I asked my sister-in-law, Mary Simms, to tell me what she remembers about her Uncle Sid, thinking I would incorporate her memories into a story of my own, but when I read what she wrote I realized I could not improve on it. Therefore, this is Mary's story.
A NIECE
REMEMBERS SIDNEY RUSSELL
[This memoir will be divided up into segments showing
the origin of the information.]
MARY RUSSELL
SIMMS:
I first met Uncle Sid when he
came to Colorado to spend time with Frances and Doyle at the end of World War
II. He had recently been discharged from the US Army after seeing combat duty
in the Pacific Theatre. Sid had been wounded quite seriously and was still in a
state of post traumatic shock from war injuries. Later I felt it was rather
unusual that upon being discharged that Sid came straight to Doyle in Colorado rather
than returning to Arkansas to be with his parents first.
Uncle Sid was a very quiet and
polite person and showed great respect to everyone he met. Sid had a
personality that people just automatically gravitated toward. A truly magnetic
personality. Especially attracted to Sid’s charisma were the ladies—both
married and single.
Sid had very little money and
most of the time did not have wheels of his own, so he mostly dated women who
had access to a car and could provide their transportation. He did eventually
purchase an old c1928 beet truck that ran at times and did not at other times.
One night while en route to see one of his harem of lady friends his truck
lights gave out all of a sudden. Since all roads around Nunn, CO were built on
the straight surveyed section lines, Sid assumed he could simply continue in a
straight course until he came to a stop. Not so. Seems now and then the
intersections of the county roads had a jog in them, and when passing through
the intersection one came out about 50 feet to the left or right when entering
the next mile of road. [The reason for this jog was said to be because the
earth is round.] Unfortunately, it was at this point when Sid’s lights gave
out—just before the jog. He and his old truck ended up in the ditch just to the
left of the continuing county road—with the front of the truck nosed down into
the road ditch and the radiator slammed up against the ditch bank on the far
side.
One lady that he courted for
quite a while was a local school teacher named Miss Marita Plunkett. She was
especially nice but did not have access to a car of her own. Hence Uncle Sid
did not spend too much quality time with her. When he would return from a date
with Miss Plunkett he would drop his used condoms at the yard gate. Frances
would go out the next morning and dig a hole and bury the offending items so her
kids would not find them.
One time Miss Plunkett and Sid
came by the house and came in to visit for a while before going off on their
date. Our family had spent the day shopping in Greeley. Unfortunately when
Kenneth was sent back to close the kitchen door that he had left wide open an
old hen had already wandered into the kitchen. Kenneth did not notice the
chicken and slammed the door shut. Several hours later when Doyle and family
returned from Greeley, the hen had spent her time roosting on the cot in the
living room and doing as all good hens do—pooping on the bed. Frances chased
the hen out but failed to check for damages.
Bobby and I were already in bed
on the cot when Sid and Miss Plunkett arrived so Miss Plunkett, being a very
mannerly person, came into the living room to say hello to Bobby and me. She
sat down on the foot of the bed and leaned over with her hand resting on the
covers. It was rather dark in the room and Miss Plunkett kept sniffing at the
air and trying to hold a straight face. The next morning was when Frances found
that the bed covers were covered with chicken poop! We never did find out if
Miss Plunkett got any on her skirt or hand—but judging from her continuous
sniffing the air she had to have smelled the chicken poop. Frances was
mortified!
When a lady would tell Sid that
she was married and hands off, Sid would inform the lady that she was much too
pretty to be married, and the lady would usually have an affair with Sid.
Flattery will get you everywhere.
One morning Sid was still
asleep in the “north” bedroom when Frances told Kenneth and me to come see
something. Sid was facing toward the wall and the covers had come down to his
waist and his entire bare back was exposed. I could not believe what Sid’s back
looked like. His entire back was one huge scar from burning. Seems he had been
scalded by a boiling teakettle when he was a kid and then again by a mortar
shell during the war. He must have suffered terribly from those
injuries.
Uncle Sid related this incident
about the war injury to our family himself. For a long time after he was
wounded in battle, Sid was totally helpless. They kept him strapped down to the
bed to keep him still while he healed. For some reason Sid was kept totally
naked during this time. Perhaps to expedite healing. Anyway, he said that one
day a new nurse came in and whisked back the covers in preparing to change the
sheets. When the covers came off there lay a totally naked man bound hand and
foot to the hospital bed. For some reason this amused the nurse and she burst
out laughing and ran out and brought in several other nurses who stood around
and laughed and giggled about Sid’s condition. This really upset Sid.
Our house was very small and
there were six in the family. We had only two bedrooms so it rather crowded us
to have Sid taking up one entire bedroom. Doyle kept finding Sid a place to
live with neighbors to free up our living space a little. One place Doyle found
was with a rather dishonest bachelor fellow named Mr. Quaif. He and Sid seemed
to get along OK and Sid stayed there for quite a while. Mr. Quaif had a car and
I would imagine he let Sid use it to court the ladies.
Uncle Sid was always very nice
to Doyle’s kids. He would bring us candy and other treats from town. He once
gave me a small cedar box that he had won on the local punch board. It had
originally been filled with Hershey Bars which he very generously shared with
the entire family. I was so thrilled when he gave me that beautiful carved
cedar box. It was about the 6” by 10” and 3” deep.
Another local family that Sid
lived with was Hattie and Everett Wilson. Everett worked for Murray Giffin and
when Sid went to work for Murray, it just seemed logical for Sid to get board
and room from Hattie and Everett. They thought the world of Sid as did about
everyone he encountered. One time Sid’s shoe string broke and he bent over and
tied the two broken ends back together. This act shocked the Wilsons no end.
They always threw broken things away and replaced them with new
things.
Uncle Sid eventually returned
to Arkansas to live with his parents for several years before he finally go married
and moved in with his new wife. Sid was given a partial disability pension from
the war injuries. Not enough to live on as a normal person but enough to live
like a bum. I saw Sidney in 1950 and again in 1958 when I visited Addie and
Elias’s home. He was very quiet, and stood on the front porch most of the time
smoking a cigarette. He was a kind and gentle person.
FRANCES
RUSSELL
Bobby always looked more like
his Uncle Sid than he did his Papa Doyle. This eventually gave rise to a
questioning of Bobby’s paternity. One person came right out and told Frances
that it was quite obvious that Frances had had an affair with Sid and Bobby was
Sid’s son. Fortunately, for Frances’s reputation, Frances and Sid had never met
until after Gladys was born so that squashed the rumor quite quickly. The
accuser was Uncle Harold’s wife, Shirley. This really ticked Frances
off.
SID’S
MOTHER
Sid was in active combat in New
Guinea during World War II and got wounded very seriously. Seems the natives
would steal the dead soldier’s dog tags and sell them to the Army to account for
mortalities. Sid got a bit too close to a mortar shell and was assumed dead by
the Natives who removed his dog tag and turned it in. The Army forthwith
informed Addie and Elias that their son had been killed during a battle in New
Guinea. They also sent all of Sid’s personal effects back to his parents. When
the medics checked the battlefield for survivors they found Sid nearly dead. He
was transported back to the Army hospital and was unconscious for a long period
of time. It was touch and go during this time. When Sid finally came out of
his coma he had no idea who he was or where he was. His memory was blanked out
from the trauma.
When the day came that Uncle
Sidney finally remembered who he was and told his doctor, they wrote to his
parents and told them that their reported dead son was actually alive but in
serious condition at an Army hospital in the South Pacific. This must have been
quite a shock to his parents.
It took a long time after this
before Sid could leave the hospital and be discharged and return to the US.
When Sid was just a little kid,
he and his siblings were running through the house like a bunch of wild Indians
when Sid got too close to the fireplace and caught his toe in the teakettle
filled with boiling water. He flung it all over himself and scarred quite a
bit of his body. The burns were quite serious but Addie doctored him through
this.
One day Hazel came running up
the path between Seldon’s house and Addie’s house all excited. She yelled to
Addie that Sid and Minnie had just got married! Hazel was quite thrilled.
Addie was furious. She did not like Hazel and disliked Minnie even more. It
was at this point that Sid finally moved out of his parent’s house and moved
into Ozark to live with his new wife.
Robert Sidney Russell (1916-1977).
Robert Sidney Russell (1916-1977).
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