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| Barbara and Maureen sitting on "The Lemon" |
We had to buy a used car so Frank could get to work and put deposits down on utilities and an apartment.
We thought it was wonderful when the car dealer delivered the car right to our door. We were so naive as the car ended up being a complete lemon; within three months it gave out on us. We owed money on it, so Frank managed to get it started and drove it up onto the car dealer's front lawn, rang his doorbell, and told him to keep it!
Years later when we were buying a house in California, the default showed up on our credit report, so we wrote and explained the circumstances and the default was written off.
Frank got a job as a tool and die maker at General Electric, and he worked a second job at a tool shop called Herters out in the country near Lincolnton. Those first months in the States were very difficult. The other workers at General Electric resented Frank, a foreigner, taking a job from an American, so they were quite unkind to him.
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| Kenworth Elementary School, Hickory, North Carolina |
I used to cry in the mornings when I sent her off to school. One of the teachers
said she felt so sorry for her as she
would stand alone on the playground.
There was an older teacher, Miss Monroe, who took Maureen under her wing and was so loving to her. She eventually made friends and seemed to settle in well. One time her class went to a television station in Charlotte to perform a skit. Maureen
kept telling us she was going to be on television, and we were skeptical, but sure enough that afternoon she was on television dressed in a Chinese Mandarin costume!
People were generally friendly, but it was such a different culture, particularly in the South. The locals would gape at us when we spoke. One woman told me I had a thick brogue; I was so insulted that I corrected her and told her a brogue was a heavy walking shoe.
Again, Frank couldn't settle, so after two years, we sold everything we'd acquired in the States, and went back to England!
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| Raleigh Cycle Works, Nottingham, England |
When we got back to England we had no house to go to, so we went and lived with Mam and Dad for 4 months. Frank got a job at Raleigh Cycle Works, and destroyed his visa, so he wouldn't be tempted to leave for America again. When he became convinced that we once again had to leave England, he had to go to Liverpool to get a new visa. When they questioned why he had returned to the UK, he said his dad had been ill, and he thought he was dying. We stayed four months at my Mam and Dad's and then came back to the States in January 1960--quite the roller coaster ride!"
--Joan Shelton
Maureen, who was 9 years old when we returned to England, remembers,
"During the 4 months back in England from August 1959 to December 1959, I attended the High Street Primary School where Mam went as a little girl. I still have a red gingham, rectangular embroidery sampler that I made while at High Street School.
We went back to the States in January 1960, and once again lived in Viewmont Apartments in Hickory, NC. Later that year Dad got a job at Hunt Pen in Statesville, about 30 miles away. Mam says we tied the mattresses to the top of the station wagon, piled the furniture and other belongings inside and moved it all in the evenings when Dad was done with work. We first moved into a two story, red brick, apartment on North Center Street, where I attended sixth grade, and then later to a one story duplex on Oakland Avenue where I attended D. Matt Thompson Junior High School."
--Maureen (Shelton) Wallace
"The second time we left England for the United States we again sailed out of Southampton, this time on New Year's Day, 1960, on the Queen Elizabeth I. Barbara was 5 and Maureen was 10. It was a very rough crossing, and Frank was sick the entire trip. I remember the Vienna Boy's Choir was on board, traveling to the US to do a series of concerts. They performed for the passengers on New Year's Eve, but most of the time the boys were up on the top deck, covered in blankets because they were terribly seasick.
Aunty Gladys and Uncle Collette met us in New York and drove us back down to North Carolina.
We moved into another of the Viewmont Apartments and then shortly after into a two story brick apartment on North Center Street in Statesville, NC.
Frank got a job at Hunt Pen Company which had just relocated to Statesville, NC from Camden,
New Jersey in 1957. He was a draftsman and did well enough that we were able to move into a nicer apartment, a duplex, and then in 1961, purchased our first home in the United States at Holland Drive, Statesville, North Carolina." --Joan Shelton
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| Barbara and Maureen in front of Viewmont Apartments, Hickory, NC |
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| Barbara, Frank (Dad), Maureen 1959 |
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| On the back Mom had written: "Taken on Barbara's (5th.) birthday. The two blondes are Glady's girls, Diane and Karen (cousins). The boy is Bar-bar's boyfriend, Eric. Maureen just loves that dog (Patches). Taken in our front yard. July 1960 |
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