Robert Gene Hudson

Robert Gene Hudson

Robert was born December 4, 1932, in St. Louis, Missouri.[1] He

was the third child of John Leslie Hudson and Olive Mae Francisco.

According to records, John worked at various odd jobs, mostly hauling,

and for a short while in 1933 he worked for the Civil Works

Administration. John was not often a present in the family home. He was

absent for weeks at a time, drinking and involving himself in minor

scrapes with the law with his older brother Edgar. They were both well

known to the Kirkwood Police. Robert had an older brother John Leslie

Hudson, Jr., and older sister Henrietta Louise Hudson born in 1928 and

1930 respectively.[2] Due to the environment in the Hudson home the

County Welfare Association opened a case to aid and monitor their living

conditions, in December of 1931.[3] By 1934, John was employed with the

St. Louis County Road Department. On May 30 John became very ill and

ended up at Isolation Hospital (later St. Louis City Hospital). It was

determined he had typhoid fever. He remained in the hospital for the next

eleven days, passing away on June 10 from a combination of pneumonia and typhoid fever.[4]

A week after her husband’s death, Olive gave birth to Mary Ann Hudson on June 17.[5] With four young children, poor family finances due to John’s death, and the Depression, Olive started looking for work. She picked up odd jobs and accepted help and charity from her neighbors. The County Welfare workers checked in on the family and encouraged Olive to stay home and accept financial help from the county. They provided food, rent, furniture, clothing, car fares, and cash for incidentals, making it possible for Olive to stay home and raise her children. Olive obviously had an independent streak and seemed to insist on supporting her family financially. To do this she would leave the children with family, neighbors, and sometimes alone, so she could do housework for others. This was not an endeavor which the County Welfare Association encouraged. Neighbors complained about the treatment of the Hudson children, so County Welfare discontinued benefits hoping to encourage her to concentrate on raising her children. After further discussions with Olive the County Court ordered she be given a small allowance of $20 per month. At this time man named George Becker came to board with the Hudson family. George was married but separated from his wife and children. To make ends meet, Olive had moved her family to a new home located in a ‘colored settlement’. The neighbors here also began to complain about the treatment of the children, saying ‘the conduct in the home was shameful’.[6]

After John Hudson’s death, his parents John William

Hudson and his wife Henrietta had been expressing their concern

to County Welfare about the care of their grandchildren.

Henrietta actively tried to gain custody, or have the children

placed in the homes of various other family members. She passed

along stories of disgusting and almost unbelievable behavior

attributed to Olive Hudson. None of those claims were ever

verified.[7]

Olive, realizing she couldn’t care for her children

adequately on her own, discussed placing them in a home with

County Welfare. To help make this happen, County Welfare,

arranged for Olive to take a job as a seamstress with the WPA, on

September 8, 1936, with the understanding that she would

assume partial financial responsibility for the children. But soon

enough County Welfare started receiving complaints again about

Olive’s indifferent treatment of her children. That same month

Robert became very ill and was admitted to St. Louis County Hospital. He was diagnosed with Osteomyelitis, an inflammation or swelling in the bone because of injury or infection. He remained in the hospital for the next seven weeks. During his stay it’s likely he spent time in an iron lung. Bob had memories of lying on his back covered from neck to foot by something that generated a lot of heat, just being able to lie there and turn his head from side to side. He remembered on more than one occasion looking out the doorway of the room he was in and seeing a small black boy staring at him wide eyed.[8] When he was released, his left leg was in a plaster cast, and he was placed in the care of Edgar Hudson and his wife Sophie. County Welfare checking on Robert’s living conditions found the house filthy, and immediately started efforts to get him admitted to Shriners Hospital.[9] With the large plaster cast, and weakened by a long hospital stay, Robert was unable to walk. His Uncle Edgar felt Bob wouldn’t be able to learn to walk again with the cast on his leg, so, he cut it off. Edgar then stood Bob up and encouraged him to walk across the room to his Aunt Sophie. Then Sophie would do the same. Bob remembered falling at least once but felt maybe in the long run having the cast removed was the best thing for his recovery.[10]

Olive was notified that court action would be brought against her if she did not make plans to care for her children as she had promised. She refused, so on December 18, 1936, Olive was brought to court, and the Hudson children were made wards of the court. On January 12, 1937, Bob was admitted to Shriners Hospital where they changed his diagnosis to Infantile Paralysis, (or Polio). He was hospitalized there until February 9, 1937, when he was pronounced ‘well, if given proper nourishment’.[11] On February 27, 1937, after securing places for them, the County Welfare Association placed all four Hudson children in the German Protestant Children’s Home, in Wellston, Missouri. When they arrived, the Hudson children were placed in quarantine, because all four of them had Whooping Cough.[12] John, Louise, Bob, and Mary were all enrolled in the Normandy school district, started attending regular church services, and were soon acclimating themselves to their new lives at the children’s home. The German Protestant Children’s Home worked hard at being a self-supporting organization. To help facilitate that goal, they ran a small farm on-site where they grew their own vegetables, and raised cows, hogs, and chickens. They also had a significant canning operation, to store whatever excess they might have. There were about 60 children, and 25 support staff, including their families that lived at the home. The children were all given age-appropriate chores that they were required to do every day, more being added if seasonal demands dictated. Children may do some chores in the morning, then go to school, maybe some chores in the afternoon, homework, and then time to play if daylight allowed. After living at the Home, for a little over a year, and attending church services, Bob was baptized on March 30, 1938.[13]

The first chore that Bob remembered being responsible for was making beds. A woman that worked at the Home taught some of the younger boys, how she wanted it done, and then turned them loose. Each boy was responsible for five or six beds. When they had finished their work, it would be checked. The grounds were kept very clean, and Bob was elected at times to sweep the brick sidewalks, and when needed pull the weeds that grew between the cracks. As he got older, he was taught how to work in the fields and deal with livestock. He remembered getting up while it was still dark to milk the cows. Each boy had five or six cows to milk, morning, and evening. Dad recalled that he was assigned one cow with long legs, and if he wasn’t paying enough attention, she would kick him in the head. He recounted spraying milk at the cats, and each other. When he was old enough, he, and some of the other boys after milking them, would herd the cows across St. Charles Rock Road, and the streetcar tracks, to their grazing pasture in the morning before school. Then after dinner that night herding them back. They took turns stopping traffic.[14] On one occasion in 1943, the boys were herding the 30 Holstein cows back across Lackland and St. Charles Rock roads to the barn. Unfortunately, a westbound streetcar didn’t see them in time, and ran into the herd killing four cows. When it was harvesting time, or hay baling season, some of the boys were excused from school to make sure these tasks were completed in a timely manner.[15]

Another interesting memory of Bob’s took place during

World War II. A regular donor to the Home, William Hellwig,

owned Hellwig Brother’s Farms, a large produce farm near

Chesterfield in Gumbo Flats. For several days each year he

would bring a truck by and pick up a bunch of boys from the

home and they would go out to his farm during harvest time

and pick vegetables and fruit. Whatever they picked they took

back to the Home. That was a great windfall, but what Bob

remembered most were the men they worked alongside when

they were there. Hellwig Brother’s Farms was also a POW

camp. There were German POWs, Italian POWs, and

Japanese Internee’s working on the farm. The POWs were

captured soldiers brought to the United States to ensure they couldn’t escape and get back into the fight, but the Japanese Internee’s were Japanese American citizens the American government locked up to ensure they would not perform acts of espionage or sabotage. Bob remembered the POWs were always very kind and seemed to enjoy being around them. He felt it probably reminded them of their families back home. The best part of this memory was on the way back to the Home, Mr. Hellwig would always stop and get the boys a ‘dixie cup’ of ice cream’. Bob thought the place they got the ice cream from was a Steak n’ Shake warehouse.

Bob recalled the first person he considered a best friend was August

Abendschein, Bob called him Auggie or Gus. The two boys both loved

sports. Auggie lived at the home too, after his mother was killed in a

house fire. His father put Auggie and his three brothers and two sisters

in the home because he was unable to care for the children and work.

When Bob was in the sixth grade, Auggie came down with rheumatic

fever, which resulted in Auggie being unable to attend classes for the rest

of the school year. Since they were in the same class Bob was asked to

bring home Auggie’s homework assignments and give him any help or

instruction he might need. Auggie was a bright kid and didn’t need much

academic instruction. In fact, even though he physically missed being at

school most of the year, Auggie advanced to seventh grade with the rest

of his classmates. Bob benefitted from this experience by having a

reduced chore load. Some friends Bob met at school often tried getting invited to the Home, because of all the kids that lived there. It was almost always possible to field two complete teams, and sometimes a small league, depending on the sport was being played.[16]

On June 25, 1943, the Hudson children were all in court to determine their future living arrangements. Reasons for the decision that was made are not known, but on January 5, 1944, custody of John and Louise Hudson was given back to their mother Olive, who had married George Becker on June 18, 1938. John and Louise went to live with the Becker’s in Kirkwood, and Bob and Mary stayed at the Home.[17] There must have been some mixed feelings for everyone involved, but those were the living arrangements going forward.

Bob and Mary became a little closer after being separated from their older brother and sister. The Home was their home, and they were able to see each other as often as they wished. Bob recalled when Mary was younger her perception of coinage was, the larger the coin, the greater its value. Knowing this Bob was more than happy to trade his nickels or pennies for Mary’s dimes. When Mary was older, and sometimes on occasions when they were out in public together, Bob would act mentally handicapped and try to hold her hand. Most certainly he succeeded in embarrassing his younger sister.[18]

When Bob and his siblings were first put in the Home, Herman Helmick was the Superintendent, and his wife Olinde was head matron. They were very strict. No children living at the Home were allowed to participate in after school activities. They were to come directly home from school. Bob knew of only one exception to that rule, and that was a boy named Clarence Snyder who lived there in the 1920’s. He was an exceptional basketball player. Normandy school officials contacted the Home to gain permission for him to play on the school team, and it was granted. In 1946, Mr. Helmick was replaced by Victor Hauck. Mr. Hauck had been a teacher in the Ritenour school district and seemed to have a different philosophy than his predecessor. Mr. Hauck felt that the children should be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities if they could work out the logistics. Once kids reached the ninth grade would take the kids during the summer to the north side YMCA to swim at least once a week. Every year they would take the kids to the Shriner’s Circus. Occasionally they would take them to the movies, auto races, and St. Louis Brown’s games. Local Lion’s Club members would come pick up kids in their own cars and take them

to The Forest Park Highlands Amusement Park, buy them tickets and stay with them all day and then

take them back to the Home.

Happily, for Bob, entering his freshman year of high school, he could try out for Normandy

sports teams. If Bob had his way, he would have tried out for all the sports teams and attended a few

club functions. But it soon became evident that there would have to be some restrictions. Bob was one

of seven boys who milked the cows every morning and every night. Each of those boys wanted to

participate in sports. Mr. Hauck had a meeting with them, and it was decided that each boy could

participate in two sports a year, and when it was your off season, you milked the cows for the boys

whose sports were in season. This caused Bob to have an issue in his sophomore year. His freshman

year he played football and baseball. As a sophomore he wanted to play basketball instead of football.

But the football coach was the sophomore basketball coach too, and he cut Bob from the basketball

team telling him he took care of his football guys when basketball season rolled around.[19]

Bob admitted to being an average to below average student and could have better applied

himself. He was a jock and did his schoolwork as a requirement to play sports. In his senior year,

1950 – 1951, he played guard on the basketball team. That year they went to the state tournament and won. Unfortunately, Bob missed playing in the championship game, he was in the hospital having the small toe on his left foot amputated. A residual side effect of polio, Bob had creeping paralysis in his toe causing it to position itself on top of his adjacent toe. It got to the point it was causing him pain when he ran, so they gave him the choice of breaking it and resetting, or amputation. The problem with resetting was it could just do the same thing. Bob chose amputation. They removed the toe, and the bone in the foot up to the first joint. The championship game was between Normandy and Maplewood. The hospital put a radio in Bob’s room so he could listen to the game. It so happened that his nurse had gone to Maplewood high school, so she was finding every opportunity she could to stop by Bob’s room. Having had surgery that day, and being groggy from the anesthesia, Bob missed the last half of the game. It was a bit of a nail biter, Normandy won 56 – 52.[20]

After recovering from his foot surgery, Bob started practice for the baseball team. He was a pitcher. During his first practice he stretched and warmed up and when it was his turn, he took the pitcher’s mound. His first pitch of the 1951 baseball season went a little differently than expected. Standing on the rubber facing home plate he eyed the catcher’s mitt, his target. He brought his hands up to his chest placing his gloved left hand over the ball in his right hand. Committing to the pitch he began his wind-up. He stepped back with his left foot as he swung both arms back. Pivoting on his right foot he swung his left leg forward and up along with both arms bringing the ball back to the glove at his chest. He took a big step forward towards home plate with his left leg, swung his left arm forward and around turning at the waist and bringing his right arm up and over, planting his left foot he released the ball towards his target. As he continued to pivot towards home plate his right leg started swinging around to square up to his target. Then something strange occurred, he kept going forward planting his face in the dirt. At that point Bob suddenly realized how important a small toe could be to maintaining good balance.[21]

Bob’s stay at the Home was about 14 years. And during that time, he only remembered visiting with his family about a half dozen times. His mother came and took Bob and his sister Mary on four or five occasions. She was usually accompanied by Bob’s Aunt Erma, Cecil Hudson’s wife. Bob remembered visiting with his mother in Perryville, Missouri, and Kirkwood. They would mostly hang around the house, and sometimes his brother John, or sister Louise would take them out to see a movie or something. Once his Uncle Charlie Hudson came to visit him at the Home, he stayed an hour then left.

Starting in the early spring, Mr. Hauck wrote some introductory letters to McDonnell

Aircraft, and Bell Telephone about employment for Bob. The letters were evidently successful

because Bob obtained a job as a sheet metal worker at McDonnell Aircraft making $1.16 an

hour. At first Bob continued living at the Home where he was given instruction on budgeting

and how to handle his money. After that period of acclimation, he found a room to rent for $12

per week for room and board. The room was in the home of a long-time classmate of Bob’s,

Howard Eberhart, located at 8217 Brenner Ave., in Overland, MO. His landlord was

Mrs. Gertrude Eberhart, Howard’s mother.[22] Bob worked for McDonnell Aircraft for

approximately a year and four months when he decided to make a change. In October 1952 he

took a job at Vatterott Construction as a carpenter.[23] When he needed a little extra cash, or

they were a little short of help he worked at Moutry’s Filling Station. It was kind of a local

hangout, and Bob had gone to school with their son Jack.[24] Bob continued playing baseball,

and in the summer of 1952, his Khoury League team the Cubs won the Championship.[25]

When Bob first left the Home, he was in a quandary as to whether he should

enlist in the military or just await the draft.[26] Starting in 1940 the United States i

nstituted a compulsory military draft. Bob decided to wait, but he didn’t have to wait

long. On February 20, 1953, Bob received his draft notice. He was given time to get his

civilian affairs in order, and then reported for basic training at Fort Leonard Wood,

Missouri, in July. His major course of training during basic was in general carpentry.

After completing basic training Bob received orders to report to Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

There his designation was Clerk Typist, and he was put to work in the military post

office.[27] During his service Bob participated in two intermural sports, Basketball

and Baseball. He had the unique experience of being selected to play on a baseball

team mainly made up of professional athletes. One athlete became friends with Bob.

His name was Dick Groat. Dick Groat had been an all-American basketball player at

Duke University. He then went on to play professional basketball and baseball. He

eventually decided to play professional baseball exclusively. After he was drafted, he

was placed on a military team. They played as entertainment for the troops. This was

the team for which Bob was selected. After they both were discharged Groat went back

to playing professional baseball. He played for the Pirates and the St. Louis Cardinals.

While a Pirate he would call Bob when in town, leave some tickets for him at

the ticket counter, and they’d meet up after the game at The Chase Park Plaza

Hotel downtown St. Louis.[28]

December 9, 1953, brought Bob the news that his mother Olive Becker had

passed away from cervical cancer. The Army gave him bereavement leave, and

the Red Cross arranged his transport home. Jack Moutrie picked Bob up at the

airport and took him home where his family had offered to put him up during

his leave. When Bob walked into the visitation for his mother, he was surprised

to see Mr. Shinabarger, a former high school teacher there to offer his

support.[29]

On May 21, 1954, Bob was promoted to Corporal. He continued his active

military service until February 18, 1955. At that point he was honorably

discharged and placed in the Army Reserve. In 1952 the U. S. government

decided, that when drafted for compulsory military service, it would entail an

eight-year commitment. A minimum of two years active duty with the remainder

being served in reserve status.[30]

Having completed his two years of active-duty Bob was free to return to his

civilian life. The only issue was where would he live? The Moutrie’s, hearing of

his discharge, contacted him and offered a room in their home for rent. Having

settled his living arrangements, Bob decided to take it easy for a while, having

saved enough money. When the need arose Bob would work shifts at Moutrie’s

Filling Station. One day, while hanging out at the station, an acquaintance

Wally Lucas made an appearance. He asked Bob what he was doing with

himself after his discharge. Bob told him, “Not much.” Wally said, “We need some part-time help down at Robertson Post Office.” Bob thought about it, filled out an application, and soon found himself employed by the Post

Office.[31]

It wasn’t long, and that part-time job soon became full-time. Bob sorted mail, and at least part of the time worked at the counter helping customers satisfy their postal needs. Working at the counter he soon became familiar with who the regular customers were and what services they normally required. One day Bob had the pleasure of waiting on an attractive young lady he hadn’t seen come in before. Smiling at her as she left, he thought, “I hope she comes back in again.” As fate would have it, she did. She worked nearby, and it seemed conducting postal business had become one of her regular duties. After several encounters, (and according to Bob lots of witty banter on his part), Bob worked up the courage to ask out this attractive young lady. She said yes, her name was Charlotte LaRee Carroll, and if you look to below, you will see a picture of them on their first date. They are walking down Grand Blvd. in St. Louis

near the Fox theater. A sidewalk photographer snapped this

photo for posterity.[32]

[1] Birth Certificate

[2] 1940 United States Federal Census

[3] Orphanage Records

[4] Death Certificate

[5] Orphanage Records

[6] Orphanage Records

[7] Orphanage Records

[8] Robert Hudson’s recollections

[9] Orphanage Records

[10] Robert Hudson’s recollections