Notes for Marvin Maxwell French: Marvin left Claude's farm in 1919 to join the US Navy on April 21, entering early enough to be officially a veteran of World War I even though it was after hostilities had ended. After 8-1/2 years in the Navy, rising to Yeoman First Class, he married Jessie and was a civilian until February 3, 1941, before Pearl Harbor but after a National Emergency had been declared earlier by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. At that time he reentered the USN as a Chief Yeoman. After serving on a repair ship in the Pacific during World War II, he and Jessie ended up on Guam, where he left the USN on August 27, 1953 and joined Jessie in Civil Service employment, working on Guam for several years before returning to the States.
During his early civilian stint in the 1930s, Marvin walked a postal route in Chicago, delivering mail three times a day and twice on Saturday. All that walking served him in good stead for the rest of his life, and at age 99 he was climbing to the top of a six-story building during his regular morning walk.
After living in numerous places in and around Chicago, they rented a house at 1708 Arthur Avenue, on Chicago's north side, from 1935 to 1941. Marvin then moved the family to the Great Lakes (IL) Naval Training Station, where he was stationed and Jessie was employed in Civil Service. After the war the family moved to San Diego, CA, buying a house at 4412 Del Monte in 1947, where Marvin and Jessie lived until age forced them to sell the house in 1996 and move into the Wesley Palms retirement community. They were well cared-for there in the Assisted Living area ("The Courtyard"). Jessie's Parkinson's disease finally required her to enter a nursing home, where she died in 1999. Marvin pushed on alone, resisting the demands of age to the fullest until finally his body gave up. While he had a pacemaker installed many years earlier to maintain a proper pulse rate, and before that had a pulmonary embolism, his cardiovascular system was strong to the end. Macular degeneration had robbed him of 95% of his eyesight for the last 20 years of his life, which he coped with magnificently.
For over 30 years of their retirement, Marvin and Jessie traveled the world, enjoying their retired life to the fullest. A number of times they bought a car or van in Germany, then traveled around Europe, staying in campgrounds. They spent one winter in Spain, living in an apartment overlooking the Mediterranean. At the end of this period Jessie was bewailing the fact that they had no place new to go, as they had been to every country they had any interest in seeing.
Marvin celebrated his 100th birthday on September 6, 2001, with a family party at Wesley Palms retirement center, 2404 Loring St, in Pacific Beach. Attending were all of his four children, eight grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and his two surviving brothers.
Here is information he gave about himself in an interview at age 100:
He was born a farmer's son in rural Nebraska, the oldest of nine children. His many chores on the farm included milking cows and caring for pigs, horses, and chickens, besides helping in the fields.
At age six he started school and very early on became fascinated with geography. He still clearly recalls a U.S. map showing Oklahoma as an Indian Nation and southwest Africa covered with just one word "Unexplored." "French," as he is known, walked three and a half miles each way to school, in wintertime through snow. By 8th grade he was head of the class: he was also the only one in the 8th level of his one-room school! He was in love with the teacher, who had been an eighth grader when he first started school.
By the time French had been in high school a few years he knew that farming was not for him. "Watching mules' asses from the seat of a corn separator" was not his life goal, he says. So off he went to the alfalfa mill in town, where he lifted 100 lb sacks over to a man who then stitched them.
He learned to drive before his dad did. He paid 25 cents to get a license---no test needed. He practiced with a friend's car. He recalls betting a young farmer he could go 40 miles per hour. The farmer happily accepted the wager, feeling that it was a sure thing. Well, French won by setting the "race course" DOWNHILL.
1918 came along with the opportunity to join the Navy. He was on a west coast cruise when he first saw San Diego. He loved it! But soon thereafter he was transferred to Long Beach. He was sent there by plane, a two-seater with open cockpits. French sat on the lap of a co-passenger, wearing no headgear! After tours of sea duty that included the Panama Canal, he was assigned to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois, where he met a young secretary, Jessie St. Andre, whom he married in 1926.
French then left the Navy to raise a family of four children in Chicago, where he worked for the United States Post Office Department. In 1939 President Roosevelt declared a national emergency because of the war in Europe, and French returned to the Navy with the rate of Chief Yeoman. He moved the family to Great Lakes, where he was stationed. After Pearl Harbor French served on a submarine tender in the South Pacific during much of the war, and was able to visit bombed-out Tokyo after the war ended.
After retiring from the Navy, French worked with his wife Jessie in the Civil Service, spending several years on Guam. That gave them the chance to tour the entire Orient during vacations, and started their long love affair with foreign travel. They had bought a home on Del Monte St in San Diego in 1947, living in it for almost 50 years before advancing age prompted them to move into the Wesley Palms retirement community.
French and Jessie, loving to travel, frequently left on long trips. One year it was a circumnavigation cruise of South America. They bought a trailer, and later a motor home, with which they toured the entire United States and Canada. Going to Europe many times, they would buy a car or camper van in Germany, drive it all over Europe, and take it home afterwards. French drove his 1968 Mercedes Benz, for which he paid the huge sum of $6000, for many years, selling it only when his failing eyesight prevented him from driving it anymore.
More About Marvin Maxwell French: Military service 1: Bet. 21 Jan 1919 - 6 Nov 1926, United States Navy. Military service 2: Bet. 3 Feb 1941 - 23 Aug 1953, United States Navy. Occupation: U. S. Civil Service in civilian life.
More About Marvin Maxwell French and Marie Jessie St. Andre: Marriage: 11 Aug 1926, Waukegan, IL.
Children of Marvin Maxwell French and Marie Jessie St. Andre are:
Marvin Maxwell French (b. 6 Sep 1901, d. 6 Jan 2002)
Notes for Marvin Maxwell French: