again and work on the family farm, where the main crops were wheat, corn, barley and grasses for the cows to eat. In order to control erosion in certain areas of the farm prone to flooding, they would plant several rows of corn near the area where the flooding originated. When the water came, the corn was pushed down in the direction that the water flowed. Because of the corn, the water was forced to become more spread out so the soil was not eroded.
All of us have favorite stories about experiences we had growing up. Walt is no exception. In high school, football was a big Saturday event. If his team had a very good game and won, all the students celebrated by gathering in the school auditorium the next Monday morning and would stage a sit-in. Then there is the story of the chicken thief. The farm was losing chickens so his grandfather staked out the chicken pen one night. He snuck up on the chicken thief who had several chickens in a bag. He was right in guessing whom the thief was (someone from the area). He was told to drop the bag of chickens. His grandfather told him he’d better run because on the count of five he would shoot him with his shotgun. The thief took off but apparently was not fast enough because he was shot in the feet and limped the rest of his life.
As Walt continued his stories, I sat there thinking that country life wasn’t as safe as I thought it was yesteryear because his next story was also about a thief. When Walt was 16, his dad entered his room around 2 a.m., put his hand over Walt’s mouth and when Walt awoke gave him the ssssshhhh sign. His dad, shotgun in hand, whispered to Walt to get his shotgun because there was someone downstairs. They quietly searched the first floor, all but the parlor. Aha, he must be in the parlor. They entered the parlor and at first could not see anyone. The mystery was solved when Walt’s dad saw a cover on the couch and some lumps under it. Walt was quietly told to approach the couch and pull off the cover. Walt whispered, “You want me to pull off the cover?” “Yep” his dad replied. Walt complied and a man in his 30s or 40s was under the cover with a bag of fruit he had stolen from the house. With two shotguns trained on him, the burglar first pretended he was asleep and then drunk. At first he thought neither of them would shoot but then he thought Walt might be wild enough that he might shoot so he gave up. Walt and his dad kept him until the “fast-acting” police arrived to arrest him about four hours later.
Because his parents insisted there was no other option than to attend college, Walt attended the Brown Prep School in Philadelphia for two years. While there, he played those sports that the School instructed him to. Thus, Walt played basketball forward, caught for the baseball team (at six feet five, he would be tall for a catcher these days) and football. Completing his studies at Brown Prep enabled Walt to enroll at Penn State, where his first year he majored in Civil Engineering.
After his freshman year at Penn State, his education was interrupted when he was drafted during World War II. Walt tried to enlist in the Marines but was turned down because he had previously injured his hand when he was cutting wood with a power saw and nearly sliced four fingers off. After driving himself to the doctor’s the doctor said he would have to amputate his fingers. Walt assured him this was not to be and drove to the hospital where the same conversation took place with another doctor. Walt said he would wait to see another doctor and that doctor not only saved his fingers but Walt was able to shoot a gun with the hand and play sports. He showed his hand to me and if he hadn’t told me about almost losing all the fingers on his hand, I would not have known anything was wrong with it.
Although the Marines would not accept Walt because of his hand injury, the Navy would and he went through basic training with the Navy. However, the Merchant Marines guaranteed him he would receive an honorable discharge right after the war was over so he transferred to the Merchant Marines. I had little knowledge of the Merchant Marines so Walt educated me a bit about them. The Merchant Marines consists of many United States owned and commercial merchant vessels (including luxurious ocean liners) that were converted for use during wartime to assist the Military Service. Walt was assigned to the Santa Rosa which transported troops and materials from eastern ports in the United States to various ports in Europe, Australia, India and Africa. The ships were not well equipped to defend themselves so they usually depended on submarines and destroyers to accompany them for safety. In checking a bit on the Merchant Marines during World War II, I did not find exact figures of deaths from the war because it was so long ago. However, as an approximation, Wikipedia quotes 8,651 deaths (or 1 in 24) of those who served died either in troubled waters or off enemy shores. This was the highest death rate of any of the Services. There were over 700 Merchant Marine ships sunk. No wonder Walt said each man on his ship received special compensation each time they made a round trip by the Rock of Gibraltar. This area was used as a location to bring troops and supplies into Europe. Walt rose to the rank of Ensign and made about 11 round trips from the United States to Europe/Africa.
If you are not careful, you picture the ships of World War II as having much of the technology that we have today. This was not the case. Convoys of ships did most of their communication via Morse code and semi fore flags as the ships travelled less than 1,000 feet apart. When fog rolled in, they communicated by the ships’ horns.
Returning safely after WW II, Walt returned to Penn State, switching majors to Physical Education and Health because he wanted more time to play basketball at school, which he did for two years and eventually played for the Eastern League, which was a pro league in Lancaster, for three years. So, the man who had to go to Prep School for two years to get into college had finished his education? No, Walt went on to receive a Masters at University of Delaware in Education Administration and was 12 credits and a thesis short of his PhD from Temple University.
With his determination and educational advancement, Walt had a successful career as assistant basketball coach at West Lampeter High School and Coatesville High School. He was then promoted to head basketball coach at Coatesville and eventually to principal at Coatesville. His two final jobs were at West Chester University where he was head basketball coach and later, head of the Department of Health Science. Walt founded this department of allied health careers (public health, environmental health and school health) and today it is a thriving school of the university. Three of his four children earned a Masters or PhD and became high school principals or superintendents.
It was an honor to have a series of lunches with Walt and I hope we can be “lunch buddies” periodically. If I were an artist and asked to create a word mosaic of Walt’s life, it would include the following (in no particular order): hard working, determined, educated, disciplined, trusted, brave, caring, moral, a people person and patriotic.
God Bless You, Walt! Jeff Hall, of Honey Brook Township, writes the Book Beat….IMPACT column for Tri County Record. He has been the volunteer treasurer for the Honey Brook Chapter of Meals on Wheels of Chester County for four years. He also fills in to interview new clients, set schedules, and deliver meals when the chairperson is away. MOWCC is a nonprofit program serving hot meals to those who are homebound due to illness, disability or advanced age. For more information, call 610-430-8500.
