Page 83 - Armstrong Bloodline - ebook_Neat

Although my father had wanted to attend a four-year college, the prospect (at age 26) of waiting another four
long years to get on with life was just too much, and he decided to enroll in the Minneapolis School of Business
in 1947, instead. His night watchman job gave him plenty of time to study, and in 1948/1949 he completed his
studies and was offered a position by the Minneapolis Headquarters of the Fullerton Lumber Company in
Burlington, Iowa. From outside appearances, the marriage was prospering, although my father told me that it
was while they lived in Excelsior that mom had her first bout with depression and had to have electric shock
treatments. According to my father, it was also during this period that he began to have doubts about the
future of his marriage.

Shortly thereafter, we moved to Burlington, IA where my parents became close friends with a family by the
name of Uffelman. I remember an additional bit of family folklore from this period. The Uffelmans paid us a
visit during the Christmas holidays and the adults thought it would be cute to see me and the other family's
son Donnie, who, was about my age, go a couple of rounds with the new boxing gloves that I had received for
Christmas. Soon thereafter the thick, pillow-like boxing gloves were tied on to each of us and they sat back to
watch the fun. Apparently, the other youngster felt that this was going to be loads of good fun and approached
me with a happy smile and his gloves at an ill-advised low level. I never trusted a smiling face, especially when
half hidden behind a pair of boxing gloves, and proceeded to cold cock poor little Donnie with as sweet a right
hand as a three-year old could throw. Unfortunately, after performing an impressive backward, half
somersault, little Donnie's landing was considerably less graceful, resulting in a nasty broken collarbone.

My father had learned his trade quickly, and after approximately
one year in Burlington, he was transferred to Alexander, Franklin
County, Iowa to manage a small lumber yard there. It was in this
little town in north central Iowa that the lives of our little family
unraveled in a bizarre and unexpected way. My parent's finances
were beginning to improve slightly and dad appeared to be doing
well in his job. What happened next received considerable
newspaper coverage in places such as Mason City and Des Moines,
Iowa as well as in the Pierce County Herald in Ellsworth, Wisconsin.
Dad, mom & me in Alexander, IA
The attached newspaper articles 286, 287, 288, 289, 290, 291, 292, 293, 294, 295 & 296 tell the
whole sordid tale in much more detail than I will go into here, but apparently
my father had become increasingly unhappy with his life and marriage and
decided that his only way out was to stage a robbery and kidnapping and take
off; which he proceeded to do a pretty convincing job of. Within a week,
however, he seemed to have had second thoughts about his departure, and
called my mother a week or so later from California and finally drove back
home. For a while after his return, he continued to maintain that he had been
robbed and kidnapped. As is frequently the case, newspaper coverage of the
incident was not totally complete or correct. After considerable pressure by
the police and his employer, he finally admitted he had concocted the whole Grandpa Ben and Grandma
scheme and had, in fact, stolen money from the lumber yard to finance his Amelia Anderson
“trip”. In order to keep him out of jail, Grandpa and Grandma Anderson, who had come to Iowa to be with my
mother during my father's “disappearance”, paid the amount that was missing with the understanding that my
father would reimburse them later (which he never did).

I do not know exactly what happened next, but shortly thereafter, we moved to the nearby town of Hampton,
Iowa. That Christmas, we all went to Ellsworth, Wisconsin to spend Christmas with Grandpa and Grandma

82