Gus married my mother, Mrs. Pearl Martin Cash, in 1945 & I, Esther M. Ziock, was their only child. We were living on Exeter Ave. in Shrewsbury, St. Louis when I was born. It was in the middle of the night when mom went into labor so daddy went out to start the car to take her to the hospital. But the car, an old Terraplane, wouldn't start. So daddy hooked up the side-car to his motorcycle, put some pillows & blankets in it & carried mom out & put her in the side-car & away we went to the hospital. It was about 1:00 in the morning so there was no traffic & I was told that daddy ran every red light there was to get to the hospital as soon as possible. Around 1954 we moved to Chesterfield, Missouri & lived on Wild Horse Creek Rd. behind the Antioch Baptist Church Cemetery. My father always claimed he could not speak more than a few words of German even though German was spoken in the household where he grew up. But one time when he & my mother & I were vacationing at Lake Norfolk we stopped in at a local restaurant that was run by an elderly German couple. Daddy talked to them for maybe half an hour & my mother & I could not understand a single word - it was all in German! Gus was an electrician and after working for Stephen Electric for many years he became employed with one of the larger, prominent companies in St. Louis - Sachs Electric. He worked for this company for 13 years until his retirement at age 65. Some of the jobs he worked on in St. Louis were: The Gateway Tower (CBS Building), the Federal (FBI) Building, Famous & Barr Department Store, Barnes Hospital, Scullin Steele, & an apartment building which I can no longer remember the name of. He also worked at the Labadie Plant in St. Louis County. When daddy worked at the Gateway Tower building (see article later on this page) it was near where the St. Louis Arch was being built at the same time. There are some pictures of him (if I can ever find them I will post them) of him waaaaaaaaayyy up high on a crane where he & another man volunteered to go out on the crane to dislodge a jammed cable. You can see the Arch in the background. Sometimes when daddy was off work he would walk down to the arch from his job site to observe the Arch construction. I remember one time when daddy worked at Scullin Steele he came home from work in the middle of the day which was very unusual. It was because a fellow worker had gotten killed on the job. The man that died had stepped in the wrong area & fell through one of the glass panels of the roof falling 2 stories to his death. Everyone was sent home for the remainder of the day. When daddy worked at the Federal Building he had to have a certain level of security clearance to work there. At Famous & Barr he wired up the animated Christmas displays in the windows one year along with other work. I think he may have worked on the escalators there too. Can't remember for sure. He did a lot of work at Barnes Hospital. One time there was a major cable that needed to be cut. It was down in a pit & it was decided to do this at midnight as that is when the power output level was the lowest for the hospital. This was considered a very dangerous job & they would not order anyone to do it but asked for volunteers. Only two men were needed - one to cut the cable & one to stand nearby with a 2 x 4 to knock the cable loose should the cutter get electrocuted. My father & one other man volunteered. And daddy volunteered to do the cable cutting. I remember my mother & I staying up well past midnight waiting for the phone to ring if there was bad news. But it never rang & the job was completed with daddy returning home safely. When daddy worked at the apartment building he took mom & I there for visit one weekend. He had a key to the building & we went up to the 22nd floor (if I remember correctly). No elevator was working yet & the upper floors still had no walls or floors yet. There were planks laying all around where the workmen used them to walk on in lieu of floors. Mom or I did not walk on any of the planks - we just stayed in one spot & looked around. God that was scary! I don't know how daddy & the other guys did it! Sure was glad to get my feet back down on solid ground. For a brief time, about 2 years I think, daddy was made foreman of one of the jobs he was on. He did not like being foreman at all & was glad when the job was over & he could go back to being a regular electrician. Gus died in 1976 and is buried in Shephard Hills Cemetery, Antonia, Jefferson County, Missouri near where his sister, Lilian, resided. |
This
is a pin from the American Motorcycle Association. Probably for four
years of membership. I remember my mother telling me one time that they always won the
"Dirtiest Motorcycle" contest at the state fair as they had a long drive to get
there & after their arrival they would kick dirt all over their motorcycle to get it
as dirty as they could. I have two pictures of daddy at the AMA annual "Gypsy
Tour" in St. Louis in 1946 & 1948 showing hundreds of motorcycles all lined up.
The pics are about two feet long & have to be kept rolled up. I'll see if I can
get them copied & put on this web page
