John Bender and Emily Janssen

00:02 My name is Emily Jensen. I am 34 years old today is May 27th, 2015. We are in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and I'm here with John.

00:17 Hi, my name is John Bender. I'm 61 years old today is May 27th, 2015. And where in Colorado Springs, Colorado. I'm going to talk about my parents.

00:31 Most of what I know about my parents childhoods came from some audio tapes I made of conversations. We had maybe 20 years ago.

00:40 Dad's came out pretty well. Although I'm pretty sure I lost one of his tapes. My mom didn't hold the mic right and her recordings really aren't very good.

00:50 Moms married name was Audrey. Helen bender and dad was Arley Harold Bender. So they both were AHB.

01:01 Dad grew up in New Hampton, Iowa Chickasaw County his dad Fred Bender was a blacksmith and on the volunteer fire department his dad contracted Encephalitis when my dad was only seven and he never worked again.

01:17 Since the social programs coming out of the Roosevelt administration didn't exist. He was cared for at home by my grandmother. She made $0.25 a day cleaning and what it was just barely enough to feed three people, but the family had four

01:34 So dad was taken in by The Rail Runner who lives next door who made called paw Finch. He was fed housed and pretty much raised by paw Finch and his family has a Railroader Puff N Snuff money to take you to one more mouths to feed.

01:50 Dad wanted to work on the section gang so he could work for Paw Finch. The summer dad was 15. He got his wish he weighed all of 90 lb and his nickname was peanut.

02:02 He about got Beat to Death shoveling ballast and coal by hand. And spiking rail by hand at the end of the summer pop in chest and if he still wanted to be on the section gang or did he want to learn to be at Allegria Ferg dad chose the latter?

02:19 You learn to leg Rafi from a fat Station Agent who had emphysema his words not mine. They had to throw yard switches using 6ft long levers connected to dozens or a hundred feet of Steel actuator pipe since he had emphysema. He had Francis Finch in my dad's for the switches for him and in turn he taught them telegraphy.

02:44 Dad worked his way up through two leg refer to Station Agent the trainmaster to dispatcher in between he wanted to volunteer for the Army. He had what was called a protected job working on the railroad. So he didn't have to join the Army and his draft board didn't want to let him go but he persisted and they relented he was assigned to the 770 V Railway Grand division in the Philippines. I needed some cool things invented a safe passage system for trains using carved batons. So no two trains would be on the same track at the same time and he got a bronze star for Valor ass action Under Fire.

03:25 He told us about one time. They got a new company commander who was regular army. It sounds a lot like the TV show MASH really all our personnel and officers have been railroaders until this Frank Burns kind of guy showed up.

03:41 They had to work shift work is all railroaders do so. They had to try and sleep in the hot and humid weather the Philippines in a dark green troop 10. Just baking them. The only possible way to do that was put your head at the center aisle of the tent where there may be just a hint of a breeze blowing from end-to-end.

04:01 One of their guys was sleeping vest when the company Commander came by and took his stripes away for sleeping wrong.

04:08 The Army regulation said soldiers heads must be away from the aisle while sleeping that created quite a stir among the railroad troops and they had the audacity to make signs and walk a picket line over a lieutenant colonel was a railroad or any heard about this story. He sided with the troops remove the captain and put in another Railroader his company Commander. He said they were probably the only unit history of the US Army who nearly went on strike.

04:36 Dad came back from the war and work for the Chicago Rock Island Pacific Railroad.

04:42 He was assigned to st. Paul Minnesota where he met my mom on a blind date and eventually they got married the railroad moved officers quite frequently. My oldest brother went to 3 grade schools in first grade.

04:56 They moved all over Minnesota to Iowa and Texas Tom was born in St. Paul Bob and Cedar Rapids and I in Estherville, Iowa.

05:05 When we got to live in Fairbury, Nebraska for 9 years mom thought she'd Gone to Heaven not having to move every few months.

05:13 Dad didn't think railroaders needed college degrees. So he never got one that put the brakes on him later in life still Heroes to manager of safety and rules for the Rock Island before its demise after that he went back to his Union card is a dispatcher until his retirement.

05:31 After mom died dad lived in their house for another year before maintenance and loneliness convinced him to turn in his car keys and move into a senior living apartment.

05:40 He was exhausted taking care of Mom for the last few years of her life. And then we missed her dearly. He really flowered after that burden of care was removed from him. He went to concerts with my brothers made new friends sang in church choir and traveled. He was a Cubs fan from the time. He could listen to games on WGN radio from Chicago as a preteen until his death, but he was a huge Royals fan. Also listening to every single game from 1969 to 2012.

06:10 As you might expect he aged as he slowed down got shorter and weaker. He started falling periodically in his back hurt like crazy. Just shy of his 93rd birthday. He got a bad cold which turn to pneumonia just about three weeks later. I was in Omaha with my wife and two kids at a professional conference as we were eating dinner outside in the Old Market area of downtown Omaha, my brother Tom called

06:37 Hospice nurse said he probably wouldn't make it through the night. I told my boss. I was leaving.

06:45 We packed up the hotel room and drove down I-29 to his side in Prairie Village, Kansas getting there about 11:30 at night.

06:53 Dad was mostly come comatose fighting for air with every panting breath. I sang to him prayed with them told him how much I love him. I was the last family member child a grandchild to speak with him that night. Everyone got to say goodbye at least by phone. It was like he was waiting for me and in an hour he was gone.

07:16 My parents deaths were very blessed. Mom was 87 dad was two weeks. Shy of 93 both got to die with dignity in their own beds with loving family around.

07:28 Now for my mom, can I ask you some questions about your dad moved to your mom? What kind of work backwards a little bit? What did you sing when you saw him at the end, but that's a good question because I'll get into that with my mom. Okay with something specific but with Dad, I'm sure I just sang some old hymns that I knew that he knew I know a lot of them by heart and I don't remember exactly what I did. But remember the last thing you said to him.

08:02 Not really, you know probably just

08:06 I love you.

08:09 So you haven't experienced the loss of both your parents yet. I'll make sure you do storycorps before you leave.

08:19 Will you?

08:22 Just describe your dad to me like kind of paint a picture. What you remember from growing up when you were a kid and you think about oh, this is what my dad would like.

08:36 Okay.

08:39 Me tell you what, he was not like I've read a good book. Actually. I started reading a good book called Wild at Heart which is a very good book but the author who actually lives in Woodland Park contends that every man receives a wound typically from his father as a child in that wound stays with him for his entire life and I couldn't finish the book because I don't remember that from my dad and I don't remember

09:16 Maybe it's because my mom was the disciplinarian. I just don't don't ever remember any significant emotional negative event related to my dad. So that's a negative answer a positive answer is he was kind and I thought he was brilliant with tools although later in life. He told me he wasn't and he was just amazed that I say that he

09:45 Went to work and came home and has his jobs changed over the years when I was a teenager. He started traveling more as he got into a higher positions, but no he started off at that. I think he was five one when he was 90 lb up to his senior year in high school. He ended up about six three you put on some drugs some place.

10:18 I remember living in the small town of Fairbury, Nebraska, which is a big town. Actually. It was the county seat of that 5,000 people. So that's a big town. He had bought a

10:33 1937 Chevy for $80 from somebody downtown and they didn't really trust it to go on the highway, but he used it for driving around town. So in the morning when I was in grade school at St. Michael's School our little dog Patty would hop in the Chevy with dad drive all of 2 miles down to the railroad station. Dad would go to his job as a dispatcher. He'd leave the door open for Patty Patty would walk back to miles to our house and walk with us to school which has all three blocks and then go off and do whatever dogs do during the day she case she knew when lunch was cuz she come back and meet us for lunch and then she'd meet us at the end of the day when school is over walk home with us and then she'd walk down to the railroad station and meet Dad and come home with him.

11:28 Yeah, that's that's just she was quite a dog and then some.

11:34 You don't let dogs walk much anymore and you don't let kids walk much anymore. So yeah, that's exceptional. I guess it was fun.

11:47 What are the things kind of a question? What lessons did he teach you but maybe?

11:56 What did you get from your dad? That's what has made you who you are or how you are in the world?

12:03 That's a question. I have not really pondered in detail.

12:09 The one thing that the one way I could answer that I think was my dad was a very generous man. I'm going to cry.

12:21 There's a song Some Christian artist sings called a generous man. And the first time I heard that song I just blubbered and I played it for my dad this summer before he died and I just hugged him and kissed him and cried all over and said I think this is you.

12:44 And

12:47 My oldest son who's 30 now and lives in Louisiana.

12:52 The number of years ago, we hired a friend of his and the son of some friends of ours. This kid was a contractor and he was kind of out of work and we needed some work. So I hired him I needed a mediocre job and didn't finish it and we'd paid him in advance and he owed us like $2,000 for either either the work or the money back and we never got either and I was talking to my son Chris about that.

13:25 And he said that he'd loaned been some money as well. And I said, why would you do that? You know, and he said, well he needed it and I didn't expect it back and that told me that he was a generous man.

13:51 Any more questions about your mom, okay.

13:58 Mom grew up in Spooner Wisconsin, but even that far north she remembers the Ku Klux Klan burning crosses in their front yard, probably because of some combination of there being Catholic and her dad's being a socialist in a union organizer.

14:16 I remember her saying how she loved to see your dad come home from work at the railroad yard other dads came home covered in Citco oil and grease but her dad on the other hand always showered at work before coming home and he loved she love to go meet him.

14:33 Sadly about the only thing I remember her saying about her mom was that her mom could clean a bowl with a spoon cleaner that I could with a rubber spatula which of course they didn't have

14:44 Her mom died at 42 of a heart condition probably bought brought on by untreated diabetes. Mom was only 18 or older brother and sister were married, but she had two little brother still at home. So she became mom.

14:59 Her dad moved family South Minneapolis and then Saint Paul where he became manager of the Midland cooperative.

15:06 After she graduated from nursing school in Chicago, she went to work at the VA in Minneapolis near her dad's home in 1941.

15:15 After Pearl Harbor or charge nurse said she was probably shooting yourself in the foot, but my mom really ought to go join up. So Mom became an Army Nurse.

15:25 A lots of people can probably say that in their house Mom outranks Dad, but in ours it was literally true both were World War II vets. She was a first lieutenant. He was a master sergeant.

15:38 Since I live near Colorado Springs, it's kind of deja vu then Mom took her basic training at Camp Carson. Just south of here now. It's called Fort Carson then.

15:51 She was assigned to the 10th Mountain division at Camp Hale up by Leadville Colorado. Now, I go snowboarding there. It's called ski Cooper.

16:01 She told us of learning to take a bath in the allotted one helmet full of cold water and she told us how in Guam they had to chase the rats out of the tent at night because they come in a nibble on the wounded soldiers bandages.

16:15 Growing up. As I said, we lived in Fairbury, Nebraska mom was the school nurse for all four public schools to Elementary one Junior High and the high school every kid in town newer.

16:28 After moving to Kansas City in 1966. She took a refresher course and started working at KU Medical Center where she worked for over 20 years.

16:40 Her death

16:42 For a couple years I couldn't tell the story without tears.

16:46 His mom Grew Older she had multiple disease processes congestive heart failure late in life diabetes bad osteoporosis stomach issues. But what she finally succumb to was acute myelodysplastic anemia myelodysplastic syndrome or MDS is a condition that affects the bone marrow and the blood cells that produces. So basically your body stop making New Blood.

17:11 I got to spend three weeks with her and dad in September of 2006 is the most continuous time. I spent with them since grade school.

17:20 I took Dad to get some skin cancer removed from his face the dermatologist and I got to see mom's hematologist with her for a couple years because of her blood marrow is malfunctioning.

17:33 She had been surviving on transfusions At first she needed blood every few months. But by then it was every few weeks. She was just sort of getting where the transfusions didn't help.

17:45 So at the doctor's office while I was there with her she told him she didn't want to continue getting blood. Of course that a firm timeline on her demise.

17:54 She asked for one more transfusion so she could be well enough to enjoy her 87th birthday with the whole family.

18:01 Family came from all over and we had fun and took lots of pictures. She got to hold her latest great-granddaughter Mallory. Just one month old.

18:11 Over the next couple months she got weaker and weaker and more tired and spent more and more time in bed. Finally not able to get up at all my brothers and Kansas City got her into Catholic Charities hospice care, which is marvellous. She was able to stay home the whole time.

18:27 Finally on a Saturday morning about 8 in the morning. I got a call from my brother saying she was probably not going to make it through the day she been in a coma for about 3 days. I got pretty emotional that I asked Bob to put the phone up to her ear.

18:43 I'd looked up the lyrics for a lullaby that I remembered her singing to us made Popular by Bing Crosby and titled Tura Lura Lura an Irish Lullaby.

18:53 So I sang it to her over the phone choked up cuz I was

18:58 When I finished Bob got back on the phone and said in astonishment boys, what did you say to her? And I told him and he said she hadn't made an obvious voluntary movement of any kind for three days. But at my singing her lips were moving. He was astonished as was I they say hearing is the last sense to go and I experienced that an hour later. She was gone.

19:32 Who is in Killarney Manny? Here's a song to me in tones. So sweet and low Justice Andrew call Irish way.

20:01 And I'd give you the world if she could sing that song to me this day.

20:13 Often dreams. I wonder to that caught again. I feel me has wind chills me that and I hear her voice when she used to rock me fast asleep outside the cabin.

20:59 Now don't you cry?

21:12 Tura Lura Lura

21:38 Do you have any questions?

21:45 When you think about your mom now?

21:48 What image stays in your head what comes to your mind when you think about her?

21:55 Lots of them actually

22:00 She has gray hair.

22:04 What's the year? I was born when she was 34 and I never remember her with dark hair. So she grade really early. She always wore as most nurses did 10 a white uniform with white stockings and white shoes to work at the school.

22:22 We have pictures of her in my brother's yearbook from high school.

22:30 I guess that's the first thing that I remember her big mushy lips and she likes to kiss with

22:40 And how much shorter she got as she got older with her osteoporosis and I assume that's pretty normal to lose Hyatt, but boy, she lost a lot probably five or six in that seems

23:00 And first time I ever heard her cuss remember that?

23:08 In our way to big house in Fairbury two stories with an unfinished full basement old probably built in the 1890s or something.

23:19 Gigantic old gravity air furnace didn't have a fan on it just pour gas into as originally cool and had these 12 inch diameter ducks and you just rely on hot air to rise and leaky houses Blues are so that's how it got heated.

23:37 And we had the traditional white kitchen table with red slick colored chairs and one day we're having dinner and we might have even been having guests over because I remember the table being set better than usual and someone was handing the pickled beets. I think Mom was handing the pickled beets to somebody else and she dropped him in the mashed potatoes. She said damn it all to hell and that was the first time I ever heard her cuss. I remember that

24:14 I was shocked of course.

24:19 In what are the things?

24:22 That you think you got from your mom about how you are in the world now or how you see the world.

24:31 Also an interesting question that I haven't really thought much about

24:38 I think she was kind to very bossy. I'm sure I inherited that from her because my dad was the type B, and she was the type A.

24:52 I think I got my

24:57 How should I say this? I hate this just say My Religion from her. They did send us all to Catholic grade school.

25:09 After I was out of college and working by myself, I actually found out that that was not enough for Jesus Christ and I no longer attend the Catholic church. I don't

25:27 Look down on them, but that's just not what I do now, but she was a faithful Catholic her entire life.

25:36 They were married when I was living in Minnesota between 2010 and 2013. I had the great privilege of buying what do they call it a dedicated Mass. I know there's a there's not there's a term for it the mass of dedication something like that on what would have been my parents 65th wedding anniversary, January 10th.

26:06 2013 so I went to the church office and I got it reserved and I attended mass at 6:30 in the morning and it was all really cool. And I remember kneeling on the altar where they know 65 years before and I was just really special. Yep.

26:33 That was cool.

26:37 I remember their address or the address that my grandpa lived in.

26:42 On iglehart if you lived in the Twin Cities and probably know where that is 1793 iglehart and when I first went there actually for a job interview in 2010 without taking pictures outside the house then this guy came out and was wondering what I was doing.

27:04 And I told him I'm I'm not trying to be a creep and I like my grandpa used to live here. And this is the only house I ever remember his living in. Well his mom looking Skies mom came out on the steps and she remembered buying it from my uncle who know probated the will and then sold the house after Grandpa's death. So the house was built in

27:34 1902 and it only had four owners and she was the latest so that was kind of cool.

27:42 And then to listen to these tapes when I interviewed my mom in the 1990s and put them on a shelf and then find out that she worked at the VA in Minneapolis, which I used to ride my bicycle down by I was just really cool. So it was me.

28:01 Do you?

28:04 In your

28:07 And you have a daughter but I do have other children is any of your mom or dad and them dad and my oldest son. I see my mom and my daughter and my youngest I see mostly just me.

28:29 He's a third child as I'm a third child and he's I hope I wasn't that wild.

28:35 He probably by your parents.

28:41 I have to tell you another story about mom that I thought of him before I forget. I was probably 10 years old.

28:52 My parents and I don't know if this was normal, but it's what they did. They ordered instead of buying a car off the lot. They ordered the car that they wanted and this apparently was normal maybe just for small towns who didn't have a big inventory or something, but it was fairly normal. At least. I thought it was and then instead of paying to have it ship there for them to pick up we travel to Kenosha, Wisconsin to pick it up from the Rambler Factory and then drive home.

29:27 And it was a a 3 seat station wagon Rambler made the first one Ford copied it after that and the tailgate hinge down the side in like a door instead of on the bottom like most tailgates and it had a rear-facing third seat. Well with three boys I got the rear seat and I usually got sick driving in the car car sick. So I would usually go back there and just fall asleep and then I'd be okay. So that was our modus operandus. So we stopped in Milwaukee to visit some relatives. I don't know who

30:12 And like had lunch there and then we went and Dad stopped at a gas station to get gas as we were leaving town and I went to use the bathroom and I was there a while and when I walked out I saw a car hopping on the highway and taking off and I thought maybe dad was just parking or it was a joke. I didn't holler or wave or anything. I just stood there and watched him drive down the highway until I couldn't see him anymore and

30:44 Being the

30:46 Unflappable individual that I was then I was just mad as hell.

30:52 And I thought about talking to the people at the station, but I figured they there's nothing they could do and I saw a telephone booth across the street across the highway. So I walked over there across the highway was trying to remember the name of the people we visited and look them up in the White Pages cuz I figured if I could remember and I could find them just about every everybody was listed in the white pages so I could call him and have him come pick me up until such time as my parents figured out. I was gone or something.

31:28 So while I was fumbling with the Whitepages, I saw a car come tearing over the hilltop about quarter mile away and I was wearing white jeans. I remember that very clearly and I went up stood next to the highway hands on my hips. Just you and me and of course mom poured out of the front seat. Just blubbering or you know, I'm so sorry. Oh what it it wasn't.

31:58 What had happened while on their side was they've been driving for a while and my brother Bob had borrowed my watch because he didn't have one until we reached over the back seat hand me my watch back and he said where's John and my mom about died because she thought the rear window was down and I'd fallen out on the highway or something. I was 10.

32:24 So I was mad as hell she was scared and relieved and it's all a fun memory at this point.

32:36 Both of your parents in some way had a connection to the railroad. Do you have any brothers are also railroaders? I'm an engineer. So that's close.

32:55 I don't know if sensibility or connections is that has that sort of gotten inside of you and who you are it is that

33:06 I gave up being on time when I got married, but I still find it in my blood. I have to be on time for things. I'm sure I got that from my dad and he got it from his railroad. Dad used to introduce us as his three sons the engineer's he's to drive locomotives and he's electrical so and my oldest brother's oldest son is also a Railroader so it's all over the place.

33:38 So

33:42 How do you want people to remember them?

33:46 My parents

33:50 I'd like people to remember my parents as loving kind people who didn't always get along but they didn't let that interrupt their relationship. They grew old together and they both died well at home in their own bed with family around

34:13 It's a wonderful thing.

34:17 Anything else you want to say before we finished?

34:25 Wish my daughter was here.

34:28 But you'll get to hear it on CD Wright.

34:33 My daughter. I love you.

34:37 She just got her doctorate last Friday big doin's in the Bender family.

34:45 Amazing

34:47 Thank you so much. Thanks for I feel like I've gotten to meet your parents a little bit. So, thank you.

34:58 Isn't she?