First Draft of My 1001 Flat World Writing Project

My paternal great grandfather, John Von Pabst, was born in the US to German parents and then raised as young boy in Germany. At the age of twelve he and his mother returned to the US, but their life was far from easy. My great grandfather used to tell my father that as a young boy, some Christmases the only gift they would get was a fresh orange.

Later, as a young man, he served in the US Navy as a sailor during the WWI. Throughout his life he was an extremely loyal and patriotic citizen, which are often traits associated with people of German ancestry. He also possessed the typical Germanic temper. As a young sailor in WWI he was almost court martialed when he punched out his commanding petty officer for calling him a profane name that he felt insulted his mother.

After WWI my great grandfather Pabst (he dropped the Von) settled in the Chicago area, obtained an education as an engineer and become a successful insurance executive. Always a tough pugnacious German, he was nonetheless a very loving and doting father to his three daughters. My grandmother tells a story when she was about 12 years old, of going to get an ice cream cone at Peacocks Ice Cream Parlor in Evanston with her father. As they are sitting on a bench eating their cones, my great grandfather sees a fist fight break out nearby. The next thing my grandmother knows, he takes of his (tailor made) suit coat and tie and hands his ice cream cone to her and joins in the fight.

My great grandfather’s sense of duty and patriotism remained strong and, two years prior the US entering WWII he resigned from his high paying job and enlisted in US Navy as an intelligence officer, using his fluent German language skills to infiltrate the German American Bunds (fraternal organizations) prevalent in the Chicago area at that time. In early December of 1941 he quietly told my grandfather, a young Naval ROTC officer at Northwestern, that we would at war with Japan with a week. It has never been determined within our family whether this prediction was conjecture based on his intelligence work or actual knowledge.

(As an interesting footnote to this incident, my other great grandfather was a life long friend of Admiral Husband Kimmel, the admiral in charge of Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack who was subsequently blamed for not being prepared for the attack and relived of his command. Admiral Kimmel and his supporters, along with Colonel McCormick, the owner of the Chicago Tribune, always contended that President Roosevelt knew in advance of the attack and allowed it to occur to get us into to WWII. In 1999 the United States Senate passed a resolution exonerating Kimmel stating that he was “denied vital intelligence that was available in Washington.")

When the US entered the war in 1941, the Navy, in its infinite wisdom, sent this German speaking intelligence officer to the Pacific war theater as a beach commander to fight in the invasions of Japanese held islands. My grandfather, who also served in the Pacific during the war, today still has the pistol that my great grandfather carried when making beach landings along with two Japanese ceremonial swords that he “liberated” from dead Japanese soldiers he came across during these battles.

Before the US dropped the atomic bombs on Japan, the US was planning on invading the island and, because of its extensive fortifications, the US command was estimating large numbers of US casualties. My great grandfather was scheduled to go in with one of the early assaults and had already written my grandmother to say good bye and to instruct her to take care of her mother and sisters.

After the war he returned to the Chicago area and lived a comfortable life active in the community and his church…..with his daughters and their families nearby. My dad remembers him coming over and babysitting on Saturday nights and building great creations with building blocks and erector sets. He would always leave some money in the cookie jar for my grandparents who were young and on a tight budget.

In the late ‘50’s he moved to West Palm Beach Florida to work with transplanted Chicago insurance legend John D Macarthur (and uncle to James Macarthur of Hawaii 5-0 fame.) Unfortunately, my great grandfather’s temper and principled nature caused a falling out with Macarthur which resulted in him leaving the insurance business. Calling in his early engineering training, in his late 60’s he became the manager of retirement homes, a job he continued with until he died at 84 years of age.

My great grandfather Pabst is buried at the Golden Gate National Veterans Cemetery in San Bruno California near his hero Admiral Chester Nimitz.

Methods of Characterization

Since at the moment I'm kind of favoring my family story about my great grandfather I will do my characterization analysis on him.

Name: John Von Pabst

Appearance: In his forties, a bit worn out from his many years of surviving in the Navy

Inner Thoughts: His inner thoughts were about how he knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor before it even happened, he was also probably wondering what he should do because he wasn't sure if it was really going to happen and he didn't want to get in trouble by worrying everyone over a false alarm

Environment: Chicago, 1941 working for the US Navy as an intelligence officer because he could speak and translate German for them

What They Say: He said that the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor a week before it actually happened, we don't know that if this was merely a prediction or if he actually heard something while we was working as an intelligence officer

What Others Say About Them: His son thought he was crazy when John Von Pabst told him that the Japanese were going to bomb Pearl Harbor, later after the attack however his son was quite amazed that the prediction came true

Actions: He told his son that he thinks the attack was going to happen, but he didn't tell anyone else

Family Stories

I have decided that I don't want to use the fishing story anymore because it doesn't really say anything about my culture or family beliefs. However, now I'm in a dilemma because I can't chose between two other family stories. So I'll just tell both stories right now and then decide which one I like better later. For each of the stories I won't go into much detail because I can do that later when I do the final drafts. These two drafts are mainly just the significant details of each story.

My grandmother, whose maiden name was Judith Gagnon, is from New Hampshire of French Canadian descent. People of that ancestry often manifest humble and hard working characteristics. My grandmother’s second cousin, Rene Gagnon, who as a young child worked in the mills to help support his mother, experienced his brief period of fame as one of the American servicemen pictured, and later immortalized in the famous statue, raising the American flag on Iwo Jima.

The characteristics of my grandmother’s culture were needed at Iwo Jima, as the fighting to take the island was intense and deadly with the US losing 6,825 soldiers in the battle. The impromptu raising of the flag on the fourth day of the battle was followed by another three days of fighting in which three of the six Americans who raised the flag in AP photographer Joe Rosenthal’s famous photo were killed. The raising of the flag helped to rekindle the nationalism the solders had. This helped them to keep fighting for the country they loved.

The other story is about my great grandfather, John Von Pabst, who was born in the US to German parents and then raised as young boy in Germany. Later, as a young man, he returned to America and served in the US Navy during the WWI. Following the war he obtained an education in the US and went on to become a successful insurance executive in the Chicago area. Throughout his life he was an extremely loyal and patriotic citizen, which are often traits associated with people of German Ancestry. He also possessed the typical Germanic temper. As a young sailor in WWI he was almost court martial when he punched out his commanding petty officer for calling him a profane name that he felt insulted his mother.

My great grandfather’s sense of duty and patriotism remained strong and, two years prior the US entering WWII he resigned from his high paying job and enlisted in US Navy as an intelligence officer, using his fluent German language skills to infiltrate the German American Bunds (fraternal organizations) prevalent in the Chicago area at that time. In early December of 1941 he quietly told my grandfather, a young Naval ROTC officer at Northwestern, that we would be at war with Japan within a week. It has never been determined within our family whether this prediction was conjecture based on his intelligence work or actual knowledge. Just that he could make such a prediction is remarkable.

Pulled to the Bottom

When I was about two-years-old my dad went fishing with my mom's stepfather in Washington. My mom's stepfather loved to fish and he actually lived on a boat before he moved to Hawaii and married my grandmother. My dad and step-grandfather flew to Washington just to go fishing and to visit some relatives.

On the boat my dad and step-grandfather were having a great time and were really bonding. They spent all day fishing and had many great catches. When it was starting to get late my step-grandfather accidentally dropped his fishing pole into the water, he told my dad to go under the boat and to get it.

My dad took a deep breath and dove into the icy water. He grabbed the pole successfully, however his shirt got stuck on the anchor. He didn't realize this at first so he pushed off from the bottom as hard as he could, but he didn't go up at all. My dad tried over and over to go, but he just couldn't. He then realized that his shirt was stuck to the anchor.

My dad thought he was going to die. He was running out of air quickly. He couldn't get his shirt off of the anchor and it was attached to the anchor so tightly that he couldn't even take it off. He started to see his life flash before his eyes. Right when he couldn't hold his breath any longer, he felt himself start to rise up to the surface. Then he felt an arm go around his waist and start to pull him up to the surface.

This arm belonged to my step-grandfather. For step-grandfather was starting to wonder what was taking my dad so long to just dive down and get the pole. He figured that something must be wrong and dove into the water after my dad. Luckily, he dove with his pocket knife in his pocket so when he reached my dad he cut him lose from his shirt. My dad is very grateful that my step-grandfather dove into the water when he did, because my dad doesn't think that he could have held his breath for even a second more.