USS Caldwell DD 605 Reunion VII

Reunion VII took place on September 21-24, 2004, in The Sunny Side of Louisville in Southern Indiana.


Leroy Norman

Leroy and Beverly Norman

Leroy and Beverly Norman came to this reunion from their home in California. Leroy is also a Plank Owner for the Caldwell. Leroy received a "very unusual" complement on Tuesday evening at the Casino. A lady in our reunion group said that he had the "most beautiful knees she had ever seen".
Leroy and Beverly were also blessed to have four of their children join them for the banquet. I hope to get the names of these four daughters for a future version of this site. This made for the most extreme gender ratio of any table.


Clarence Osborn

Clarence and Mary Ellen Osborn

Clarence and Mary Ellen Osborn came to the reunion from a few miles west of Fort Wayne, Indiana. Clarence is retired from Sears, Roebuck, and Company. We chatted some about the two brothers (Brennan?) who were CEOs of Sears and Montgomery Wards.


Henri Pare

Henri and Therese Pare

Henri and Therese Pare came to this reunion from their home in Massachusetts. We sat next to each other on the bus for some trips. Henri was a carpenter on the Caldwell. Henri, early on, wondered why the heck they needed a carpenter on a steel ship. I am fairly certain Henri was quite industrious on the ship, but I did not get an answer to his question -- it was time to get off the bus. The show must go on!

We were also able to talk some about genealogy. My father's family comes from Massachusetts. The first Whitney arrived in Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1635.


Rosemarie Rohlfs

Rosemarie and Steven Rohlfs

Rosemarie Rohlfs came with her son Steven. I met these fine folks in the K Wing of the motel before we went to the hospitality suite. I mentioned to Rosemarie that I would not forget her name for it was the same as an outstanding nun / teacher I had had in school.


Howard Shone

Howard and Helen Shone

Howard and Helen Shone staffed the welcome desk in the lobby of the motel when they would have much rather been partying with the others at the reunion.  They were handing out all sorts of information in packets.  I found my name tag read "Tom Shone".  I teased them at length about being their long lost son Tom.  The joke was on me when the real Tom Shone appeared.  Later, Tom Shone had Tom Whitney's name tag and vice versa.

These folks have the distinction of being the only photograph in which the folks are vertically positioned instead of horizontally.

We all owe these folks a special "Thank you" for working with Glenn and Marilyn Montgomery to pull off this reunion.

I have since learned that Howard was a machinist on the Caldwell.  He has retired from Shell Oil, in New Jersey, as a plant manager for Shell.  I was teasing Howard about being a "big wig" as a plant manager.  He said modestly that that was what he thought also until he became the plant manager.


Marguerite Squibb

Marguerite Squibb, on the right

Marguerite Squibb, on the right, came to this reunion from Toledo, Ohio, with Glenn Baumgartner. Marguerite was very helpful in so many ways with my working with my father in this "role reversal".


Russell Weiss

Russell and Irene Weiss

Russell and Irene Weiss here are distracted by the slide show on the computer which was on a chair near their table. Russell and Irene grew up in Southeastern Nebraska. However, they came to this reunion from the Kansas City, Missouri, area as I recall. Irene is active in genealogy among other things. We were talking about double cousins (two from one family marry two from another) when I remembered a Fritz and Weiss family in Southeastern Nebraska having four from each family marry four from the other. Russell and Irene helped me with the geography lessons of the three counties: Pawnee, Robinson, and Gage. However, we did not get into Nebraska being the only unicameral government of the fifty states.


Lois Wetzel

Lois Wetzel and Theresa Wetzel Dunlap

Lois Wetzel (on the right) and Theresa Wetzel Dunlap are the wife and child of Harry Wetzel who was on the Caldwell. It seems that three men with the last name beginning with W (Harry Wetzel, George Whitney, and Ken Wylber/Wilber) from Lima, Ohio, all joined the Navy and were on the Caldwell together. Ken died on the Caldwell. Not only did I finally get the meet Lois Wetzel, her daughter informed me that she, Theresa, was the Godmother to my nephew, Devin Whitney.


George Whitney

George Whitney

George Whitney came to this reunion from his new retirement home in Columbus, Ohio. George was an electrician on the Caldwell. He and John Anzelc stood watch many-a-time together. We have some photos of them "standing watch" together on the Ohio River trip during this reunion, nearly 60 years later.

This was the first Caldwell reunion for both George Whitney and John Anzelc. I have some correspondence between the two, from August, 1945, which will probably be added to this site in a later version.


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