In a file folder containing Dad‘s retirement documents from 1988, I came across a five-page typewritten document.

Titled: Autobiography

A handwritten note at the top of yellowing paper indicates it was completed on July 21, 1954. Was it written by request of a potential employer? We may never know.

Here it is, in its entirety:

Autobiography

by Harold E. Vayo, Jr.

My birth occurred, I have been informed, at St. Luke’s Hospital, Utica, New York, about four-thirty on the morning of May 28th, 1930. The first four years of my life were normal and uneventful, and my recollections of these days are all but non-existent.

Memories of my early childhood commence when I was between four and five years old. We were living in an apartment in Utica whose backyard, which we shared with our landlord, was large and well-landscaped. I remember a small fruit orchard, a more or less formal garden, and a fishpond with a rock garden in the center. Our landlord had an Irish maid named Margaret (I never knew her last name, but her brogue was delightful) who often called me in from play in the summertime to have lemonade and homemade cookies. In September of 1935, I began my formal education in the kindergarten of the Mandeville Street School.

Early in the spring of the next year, we moved to our first one-family house. It was situated high on a hill in suburban Utica. About three hundred yards east of the house was a railroad grade crossing, and after becoming aware that trains run on a fixed schedule, I seldom missed watching them whenever I was at home. To the west of our house was a large field, uncultivated and obviously untouched for many years. One day, while playing in this field, I discovered a few small stones, roughly shaped. Bringing them home, I showed them to my father when he returned from the office that evening. He said they looked like Indian arrowheads. All of which led to questions, answers, and bedtime stories which awakened in me an interest in antiquity that has survived to this day.

Before we had lived for a year in our house on the hill, my father accepted an offer to become advertising manager of a department store in New Haven, Connecticut. A little more than a year later, a store in Lowell, Massachusetts made an offer to my father which he could not refuse and it was there that my family first had the chance to settle down. We were numerically complete as of the tenth of April, 1938, when my brother was born. Sandwiched between us are three sisters who were born in 1931, ’34, and ’36 respectively.

I was enrolled in the Immaculate Conception School, which I attended until the late fall of 1943. Studies came easily to me, and my interests during grammar school years were mainly athletic: Baseball in the spring and summer, football in the autumn, and basketball, skiing, skating, and tobogganing in the winter. During the summer following my tenth birthday, I began caddying at a golf course about a mile from home. During slow days when caddies were often allowed to play the course, I developed an enthusiasm for the game which, unfortunately, was never matched by my skill.

In February of 1942, I joined the Boy Scouts of America. Although under-age, I was accepted unconditionally, and passed the Tenderfoot and Second Class Scout tests before I turned twelve. Sports activities for that summer were slightly curtailed by numerous scrap metal and waste paper drives, and a few short camping trips. On one of these trips I was appointed cook and was never permitted to forget the stew I made. It was so poor that the scoutmaster was obliged to make a trip into town to buy hot dogs and beans as a substitute.

During the fall of 1942, both our scoutmaster and assistant scoutmaster were drafted, and the junior-assistant scoutmaster went to work nights in a defense plant. The chief of the local council, in order to keep our Scout troop and Cub pack from dissolution, appointed me as acting scoutmaster and acting assistant cubmaster. We continued in this capacity through the winter and spring. In the late spring of 1943, the council chief asked if I would be able to go to the scout camp, named “Wah-tut-ca,” at Northwood Narrows, New Hampshire, and act as master of one of its three sections. Permission was granted by my parents, and I accepted.

The job entailed responsibility for the morale, welfare, and behavior of approximately forty boys, many of whom were older than I. Being physically mature for my age, few difficulties of that type were encountered. I returned from camp that summer a Star Scout.

In the fall of that year, both Scout troop and Cub pack were reorganized. My friend and I remained at their heads, since no experienced adult scouter was available.

Late in October, however, my father accepted a position in New Haven, at the store where he had previously been employed. Arriving in New Haven, I entered the eighth grade of St. Francis School. About a month later, I was called into the principal’s office and told that I was ready for high school: my tests and classwork had shown me to be far in advance of the rest of the class. He said he had been in touch with the principal of St. Mary Academy (a private high school in New Haven), and that she had expressed willingness to accept me if the matter were approved by the superintendent of schools. Approval was obtained, I made up three months of high school work during Christmas vacation, and entered the Academy in January.

During my high school years, I was active in dramatics, debating, intra-mural sports, and social committees, including the chairmanship of a Senior dance. I was elected class treasurer in my Junior and Senior years, and contributed regularly to the school newspapers.

In the summer of 1946 I was appointed by the principal of St. Mary’s to represent New Haven’s American Legion Post 47 at the year’s “Nutmeg Boys’ State,” a weeklong workshop in state governmental and political composition and functioning. I was elected chairman of the State Central Committee of the party which subsequently swept the “elections.” On the final day of the workshop I was elected the “most outstanding citizen” of the year. Later in the summer I was one of two persons sent to Washington, D.C., to represent the American Legion, Department of Connecticut, in the first “Boys’ Forum of National Government.” Somewhat similar to “Boys’ State,” it was conducted on the national level.

During the winter of 1946-47, I won a schoolwide oratorical contest and again represented American Legion Post 47, this time as their entrant in the National High School Oratorical Contest. I progressed through the city and county finals, but was eliminated in the district finals, placing second. In June of 1947 I was graduated with the highest scholastic standing in a class which numbered 106.

While a student at St. Mary Academy, I held a succession of part-time, after-school jobs which included, in this order, a morning newspaper route, washing and waxing floors in private homes, working in a drugstore, and acting as a clerk in the supply room of a department store.

I entered Providence College, Providence, Rhode Island, in the autumn of 1947. Later in the year, my family moved once more to Lowell, where my father relocated with the store he had left in 1943. My first year at college was financed mostly by my parents, but towards the end of my freshman year they informed me they must discontinue the expense because of sickness in the family. I spoke of this to the director of public relations at the college, with whom I was friendly. He remarked that he needed an assistant and offered me the job. I accepted and was thus able, with this and summer jobs, to pay all personal expenses and approximately 80 percent of college expenses for my remaining three years.

My intention on entering college was to major in Economics and minor in English. The Economics department was, for all practical purposes, a one-man department. When this man left at the conclusion of my sophomore year, I decided to switch major and minor; reasoning that, under the circumstances. I could gain as much from a strong Economics minor as I could by majoring in the subject. On the other hand, the English department was extremely well-staffed and I felt that I might make more actual progress in developing my mental powers and capacities. I have never been sorry for this decision.

Extra-curricular activities at college were less extensive than in high school, because of the time-consuming nature of my job. During my sophomore year, however, I became a member of the staff of the college literary quarterly, and in my junior year was named its editor. I was on the debating team, and served on several committees. In my senior year, I was literary editor of the class yearbook, personally writing the class history and supervising preparation of the other written portions of the book. I was elected to Theta Chapter of Delta Epsilon Sigma, National Scholastic Honor Society, and was nominated for its presidency. This was declined, however, because of my out-of-state residency and my impending induction into the armed forces. Election to “Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities” followed.

On June 6, 1951, I was graduated “summa cum laude” from Providence College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Letters. My rank was third in a class of approximately four hundred. I wrote and delivered the class valedictory address.

Following graduation I sought employment in and around New Haven, where I intended to make my home. Because of my Selective Service status I was unable to obtain employment of the type for which I had prepared, and so took a job assembling electrical induction motors at a factory in Milford, near New Haven.

Deciding that I might be able to use my time to greater advantage, I made overtures to Quinnipiac College, New Haven. The college accepted me as a special student for a year of advanced courses in Business Administration. I felt that in this way I could better prepare myself for a career after my impending two years of military service. During this year I supported myself by working as a salesman at a paint and hardware store.

In June of 1952 I enlisted in the Army. It seemed to me that there was a little sense in postponing further my two-year military obligation. Basic training was undergone at Fort Dix, New Jersey, and was completed on November 1.

I had received an assignment to a training committee, to become effective after the completion of basic training, and was led to believe that I had several months left in the United States, with the possibility of not going overseas at all. In view of this, on November 4 I was married to the former Joan V. Cassidy of New Haven, whom I had known since high-school days.

A large levy of troops for the Far East, however, came down about two weeks after our marriage, and everyone possible was placed on orders for the Pacific area. My name was on the levy, and on December 13, 1952, I reported to Fort Lawton, Seattle, Washington, for processing and overseas shipment. I arrived at Camp Drake, near Tokyo, Japan, on January 21, 1953, and was subsequently assigned to the 24th Infantry Division, which was at that time stationed in the northern sector of the main Japanese island of Honshu. I was held at the Division replacement company for an interview with the Public Information Officer, and was assigned to his office on the following day. My initial duties consisted in reporting general news happenings of the divisional units stationed near headquarters, and in aiding the chief of section in his administration of the office.

In May I was appointed feature and special events editor, which included the responsibility of rewriting, for submission to Stars and Stripes and the international wire services, copy submitted by other reporters. In July the Division was alerted for movement to Korea, and by the middle of this month the transplanting was completed. A news embargo was imposed on the Division, and consequently the Public Information Office busied with writing historical narratives concerning the part played by elements of the Division in classified missions assigned it by the Commander-in-Chief, Far East, including the prisoner-of-war exchange.

When the news embargo was lifted in October, the office resumed normal functioning insofar as possible under field conditions. In December of 1953, the chief of section was returned to the United States, and I was appointed to take his place. In this capacity I was promoted to sergeant and was awarded the Army Commendation Ribbon.

I left the Far East on May 18th of this year, and was separated honorably from service on the ninth of June.

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And that was the end of Dad’s autobiography, as of July 1954. Boy, did he have a lot more life to live!

On our third Father’s Day without him, I know my brothers and I still miss him every day. I hope this long-forgotten autobiography will make us all feel just a little bit closer to him.

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