Father: Eugene Harold Downey
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Try To Remember...

Eugene Harold Downey (1904-1973)---husband to Blanche Smithson Downey and father to me (Harold Bruce Downey, an only child)---
 
"For the child I once was, I remember my father as being a teller of stories and a singer of songs that he would recall from as far back as the 1916 era.  He was very intelligent, had a terrific memory and vocabulary, was non-gregarious, frugal, dependable and hard working with a sense of duty to the task at hand, and he had a very wry sense of humor and a keen interest in education.  He worked with his mind, and not with his hands, for he knew he was not mechanically inclined--- nor am I for that matter."
 
  ...written by his son...H. Bruce Downey 



      Watch photos in "full-screen mode" by clicking on above.

NOW a note about the slides:
 
The first slide is the earliest known picture of my father, Eugene Harold Downey at about 5-months (that would make it November, 1904). 
 
Then that's my father as a young boy sitting on the steps (at far left) of the Michael Edward Downey family residence on the East-side of South Chicago near Lake Michigan.  Seated next to my father at the far right is my dad's older brother, Phay, with a younger brother, Gerald, standing beside their mother--- Ellen Whitehead Downey who would subsequently divorce my Grandfather, Michael Edward Downey (and for good reason) and at the age of 33, she would marry Sherman Butler Black in 1918.
 
The third slide in this group is that of my father when he was 12 years old.
 
The fourth and fifth slides are of my father as a teenager. 
 
Then, when my father was 16 years old, in 1920 Sherman moved the family to Craddock, VA near Portsmouth, VA.  And so the sixth slide is 1920 at the Tank Car Company where my father at 16 worked alongside his step-father, Sherman Black, in Craddock, VA--- that's my father in a crouched position at the far right with Sherman Black in coveralls standing beside him.  My Uncle Phay also worked at the Tank Car Company, but didn't make this picture as he was working in the office at the time. 
 
The next six slides are of my father at his lifetime work as an electrical engineer at AT&T of Washington Street in downtown Chicago, IL.
 
The 13th slide is my father as a retired "Telephone Pioneer", pictured here along with some other pioneers."
 
The 14th slide was taken by a street-side photographer as my father and I were walking along Halstead Street on the south-side of Chicago near my Grandmother Black's top-floor apartment at 6959 South Union Avenue--- one block east of Halstead Street.
 
The 15th slide is of my mother and father in the backyard of our home at 198 Hawthorne Ave in Elmhurst, IL.
 
The 16th slide is of my mother and father at Logan Airport in Boston sometime in the 1950's.
 
And the last slide is of Gramps showing our boys, Scott, Stuart, and David how to whistle by cupping your hands together.  We were waiting to be served at the Kapok Tree Restaurant in the Tampa/St. Pete area.  We waited so long that David fell asleep at the dinner table that night.
 
    ..,H. Bruce Downey

"Those were the days" as performed by H. Bruce Downey, son of Eugene Harold Downey and Blanche Smithson Downey ------------>
 
    
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STORY # 1.... H. Bruce Downey (in his own voice): Here is a story recorded in August, 2003 about Bruce's recollections of his father's---Eugene Harold Downey's---education. To start this story point to and click on the following LINK:--->


Eugene Harold Downey (1904-1973)