Touch of Gray - March / April 2007

Resident had Ford connection in school and at war
Saying 'Buenos dias' to Hispanic staff

Resident had Ford connection in school and at war
   At a time when all the nation was bringing up memories of Gerald R. Ford, whose final rites were attended by a Who's Who of celebrities, one resident of Carolina Meadows had reason to recall a very special relationship with the former president.

   In the study of his villa, McGregor Converse keeps a cherished photograph. It shows the entire junior varsity football squad of 1939 at Yale University, with coach Jerry Ford, then a student in the Yale Law School, in the center of the back row, and Converse, who played end, in another row.

   Converse recalls that he had failed to qualify for the Yale varsity, and was in danger of dismissal from the junior varsity. He appealed to coach Ford, who said, in effect, "You really want to play on the junior varsity? Consider it done."

   Converse graduated from Yale in 1940 and was advised by his father, also a Yalie and then an army intelligence officer on active duty, "Get a job with a good company, because after the war there will be a lot of returning GIs crowding the job market."

   Young Converse landed a job with General Motors, but took military leave in November 1941 -- a month before the Pearl Harbor attack -- to enter Navy flight training. After training in Florida and practicing landings on an aircraft carrier in Lake Michigan, Converse headed for the Pacific, where he saw combat duty in Guadalcanal and points north, flying Grumman F4F fighters.

   Skip to 1944, when Converse was assigned to the carrier USS Monterey as a fighter director. This duty involved working from the ship's Combat Information Center to guide fighters and bombers to their targets and back to their ships. One of his shipmates was his former Yale coach, Jerry Ford, who was a deck officer on the Monterrey.

   Newspapers have recounted the story of the huge typhoon that swept the South China Sea in the waning days of 1944, when Jerry Ford was almost swept overboard by a towering wave. Mac Converse was on the flight deck, and as the ship rolled 25 degrees to port, saw one of his fellow officers caught by a wave sweeping across the deck.

   "I did not recognize the officer, but I learned later that it was Jerry Ford," Converse said. "He disappeared over the edge of the deck, but he was able to grab a piece of the ship's structure."

   Ford saved himself from certain death in an angry sea.

   As the American naval command was compelled to deal with suicide kamikaze bombers attacking ships, Converse was transferred temporarily to a destroyer on picket duty ahead of the main fleet. There Converse's performance as a fighter director, guiding aircraft to and from their combat missions and sometimes on rescue missions for downed aviators, earned him a special commendation from Admiral William Halsey to go along with an Air Medal awarded to him earlier.

   After atom bombs led to the surrender of the Japanese, Converse was aboard the Monterrey as she returned in triumph to a victory celebration in New York City. Converse's mother, without the knowledge of her son, had been given a pass to visit the ship, but with no plans for a rendezvous, they did not find each other. Their reunion was delayed for a few days.

   Heeding his father's advice, Converse returned to General Motors for a long and successful career in the marketing division.

   In 1974, the officers and crew of the Monterey scheduled a reunion at a hotel in Washington, D.C. The guest of honor was the president of the United States, Gerald R. Ford, who met and greeted his former shipmate, Mac Converse. It was a warm and happy reunion for both. -- Bob Parker, Resident

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Saying 'Buenos dias' to Hispanic staff
   Orange County has seen the biggest increase in Hispanic population of any county in the state, and the changes sparked by such dramatic growth brings are evident at Carolina Meadows.

   Many of 32 Spanish-speaking people who work at Carolina Meadows do not speak or understand English well. What can we do to help the Spanish-speakers learn English? Or should we be trying to learn Spanish?

   Perhaps we need to do both.

   Changes in the U.S. population have been happening ever since the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620. In the 17th and early 18th centuries, most of the newcomers were from Northern Europe, but in the 19th and 20th centuries, swarms of immigrants from Southern Europe poured through Ellis Island.

   How could so many people speaking so many different languages communicate? The solution was to teach the children English in school, and the children in turn helped teach their parents.

   The next generation spoke English at school or work, but also spoke their parents' language while at home. They understood that speaking English would greatly increase their ability to get a good job.

   At Carolina Meadows, many residents who have lived or vacationed extensively in countries where Spanish is spoken can speak the language. They are willing to interpret for non-English-speaking employees, as they did for the silent auction last fall. Among those who helped the Hispanic employees participate in the silent auction were Lynn Ogden, Barbara Young, Selma Baine and Dorothy Mullen.

   Other residents, including Mary Ellen Evans, Judith Ferster, Beverly Inchalik, Dorothy Minsley, Gloria Robinson, Dorothy Mullen, Kim Aycrigg and Bob Vickers are learning, or improving, their Spanish, in a class taught by Selma Baine, a resident who taught Spanish in New York before retiring to Carolina Meadows. The classes meet once a week on Thursday afternoons from 3 to 4:30 p.m., and all love to see how pleased the Spanish-speaking employees are when we are able to speak to them in their own language.

   I particularly enjoy the look of surprise and pleasure they give me when they hear this gray-haired lady wish them "Buenos dias" or "Prospero Ano Nuevo." Because I have been in Mexico 15 times, and have traveled all over the country, I usually can truthfully tell them that I have visited their home town, even if it's a very small one.

   Many volunteers participate in the "Spanish Reading Partners" program of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro city schools. Age-appropriate books are read to school children (mostly Spanish-speaking,) but also to others who have difficulty learning to read English.

   This is an interesting and rewarding volunteer job. Once a week at local elementary schools, volunteers read one-on-one to Hispanic children for an hour (half an hour for each child).

   The children are adorable and eager to learn, and that amount of time when they have an adult's attention completely focused on them is very helpful to them.

   There are ESL (English as a Second Language) teachers at each school to help the volunteers select appropriate books and give suggestions to improve their teaching.

   Also, here at Carolina Meadows, there are opportunities for volunteers to help children of the Spanish-speaking staff learn to speak and read English. One is working with an employee's 5-year-old son, who is very intelligent and beginning to speak English quite well. He is now starting to work on reading and writing. There's nothing sweeter than a child's hug when the lesson is finished.

   For Hispanic adults, resources are available at El Centro Latino, 110 West Main Street in Carrboro. Classes in English as a Second Language are taught, along with computer skills and driving regulations. There are also classes in financial education. A day care program for pre-school children is very popular, as is an after-school program. There are also evening ESL classes at several Chapel Hill churches.

   Some Hispanic immigrants are here because, like the pre-World War II immigrants, they want to become citizens and make a better life for themselves and their children in this country. In those pre-war days, before air transportation was available, people who came here from other countries knew that they would probably never be able to go back. Most of them couldn't afford the time to go and come by ship, even if they could afford the fares.

   Other Hispanic people who are living and working here in Orange County do not intend to remain here. They are here because they can earn more money here than they can dream of earning in their own countries. I spoke to a man from Honduras one day who told me that in his country he earned the equivalent of $1 a day. Working two jobs, he can earn more in one day in Chapel Hill than he could in his country in a month. He is saving to buy a house in Tegucigalpa, he said, and when he has enough saved enough he will go home to become a respected citizen, a home owner.

   Another man, from Guatemala, is saving for a bulldozer so he can start a construction business in his home town.

   A Mexican woman who spoke to me in the post office spent two years in Chapel Hill, working two full-time jobs, plus four housecleaning jobs on weekends. She was working to be able to give her 15-year-old daughter in Mexico a "Quinceanos" celebration, which, in Mexico, costs about as much as a wedding. The parents (or parent, in this case) have to hire an orchestra, a horse-drawn crystal carriage and lots of food and drink to celebrate their daughter's 15th birthday.

   She made her goal in two years, and is now back in Mexico, grateful to have accomplished what she set out to do.

   So, learn a little Spanish, say "Buenos dias" to Spanish speakers, and you will have a lot of fun, and also be able to know that you have made someone happy. -- Dorothy Mullen

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