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Joseph Henry Fishel |
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Mildred Leone Marrison |
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Joseph Henry Fishel (James, Selina) “Joe” stated that he was born on September 13, 1924 in Pentwater, Oceana County, Michigan SE12, and married Mildred Leone Marrison on March 7, 1946. Aside from the data marked with a superscript code, all of the following information was supplied by Joe Fishel, himself.
Joseph’s World War II draft registration card, dated December 18, 1942, stated that he was five feet, eight inches, weighed about 150 pounds, and had gray eyes, brown hair, and a ruddy complexion SE12. He had a small scar on the outside aspect of his left thumb SE12. At that time, he lived on Route 1, Scottville, Mason County, Michigan, and worked for the Watch Case Company in Ludington, Michigan SE12. He enlisted in the army on January 22, 1943 in Kalamazoo, Michigan as a private; the term of his enlistment was for the duration of the war, plus six months US15. As a Private First Class, he served as a member of the Merrill’s Marauders (5307th Composite Unit), which was a long-range penetration special operations unit in Southeast Asia, commanded by four-star General Joe Stilwell, who once visited the area in which Joe served. The 5307th was also called “Galahad” AL3. During his engagement overseas, he learned how to strip and reassemble Tommy Guns (Thompson submachine guns), taught the Chinese allies how to fire rifles, and he acquired jaundice. His unit was awarded the Presidential Citation, and each soldier received the Combat Infantry Badge.
Assigned in 1944 to “headquarters of Headquarters Company”, his Commanding Officer was Captain Bennet, and he was stationed at a camp west of Ledo in Assam Province, India. He lived in a tent with seven additional men, across the street from an open crematorium, which caused a life-long aversion to the smell of a barbecue, as it reminded him of the stench of burnt human flesh. When he was not on duty, Joe would occasionally acquire a daypass, and hitchhike to Dinjan Airfield to observe the planes take off and land.
He became unintentionally sidetracked on one of these excursions, when he boarded the back of a G.I. 6x6 truck, whose driver had kindly stopped for him. The back of this truck contained a pile of supplies and one passenger with a dispatch case, who stated that their destination was the airport. Joe was agreeable to this, probably because he intended to spend the day looking at airplanes anyhow. Upon reaching the airport, the driver slowly backed up to the loading bay of a Douglas C47 which lacked cargo bay doors, and Joe and the passenger began to unpack the supplies into the cargo hold of the plane. Just as Joe removed the last item from the truck and stowed it on the plane, the other man slapped the truck, signaling the driver that it was completely unloaded, who immediately drove away, having forgotten the hitchhiker he had picked up. The height of the plane prohibited Joe from jumping down to the ground, and because the plane had already begun to taxi, he remained aboard.
The man with the dispatch case informed Joe that they were headed for Myitkyina, Burma, but they first stopped forty miles away at Ledo, to take on some officers who were headed to the front lines. At Myitkyina, Joe walked into the Message Center with the man who had the case, where he waited unobtrusively for the man to conclude his business, yet he was not asked his name or the purpose for his presence by anyone. When the man’s task was complete, they returned to the airplane, and when Joe assisted some walking wounded passengers to find their seats, he was at last noticed by the pilot, who momentarily paused to observe Joe helping the injured, but said nothing. The wounded men disembarked at Ledo, and the plane departed for Dinjan Airfield straightaway, at which point Joe climbed out, and hitchhiked to his camp. He returned half an hour after his shift began, or probably around 4:30pm, as he worked from 4:00pm until midnight. Sergeant Ketchum asked him why he was late, and Joe replied that he had been to Myitkyina, but although he felt as though perhaps Sergeant Ketchum didn’t quite believe him, Ketchum did remark that he could arrange for Joe to be transferred to that base.
Later, his unit was assigned a new number, the 475th Infantry, and they were granted a leave of absence in Calcutta. They were flown to Calcutta in a C47, but they returned via rail. The camp slowly was depleted of soldiers, as they were dispatched to Camp Landis on the Irrawaddy River near Myitkyina, Burma. When Joe was transferred to Camp Landis, he and other soldiers would often descend the terraced banks of the Irrawaddy River for an off-duty swim. Once, the soldiers were instructed to assemble before the stage, which had been constructed near the river, and Joe stated that one of the speakers, Lord Louis Mountbatten, told them it was his fault that they were in Burma, as he and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt had decided to liberate that nation.
A few days after Joe’s unit marched out of Camp Landis, the trail became narrow, steep, hilly, and quite rough. A motley string of men and mules, each laden with supplies, dotted the trail for about two miles. Ammunition, disassembled artillery pieces, mortars, radios, and spare rations were carried on the backs of the mules. The constricted trail precluded grouping together at mealtime, and so meals were eaten in situ, and marching began again at the conclusion of their brief repast. Darkness fell rapidly, but lights of any sort, including cigarettes and flashlights, were not permissible. Sometime past midnight, the men heard a crashing noise and the screams of a mule who had deviated from the path and lost its balance due to the hefty load atop its back, and the beast had begun tumbling down the hill. The sergeant ordered Joe to assist the mule driver in his endeavor to find the animal and then lead it back up to the trail. Following the braying of the mule, they located the animal, removed its pack, and found that it was not severely injured. The muleskinner guided the mule, while Joe carried up a portion of the gear, taking several trips to accomplish this chore. In the blackness of the night, Joe could not perceive the mountain he was climbing, but if he extended his left arm, his fingertips could graze its surface. He clutched the tail of the mule before him when trudging up steep inclines.
The troops marched downhill just as often as they marched uphill, and eventually, he developed callouses on the top of his toes, because his feet would slip forward in his shoes when marching on the decline. Occasionally, they would encounter a broad area in which they could bivouac, and once, they discovered an expansive, level, brush-filled plain, with a creek meandering through it. They made camp, and Joe resolved to dig a hole for a latrine, hiking out into the scrub, somewhat near the creek. After excavating the latrine, he noticed a small pool which was secluded by a thicket, and so he stripped and plunged into the water, to wash away the grime. Floating in such a tranquil environment made him quite drowsy, and he fell asleep in the pool, but was awoken by a snort. He turned around to see a water buffalo and her calf, gazing quietly at the usurper of their watering hole. Joe hastily claimed his clothes and his shovel and relinquished the pool to its rightful owner.
Another bivouac point was on the side of a hill, below which a river raced through a narrow valley. The battalions were positioned on each side of this river, and they suffered through intermittent shelling by Japanese artillery. On one particularly active day of steadily encroaching shelling, Joe sat on the ground at the edge of the Message Center, which was protected inside a foxhole, and used a decoding machine. He heard the piercing whine of another shell, which seemed to be on a path directly toward his area, and so he dropped the decoding machine into the foxhole and dashed down the hill into his own foxhole. Before he arrived at his ditch, the shell impacted the dirt not far behind him, and then its nose protruded back up through the earth, but it did not detonate. A barrier was placed around this unexploded ordinance and remained there when the men later abandoned their campsite.
At the end of January 1945, it was time for a routine change of codes, which were printed on approximately fifty letter sized pages, and were concealed in a dispatch case. To accomplish this, the sergeant stated that a volunteer was required to ride a mule down the valley, through the river, and uphill to the Second Battalion. The other side of the valley was a location of frequent shooting, and none of the soldiers were keen to purposefully ride into such hostile territory. After some general silence, a man whose towhead had earned him the nickname of “Whitey”, said, “I ain’t going up there.” The sergeant grinned, and he looked over at Joe, who nodded his assent to the mission. Having forgotten the mule’s name, Joe dubbed him “Slats”, and rode him safely across the valley to the other battalion.
Later, he and some other soldiers were assigned to lead the pack mules to the drop zone to gather the supplies which had been delivered by air. This particular drop zone was simply a large rice paddy, surrounded by a shallow, narrow ditch, which was approximately ten inches wide, and less than that in depth. During the process of collecting the supplies and loading the mules, the Japanese army began to shell them with mortars. Joe, holding fast to the reins of the mule so that it could not run off, flung himself into that furrow in the soil, and he felt that the mule might have wished to hide there as well, so harrowing was the experience.
After the frontline had moved elsewhere, the men received word that they were to fly to China via the makeshift runway they had created on a strip of level ground, aside a mountain. They would not require their weapons, but they were to bring their backpacks. That runway had earlier served a high-winged monoplane with a small radial engine, with just enough space for a stretcher behind the pilot’s seat, which was used to evacuate the wounded. The plane had been rendered useless when Japanese artillery forced the pilot to skid into a rice paddy, shearing off the landing gear. It was then picked clean of useful parts.
The plane which arrived to relocate the soldiers was a great deal larger; it was a C47, fully loaded with cargo, with pan seats lining its perimeter, but with doors, this time. The plane bounced seven times during takeoff, and once in the air, the crew chief instructed the men to wear oxygen masks. Joe asked him, “How high are we?”, and he replied, “Eighteen thousand feet. Don’t you know we are flying The Hump?” The view out of the windows on both sides of the aircraft showed the interminable mountains of the Himalayas. Bored with the vista, and unable to determine if oxygen was being emitted, Joe removed his mask, extricated a pack of playing cards from his pocket, and moved behind the mass of supplies, where he amused himself with several games of Solitaire. When the crew chief later became aware of Joe’s activities, he said, “Get in your seat and wear your mask!”
Landing at Kunming, China, at the east end of the Burma Road, the men were quartered in barracks, but there was no KP. Instead, meals were prepared by a Chinese contractor, but because Joe was constantly famished, he walked to a local restaurant for additional meals. He and his fellow soldiers were told to teach the Chinese officers how to use American weapons, and tact was extremely important during the training process, for they wished to avoid any situation which would cause their allies to lose face.
A cavalry unit from Texas had been reassigned to the infantry and joined their unit; Joe remembered one of them was the doppelganger of an actor he had seen in Western movies. Finally, Joe and many of the original fighters had accumulated enough points to return home, but while waiting for a ship in Calcutta, Joe became ill, and when he related his symptoms to a medic, the medic examined Joe’s eyes and requested a urine sample. He explained to Joe that he was to go to the hospital, because he was jaundiced. For eighteen days, Joe consumed a low-fat diet with Epsom salts, and was then discharged from the hospital. Returning to his tent, he found that his duffel bag was untouched, save for a souvenir of a Chinese umbrella, which was missing. The ship had not sailed without him.
They boarded the USS General M.M. Patrick, which made a stop at Ceylon (Sri Lanka), to obtain permission to access the Suez Canal, and they also paused at Port Said in Egypt. They sailed through the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Aden, the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, the Suez Canal, the Mediterranean Sea, the Strait of Gibraltar, the Atlantic Ocean, and they reached the New York Harbor and docked in New Jersey on September 3, 1945.
He received an honorable discharge from the army on October 31, 1945, WE3. After the war, he worked as a welder of office furniture at Shaw-Walker Office Furniture. Joseph H. Fishel was enumerated in the 1950 US Census, at which time he resided at 302 Apple Street in Hart, Oceana County, Michigan UN19. At this time, he was twenty-five years old and was married to Mildred L. Fishel, age twenty-three, with whom he had three children UN19. He stated that his birthplace was Michigan UN19. In 1950, Basil worked forty hours per week as a spot welder at a machine factory UN19. As an assignor to The Shaw-Walker Company in Muskegon, Michigan, Joseph H. Fishel filed an application to patent an automatic expanding file drawer on January 8, 1962 (serial number 164,741; patent number 3,151,921 issued on October 6, 1964) US10. A copy of the diagram has been provided below US10. The application stated US10:
This invention relates to an automatic expanding file drawer.
A primary purpose of the invention is a file drawer in which the back of the drawer folds outwardly to provide easy access to the drawer contents.
Another purpose is a file drawer of the type described in which the drawer will be automatically urged toward an open position as soon as the drawer latch is released.
Other purposes will appear in the ensuing specification, drawings and claims.
The invention is illustrated diagrammatically in the following drawings wherein:
FIGURE 1 is a perspective view of a file cabinet with one drawer in the open position,
FIGURE 2 is a side view of a file drawer in the closed position,
FIGURE 3 is a back end view of a file drawer in the closed position, and
FIGURE 4 is an enlarged partial side view of a file drawer in the open position…
The use, operation and function of the invention are as follows:
It is desirable to form a file drawer having a hinged back section to spread open the contents of the drawer when the drawer is open. In this way the contents of the drawer are readily accessible. The present invention provides a pivotal upper section on the file drawer back, and in addition provides a means for at least partially automatically opening the file drawer once the front latch is released. The torsion rod 36, when twisted to the closed position of FIGURE 2, has a substantial amount of stored energy. As soon as the latch 20 on the front of the drawer is released, allowing the drawer to be opened, the stored energy in the torsion rod will force open the drawer. It has been my experience that hardly any effort at all need be used to pull open the drawer.
The torsion rod may take a variety of forms and in the preferred form consists of a single rod positioned along the joint between the upper and lower sections and having end portions which extend in opposite directions. The opposite end portions should form an angle of less than 180 degrees with each other or should form an angle which is the desired angle of the upper back section relative to the lower back section in the free position. In the closed position the torsion rod will be twisted such that the end portions form an angle of approximately 180 degrees with each other. It is preferred to have a latch for the upper back section to positively stop its movement after the back has pivoted through a predetermined angle.
At age ninety-five, he married Donna Berg on September 29, 2019 at First Baptist Church in Hart, Michigan. This marriage was later annulled. Joseph died at age ninety-nine on September 15, 2023. His obituary was printed in the Oceana’s Herald Journal JO19:
Joseph Henry Fishel
Hart
Joseph Henry Fishel, 99, of Hart, went to be with his Lord Savior Friday, Sept. 15, 2023. He was born Sept. 13, 1924, in Pentwater, the son of James and Selina (Hepworth) Fishel.
Joe, also affectionately known as ‘Ole Joe,’ loved to create things and tinker on various projects. His favorite invention was a three-wheeled bike that he rode one year in the National Asparagus Festival parade.
Joe was a skilled welder for almost 40 years with Shaw-Walker from where he retired. He was also an avid traveler, proud to have traveled to 47 of the continental United States notably, he and his family traveled to Mackinaw to see the newly constructed Mackinac Bridge in 1957.
Joe proudly served his country in the U.S. Army, and was a veteran of WWII. He was also a devout member of First Baptist Church in Hart, where he was a past Deacon, and volunteered in various capacities at the church and Christian school.
Joe is survived by his children, Edward (Sylvia) Fishel, Linda Fishel, Andrew Fishel, Donald Fishel and Lois (Kenneth) Johnson; eight grandchildren; 15 great-grandchildren; and brother, Manuel Fishel.
On March 7, 1946, Joe married Mildred (Marrison) Fishel, and she preceded him in death in 2014. He was also preceded in death by his parents and seven siblings.
Funeral Services will be at 11 a.m., Saturday, Sept. 23, 2023, at First Baptist Church of Hart, 3258 N. 72nd Ave., Hart, Michigan 49420. Visitation will be from 5-7 p.m., Friday, Sept. 22, 2023, at Beacon Cremation and Funeral Service, King-Hart Chapel, 2370 N. 72nd Ave., Hart, Michigan, 49420, and Saturday, from 10 a.m. until time of services at the church. Interment and military honors will immediately follow the service at Hart Cemetery.
Beacon Cremation and Funeral Service, King-Hart Chapel, is in charge of arrangements.
The Mason County, Michigan death certificate for Joseph Henry Fishel stated that he died at age ninety-nine at 9:35am on September 15, 2023 at Oakview Medical Care Facility in Ludington, Mason County, Michigan. Dr. Noelle Franklyn pronounced his death, and his manner of death was “natural” due to dementia. The death certificate indicated that he was born on September 13, 1924 in Pentwater, Michigan to James Fishel and Selina Hepworth and his residence was 302 Apple Street in Hart, Oceana County, Michigan. The death certificate further stated that he had an eighth-grade education and that he had been a welder in the fabricating industry.
· 1930 US Census: lived in Riverton, Mason County, Michigan.
· 1940 US Census: lived in Riverton Township, Mason County, Michigan.
· 1950 through 2010 US Censuses: lived at 302 Apple Street, Hart, Oceana County, Michigan.
Mildred Leone Marrison (Emry, Hattie) was born on May 14, 1926 in Eden Township, Michigan. When Mildred was five years old, she almost drowned in the swampy pond in her family’s backyard. She and her brothers, Howard and Lee, had been skating in just their shoes or boots, for they did not own ice skates, but she fell through a patch of thin ice. She remembered thinking to herself, “I’m gonna lose my mittens!”, as she was completely submerged underwater. Howard laid down on the ice, but it did not fully support his weight, and more than once it broke apart as he attempted to scoot toward Mildred, while yelling at Lee to stay back. He grabbed her coat and yanked her out of the water, but when she stood up, she was still somewhat disoriented and attempted to go back toward the hole, rather than to their house. She stated, “I was just soaking wet all over, but he told us to hurry because we didn’t want to get frozen. By the time we got there my clothes were beginning to freeze.” Mildred said that her mother “put me in warm water to warm me up” and allowed her to stay home from school the following day. An article about this rescue was printed in the Ludington Daily News on January 18, 1932 BO14:
Major School District, Mich., Jan. 18.-Presence of mind and the quick action of Howard Marrison, eight-year-old son of Mr. and Mrs. Emery E. Marrison prevented what might have been a double tragedy when his little sister Mildred, aged five, broke through the ice in water beyond her depth in a pond near their home Monday afternoon, Jan. 11.
Mildred managed to grasp a piece of ice to which she clung. Howard tried to reach her but he too broke through the thin ice. Shouting to his brother Leland to stay back he managed to save himself and sister and they went home as fast as possible.
Mrs. Marrison at once employed preventative measures to ward off ill effects of the children’s exposure and they have completely recovered from the shock of their experience.
Howard, Mildred and Leland had gone to the pond after school to play on the ice. Forgetful of warnings to avoid this pond because of its depth and soft bottom, they had ventured out on the ice.
Mildred grew up on the Marrison farm, which was originally two separate plots of forty acres apiece, but later became one plot of eighty acres when Howard Marrison sold the detached forty acres and purchased the adjacent forty. The Marrison farm produced potatoes, wheat, corn, hay, beans, cattle, raspberries, apples, nuts, plums, and pears. The family sold some of the harvest and lived on the remainder. Mildred picked raspberries throughout her childhood, but never cared for them. She remembered a grape vine that was planted near a tree; the vine wound its way up the tree trunk, and as a child, she thought it was a grape tree. She said, “We lived during the depression but were never deprived”, because they produced an abundant variety of crops.
The Marrison family worked the land themselves, never hiring any laborers to assist with the chores, planting, or harvesting. One blistering summer day, Mildred’s brothers were away on an errand, so she helped her father mark the field so they would know where to place the seeds. They took a rod that had long chains spaced out evenly throughout its length, and they walked back and forth across the field, making parallel lines. When they finished making lines in one direction, they walked perpendicularly to cross the lines. Because her father was unaccustomed to working with a woman, he unthinkingly made her work at his pace, and did not realize that she was about to collapse. Finally, he noticed that she was exhausted, and he and Hattie, her mother, insisted that she rest for the remainder of the day. Several years later, during one of her prenatal check-ups, Dr. Flint listened to her lungs and astutely asked her if she had ever suffered from sunstroke.
Mildred stated that she graduated from Scottville High School (according to her obituary, this occurred in 1943 MI31), after which she worked at the canning factory where she met Joseph, who was visiting the factory while on furlough from the army. They began dating and fell in love. She stated that she was nineteen and Joseph was twenty-one when they were married at Riverton Evangelical Parsonage by Reverend John P. Hitchens; their wedding occurred on March 7, 1946 in Mason County, Michigan MI23. George E. Fishel and Julia A. Lambrix were their attendants and witnessed the ceremony WE3. Joe wore a new suit, and Mildred wore a bright blue crepe dress which her mother had purchased for $20, an amount which Mildred said was expensive at that time. Later that evening, they celebrated at Mildred’s parents’ home with cake and ice cream WE3.
After they married, they moved into the house that they had bought before their wedding, acquired some used furniture, and began to create a family. Mildred was twenty when her first child, Edward, was born; she had babies in 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950. Each infant first slept in a small bassinet, and when the next one was born, graduated to a crib so the newest and smallest could sleep in the bassinet. Eventually, the children slept in bunk beds.
Mildred L. Fishel was enumerated in the 1950 US Census; she was twenty-three and her children were Edward A. (age three), Linda J. (age one), and Andrew L. (age nine months) UN19. While pregnant with her youngest child, Mildred retired to become a stay-at-home mother once again. At approximately the time when her youngest child was in Junior High, she returned to work; she was employed by the Hart Public School system as a cook MI31. She finally retired in 1986, one year before Joe retired. She and Joe were members of the First Baptist Church of Hart for many years, and they lived in the same house since their wedding. All of this information, aside for what has been cited with superscript codes, was provided by Mildred Fishel.
Mildred Leone Fishel passed away at age eighty-eight at 1:25am on October 15, 2014. Her deteriorating health, which was caused by diabetes and dementia, obliged her husband, Joe Fishel, to allow the nursing staff at Oceana County Medical Care Facility in Hart, Michigan to provide her with continuous care. She was admitted to the nursing home on September 12, 2014, but within the space of one month, she developed heart failure, renal failure, pneumonia, and severe edema. She was transferred to Mercy Health General Campus in Muskegon, Michigan on October 12, 2014, and was then placed on hospice care at Poppen Hospice House in Fruitport Township, Muskegon County, Michigan. Mildred Fishel’s death certificate, filed in Muskegon County, recorded that her death was caused by acute respiratory failure due to an acute myocardial infarction. An acute cerebrovascular infarction was also a significant contributing factor in her death. Her funeral service, officiated by Pastor Doug VanderMolen, was held at 1:00pm on October 17, 2014 at First Baptist Church of Hart, and she was buried under the shade of a Cleveland Select pear tree in the Hart Cemetery.
· 1930 US Census: lived in Eden Township, Mason County, Michigan.
· 1940 US Census: lived in Eden Township, Mason County, Michigan.
· 1950 through 2010 US Censuses: lived at 302 Apple Street, Hart, Oceana County, Michigan.
