Oral History
An Interview with my grandfather Robert Michael Ross
I was excited to hear some of my grandpa’s stories about his own life and family. He is a wonderful story teller. I’ve always loved talking to him, but this interview was one of the few times he was able to really dive into the details of some of his stories. I had spoken to him a small amount over Thanksgiving and had told him about my project. He was happy that I had already incorporated a few of his stories into my paper. That’s another thing about my grandpa. He tells stories only in the hopes that you’ll enjoy it and laugh. He doesn’t tell them with any selfish motive. This talk made me interested in a few more aspects of my family history. It did this by showing me brand new perspectives and information about my family. It also made me want to have stories of my own so that my grandchildren might also want to learn from and be entertained by me. My grandpa tells stories in a way that has a lot of different interjections, sentence fragments and reactions to the information he is giving you. This makes his stories very interesting and I think his voice comes through the text well. Enjoy the interview!
Interview
Me: Hello. Hey, this is Eli.
Paw: How you doing buddy?
Me: I’m doing good. I wanted to ask you some questions for my English paper. Is that all right? Sure. So, would you be able to describe your dad?
Paw: Yeah, he’s about five foot six I guess and he was of Scotch-Irish descent. He was from down in the mountains and he came to Cincinnati to get a job and he got the job and he had it for 50 years and he went in to the Army in World War II. He got two purple hearts. He was wounded two times and fought until the Germans surrendered. Even though he had been shot in the leg and could barely get around he volunteered to fight the Japanese. Is that the kind of stuff you want?
Me: Oh, definitely. That was great. Would you be able to talk about what you thought of him?
Paw: Oh, I thought he was a great man. He was a mean old man, real strict and everything , uh, going on, uh, he, he loved me very much and we didn’t get along too good. Later on, we were the greatest thing, friends. Well, we knew who each other was coming from. He suffered in World War II. He just couldn’t get back into civilian life for awhile. The company let him take almost a year off. He became, he became, well, I guess he was always an alcoholic. He was a heavy drinker. He drank whiskey and you had to sort of tip toe around him when he was sober. Let me tell you this, he, uh, he, he killed nine Germans in hand to hand combat all the way through the war. I says is that all? Is that all you killed? You think about killing somebody where you know, a bayonet or something right on top of you. Of course he didn’t do it all at once. He told me this one episode. They knew this town was occupied and had a sniper in the church and he’s sneaking up on this church to try getting a shot at that sniper and he saw a shadow on the ground. He looked up and there was a German. He had a pistol almost with the right side, the left side of his head, and he just fired his rifle over his head and killed a German before he got to him. And he killed the guy in the church too. He was one bad dude. And another time I remember him telling me he was a scout. He went out before the outfit to make contact with the enemy and then he was supposed to come back to the lines and tell them that the enemy was coming when he made contact with them. He told me it was so dangerous going through our lines, if you made the slightest noise approaching our, the United State’s line, they’d open up with machine guns and everything else. So you’d kill a scout every time they went out. So my Dad would stay out all night. He, he found a bridge one time and he was coming back and he said well I’ll crawl up under this bridge and hide until its daylight. Then the Germans rolled up on the bridge and they were setting out centuries and everything. And uh, he was two days up under that bridge. You didn’t move or make a sound or anything. And finally they pulled out and he went on back to his lines. He told me all that stuff when he was drunk. I guess its true. Yeah, but he was, he was a good man and he kept to himself and he did a fabulous job at his work. He was very bright. In those days hardly anybody went to college and he had two years of college at Kentucky Western University. He would do people’s, uh, uh, income tax, forms like that, all the hillbillies around here in Erlanger thought he was a genius. He wouldn’t charge them.
Me: Do you have any stories of you and him when you were young or anything like that?
Paw: Uh, yeah. We played golf together. He wanted me to be a golfer. Yeah. It was just too much work for me. I’d rather be sitting somewhere drinking beer. I was horrible at it, you know, not good at all. But he was good. You know he was all shot up. He had a few bad wounds. There’s some on his left hand. Wouldn’t even work. Got bayoneted. Cut that tendon right at the base of your thumb. So your thumb wouldn’t work up and down. So he would just jam the golf club in between his thumb and his index finger. And he could beat any of the old men around there. He wasn’t winning any prizes but he loved golf anytime he got a day off. I’ll tell you another thing about that dirtbag. He was scared to death of cars, you know, that’s his story. See, he really never owned a car and he’s like, what happened? He run over a dang cliff once in the car one time. It was his brother in law’s car. He tore it all to pieces. From then on he’d ride the bus. He’d take his golf clubs and ride the bus to Northern Kentucky and play. So he would not let me have a car. He said he, he was absolutely sure he’s going to die in a car. And I thought well what the hell has that got to do with me. And I bought a big fine car boy. I rode up in that big ole Red Ford, brand new. I had saved all my damn life for. You know what he said, he said you think you could take me to the golf course tomorrow? That dirtbag! He put some gas in my car, and every Saturday I’d have to hall him to the damn golf course. He wasn’t a bit scared! Bullshit story here, man. He just didn’t want to buy a car because he was really thrifty. He carried a whole handful of dimes now, right? That was the only money he had. Of course, you didn’t need much more than that when I was growing up. Let’s see. Let me think of some more stories about that crazy dude. He was real cheap. He bought this old raggedy ass riding lawn mower and our yard was at least two acres. You needed a serious piece of machinery to cut our yard you know. And he said can you fix my mower? I’m an aircraft mechanic. I’ve never seen a damn mower and he wants me to fix it. And I’d change the plugs on it and get the gunk out of the gas tank, you know, they’d run it about two times. Him cutting the grass then it’d break down. And he said he didn’t want to ride on anything I was working on. I said Dad, if you would buy a lawnmower, go down to the damn hardware store and by a lawnmower you wouldn’t have as much trouble with it. They was all two cycle engines back then you know. It was like a damn eggbeater. Yeah, he, he was definitely nuts. His mom and dad split up, my grandmother and my grandpa. I only saw my grandpa one or two times. I guess that is what is kind of sad about it. It affected him being a broken family. If you could avoid doing that. That was not the way to go. He would do the damnedest thing. Here I was a boy. Well I guess I was like eight or nine years old and he was down at this local saloon. It was really a rough saloon and he came back and I could tell he was mad. And he whispered in my ear, go get my gun for me, holy cow, okay. I guess I’d better do it. And I got it, you know. And my mom jumped all over him. He’d been arguing with some guy down at that saloon. He was going to go down there and shoot him. His solution to having trouble with another drunk. He was going to blast him away. So I got him to give it back to me and then took it and unloaded it. Then hid the damn thing where he couldn’t find it anymore. Yeah, He had a German Luger too . That thing would be priceless nowadays. He was one bad dude, man. Get yourself killed messing with him. He told me I could take my squad and thats like 10 soldiers. He said I can take my squad and take this whole town. Nobody could stop us. I said, why would you want to do something like that dad? The police would shoot your ass you’re doing something like that. Oh, they wouldn’t stand a chance you know, he said. That crazy sucker. I’ll tell you one thing. He really got down in depression when he got older. He about wouldn’t do anything. He wouldn’t go to church. He lived a long time for what he had been through. Eighty-one he was when he died. He died of heart trouble.
Me: Dad said that he used to touch the crucifixes in the house and stuff.
Paw: Oh yeah. He was really religious. He had a crucifix everywhere. Three times a day he’d be on his knees reading his Bible and stuff saying his prayers. He went to church every Tuesday. During the Korean War they had mass for the soldiers on Tuesday night. He went to that all the time. You’d think a guy with his background wouldn’t be religious at all. But he was, every time he’d go to confession he would confess how many men he killed. Because uh, the war was on his mind and killing those men. And finally the priest said don’t come in here telling me that same thing over and over again. You ain’t bringing them back to life are you? You tell me that every time you come to confession. That’s what he always said. I killed nine. I remember when, I got a picture. His daddy, he came to see him out of the blue and it thrilled him to death. He hadn’t seen his daddy in years. His daddy he was a butcher. He had a butcher shop down in Florida. It thrilled him to death to get to see his daddy. I got pictures of them. My Grandpa, my grandpa rice, my mother’s father. Uh, he was about uh, he wasn’t much over five foot tall. He looked like a damn leprechaun. I got a picture with me and my dad and my grandpa. I was in the air force at the time.
Me: That would be nice to see that picture.
Paw: Yeah, I’ll see if I can find it. Had it here somewhere. I’ll make a copy of it Three generations really. My Mom’s dad. My fathers dad and me. And uh, yeah.
Me: So, um, what do you know about your family history? Do you know anything about your great grandfather or anything?
Paw: Yeah, I sure do. I hung out with him all the time. He lived to be really old. I think he was getting almost 90. He was a merchant in Erlanger. He owned a hardware store and my great grandfather and my grandfather both worked in the hardware store and he made big time money. Um, he uh, he had a 37 Plymouth. Boy, it would shine like a new dime. And my uncle Jim, my mother’s brother, he owned a big farm out in Verona. It was about 120 acres. He’d milk cows. He had a high production milking system and everything. They came every day and got the milk and everything in the daytime. He had a nice life. He also drove the truck over the road. He had 12 kids. He was a good Catholic man. And See, my Grandpa, my mother’s father, he worked at a funeral home and he worked in a hardware store. He helped them embalm people and stuff like that. And the, the hearse that they used they doubled it up as an ambulance, somebody was hurt, bad needed, get right to the hospital. They’d call him and he jumped in his hearse and go pick up a person injured or sick, saved many peoples lives. One time, this was back in the depression. These hobos down on the railroad track. Erlanger a train track runs right through the middle of town. And these Damn Hobos, uh, would crowd up around there, and they found some rubbing alcohol. They stole off the train and I got to drinking it. You can drink rubbing alcohol. But you got to take whiskey or something and cut it. You got to make it like 50/50. They got drunk and quit cutting it. And I forget how many of them it killed but it was like 12, 13. And he had to haul them off to the coroner’s office. And our family, you know, both sides of our family. My mother’s side on my father’s side of the family, his parents divorced and she remarried Arnold Lanvoy was his name. He was a secret service man. She worked in a mint in Washington. Philadelphia it was Philadelphia and uh, she met him. He would always come in to check the money they were taking into the mint and check it for being counterfeit. And uh, he became a presidential bodyguard. Theres a copy of an old encyclopedia. It’s got him standing behind Woodrow Wilson on it. He took a picture with Woodrow Wilson. Course. He’s my step-grandfather He was a bad dude. Yeah. You didn’t hear about stuff like that back in the day, attempts on the president’s life and stuff like that. They kept it quiet because they don’t want people trying to kill him. At that time he was riding. He was riding on the front or back end or on the, on the running board. It was an old car. You could hold on to the windows, man. Damn guy jumped up with a pistol and was gonna assassinate the president and he threw him to the ground and disarmed him. He lost his pistol, you know, somewhere. Somebody’d stolen it out of his shoulder holster. And uh, he was so angry. They made him pay for that pistol. Those dirtbags! He talked about that til they day he died, man. He was straight out of Germany. He was born and raised in Germany. But when Hitler took over he left Germany and came to the United States. Never went back except to see his sisters and stuff. So he took the place of, uh, of my real grandfather. His name was Arnold Lanvoy? Study German. I couldn’t believe in wartime they let him guard the president.
Me: Would you be able to talk a little bit about when you went to go be a cowboy?
Paw: Oh yeah, I love to talk about that. I wasn’t playing with a full deck, you know, everybody said well that’s crazy you’re doing something like that. Thought I was mistreated or something like that, you know, and I just ran away from getting beat up, but my daddy used to read these western cowboy books all the time. Cowboys on the range kind of stuff and they talked about El Paso, Texas. I read every one of those books I could get my hands on. I’m still a big reader. I read in there what kind of life it was. Seemed a real easy life. You would ride everywhere on a horse, stuff like that. I said, you know what, I’m going, I’m going there. I’m going to Texas. And uh, I had a had a little savings. I drew all my money out. $42. That was a huge, you could buy car in those times. So I went and put my books in it in the mailbox. We had a very big country mailbox. I put in my books and all the stuff I didn’t want her there and I just walked down to the bus depot. Greyhound Bus Depot was right there in Erlanger. And took a bus to El Paso, Texas. I was on that sucker for like a week. All the way to Texarkana. Thats where Arkansas, Texas and Louisiana all meet. And then got on a greyhound bus and rode for five days. It was all way across Texas. Got Me a hotel room at the bus terminal out there. So I put my good clothes on and everything. Went to the unemployment office. I said, I’m, I’m looking for work on a ranch. She said, how old are you? You know, I said I’m 15. I was lying. I was only 14. She said you got to be 16 years old to uh, to work in Texas. You can’t just be a child and go to work on a ranch. Its dangerous and tough work. I said well I’ll be damned. I was just crushed that they wouldn’t let me go. I loved my uncle Jim so much. Uh, and he was in the navy. He went in when he was like 16 years old. He, he was in the navy when they bombed Pearl Harbor. Not at Pearl Harbor, but in when it happened. I said well hell Ill just join the Navy. I asked her, where’s your navel recruiting station? She said didn’t I tell you you cant work. Finally I asked somebody in the bus station, told me where it was. In Santa Maria, California or something like that. I bought by this guy that was a Korean war going on this board. He got shot the through the forearm. He said, so I’m going up that way. He said, if you got the money. Pay half the gas, uh, I’ll take you with me. Like a fool. I mean, nowadays you’d been laying on side roads somewhere. He rode me all way up there you know. And I’m talking all the time about joining the navy and he was, just got discharged from the army because he was wounded Purple Heart and everything. He said if I was you I wouldn’t join the navy or anything else. They drafted him. Back then, even the navy drafted and the Marine Corps. When you were 18 years old, you were going to some kind of damn service. Finally I was running low on money and everything. I was getting home sick, so I thought Id go send a telegram, tell my mom to send me some money. I think I was almost broke. They had phones and stuff but it would cost you a fortune to call from California to Kentucky. I told her that I was broke and that uh, I needed some money. She wired me $42. Well that was a bus fare. It was going to be four or five days, I was all the way in California, probably five, six days on the bus. I’d starve to death. I can’t ride no bus man. I got to find something, but I had the $42 and I struck out hitchhiking. When I stuck my thumb out the cars stopped immediately like they knew me or something. I went all the way across the United States hitchhiking. And I about got killed a couple of times. I got, if you look on the map, they called it Rabbit Ear Pass it’s still in California. And uh, I had to climb that pass ,an, I was about ready to fall down. It started snowing. You ain’t never seen snow like this. So I run to this pool hall. I went in there and got warmed up and everything. And I said, well, I’m good now. I’m going to take off. It’s still snowing a little bit. This truck driver said man you can’t go out in this that’s a storm. That’s a mountain storm. You’d die on this damn Rabbit Ear Pass. The snow will be up to your waist. He said, you go over and lay down and take a nap. And when its clear I’ll wake you up. And he did. He took me with him. He took me all the way to Kansas. I’d stick my thumb out and they’d take me as far as they were going. Police stopped me one time. I thought my ass was grass now and he flips out a little notebook all police carry in their hip pocket. He flips it open and shines a light on. The list was for runaways, criminals and stuff like that. And uh, the first name on that list was Mickey Ross. So I picked up the pace because I found out now I was a juvenile delinquent. They considered me that and I could have went to jail for doing that. Going away from home without my parents permission. I made it back in no time and I was scared. And my crazy dad, he’s always got a gun. I didn’t want to walk in the house in the middle of the night. He’ll probably shoot me.
I went to my aunt’s house in Louisville, Kentucky. And uh, she uh, she was gone to Florida and the damn maid wouldn’t let me in. She knew me. She knew me like her own. She was scared of me though or something. So I slept in a stairwell in their home on the stairs until, well, it was still dark when I left, but like I said, the Korean War was going on. And this colonel, and this damn colonel in the Air Force picked me up and I was so tired and I guess I just almost immediately fell asleep. I told him I wanted to go to Erlanger. He stopped and he was shaking. I could feel him shaking me, so he woke me up, we’re in Erlanger. He said where in Erlanger do you want to go and I looked up and we were sitting in front of our house. You believe that? He stopped dead in the front of my house. I went up. It was still dark and see my grandmother lived right next door to us. I slept at her house and went up on the second floor, got in bed, and went to sleep. I slept at least 12 hours I’m laying there. I wake up and I pop one eye open to see what was going on and their sits my dad on the, on the other bed, The two twin beds in there. I thought I’m dead now buddy. He’s gonna kill me. I saw he had a carton of cigarettes in his hand. I’d been smoking and putting them out in the ashtray that he did. He said he had a Carton of Fillmore cigarettes for me. And uh, he told me don’t ever do that again. I was lucky to be alive. I just busted in, there I’d have been a dead kid buddy. But I told him this, like I’m telling you, you know, all the stuff I did. They couldn’t believe this goofball doing something like that. I wasn’t proud of it or anything. I thought, well, anybody could do it and if you get a map of the United States and map that, thats all the way south almost to Florida, across the country, to Texas and then all the way up the coast of California to rabbit ears pass. And then all the way back across the country home. I had a wonderful time and I’ll tell you what. I was a very poor student. But that going out and meeting people and interacting with people there, you can’t believe the education that gives you. You learn how the whole, the whole world runs.
Me: Well thank you Paw. Yeah, you gave me a lot of great stories.
Paw: Well you’re welcome buddy. Grandma wants to talk to you for a second too.
Challenges and Lessons
One of the challenges I faced while doing the interview was doing it over the phone. It was harder for me to understand my grandpa and it was also harder for him to understand what I was saying. It would also been a much more enjoyable experience if I was able to see the gestures and facial expressions of my grandpa. I believe having those would have made it a more enjoyable experience. If I were to do this over again I would make sure to do it in person if at all possible.
Another challenge I faced was I felt he didn’t exactly know what I wanted from the interview. I wish I had communicated to him more clearly about what I wanted from him in the interview. I think it would have gotten better results for me and also been a more enjoyable experience for him.
