Robert Strassburger and Marilyn Leyland

00:00 All right.

00:09 Hello, I'm Marilyn. Vos Leyland. I am 63 years old. Today is September 29th 2008. We're in Peoria, Illinois at the Metro Center and I'm here with my Uncle Bob who's my mother's brother. My dad didn't have any brothers and sisters but Uncle Bob is also my godfather. I'll let him say hello. My name is Bob actually, it's Robert what I call myself Bob is a short name. My middle name is Clements after. My father's brother. My last name is strassburger. I am 85 years old and this is the 29th.

00:51 Of September

00:53 And 208 and I am living Peoria West Peoria, Illinois, and I'm here. I am the uncle

01:04 To Maryland, Maryland

01:06 And one of the things I wanted to talk to Uncle Bob about in the reason I thought he's the right one for an interview here in the story Corp is it he's always had lots of stories. But the one that I think really summarizes his life is his love of music and it's something that has come down through the generations to us overcome more and more aware that are my great-grandmother directed a choir at St. Joseph's Church and my grandmother always sang Alto and Uncle Bob has my mom made her music. She still alive and still playing the piano and Uncle Bob and I'll has just always enjoyed music and so is a how how did you get started in music? And I'm sure your home by grade school and the nuns used to try to promote a little bit of music and when I was in second grade then

02:06 Brought out of harmonica for everybody in the class and asked if you'd like to try planet and of course that made me feel like well, there's something there to learn and I didn't think too much about so I kept going and they didn't have any other kind of music going on. So at home is where my dad showed me how he played the drums?

02:29 And I couldn't get over that because before World War one he had a dance band in Peoria when he was single and the gal that played piano and his dad's band was Molly turned out to be Molly McGee later in life McGee and Molly didn't wasn't married to him and she wouldn't marry him until he sobered up and that's that's when they got married Kim Jordan and and anyway, and then he his father was a harness maker and he learned the trade in Pekin and that's where my father was born while he was working at learning a trade and my father and he moved over to Adams Street across from a bowling alley and opened a small shop which was strassburger is harness shop. Am I my father said he kept a hammer on the bench and a little bell on the screen door. And if anybody open the screen

03:29 Or he take the hammer and found on the fence. So he who ever came into think it was busy and he usually was busy but they made everything out of leather even baseball's you are telling me that you had a kindergarten picture of you with some drumsticks. I went to leave school kindergarten we lived about 4 blocks from there and I have a picture of this class of the kindergarten and I'm sitting in the very center of the picture with a little snare drum and a pair of sticks that my father gave me and that was in the picture with the rest of the students and I still recognize some of those students that I know today. I know my mom was always upset that the piano at Grandma's house had Little Nick's in the ivory and they said well, that's because Bob was practicing his drumming on the piano with drumsticks and said that nicked several the keys on there.

04:29 Just to make it laugh at you. You wouldn't realize that after I was married and my son did the same thing to a piano. We had like father like son when you were in grade school and you were just a harmonica is at the American Legion Hall. We would meet every Saturday and play and practice and play in practice a lot of Praise with the drum and bugle Corps has and then then my dad talked to the band director because of the American Legion had their own band and they used to perform at the State Fair every year and

05:15 Mr. Woodman was a director and my dad said Gee Bob plays a bugle bugle. So well, maybe he should take trumpet lessons in and mr. Woodman said no. No. No, you shouldn't do that. We got to everybody and their brother plays a cornet. He says, why don't you have him take up trombone?

05:34 My grandmother my mother's mother and my mother's and chipped in together and bought me my first trombone. How old were you then and I was just in the beginning of a squid. Okay, and I I had a teacher who came who played with Spencer's band and his name was Mallory and he would come to the house and my mother always bake some kind of chocolate cake and put some kind of frosting on the top or our little sugar or maybe even ice cream and she's handed to him when he'd sit there and eat that while I'm playing the songs that he wrote on a pad for me to work on. Okay, and he taught me the music and he was my teacher for enough years and when I got into High School the second year, I was in high school when I was in Roosevelt High School Herman happy played the piano and he was a director of the band and Roosevelt.

06:34 It was a junior high in front of me near could play the piano with one hand and play the trumpet with the other while he was playing a piano he work for the radio station also, and anyway from there, I went to Manuel and manual. I was a sophomore at the old manual and I played in the manual band and we was the director there and we did a lot of walking we could own that. Nobody had a car in school except one person and that was a girl whose father owned a tomato can canning Factory down by the bridge. Okay for and Switzer. Haha, and she would do something nice to hear you got to ride in her car down to the field where the present manual feeling. This is where are in the morning and we would practice are different drills for when we went to football games to be.

07:34 On the field and that sort of thing and that we would have to walk all the way back to school to get to our classes. We didn't have to take gym if we played in the band that's left us out of that. And and I really wasn't that anxious to play in gym in in the gym. Anyway. But I knew a lot of the guys there anyway, when we played for everything and our Thanksgiving game, we played against Central right? Those were big deal Road were big deals in our band was there making as much noise as we could one way or the other actually while I was when I was a senior in Manuel had been practicing my horn and trying to learn some new music and I qualified to go into competition and they had state

08:26 They had local and state and national competition and I made it all the way up to National and I had taken the trip with some of the rest of the band and their families and that's going to be up to Flint Michigan where I soloed my horn and one big long nice number and I want to 1st and National plan a solo on trombone and I have a little metal about the size of a quarter in my pocket some place. I know how special I was from Mom. She went no talked about going to Elkhart Indiana and she got to New York City. The only thing I didn't tell you is that we also had three other guys that played trombone. So we made a trombone quartet and we also learn to metal plan the same their song and this was something nice clothes are special memories. We wrote in his car to get up there. My folks were in the with other people, but we were

09:26 And he was a lot of fun to when you are in high school. You also start doing well any money with your instrument write German band that we used to go out and play it parent Teachers Association meetings and that sort of thing and what they would give us a supper for plan for him. And when they've got closer to war time, they made me quit having that actually I had five guys in the band and I don't think any of them are still alive today. Okay. Anyway, we really had a lot of fun and we monkey shines a lot and and gave her something else to do. We have to go in at half-time when they play the ball game in the Entertainer halftime. Okay, and actually

10:18 My horn stayed with me and

10:21 In between I had I was growing up and I had to earn some money and work and so I started to work at sold to department store in the men's department. Okay, mr. Goldberger was in charge of that and his daughter went to Bradley when I did but anyway, he was in charge and and we would work.

10:45 I got $0.35 an hour and they pay you in cash on Saturday and that cash made a lot to me cuz I take it home and put it in a bottle in the pantry and then I got to where I could sell papers on the street and sidewalk from my house, which was Webster Street walk all the way uptown and go to the star in a journal and pick up papers and go up on the corner of Prairie and Main Street and hop on a board or somebody's running board and sell them a paper and jump off in the other side and come back and do the same thing coming the other way. And that's where I made more cash to put in my little bottle in the pantry and actually

11:28 Plan, my horn got to be one of the things I enjoyed because I had to practice at practice an hour everyday and Mister Mallory wrote some of the nicest songs. I had him. I have some more today yet and a package where they're all handwritten and songs that I can remember and actually he got me involved after I started to Bradley. He got me involved in playing with a Municipal Band.

11:57 And I got to play a solo at one of their concerts. I'll do with a music that I have played out in Flint, Michigan. Okay, was that in the park or was it used to be?

12:12 Yeah, well was that we played on Wednesdays down in the South End. We played on Sundays up with the GlenOak and I played in both places. We really had a lot of people that that enjoyed our kind of music the band rehearsed on Monday nights and there was no pay for a rehearsing on Monday night. But when you pray to the concert, you got five bucks if you stood up and play the solo you got 10, and that was big money. I sense we could go on a Saturday up to the Madison theater.

12:53 And use $0.10 and buy a ticket to see a movie in the afternoon. And after that we'd go down to the hot dog place and the rest of the $0.25 we'd buy it and hotdogs when you got to Bradley you stayed with music by blowing through the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, and I'm also 1942. I've represented Bradley at a worldwide convention in Washington DC because I'm a certified member of Phi Sigma Pi.

13:30 That's an educational National fraternity. Okay, it does it's not in any college, but it's just National. Okay, and then it shows that you've got an education like that right? Anyway, were you aiming to teach I really wanted to teach you and I had I what I did I signed up to learn all of the shops and I really I found out one thing. But before the war there were only 750 people in the students in Bradley and the watchmaking school was there and that sort of thing in and I got down to the shops in I took machine shop. I took woodworking shop. I took electrical shop. I took sheet metal shop and

14:18 You went from one to the other for half a semester and I I like to work in a machine shop. But because of having sinus problems you can I blow your nose when your hands are full of black metal. So I would have to go wash my hands before I could blow my nose and then I thought well maybe the Woodshop would be nicer. And so when I got up there at the old guy that taught that wasn't even a certified teacher but he was a smartest person used to take fellows out and learn teach him how to build garages and frame houses and everything, but I didn't go that far. I started making furniture. And the funny thing is he said each one of your stand over there by a bison above the visor is a cab if that's going to be yours and you can put your lock on if you want to but before that you have to open it up and take the tools out and sharpen them cuz they're all done. I want you to learn how to sharpen them.

15:18 And so that's where I stand up. I also learned how to turn a lathe in it and how to make things by hand and how to check pick up the right kind of a board and out of sod by hand and he taught us how to make a little to stand up out of one piece of wood a little thing that you can put in the ground to plant your flowers to stand them against him in this whole thing. Why didn't you major in music? I have no idea. I think I was too involved playing my horn on other job. Mr. You were called me one time on New Year's Eve and I went as an extra man with the band and played for a party at New Year's Eve at the country club in Pekin and I got paid $25 for that one night, which is just amazed me that you could make that kind of money and so I re I was wasn't too worried about going to their butt when I walk to school. I carried my trombone.

16:19 Haha, we lived on Webster for incidentally the house that we lived in originally was built by a man who was mayor of pure and his name was O'Connor, right and 300 South Webster or now 428 Webster Ave. Wooden wall down there and we are Salve parties down there with all the kids in the neighborhood and kept all our toys and that in the basement is a lot of good times. Anyway, I used to walk to school and when I walk to school I had to go pass the Roseanne planning will my great grandfather on my mother's side was Joseph Roatan. He's one of three brothers. He originally they settled in Cincinnati and he fought I think was Roosevelt for a short time and then he was in the Navy for a year and then he came to puree.

17:19 And married a girl named Clara Miller and had 10 children in my mother's mother and my grandmother Ida.

17:28 What's a route to Anne and she was the second oldest of that family? That's r o t h a n. That's some do some do anyway.

17:44 Carrie Roatan, will my grandfather was the first one to die Along Came the other two brothers in as a younger brother George ended up owning the business and hit his wife used to sit on the rocking chair. When I passed shop carrying my instruments my books to school. She said study hard so you can come back and work in the mill. And and I told my mom I said I am I going to work their mom. I'm going to go work for somebody else. I said, I don't want to get involved with the family. So anyway, I went to Bradley and I played in the Bradley band and then the war started to break out and on December 7th. I went down to the place on the post office and I thought I'd like to enlist for one reason. He said well, I want you to promise that if I finished my education before I have to go to war.

18:42 Boy says there's no problem with that with that carry a real well there so I signed up as we on the reserve.

18:50 And that's all I worried about and then when 1940

18:57 Three came along

18:59 All of a sudden I got a notice to show up down there.

19:03 And they said well are you going to be I had to go to I have to go up on the top of Main Street, you know that used a second floor of the Cadillac building to examine everybody and give you your reasons for where you're going and we went through that whole thing and from then I had to report and one of the boy's father owned tavern downtown and he had a big big car and he put five of us in there and we headed up to Camp Grant which was a temporary thing up by Buddha and

19:40 What they did is at a strip of our civilian clothes on put us in uniform and said, okay and now you can have one week to go home and come back will send you to where you're going to be. So you're just finished what you were in South more year or junior year college. Anyway, what happened was that when we got back there? They put us on a train and then went South and we went down to Spartanburg South Carolina is where we ended up and the Cadre that was there had been transferred from working at Panama and they were kind of upset because if they had such a nice job down there, but they told us my mouth instead of 6 weeks basic training that we normally do you guys are going to get 17 weeks to see what you can take.

20:33 And so were there we were in the middle of South Carolina was a hundred and twenty in the shade, and we had a canteen of water on her hip that we couldn't touch unless we were told we could and we had to take walks with full field pack and rifle and all the practice and walk through the different at Peach Orchards and adding and down the world's not to come back. We did to the area where we at learn how to shoot every kind of weapon that you can shoot my hand and we had to do different kind of things. Were you be talkin to you and then some guy get up out of the weeds and you didn't realize he was laying there to show you how you can disguise yourself and we ended up taking I think 250-mile packs at night tracks trips and you learn how to sleep while you're walking.

21:26 And after we finish that that I expected to be going to sent the school, which was supposed to be the son of though and there was another guy with me and a guy came up with a bicycle waving papers new said your order has been changed. You're not going anyplace. But where are we sending you go home for 10 days in the report to Fort Meade?

21:47 Well, that was the end of my promise and we went to Fort Meade and and down to Maryland if it and then down to Virginia and we were there I bet there were four five six thousand troops are already and they we got to work in the kitchen and I want one Thanksgiving and I I think I slice pie for about 4 hours. Did you have any of your musical instrument with you? Not there when I went well when I was in South Carolina, I have my mother send me my trombone and I went on the weekends. I went to the USO in the town and played with a band in there.

22:35 Take my heart and home and give it to my mom when I got there. And when I found out I had to go to Fort Meade and after I got the end of the boat, it was an LST. They loaded $250 on one side of it and there was nobody on the other side and we sat there for two days and the bugs were like five high and then they brought 250 more and they were soldiers that has been put in the brig for all kind of bad things and that kind of stuff and those are the guys are going to ride with us all the way over to Africa.

23:10 And scarcer will just nothing but a lot of hand fist fights with everything that went on all the way over and and halfway over. We were in a submarine skirt. We went across the ocean and one of the biggest armadas that ever cross the Atlantic and there was three or four submarines cars are boat hadn't even tanks and that on one end of it and the one top that we could go up there with the group and we had to do hand exercising to get some fresh air from the sea water. And so we've had a problem when we had such a bad storm. Our food are toilet which was up overhead calls ahead of toilet water overflowed into our food.

23:54 And the only thing was left was a little can of food about the size of a small tuna fish can and the crew sent us down some round crackers. So everybody all you got for one day's food was that little can of food and one cracker and I did that for about three nights and I thought I got to have something else to eat. So I snuck over in the dark and I stuck my answer to wire fence to see what I could grab and I grabbed a jar and I thought what I put under my shirt and I went up set under a tank and opened it up and ate the whole thing.

24:31 And it was orange marmalade.

24:33 I still can't eat it to this day. I left it in the water someplace along this route was a ship or ran. We had to stay in the boat. It was Thanksgiving day when we got there. And and when we were sitting on the boat, we had to wait until the doctors came aboard and examined every one of us so we weren't and they brought everyone of us Thanksgiving treat which was one big round fresh juicy orange iced. It's bigger than softball and actually playing cheese white bread sandwich. That was our Thanksgiving dinner. And when we got on what year was that 43 when we got off the phone, we went up to the top of the hill and

25:29 They had a place for all our tents and everything and the they were used in Italian prisoners working the kitchen.

25:39 And everybody in the tent start to get dysentery cuz stuff wouldn't being clean properly.

25:45 But we were only there about two or three weeks in and that I got under a ship that took me over to Naples and when we got to Naples you could have taken us half mile long and waved it at about six foot off the ground and look like it wouldn't have anything. It was all what they had done. The Germans had sunk every boat that they had to turn it over on a side or whatever in the harbor, but our Engineers got in there first and they built walk wouldn't walks over the top of it. So we were able to unload

26:20 But anyway

26:23 We went from I went from there and I got involved with the 36th Division and Infantry Division and we were taken to their camp.

26:36 On a rainy night. We were we were step we've just stay in a tent sitting alongside of him. It was raining and we got a wake and then said they are you got to go 46.

26:49 I went to the owner and 41st.

26:52 Section of company L and actually

26:58 We went all night cruise in the mud in the slop with carrying everything you owned on your back. And and when we got there the top Sergeant Meadows out in the wet field and he says well he's as I had some mail Bales bales of hay here and I'll throw them down and you can put your pup down over that and sleep there till morning.

27:19 Solano we woke up in the morning. Then we got told where we were going to do and who we're going to be with him who was our patrol leader in this sort of thing and that we took us out to the range and we had to take the guns. They gave us and learn how to aim and I had a actually wouldn't believe it. I had an old Springfield 109 which is very rare gone. It wasn't one of the newer ones but they're more accurate and I have learned to shoot the other kind anyway, but anyway, this is gone. I had to make a story short. We fought all the way up to boot.

27:54 In the Infantry, and we ended up I ended up in February.

28:00 First part of paper. I was at the rapito river and we made.

28:07 Free nights to get across the bridge

28:10 And let me let me back up a little bit when we were still coming across the field before we were going to go to the Rapido. I was the first Scout II Scott was behind me and we're out of the woods about a hundred yards and a sniper opened up on him and he got the side of his head hit and when they rolled over to get his Band-Aid they shot him in the shoulder and I raised my head up to see where the guy was that I took a shot right across the top of my helmet if I raise my head higher had it been dead. And what I did is I waited until it started a little foggy and I crawled across the road on my hands and knees and I got around to where he was and I helped him get back to where they could send him to an ambulance and I got a that's when you got your bronze star my bronze star and overheated for Valor and under battle Under Fire. And anyway when we got up to

29:10 The river we had to carry the rubber bridges for almost three different nights because they were bomb and everything out and people are getting killed and is finding on a third night. The engineer's got a bridge across and it is about 60 feet wide and

29:26 We went across her with three battalions of men on each Battalion had five thousand men on it. And I stayed right right next to the shore and I had B, I was behind a big burn which is like a hill. Let's go maybe 6 foot 7 foot high and I was fired my gun over the top of that and

29:48 All of a sudden something hit that burn and I'm not sure to this day what it was but it exploded because all of the instruments of firing from the monastery had been pre aimed they knew exactly where they're going to hit and

30:06 The thing that hit there must have been one of the big shells or something because it knocked me completely out to this day. I don't know whether I was out 2 days or 3, but I woke up and when I woke up, all I could hear was people moaning and help me. I need water in this sort of thing. And I thought well, there's only one way out of here and that's cross that River. So I took off everything. I had except my dog tags and Maya long underwear and I left my shoes everything behind and I jumped into water and February was ice cold, but I thought there's only one way to go and I had learned to swim when I would classes at Bradley and Proctor when I was a kid, and anyway, we went

30:54 Up up. I thought which way should I get out of here and they were mine fields are and I thought what I run on the tape, so I got on the tape and I first point saw me coming and they grabbed a bunch of blankets and that and met me about a third of the way down and and took me into a little shed where there was a general and doctor and a chaplain and a soldier in they questioned me about what's going on and I told him that there was a lot of wounded over there and it's my understanding that after that happened. That's when they called a truce with the Germans to get the wounded off. Many survived that we came out with Leo and when you went on R&R after that what they did that they gave me some shots in my arm and put me in the ambulance and I woke up three weeks later in Naples in the hospital.

31:54 I didn't even know where I was and then there's came over and told me she said well you been out a long time and it's time for you to eat something and they fed me and I started they eventually got me there about another week and a half. They got me a new clothes and everything it and sent me out and a truck with other guys to a place right outside of Naples called bolonia and the army of taking over a large.

32:24 Grandstand racing play Sarah and it was a half mile race track and the Army had a stage in front of it and they had tents behind it and they ended up one of those tents. Well the next day I went over to the PX which was in the bottom half of the grandstand and when I was standing there there was a guy standing next to me and he was a warrant officer. Now I warrant officer is higher than a captain in the field but he's a civilian who is called. Mr. And I saw you had a music on my mom his collar and I said, pardon me. Mr. But are you with a band or something and he turned around to me and you said the well, yeah, it says we were MP's up there at anzio and he says the 5th Army General wanted us to come back here and build some rally says why you play a horn I said, well, I was working my way through college playing trombone when the war broke out. He says, how'd you like to play a dance job tomorrow night. I said, I haven't played My Heart in two years.

33:24 So we haven't either.

33:26 Have you got me transferred in a band I had to sign a paper to let let him know that I was willing to give up my part of being a fighting man, and I ended up playing in the band and we had

33:40 They were a what should I say from Enid Oklahoma area a lot of them lived in and out around that same area and they were National Guard band in and day if you didn't learn how to talk. So I'll see while you going to learn when you was out with the guys. Okay. I know you were just the wrong age you got interrupted in college with World War II and then you came home and then Korea came along when I got home and I got held you in my arms. When you were three months older than you would use one of the new ones in our family and I had a year-and-a-half to finish at Bradley and I so what I did as I took from September to February and then I came home and December so I took from February 1st. I took sick.

34:40 18 hours, then I took another 16 hours in the summer and I took another 16 and the fall in order to do my practice teaching at Manual High School, and they

34:53 Teacher who taught would work down there. That's where I did. My practice teaching said to me. I want to move to a different apartment. I want you to come back and take over the shop.

35:03 And so I thought well.

35:06 I have to think about it. But anyway, I finished my graduation. I had to go back in June to get my diploma when when the field house had a dirt Florida was 120 in the shade. So it wasn't very much fun. But we got it and some of the fraternity brothers that were still alive. We took pictures of them together and then I ended up going down to Manuel and I had my teacher's license and everything. I needed to teach school and I ran into the guy who was principal and that's my grandfather father boss and he said to me, what did you do? I said what's while you're talking about DACA? You sign up to teach here? I said, yeah. I said, what's the matter that he says it's the worst school in the whole state of Illinois. He says get out of here while you're young and go to work at the trade. You said you'll make a lot better living Glen you got called over to Korea got called up in Korea and ended up playing with what happened.

36:06 Our first child was 11 months old and there was a knock on our door and Soldier was there and he says your name strassburger. I said, yeah. He says you're hard to report down to Kentucky for 3 Days training to fly to Korea.

36:22 And I said what he said that the sweat it reads. So I had to go down to Kentucky and they kept us there and gave us our equipment all that kind of stuff and told us well, we got to get to know the reason they did that is because after the war they kept a graph corn and everybody that came in and took their six weeks basic was told if your sign up for 6 years and the reserve you can get out right now. Those are the ones I meant to get and they got a lot of us World War 2 guys when I filled out my papers to go to the army. They want to know what I did civilian life. So I wrote down. Well, I played trombone in a minutes will Bandon and and work my way through college playing the horn and I also have a minor in speech and drama which I do have

37:14 And when I got into the thing in this side of the move around while they moved all of us veterans, and by the way, I had took me to February I took me to Thanksgiving and at Thanksgiving time. I was on the boat from Seattle to go to Japan when I got to Japan. They put us in a former Japanese Barracks where there were a hundred men in each and redress us and gave us everything we needed and everything we needed to be in war and and they never called my name they call you out and go to the names and I was the last one left in that building and I look down the next building. There's a guy sitting there. So I went outside with him and I was telling him that story and he said the guy came blowing a bicycle Raven waving some papers and he said you're wanted on the PX.

38:04 I said, oh well, let's go to marry a look for somebody to clean up and there was a former Rock cat there by the name is Skippy Lynn who had a bird colonel between her and a general Ridgeway and she says to me says he reapplied trombone go down there and pick up a trombone have the piano player play something for me. So I went down I asked him I said, you know the song pretty baby. You just sure so I prayed about half of it. She's okay. Now, I'm up on the stage and pick up a book and read what it says and I did and she's okay have a seat. I found out I made it into the take 10 for the Uso show. I need to wrap this up and what I want to be sure to say is that you're still playing and you're saying why the Oktoberfest of wearing you out you played three different nights on the river with your Oompa and now you're playing the baritone horn, but you're playing that

39:04 Pop art. Okay. So it all from Premier kindergarten years all the way till now you're still playing music it got you off the battlefields after you swim the river saved your life music has just been a lifesaver to you and given a lot of pleasure to other people to last year. We played nine different Oktoberfest in the end of September and October. Actually. I helped design the sign that we have on our

39:45 Things that works out of Music on memory really enjoy meeting people and singing German music and we're reliving some of those German song. My my wife still has three cousins living in Germany, which we talked to on a computer.

40:03 Thanks, Uncle Bob.