[Jims5543]

George Adams was my Grandfather on my Mothers side. This was written by his cousin around July 2001 and distributed to my family. It was type written and I asked my receptionist to type it into word.

I thought you might enjoy it from a historical point of view. He never spoke of WWII and this is the most info I ever heard about it and my grandfather.

Its very long and you may not want to read it, I found the information about the battles in Germany fascinating but then again this was my grandfather, others may not feel this way.

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GEORGE ADAMS

Born 1916 Died: 5/9/2001
George was born in Rockland Lake, New York. His parents were John Adams and Anna Adams, who both emigrated from Hungary. He had two older sisters, Elizabeth and Mary, and a brother, who died in the flu epidemic of 1918.

I don’t know much about George’s childhood. I know his mother became ill. I think she had cancer. My mother and father (Tom and Elizabeth McKeon) took an apartment in Rockland Lake. My father commuted to New York and my mother took care of his mother until she died. After she died, George was only about 10 years old, and my mother started to take care of him.

At some point, my parents bought their house in Orangeburgh, New York, which was closer to my dad’s work in New York City. George and his father John moved to Orangeburgh with my parents, and they all lived together from then on. George became more like a brother to us (Jack, Tom, George (me), and Jimmy), than an uncle. My mother really became, to some extent, George’s mother, also. George use to talk to me about the good times he had with my father, Tom, hiking and swimming in Rockland Lake and Orangeburgh. In Orangeburgh, George went to school and ultimately graduated from Congers High School, where Orangeburgh students went to High School.

I think George was a pretty good student and I know he played some sports, like Hockey. He was a kid in the Depression and no on had any money. While he was in school, he had odd jobs, like caddying at Blue Hills Golf Club, near our house in Orangeburgh.

He became very handy with mechanical things and I know that for a time, during High School and full time after he graduated, he worked at Hoffman’s Shell Station on Rt. 303 in Orangeburgh.

George liked cars and I think he had a Ford Roadster with a rumble seat for a while and then a 1936 Plymouth, which I think was almost new when he bought it. The car was his pride and joy, and he washed and polished it often.

While he was growing up, my family visited quite a bit with my father’s sister and her family, who lived in Brooklyn. My father’s niece was a beautiful girl, and as she got older, George and Rita got interested in each other, and when George went off to war, she waited until he returned and they married in the Spring of 1946.

George and Rita’s kids were my 1st and 2nd cousins. Rita was my 1st cousin, because she was my father’s niece, and my aunt, because she became my Uncle George’s wife. It’s tuff to figure out, but it works if you think about it. George went to Cooper Union Business School in New York City at night.

The U.S. was not in the war in early 1941, but it was an ominous time and we were clearly drifting toward war. The Selective Service Act was passed by one vote in Congress in 1940, and in late 1940, George was drafted “to build an army that would help us avoid war”, President Roosevelt said. George went into the army in January of 1941 and went to Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, North Carolina, for Basic Training.