By Franklin Eugene Lamca (Father of the blog operator)
The world is filled with memorials to commemorate the great accomplishments of people that have made their “mark” in life. Every capital city in the world is filled with memorials and statues of the world’s great men and women. Volumes of books weigh heavily on the book shelves of the world’s libraries, their pages filled with enough black ink to fill an ocean, telling of man’s achievements. But for most of us that pass quietly through life, no memorial is built, no statue is carved, no book is written to tell of our time on this planet earth. We are held in the precious memories of those who loved us and knew us. With their passing, so passes most, or all, of the memory of our ever having existed. To those that have gone before me, already forgotten in analogs of family memory, I say, “Thank you.” To those that I remember, I say, “Let me record what I have discovered about you so that future generations may capture a glimpse of your short life.”
George Lamca was my father. He was a humble and unpretentious man that loved God and that loved his family. His entire life was about service and the characteristics that come to mind when I think about him include: intelligence, honesty, integrity, loyalty and patience. George had a soft spot in his heart for the “underdog” because he understood what is what like to have suffered poverty and to work very hard to support those that you love.
The Early Years
George Calvin Lamca was the third of seven children born in rapid succession to George William Lamca and Helen Fannie Morrow. Only five years separated the births of his parents first four children. He was one of two sons. His brother Eugene Charles Lamca was eleven years younger and was killed in WWII.
His father was employed by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (PRR) in the foundry located in South Altoona near 6th Avenue and 41st. Street. His father contracted silicosis while in early 40’s from the sand and coal dust used in the blast furnace at the shops. The condition resulted in much lost work and severely limited the family’s income. His father, however, did the best that he could to provide for the family, even selling candy in the shops to earn extra money. Lack of health and seven children took its toll on the family finances, however, and young George was always under pressure to do what he could to help earn money.
My father suffered many medical problems of his own from a very early age and had at least two life threatening experiences in his early life.
The first time that he nearly died was as a very young boy. One his sisters were walking across the Seventh Street Bridge with him when he began having difficulty breathing. Fortunately, his Uncle, Dr. Morrow, had an office nearby. His sisters rushed George to Dr. Morrow’s office and the doctor examined him immediately. As best as I can remember my Aunt Lillian’s explanation, a very large tumor had developed in the boy’s throat as was choking him. Uncle Morrow did emergency surgery on him in his office and saved his life.
The second medical crisis with George was also as a child. He contracted polio and nearly died. As a result of the polio, one leg grew about an inch or so shorter than the other leg. This problem caused a severe limp and resulted in teasing by other children in school. Interestingly, however, because he always had to work hard to overcome this handicap, he developed a profound love of walking. Even with his severe limp, I always difficulty keeping up with Dad’s pace whenever I walked with him.
One other physical handicap that Dad suffered was a severe muscle trembling. This may or may not have been a result of his polio. His hands were constantly trembling and were like that from as long as I can remember. My mother told me that he had the trembling when she met him when he was seventeen years of age. It was always very interesting to watch my father, a man who refused to give up, thread a needle with his trembling hands. Sometimes it would take him a few minutes, but unwilling to give up, he would eventually get the thread through the eye of the needle. Neither his shorter leg, nor his trembling hands ever caused George Lamca to miss a day of work.
His Teenage Years
George was a bright student. He had a profound love of reading and of languages. From an early age he felt called to the ministry and wanted to become a Lutheran Pastor.
George was sixteen years old when the “Great Depression” gripped America with financial despair. Fortunately, or unfortunately, his family was already so poor that they did realize as much of a change as some of the more affluent families realized. But the depression did make whatever hope George had of attending college disappear. By that time in his life, his father was ill and money was needed to help feed his parents and siblings.
His ability to learn was noticed by his middle school teachers and George was advanced two grade levels. I believe that he skipped 7th and 8th grades, but he once told me that he had such a good time in ninth grade that he was put back one of the two years that he had advanced. The older children had been a bad influence on him and he needed to be kids more his own age.
George loved learning. He excelled in foreign language, despite a hearing loss, and especially enjoyed French. He tutored many of fellow students, and later in life, a woman that knew George in high school, told me that if it were not for his tutoring, she would have failed French class.
Constantly plagued with financial pressures due to his father’s silicosis, George was constantly under pressure to quit school and go to work to support the family. He worked whenever he could, but refused to give up on his dream of at least finishing high school. His uncle Calvin Wallace, from whom he got his middle name, came to his rescue.
Calvin Wallace was married to his mother’s sister. He was a supervisor with the PRR and a high ranking Shriner. During the depression he converted his garage into a neighborhood store and hired his nephew, George as the manager during George’s junior year of high school. This provided some income for the family and it was here that he met the woman that was to become his wife and my mother, Elizabeth Francis Baith.
They met at Uncle Calvin’s store and a romance developed over the summer between his junior and senior year of high school. The PRR provided for a train to stop in the Eldorado section of Altoona at 58th Street and transport students to Altoona High School. George and Elizabeth would meet every morning during his senior year and ride the train together to school. One year after his graduation from Altoona High in the class of 1932, they were married. The date of their union was December 8, 1933.
Uncle Calvin must have used his influence at the PRR to secure George a job, because at age 18 years, he began a job with the railroad and remained there until his retirement at age 63 years.
George still wanted to go to college and hung on to that dream for a while, hoping that the depression would soon end, but it did not. By March of 1935 they had the first of eight children and the depression continued almost until the beginning of WWII in 1942.
Many years after my father passed away, my mother admitted to me that she was always sorry that she did not do more to encourage him to go to college and seminary by working outside of the home early in their marriage. But the financial pressures won out and at some point, George put his dream of the ministry behind him and moved on with life.
His Childhood Home Life
As mentioned above, the family income level was never very high, at its best. The silicosis that plagued his father’s health caused his father’s death on October 20, 1937 at the age of 54 years.
Potatoes and bread and made up much of the family diet. My dad once told me that when times were really tough, his mother would break up bread crusts in stale coffee and call it “Coffee Soup.”
His parents never owned a home. They always rented and moved often around the City of Altoona. His clothes were usually “hand-me-downs” and often tattered and tore with holes in socks and shoes, a standard fare. He was always need of a haircut and his curly hair much longer than the accepted standard of the day. He told me that his friends would always tease him with: “Hey Georgie! There was a barber riding around the neighborhood on a motorcycle looking for you to give you a haircut!”
George loved to read, both as a child and as an adult. So did his mother. But a quiet place to read for him was difficult to find in a house full of children when he lived with his parents. Often, he would slip away to the school library to find solitude. As a teenager, he would walk to Brush Mountain under the pretense of picking huckleberries to be alone to read. He would pick fast and then spend the rest of day reading in the peace and quiet of the mountainside. Sometimes, he would sell the huckleberries for cash to help support the family. Sometimes his mother would use the berries to bake pies. But always, George would use the picking trips for solitude.
His father never owned a new car, but he discovered that it was easy to buy and old limousine that dated prior to the start of the depression. They could be purchased rather cheaply because nobody wanted them. So that is what the family owned as a family car. George’s father could not drive. His sister Irene, who was one year older than Dad, was appointed as the family driver. One time Dad told me that his parents wanted Irene to drive them to Martinsburg to visit his great grandparents, but he was not allowed to go along. So he hung onto the luggage rack and back bumper and rode the entire 30 miles to Martinsburg, undetected. Once they got there and his parents realized what he had done, he got the whipping of his life.
At age thirteen, he too, was allowed to drive the old family limo. I believe that he told me that it was a Packard. Once he wanted to see how fast it would go. Coming down the hill on 6th Avenue, he slid out of control in front of the shops where his father worked and rolled the limo over. The car was demolished and that was the end of the family car!
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